Presents…
Module 2
© Copyright 2013 By Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland.
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
Welcome to module two of the dark side of covert hypnosis. Before we begin let me make a quick disclaimer. This module contains overt and covert examples of hypnosis so please don’t listen to this while driving. If you’re driving now, turn it off and come back to it when you finish. Okay. And do take that seriously please. All right. I call this module all about inductions and more from overt to covert hypnosis and everything in between. Examining what is possible and useful. So, we’re going to be digging deep into most every kind of useful induction in this module. By the time you finish it, you will understand pretty much everything you everything you ever wanted to know about inductions. And you will also have pinpointed which ones you should begin practicing with and ways to practice them effectively. All right. Let’s just right in and to start with, let’s talk about the word covert. Now, I’ve got some surprises in store for you about this word. So I’d like you to maintain an open mind. The first I’d like to have you do is for you to define the word covert in your own mind. Now don’t look it up, I just want you to think about what it means to you. What does the word covert mean to you? All right. Do you have what the word covert means to you? Do you have that in your head? Okay. The dictionary defines covert like this. Adjective, one; concealed, secret and disguised. Two, covered and sheltered. Three, law of a wife under the protection of ones husband. And noun; which is the fourth one, a covering or cover. The fifth definition is a shelter or hiding place. And the sixth is concealment or disguise. All right. So, I like that pretty much and I buy it especially number one. Concealed, secret and disguised. Right? That seems pretty good to me. So, alright-, so how would we use concealed, secret or disguised hypnosis? What does that mean exactly? And, well I guess, you know, frankly if we want to go and do that, we could go buy ourselves some courses on covert hypnosis. I got most of them and the problem is, those courses will simply make us sound like an idiot. I mean, have you tried any of them? And I guess if you sound like an idiot it’s not very covert, is it? Alright. Let’s just think this through a little bit. So, most people that want to do covert hypnosis, don’t really understand hypnosis in general. And by the way, now I’m hoping you understand why I started with our advanced hypnosis program so that you would in fact understand it. So, okay. So really they don’t have a way to really think it through and to make sense of it. They just want to do something. Right. So maybe they see a video of somebody demonstrating, you know, instant hypnosis. And they see the hypnotist grab someone’s hand jerking in downward, snapping their head down and then ordering them at the same moment to go into a trance and the person seemingly does. Well, I mean, that looks kind of fun and they can imagine that the supposedly hypnotized person might be extremely maneuverable and they think, “Hmm, I like that.” And they quickly sign up to learn. Well, you may well already realize where this ends up. It’s not © Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 2 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
pretty. Okay. So, when you contrast that example with what’s possible, you begin to see a much better picture. A way of behaving and speaking that simple bypasses resistance. A way to think about the situation and what you want so that you can develop a plan that works and the plan is easy to implement. A calm confidence that comes with real understanding and real ability and the vision of the clear path that you will be taking and the ability to get the results. There’s a pretty clear difference and I think you’ll find it to be exactly like that as we continue. So, I just did something. All right. To point out that difference that clearly to you , I glossed right over something that’s very important and I’m curious if you have any idea what that is. Okay. Well, let’s go back to our definition of covert and let’s take concealed secret in disguised. So the question I have for you is this. Concealed, secret and disguised what? Concealed, secret and disguised what? What is supposed to be concealed or secret or disguised? Here’s another definition I like. Pertains to a secret or hidden agenda. Okay. So I ask you again, what is concealed, secret or disguised? And here’s what I suggest to this. You have your real intention, what you want to do and you’re displaying a different one. Think about it. So, here are some good definitions of convert hypnosis. The hiding of hypnotic strategy so that it is not consciously recognized. Two, employing a methodology that is outside of the awareness of the person you are engaging with it. Three, causing a person to set aside their normal, analytical consciousness through methodology that is outside of their awareness to gain direct access to their unconscious mind. Systematically disguising your real intention in a way that allows you greater access to the unconscious mind of your target. That one is number four. All right. I want to cover this again because this is really forms the foundation. It really forms the major key to understanding covert hypnosis. So good definitions of covert hypnosis in my opinion are number one, the hiding of hypnotic strategy so that it is not consciously recognized. You go that one? How do we hide hypnotic strategy so that it’s not consciously recognized? Think about that. The second one is, employing a methodology that is outside of the awareness of the person you are engaging with it. In other words, we’re using a methodology but they’re just unaware of it. Number three, causing a person to set aside their normal analytical consciousness through methodology that is outside of their awareness to gain direct access to their unconscious mind. In other words, we want access to the unconscious mind. That’s the bull’s eye. Okay. We want them to set aside their normal analytical consciousness and just let our words straight in without being filtered as much as possible. Now, we want to do that without them knowing that we’re doing it. Pretty good, right? And number four, systematically © Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 3 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
disguising your real intention in a way that allows you greater access to the unconscious mind of your target. So that is what I think really good covert hypnosis is. Does that make sense to you? All right. To that end, I want to just touch on a couple of ideas that may be extraordinarily valuable for you. So, I want you to start thinking about things that sound like one thing but are really another thing. Okay. Double entredes would be an example of that. Jokes that say one thing but a have a different meaning as well. Embedded commands that can be taken several different ways. All right. So just to give you an idea. Sexual language often has that effect. A woman can say for example to a guy, “it can be hard to figure out all the ways a person can respond in any given situation. Do you what I mean?” Or a guy might say, “On a different level, desire builds to have a spectacular life and you open up and invite entry to the ideas and strategies that lead in you that direction.” All right. In the first sentence, right I said be hard. Now, you can all use your imagination and figure out what that means. I don’t need to get anymore graphic for that adult thing. So clearly, if you take that, you know, in the context, it means it can be hard to figure out all the ways a person can respond. In other words, who knows all the ways a person can respond? But in the, taking it with an embedded command point of view, you’re literally commanding that person to be hard. Okay. Going the other direction from a man to a woman. You know, he’s saying, “at a different level desire builds to have a spectacular life.” Well, first of all, isn’t it interesting to say at a different level. What level? Well not at the level of the head exactly. Though that works too. Right? So, there’s a lot of double entendres there. A lot of double meanings in essence. So, at a different level desire builds. So it’s literally commanding the woman to have desire build and then he goes on to have a spectacular life and you open up and invite entry. So, there’s three commands desire builds, open up, invite entry. Rather sexual, right, can absolutely be seen in a sexual context but it can also be absolutely in the context of the sentence. And that’s the power of embedded commands. Okay. So, if you think about that, right, this is just one more thing that can be taken at any different number of way and as you do well probably recall me saying, the unconscious mind will process all of the possible ways to take something and look for meaning. When you say them using the structure of an embedded command by marking them off etcetera, the unconscious absolutely gets that meaning. It’s as if you’re speaking directly to it. Now stop for just a second. Okay. And I want you to remember our definition of covert hypnosis, right. And would embedded commands fall into that category? Could they end it up to themselves be considered covert hypnosis? And I’ll say to you, absolutely they can be. Now you might remember me talking about the story of Dr. Erickson giving his secretary a transcription to do when she had a migraine bed pain. © Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 4 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
In case it was somewhere else that I talked about it, I’ll recount the story briefly. That’d be his secretary told him that she had a real bad pain in her head. And he said, “well come on in. I need you to take down some transcription for me.” And she said, “You know, could we do it later, you know my head just hurts too bad.” And his response was, “Listen. I’m really sorry it hurts but this critical that it goes out now. Please do come in.” So she does immediately comes right on in and sits down and begins, you know, transcribing what he tells her. Of course he’s doing this to help her. So he begins talking about whatever, tomato plants or whatever he’s talking about. And he’s doing it specifically to help her and as he gives her the transcription he’s embedding commands for her to relax, feel good, release stress and tension on and on. And so, he finishes and tells her to go ahead and type up. So and she does and she comments to him how she feels much better and she wasn’t sure why but she definitely feels better. So a week or two later, she knocks on his door and asked him if he has any more transcription to do. He said, “No, I don’t right now. Why?” And she said, “Well, I’m beginning to get this really bad headache again and I remember the last time that you gave me, you know, some transcription. I felt a whole lot better.” So, was that covert hypnosis that he did being the greatest hypnotist of all time? Was that by chance covert hypnosis to create a result? Yes. Did he have to put her into a profound trance? No. Did he directly access her unconscious mind through metaphor and commands, language patterns? Yes, he absolutely did. Okay. So, I want you to think along these lines as you go through the program. All right. Now, here is another huge mental strategy to keep in mind about covert hypnosis. Your target has one idea in mind and you have another. So where would it be perfectly normal to respond the way you want them to? Where? What events could take place that would cause them to be totally open to what you would like them to do? Let me say it again. Your target has one idea in mind and you have another. Where would it be perfectly normal for them to respond the way you want them to? What events could take place that would cause them to be totally open to what you would like them to do? I want you to consider the context. Okay. This to me is probably the single, greatest aspect of covert hypnosis. But when we get done with this program. You will understand so much better how to utilize and engage covert hypnosis and covert anything for that matter that it’ll pretty much blow you away. And one of those things that will be forever in your mind that you’ll always be looking for is, how can you arrange the context such that the behavior you want from the person you’re going after so that that behavior is normal? Okay. That right there, if you really think about that and really begin to work it through, that right there is worth the entire cost to get into this program. All right. So, let’s talk a little bit about what could be done with covert hypnosis and the general answer is pretty much anything provided you have the time to do it. But isn’t that always kind of the rub having the time to do it. You know being able to arrange the context that it works for you in some way. So, you can do pretty much anything with covert © Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 5 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
hypnosis provided you have the time to do it and also depending on what kind of covert hypnosis you’re going to be doing. We’re going to be talking about that. Okay. The first thing to always ask yourself is in what context might you have the time to do it? And how can you arrange for that context to exist? All right. Here are a few things to think about. You can use covert hypnosis to suggest they work with you in a formal way to achieve some objective. For example, to learn to use hypnosis, to learn to meditate, to learn to visualize, to learn to use their ability to be more creative, to learn to problem solve, right. You get the idea. In other words, you’re using your covert hypnosis abilities to suggest the context in which they work with you a bit more formally so that you can then have all the time in the world you need to help them solve their problem and to create whatever it is that you’re trying to create from them. Okay. In that way, you can actually begin doing overt hypnosis right. However, it’s only overt in the sense that they know that that’s what they’re there to do but everything that happens within it “overt hypnosis” isn’t necessarily so overt. Right, we’ll be learning about that. Okay. Remember that even though it’s considered overt, in the sense that it’s being done out in the open, it could be used for whatever covert purpose you had in mind. So, in that sense, it’s perhaps the most covert method you can use period and one I highly suggest you begin to plan for. You will definitely want to be doing that. Okay. So I like to consider covert hypnosis as a bridge to somewhere I want to go. Not necessarily the end result itself. Now let me tell you again, that one strategy that one idea again is probably worth the entire cost for this program. The problem with an awful lot of the programs that you will hear about or have heard about is that they act like covert hypnosis can be used to do anything you want, anytime you want, anywhere you want and it simply is not so. It just isn’t so. You don’t have the context right. The timing isn’t quite right. You only have a couple of minutes to say hello and leave. Okay. So, I like to consider covert hypnosis as a bridge to somewhere I want to go. Not necessarily the end result itself. And here are some ideas of useful bridges, deeper rapport, a closer friendship, to become a trusted adviser, to become the person’s lover if that’s what you have in mind. Right, so you want to really consider carefully what bridges you might want to build with covert hypnosis. Thinking of all of the different definitions, what might you want to use with something that would enable you to bypass conscious resistance and put something directly at the level of the unconscious. So, always think about the context. Where would it make total sense? In what context? How can you make that context a reality? Now, let’s go even further. If you can figure out a good context, you may be able to induce that context in an altered state and we’re going to be talking about that in later modules. All right.
© Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 6 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
So, let’s go through some different covert hypnosis topics that I’d like to fit in here. I think I have a place here. So first of all, why has hypnosis always been considered a dark art? Well, bottom line is where there’s smoke there’s fire, right. So everyone knows there’s something to hypnosis. I mean, it’s kind of in our collective consciousness as human beings. The problem is they just don’t know how far it can go. It’s not in the mainstream hypnotist’s best interest to seriously educate people about what can be done with hypnosis. Right. It just isn’t. In fact, if they did, nobody would come to them. They’d be without a job. So, you know, it’s in our collective unconscious mind. Everybody knows there’s really something powerful to hypnosis. In fact most people have an inner fear about it of some sort. All right. Furthermore, let’s go further and say that much of the time spent with traditional hypnosis is programming someone to believe in boundaries that include their safety. So this is one of the main reasons for the hypnotic pre-talk to make the person feel relaxed, that there’s nothing that can go wrong, that they’re fully in control. Hah! It’s not so. All right. I want to talk about the covert hypnosis mindset for a moment. I’d like to really deal with the issues of mindset as I think that will help you very considerably to use this power very effectively. So, since you have an objective that you are obscuring from your target. Here’s the issue, think about to what I’ve taught you already about what rapport is in other courses, in persuasion factor or what have you, I talk about the deeper the rapport you have, the more sensory acuity your target has as well. In other words, if they’re profoundly in rapport with you right, then hiding your intention from them can make you seem incongruent because you may well be being incongruent. So, if they’re in profound rapport with you and you’re trying one thing while trying to present yourself as doing another, well you may be broadcasting a lot of incongruity. They’ll feel like something’s wrong, they’ll feel like they don’t want to deal with you. They probably will not relax and allow access to their unconscious. So here’s a way of dealing with it. I think you’ll love this. Before you meet with a target or at any point in time that you just you want to make sure that you are as congruent as can possibly be, here’s what you do. Chunk up to a high enough level where both of your objectives make sense, right. So for example, you have a hidden desire to create a spy for you business, so-, but to them you demonstrate you are just being a friend. You just want to be a friend. So let’s say you chunk up to this, friendship can and should be had with many types of people including spies. Okay. Well, all of sudden that could bring your behavior congruent. Yes, you want to convert them into your hypno spy. You want to tell them what to watch for and you want them to willingly come back, sit down with you, go into a trance and tell you about all the things that are happening in their business so you can add it to your competitive intelligence. © Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 7 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
Okay. So, you know, all of a sudden become congruent that yes you’re trying to be friends because you want to be friends with everybody including spies that they’ll so soon find themselves becoming. All right. So, all of a sudden you aren’t being so incongruent anymore. So when they go into a deep and profound rapport with you as you will with them, right it just appears to be something very normal. All right. Perfect. So, covert hypnosis is really all about using strategies and skills that are outside of the conscious awareness of your target for the purposes of bypassing their critical reasoning and implanting suggestions directly in their unconscious mind. Now, all of this is down to move them in the direction of your objectives. All right. Here again I think what I’m talking about is absolutely spectacular and I’ve never heard this anywhere else. I think this makes the difference between you being extremely successful with these skills and not. Okay. So, really get this, let’s look at some realities of covert hypnosis. Let’s say that you’re doing a sales presentation right. How far can you take covert hypnosis? Can you go for a full on trance and then make them forget and go back to presenting, close the deal and leave? How about if you’re out with friends for the evening you know at a restaurant, let’s say. Can you knock out a buddy in front of everyone and program him then bring him back as if nothing happened? How about at a business lunch with several people, can you knock out one person unbeknownst to the others then continue on? All right. You’re probably already going “ahhh. Yes, I hear what you’re saying Kenrick. That, that really makes sense.” But you probably hadn’t thought about that before I brought it up. See, because again most courses act like, well you know with covert hypnosis you can do all of these things but you know you really can’t. right? So, let’s look at this very objectively for a moment. So you’re doing a sale presentation, even if it’s just-, I mean if it’s one on one you might have a chance to go a little bit further. Still, you know, it’s the first time you met with the person, let’s say and you’re in the middle of doing a presentation and, you know, shift to your what you’re doing in the covert hypnosis and, you know, you put them in a full on trance and you talk to them for ten uninterrupted minutes and then you bring them back and just continue on presenting as if nothing happened. Really? I would tell you that, yes it is possible. Yes, that really can be done and you will probably will rarely if ever find yourself in the position to actually do that. It doesn’t mean you can’t use hypnosis with that person covertly and it doesn’t mean you can’t really influence them but doing it covertly, knocking him out into a full trance, speaking ten minutes uninterrupted and bringing them back, causing amnesia for a all of that is probably going out on a limb a little bit too far, maybe a lot too far. Right. Out with friends for the evening, you know, you take one of your buddies and knock him out in front of everybody else and bring him back, do you really think that everybody else is going to say, “Wow! What did that feel like? You just really seemed zoned out there. © Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 8 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
What happened?” I mean, it technically is possible that you could do that but is it really the best to use of covert hypnosis? Is that really what you think is right? In other words, do you really think you’ll get away with it? I mean will nobody say anything? And at a business lunch with several people, for Pete’s sake you know if you knock one out, you’re going to scare the dickens out of everybody else that’s there. Right. It just isn’t going to work like that. All right. Now let me talk about what could work. Let’s say you’re adept at being able to alter someone’s consciousness and you can do it quickly. Right. You can do it subtly without them really having any conscious awareness of what you’re doing and in just a minute or so, you’re able to-, in the middle of your sales presentation, alter the person’s consciousness, install some suggestions and ideas and get right back to presenting. It only took you a minute or two because you knew exactly when to do it and you’re really good at doing it. Would that work? Absolutely. How about you’re out with friends for the evening, you’re a restaurant and you know, you begin singling out a buddy with suggestion patterns. So that pretty soon over a period of time, and let me just give you one way of doing that, for example every time you make a suggestion in general, you look at him and you point at him but rather covertly and with you not being really grossly obvious about it. But every time you make a suggestion you look right into his eyes and you point at him. Okay. His unconscious mind will get the patterns. So could you do that in essence altering his consciousness, delivering suggestions to him without anyone else know that it’s happening? Yes absolutely. And with the business lunch same kind of thing. Could you do it there? You bet you can. You could influence one or all in that exact same manner. And I’ll tell you something this type of analysis is simply not covered in normal hypnosis training, covert or otherwise. All right. There’s another element I’d like to talk about that I think is really going to be helpful for you. Right. And that is the words “that’s right” and I’d like you to remember it this way. That’s right, good dog. That’s right, good dog. Okay. So what are the words that’s right do for somebody? That’s right. Right. So, you just say them whenever but should you just say them whenever? No. No, that’s not how to use it to your advantage. Okay. So, and by the way, what was the tone I just used for no? No… See, it starts to mark things out. So that you can use them later. That’s right. And here that tone? Right. It’s very different. When your dog does something good? What do you tell it? Good dog. Right. That’s what I tell mine. Good dog. All right. So, why do you tell your dog “Good dog?” Because you want to reinforce whatever behavior it just did, including you wanted to-, maybe you’re just saying it to reinforce that the dog feels good or-, basically though it’s to reinforce the behavior of the dog. Why do we tell people “that’s right” when we’re doing covert hypnosis or even overt for that matter? Well, it’s because it shapes their hypnotic responses. It actually shape response in general not just for hypnosis. Right. Okay. Just like saying “Good dog” does. © Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 9 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
So, it also can reinforce that everything is fine and they’re doing well. So you can say to them and you’ll have-, you’ll discover that you’re breathing has changed. Your muscles have relaxed. You feel more comfortable. That’s right. And it feels good. See. So I’m shaping their response and that’s why it is said. So I want you to not say “that’s right” in a gravelly tone because that’s what all Ericksonian hypnotist do. I want you to use it to shape the hypnotic response that you’re working to get. Okay. In fact, say anything in a gravelly tone is not necessary to be a hypnotist, an Ericksonian hypnotist or an expert user of suggestion. However, everybody in this modeled, the originators of NLP or Erickson if they were fortunate enough even if they did it by video, they all start talking like that because his behaviors rub off on you when you model it. So, it’s extraordinarily effective language there’s no reason not to use it as well. All right. So, let’s continue and talk a little about overt inductions. All right. So what is an overt induction? Well, an overt induction by definition is one where you know it’s going to happen or where the client knows it’s going to happen, where they expect it to happen, where they expect you to do something to them, you know, at least to alter their consciousness right and that’s what an overt induction is for some purpose. You’re doing it for some purpose. All right. So, it has some components. Okay. First, the pre-talk usually and the pre-talk is really all about programming the person. You’re programming that they’re safe, they’re comfortable, they won’t do anything that don’t think is right, it’s a safe a natural experience, everyone goes into hypnosis throughout each day. In other words it’s something they already do naturally, it’s not a weird state that they go into. Then you’re greasing the shoot a little for them by saying things like, “You know, the smarter you are the easier you can be hypnotized.” Well, that’s a causal language pattern right there but you’re also wanting them to kind of bite and go, “Well, yeah man I’m smart I’m not stupid. So I guess I’m really easily hypnotizable then right?” You know, and then they go through this discussion of how to relax. You know they often will give you an instruction to not or to look I should say at a specific point and not move your eyes. They may give us susceptibility test. You know, and at that point they may suggest that the person come on stage or they go on and do a clinical induction whatever the setting is, whatever the context is, right. So, let’s talk a little bit about this pre-talk and let’s really get into that a little bit, because you know what, you’ll never find a traditional hypnotist who does an overt induction without doing a pre-talk. They all do it. I don’t think they-, I don’t think one of them can do hypnosis without a pre-talk. So if you ever go to one, you’ll sit down with them and they’ll say, “Okay. Well, let’s have just a little conversation about what hypnosis is and what it isn’t and what we’re going to do here together today?” They have to do that. They simply can’t do it any other way. If you tell them no, just skip that just go right straight to doing © Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 10 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
hypnosis. They’ll go, “Well, I just think it’s really important2 that you understand a few of the basics.” “Yeah, I understand it already. Just go ahead and, and, and do it. Just do it.” Well, I mean you’ll see it’ll confuse them, you know and part of the reason is see, the pretalk is part of the hypnosis. In fact, when it’s done really elegantly and powerfully, it really is the hypnosis. Okay. I’ve heard really good stage hypnotist do a pre-talk that was the entire induction and it was brilliant and they were very, very good at it. Okay. So just because I’m talking about it in terms of overt, doesn’t mean it’s not useful, right. And it is something you should probably practice, we’re going to really go through that. So, the pre-talk in essence is getting the person to be relaxed and helping them to see things comfortably, like you won’t do anything that you don’t think is right. Now, since we’re talking about the dark side of covert hypnosis, right that’s a suggestion you probably don’t want to give them, right. Although you could because you’re going to help them by maneuvering the context that what you’re telling them is right. Got it? Okay. So, it’s a safe and natural experience. Well you can say that if you want. You know but you can see how it all lines up to give the hypnotist an advantage because he’s already done a lot of the hypnotic induction by going through all these things. You go in and out of a trance everyday. You know when you do that you just feel yourself relaxing, your circadian rhythms, blah, blah, blah. Why would they mention things like that? Well, it’s like social proof or it’s like, it’s like proof in general right. Scientific proof, you know, it sounds as a big word. “Circadian rhythm, hmm. And I have them? Wow. That’s right. I guess I do.” And then it makes the hypnotist more credible. Could we call that pacing and leading, yeah? Okay. So it’s really funny if you ask you know traditional hypnotist why they do this, they generally can’t tell you. They will, “Well, you know, it’s our-, it’s what you do to start of a professional relationship. Well, you know it’s because we want our client to really understand this.” They think it’s necessary, they don’t think it’s optional. Okay. You my friend will know far better, right. Okay. So, all of these ingredients go into the pre-talk. Now, one of the things that they’ll do often is have you looked at a specific point. Why? Well, when you’re attention is focused on a particular point it tends to induce an altered state more rapidly, it tends to narrow your focus and that’s exactly another good definition of hypnosis. You have a very narrow focus but a very profound and deep focus. So that’s another really good way of helping people to go into an altered state. It works pretty well. Okay. So, then what do they do? Well, then they begin to order you into a trance. So, a good definition of traditional hypnosis is that they do a pre-talk which really is a lot of the induction and then they simply order you into a trance and they think that, you know, that’s going to make you more susceptible to their suggestion. There’s still that underlying belief that the hypnotist has power and the other person does not. Where in real life that hypnotist probably could not walk up to that person to begin ordering them around but for the purposes of hypnosis, they hypnotist can in fact begin to order them around. © Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 11 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
However, do you like being ordered around? I don’t. Okay. So, it also causes a tremendous amount of resistance. Now traditional hypnosis has not changed since basically the days of Mesmer. Okay. It’s still done and taught almost the same, pretty much exactly as it’s been done for the last hundred years. And it still doesn’t work about as well as it does didn’t work a hundred years ago. There are times and with certain people that it does work and there are many people that does not work with. So by doing traditional overt hypnosis, right. We’re depending upon them accepting a degree of authority when it isn’t necessary in the beginning. You will want to shift to a degree of authority with the person over time but it doesn’t have to come within the first five minutes. Okay. Or three minutes. All right. So, it’s important that you learn how to do an overt induction. It’s ,you know, it’s something you should know how to do and, you know, it’s really easy to do. Right. So, I’m going to do one with you right now. And we’re going to do a short one and the purpose of our, of our induction is to install this material in you to make it even more powerful. All right. So, here we go, I’m going to do a traditional direct authoritarian induction. Here we go. All right. So, I’d like you to just sit comfortably for a moment and I’d like you to just listen to what it is that I’m telling you. See, right here and right now you’re safe, you’re comfortable, you probably feel, you know, just fine maybe your thoughts are, are reflecting on your day and wondering what’s going to happen here, but I’d like to just set the record straight for a few moments and tell you that, you know, you won’t do anything that you don’t think is right for you. Hypnosis is a very safe and natural experience. In fact, you may or may not be aware of this but you go in and out of a trance several times each and everyday. You’ve probably heard of the circadian rhythms and you know, they talk about how we alter our consciousness all the time. Every-, what is it? Ninety minutes or so, we’re altering our consciousness. So it’s state that you’re used to go into. Now, as I talk, I’d like you to pick a point that is out and front of you and above you. And I want you to do that by just looking with your eyes held level and flat. In other words, they’re horizontal but you’re just going to look upwards with your eyeballs, your head’s going to stay level and flat, your eyes are going to look up and find the point above you that causes a little bit of strain to your eye but not much. And I want you to just focus on that point, might be a piece of paint or something that are on the ceiling or the wall, you know, whatever it is for you but I’d like you to just focus on that. And I’d like to talk with you as you just look at that. That you’re going to find some interesting things happen as you look at that. Your eyes are going to get tired, they’re going to want to close but not yet. Just keep looking at that point and as you look at it, I’d like you to begin to imagine that a strong relaxing energy begins to move into the toes of both of your feet at the same time. And this relaxing energy moves into the toes of your feet, relaxing the toes of your feet. © Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 12 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
Feel your toes relaxing just imagine it so. And this warm, relaxing energy moves down into the balls of your feet. Imagine a nice warm colored relaxing energy, relaxing the balls of your feet. And this relaxing energy moves now into the arches of your feet and then into the heels of your feet. For a moment, tense up your feet and hold it and hold it and now let your feet relax and just breathe. Feel your feet relaxing. And as you stare at that point, you find your eyes are getting so tired, sleepy, you really want to close your eyes but not yet. And you imagine the relaxing energy moving up into the ankles of your legs. Up into the ankles relaxing the muscles of your ankles. Feel the muscles relaxing and then deep relaxing color of this relaxing energy moves up now into the calves of both of your legs. Tighten and tensed the calves of your legs now, strong, hold it, really strong. Tighter, tighter, tighter and hold it. Now, take a deep breath and just relax the calves of your legs. And your calves are relaxing. And it feels good to just relax. And the relaxing energy begins to move up around your knees. Relaxing your knees and it moves up slowly into your thighs. Relaxing your thighs and on up into your hips, and you tense your hips and your thighs and your calves and your feet and you hold it. Hold that tension and now as you just let it all relax, close your eyes and the lower part of your body is relaxing. Feel so good to just relax. And this relaxing power moves into the lower part of your back relaxing. It moves higher into the middle part of your back and up into the top part of your back, relaxing your back. Feel your back relaxing and it moves on at the back of your neck now. And you move your head a little bit and you feel all of the tension relaxing in the back of your neck. The relaxing energy moves up the back of your hand, up around to the top of your head and you feel the top in the back of your head relaxing. And as that energy builds there, it begins to drain down, down, down. Into your forehead, relaxing your forehead. And then down around your eyes, relaxing your eyes. Feel all the tiny little muscles in your face, you forehead and your eyes. Just relax. Letting all the stress go, the relaxing energy moves down around your mouth and you feel all the little muscles around your mouth relax. You allow a little space between your teeth, your lips to part a little bit and your breathing is easy and comfortable. Easy and comfortable. The relaxing energy moves all the way down in your throat, down into your chest and your breathing is slow and regular. Slow and regular. And as that energy moves down into your stomach, you feel your stomach relaxing and the energy moves down now and connects with the lower half and your body is relaxing and your mind is relaxing. And from this comfortable and relaxed position, you begin to go even deeper into a trance. I’m going to count backwards from ten to one and with each declining count, you’re going to go deeper and deeper into a trance. Such that by the time we get to one, you will be in a profound altered state where you will be accepting each and every one of my suggestions.
© Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 13 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
Number ten, deeper, deeper, deeper down, down, down. Number nine, deeper, deeper, deeper, down, down, down. Number eight, deeper, deeper, deeper down, down, down. With each declining count, you are going deeper and deeper still into a profound trance. Number seven, deeper, deeper, deeper down, down, down. Number six deeper, deeper, deeper down, down, down. By the time we get to one, you will be in the most profound trance you can even remember being open, listening, inputting all of the suggestions I give you. Number five, deeper, deeper, deeper down, down, down. Number four, deeper, deeper, deeper down, down, down. Number three, deeper, deeper, deeper down, down, down. Number two, deeper, deeper, deeper down, down, down. Number one and you are now in a profound trance and you’ll act on every single instruction I give you. Every single instruction will be carried out by your unconscious mind. Each and every time we work together in the future, you will go into a deeper trance more easily and quickly than the time before. You are learning this material, you are learning how to do hypnosis in every possible way, you are going to be great at overt hypnosis and covert hypnosis. And you commit now to practice and get better and better. You are a great hypnotist and as you learn these skills and put them to use in your life, you feel fantastic. Hypnosis works for you, you are able to use on others and with others as you see fit. You figure out how this works by modeling what I do and listening to the training I give you and every time we work together like this, you remember what I’ve told you and you implemented even more fully and completely now in your mind these are your instructions and you will carry them out. And now, it’s time to come back out of this trance and back up into waking consciousness. So I’m going to count from one back up to ten and by the time I reach ten, you will be in a full wide awake normal state of mind. One, coming on back up. Two, higher and higher now you’re coming back into a more normal consciousness. Three, you’re just moving right on up. Number four, and you’re leaving that trance state behind while acting on them each and every one of the suggestions that you were given. Five, coming on back now, just coming right on up. And six, you’re coming all the way back into full waking consciousness. By the time I reach ten, you’ll be wide awake, you’ll open your eyes and be wide awake. Six, coming on up. Seven, coming on back now, all the way back. Eight, and you’re almost all the way back. Number nine, at the count of ten you’ll be here. Ten, wide awake, open your eyes. All right then. How are you doing? All right. How was that? Did you like that? That is a direct authoritarian trance. Now, I even did a little more than a lot of them do. I went into rhythmic speaking and a few things like that. So you got to really express. It wasn’t a bad one, it was certainly, you know, indicative of a, of a traditional trance. They would have spent more time ordering you about with their suggestions. So that’s the case. All right. So take a deep breath, move around. You probably went into a trance, I would imagine at this point. And now, you know how to do it. Okay. You know how to do an overt trance. So let’s go through the elements of overt gen-, authoritarian type trance. © Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 14 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
Okay. First of all, the pre-talk. Okay. You can make that as long or as short as you want. You can combine an awful lot of the, the elements of trance in that pre-talk if you want to. And then second, you’ll do a general body relaxation with strong visualization, then you go to counting backwards. Instructing that the person goes into a trance and you wan to instruct them if you’re going to use traditional, you know, authoritative hypnosis just as I did. You’re going to order them that you’re-, they’re going to go into a trance and they’ll go further and deeper and quicker and easier each time they do it. Okay. You know, commanding them that they’re going into a trance. They’ll do it easier and faster each time. Tell them in numerous ways especially be a commanding type of language like you heard me do, the end result they said they wanted or the reason why you’re putting them into a trance. Okay. And you want to give them some post-hypnotic suggestions about, you know, that they’re going to use, you know, what they’re learning, etcetera, etcetera. Or what you’ve told them to do and then you want to bring them out of trance often by counting up. And then you will set your next appointment and get paid. Okay. So all right. That is the process of an overt induction and it’s really simple. Okay. It really is and, you know, it also only works a percentage of a time. Now because we’ve gone through all of that advanced hypnosis training, the odds are you are quite conditioned to my voice and you probably just played along with me and so it probably knocked you right out. However, it doesn’t always knock out everybody. Okay. And you might not have even liked so much the, you know, the being ordered about inside of a trance and yet, you know, now you know overt inductions. Okay. That’s how they all are. That pretty much tells you everything there is to know about doing an overt induction. There’s not really a lot more. Really if you learn how to do just that, a little bit of practice, you’re basically ready to be certified as a master hypnotist as long as you can do some patter which means just basically talking about whatever you’re told to talk about for ten or fifteen, twenty minutes. Yeah, for like you’re going to use up the hour or the half an hour that they’re paying for, for the hypnosis session, right. It’s not so much about results, it’s about, you know, making it worth the hour. You know kind of like a minister doing a sermon. He’s got to make your [unintelligible] your time to sit there for an hour. So you’ll feel like giving him some money. Okay. Basically, now you know how to do it. Here’s what I’d like you to do. I’d like you to go out and practice doing an overt induction on several of your trance buddies. Right. Use the general list that I just gave you to organize and do your trance. Okay. That’s-, but that’s basically how to do it. Okay. It’s just using that basic outline, go out and do the trance. Do it a number of times. It’s good that you do this and it’s good that you begin to see its impact or lack thereof. Right. Make sure and debrief your trance buddy afterwards. Ask them how they felt about this.
© Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 15 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
Now, you’ve probably done several trances with them already from the advanced hypnosis training. Ask them how they felt this was different than the other. What was their sense of it? Okay. It’d be interesting for you to know. All right. At this point, I’d recommend that you stop the recording and just take a break for a few minutes and come back when you refreshed and ready. We got lots more to cover and you know that induction may have knocked you out. So it’d probably be useful for you to take a short break. All right. So, I’m going to continue on assuming that you are now back from your break. All right so, let’s talk about other types of hypnosis and inductions. Okay. Basically in the category of overt inductions comes this whole concept that I’d like to bring up the idea of self hypnosis versus meditation. So the distinction I use here is that self-hypnosis has an outcome attached of which you need to use mental conversation to try to accomplish. Okay. As examples of that would be to learn something, to change something about your behavior, you know or your feelings or what have you. So self-hypnosis is you are going to use trance to program yourself to do something. Where meditation is all about quieting the internal voice more so that it’s trying to accomplish something. Right. So self hypnosis, you’re going to be talking to yourself with your inner voice, you know to cause some kind of specific thing or meditations all about quieting your internal voice and being still, not so much about trying to change something. All right. So let’s talk about how to do self-hypnosis. So the very first thing you want to do is to make sure to know what a trance feels like and this would be equally true for whoever you’re doing that with, right. So you could be telling people, “Hey! I’ll teach you how to do self-hypnosis.” Now, there’s a real reason you may want to do that one day. So pay close attention. All right. So you need to make sure you and/or them know what a trance feels like. All right. So, how was the best way to do that? Let’s say that you’ve never experienced a trance. How would you go about doing it? Well, all right. First of all, we have light and sound machines. You probably own one. If not, you should. But you know, so you can put the person or yourself on a light and sound machine and go to say [unintelligible] state and believe me, they will then know what an altered state feels like. All right, you could use an unconscious learning session that you got for me. That would do it, and in fact they would do it all by itself without a light and sound machine. Right. So, you could also put one of your clients on my unconscious learning session, right as long as it’s you doing it and you’ve purchased the program. So you could put your, your client on, on the unconscious learning session. That way your client knows what it feels like. Now, the unconscious learning sessions take advantage of the fact that you know, we know they’re-, that you and/or the person wants to go into an altered state so we use all sorts of brainwave entrainment type programming and all-, I mean there’s just full of stuff to alter the consciousness. All right. So after you’ve used a light and sound machine and/or an unconscious learning session a number of times and not everyone has that advantage. © Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 16 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
Since obviously not everyone has, you know, bought this program or have any, has any of these kinds of things they purchased for me. So as a result, you know, they wouldn’t have these options you do. So I’m telling you your best options. So once you’ve gone through those, you know what it feels like, you know what it is. So there you go. All right. So, you should do those things like the light and sound machine along with the unconscious learning session enough times to where you feel what a trance is like. So that later on, you can say to yourself, “You know, I remember what that trance is like. I remember what that feels like when I’m, you know, really knocked out in a deep trance.” Okay. All right. Next, self-hypnosis is best done via a recording. So make yourself a simple recording of what you want to accomplish. That easy. Just make yourself a simple recording. Now, you know, the better you get at this, the more complex you can make the recording. But it could be just as simple as suggestions said correctly that will help you to get what you’re focusing on. All right. Here’s the problem. The effort of trying to remain conscious enough to give yourself the suggestions is rather counterproductive to the self-hypnosis. So, you know so you’d be basically better of practicing meditation. Meditation has tremendous benefits. I would highly recommend you practice it. Its benefit just go on and on and on. But here you are trying to alter your consciousness and yet stay conscious enough to give yourself suggestions. What you often may find is you simply go to sleep or you forget to give yourself the suggestions or you come back a little while later and you say, “Hmm. Don’t know what quite what happened there but I don’t think it worked the way I wanted it to.” All right. So, you know, as long as you know that it’s, you know that you’re going to, you’re going to go into a trance but not so deep so that you can still give yourself suggestions then you’re on the right track. All right. So here’s what you do. You’re ready to go, you know what a trance feels like you’ve already done, right. So here’s what you do, you sit down on a chair with the intention that you’re going to go and use self-hypnosis to accomplish X. So you state your intention as you begin your session. That’s the very first thing. State your intention. I’m doing this to accomplish X. Now, imagine yourself climbing up real high and then falling backwards, just floating backwards not a scary fall just allowing yourself to fall backwards like you might off of a diving board or something like that. You know like people that do in concerts, you know, you see people get on stage and then they fall back into the arms of people waiting. Well something like that. Okay. I imagine that I’m doing it from quite high up because I want to have some time to feel the falling feeling. Now, if that’s difficult for you then you can also imagine being in a fast elevator that’s starting in a high level and as it starts down it goes down fast and you feel your whole stomach kind of jump up into your throat. You know, as it takes of and goes down. So you can imagine that. That works just as well.
© Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 17 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
Okay. I like falling backwards. All right. Now, as you fall backwards or as you go down the elevator then what you want to do is remember what a trance feels like. So you’re falling and you say to yourself, when I was in a trance I felt like this and you remind yourself of what a trance feels like. Okay. And all right, you can also by the way, if you don’t like falling your elevators, you can also imagine walking down a flight of steps. Now, you might want to go down several flights giving yourself additional suggestions between each floor and reminding yourself what it feels like to be in a trance, why you’re doing it. Now, you can also use walking down a flight of steps in overt hypnosis but where you’re doing it with far more power than a traditional authoritarian trance. So it’s a pretty good thing to keep in mind. It’s a very useful strategy. All right. Once you’re in a trance, excellent. Give yourself the suggestions to learn or change whatever it is you’re trying to do and then future pace the suggestions and tell yourself to come back. All right. I’m going to suggest that you practice this once or twice per day. Spend like ten minutes each time or so, that’s it. Just a few-, or even less, you know, do six or seven minutes probably and you’ll get the hang of this really quickly. But I recommend you do it because it will also actually help you to, to have greater skill with hypnosis in general. So if just for the next week you just did it preferably twice a day, that would be fantastic. You’ll probably always prefer the unconscious learning session, I know I do. I really don’t do any self-hypnosis at all, I do meditate. Okay. So there’s a vast difference between the two as I’ve mentioned. All right. So, as I’m sure you’ve probably clearly gathered by this point, overt inductions that are direct and authoritarian are not where it’s at. Right. Okay. So you now know how to do them and you have a great strategy for practicing them but after you practice them, you know four or five times on somebody then spend all the rest of your time practicing the covert and Ericksonian types of inductions. That’s where the power is. Okay. Now let’s talk a little bit about Ericksonian inductions. An Ericksonian induction can be overt or covert. However, most all covert inductions that are done, will have elements of an Ericksonian induction in them. So permissive and utilization are the keywords of Ericksonian inductions. All right. So let’s really think that through because I want this to be really clear for you. What Erickson did, is he made extremely popular the idea of a permissive approach that utilizes that everything the client gives him. So instead of telling someone, “you are about to go into a deep and profound trance.” He might say, “and I don’t know if you’ll recognize when you entered a deep and profound trance.” See. So it made it permissive. He didn’t order anyone to go anywhere, he just talked about it and you know the person would respond by going into it and then, you know, then it’s too late. They’ve already done it, right. So, the idea being that, that you know being a bit permissive will enable people to not resist you. © Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 18 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
The other concept is utilization. So he would utilize everything. We talked a lot about this in the advanced hypnosis program that you did first. We talked a lot about utilization but it is such an important concept and it is the hallmark of an Ericksonian induction. So he utilized whatever happened around him. Now, one of the funniest examples I saw of that is watching Richard Bandler do a big group once and he was starting off doing some hypnosis. And all of a sudden there was this loud noise above the, you know, above him like coming from the roof. And he said, “Oh Erickson stop it. Just rest in peace. Well we all continue.” And you know everyone cracked up and laughed for a minute and, you know, he went right on with what he was doing. So you know it was a really good utilization of the situation. Didn’t throw him at all. And that’s what you’re looking also to do. You’re looking to utilize everything. A person says to you, “I don’t know that I can go into a trance.” And you say, “That’s right.” How could anyone know that they could go into a trance before they actually go there. And the idea is, you’re right. You know. You don’t know and yet by the time we’re finished here today, you might look back and wonder at what point you actually became aware that you had altered your consciousness. And I don’t know when that will be because for each person that’s very different. And so as we continue our work together today, I don’t want you to feel any kind of issue whatsoever regarding that. You can just let it go because it doesn’t really matter. Many times people say they don’t even feel like anything happened until they begin to think about, “Oh well, you know what. Time sure did fly by or you know one thing or another that we’ll talk about later.” And either way you do it is going to be just right for you. That’s the neat thing about working together like this. So in that way you’re utilizing their resistance to help them go into a deeper level of trance. Okay. There we go. So, as long as you know that all Ericksonian inductions are focused around the permissive and the utilization of whatever the client gives them you’ve, you understand at least the basics of what makes an Ericksonian induction. All right. Pretty much all of the inductions in the advanced hypnosis program were Ericksonian in nature or at least included in awful lot of the Ericksonian types of strategies and suggestions. All right. As it relates to suggestions, Dr. Erickson when he was younger would occasionally use some authoritative suggestions and you can too. It’s best if you aim the authoritative nature of the suggestion in ways like this. You absolutely have what it takes to change or learn or do whatever it is right. But they have what it takes. You enter the hypnotic state more easily and effectively each time you do it. These are things that are going to so much cause resistance then work your way up to authoritative suggestions like, you’re excited to bring me all of the information about what your company is doing. All right. Things like that.
© Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 19 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
All right. Patting your suggestions with precept positions, cause and effect language etcetera will also make them far more acceptable. All right. Let’s talk now about covert hypnosis. The goal of covert hypnosis is to bypass critical resistance to whatever it is you want from that person. So, what makes hypnosis covert? Again, let me just say this again. I want you to really get it. The goal of covert hypnosis is to bypass critical resistance to whatever it is you want from that person. You want to bypass their critical resistance and get them to think doing what you want is their idea. Got it? All right. So, what makes hypnosis covert? And I’ll tell you the firs possible answer is that the person is not aware that you are doing or have done any kind of hypnosis right? They’re simply not aware. And the second possible answer is, that the person is aware that something is going on but you use it then for a vastly different purpose. For example, they come to learn how to do self-hypnosis and you use that to create an agent of some kind for your own use completely outside of their awareness. So they know that you’re doing hypnosis but they don’t know what you’ve done with it with them and they have no clue about that. Right. Those are the two real big possible answers. To begin, you don’t hear this kind of stuff anywhere else. You just don’t hear it. Okay. So, so answer one, hypnosis is covert because the person is not aware that you’re doing it or have done it. The second answer is that the person is aware that you’re doing it but then you go on and use it for a vastly different purpose of your own. Okay. Now, let’s deal with the first answer first. The person is not aware that you are doing or have done anything. Okay. This implies the ability to do a covert induction to accomplish some goal, doesn’t it? So, let’s talk a little bit about short-term goals of a covert induction. So what kind of goal might you want to use for an induction or a hypnosis in essence that the person is not aware that you’re doing. Okay. Here’s one thing you might use it for. As a means to get them into a context such that you can spend the time you need to create the results you want. All right. For example, you could use it for something like getting them to come and see you to learn creative thinking. You could get them to come to see you to learn self-hypnosis or to come and see you to learn how to program yourself for greater wealth or to be a better sales person or to be better whatever. Husband, wife, father, mother or whatever it is that you know they want in their life and how might you know what they want in their life because you’ve elicited their criteria right. Okay. You can also use it as a means to install an idea such as that they become attracted to you that they desire so much more from their life. In other words, you’re telling them they need to want more from their life. All right. Or how about to change how they feel about something so to be more open or more calm or to accept that they want something in their life. Right, these are all things that I might use a short-term induction to do. I put my goal, I guess, of a covert induction to something like that. All right. © Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 20 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
Now, at this point we better determine then what a covert induction is. If you’re beginning to get the idea that we’re very much looking at this as strategy, you would be 100% correct. This is all about strategy. Plain, period and simple. And one of the biggest strategies, I told you early on deals with context. You need to start thinking about the context that would exist or does exist that makes the behavior that you want the other person to do very normal. Very acceptable. And here you can just talk about whatever realities you want them to believe. Think about how that was done on prisoners of war. You know, in Vietnam they talked about how all the people that they were capturing were turning evidence of, you know, giving up information from the US Government. About the US Government right. That they were all cooperating. And so, you know, as they kept working on one person, working on the men working on them that person began to feel helpless. Like we’ll shoot everybody else has given up and then they see people being treated well and getting nice meals and dressing well etcetera. I guess maybe I should too and I’ll get treated better and I won’t have to have this pain anymore. So it could be just a matter of conversation. It doesn’t have to be any more than that. Right. What we need to really understand what covert induction is and this is something that as much as people talk about it, they talk about it in strange ways that isn’t very helpful, make you sounds silly. Right. So, let’s say this. We could say that a cover induction is something that causes you to have access directly to the unconscious mind of your target. That would be the equivalent of a covert induction, right. We could also say that a covert induction is a strategy of setting aside resistance. We could say that too, right. Therefore, a covert induction could be as simple as a suggestion strategy designed to deliver what you want the person to think or feel. Listen to that again. A covert induction could be as simple as a suggestion strategy designed to delivery what you want the person to think or feel. I call this the Trojan horse strategy. Okay. You give somebody something they really want and in comes, you know, all the warriors inside the horse. That night they jump out and take everyone out. Right. You know, another example of that is, you know, you want to surreptitiously listen in on what the person has to say so you delivery them a brand new light as a free gift. Inside the light is a wireless transmitter that sends a wireless signal of everything that’s within listening distance of that lamp. You’re able to record everything that, that person says or does and they’re thrilled to have gotten the lamp. So, it’s as simple as a suggestion strategy designed to deliver what you want the person to think or feel and examples of this could be everything from embedded commands to precept positions, binds, rhythmic speaking, pacing and leading, all of the different cause and effect type of language and of course includes connecting what you want them to think or feel or do to their values and beliefs, right.
© Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 21 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
So, the real power of a covert induction is as simple as altering consciousness and installing a suggestion. It’s that simple. I want you right now to get it out of your mind that covert hypnosis is a drawn out long and lengthy process. It’s not. It’s not. It’s easy. If you can do it. So, if hypnosis is-, if covert hypnosis is not some drawn out long and lengthy process, then what is it? Well, it is the ability of bypassing resistance, bypassing awareness even by doing something that looks normal but has a secondary meaning that the unconscious picks up and goes, “Oh yeah. Here she is talking to me. That’s what’s happening.” Right. This is one of the reasons I wanted you to practice extensively with the advanced hypnosis training so you’d learn to begin to recognize an altered state when you see one. Because once you cause it or recognize it, you can use it to your advantage. All right. So a real covert induction is simply the altering of someone’s consciousness such that we put their resistance off to the side and we have direct or more direct access to their unconscious where we can throw in some suggestions like Erickson did with his secretary when she was having pain to get them to make a particular change that we’re looking for. And it’s that simple. All right. So this is something that you have had practice with. It’s something that you will continue I hope to practice with and the better you get at doing it, the better off you’re going to be at just installing suggestions easily whenever you want to. Now, I’d like to talk with you about the idea of amending parts of a overt induction to making it covert. So we talked about the manner of doing direct authoritarian trance, right. And I gave you the basic gist of it which is pre-talk, general body relaxation with strong visualization, counting backwards, instructing that the person goes into a trance, commanding that each time they go into a trance they’ll do it easier and faster. Tell them in numerous ways especially be a commanding type of language, the end result they said they wanted. Followed up with post-hypnotic suggestions and bringing them out of trance often by counting up. Okay. So let’s use that same basic pattern to do a less overt and more covert trance, shall we. So for example, we talked about the pre-talk. So let’s say you’re having a conversation with someone and you say you know, “I do a lot of work in the areas of psychology and hypnosis in particular, where we study the way people behave.” And you know, as you start into the pre-talk now, you’re going to start using suggestions to get them to want to do an altered state. So you could say, “So we start looking at how people make the decision to relax.” And as a result of that, we begin to see certain changes. You know how when you want to relax completely, your whole body begins to just change a little bit. Yeah, you let go of the tension in your muscles and your arms and your legs. And you just have a general more sense of relaxation. Well, you know we look for that kind of thing. And we begin to tell when a person is you know beginning to follow the suggestions. And that’s kind of a neat thing to do. You know I really like that because, I found that working © Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 22 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
with people that are really smart, man they follow the suggestions even when I’m not talking to them about going into a trance. So, you see, I can even do it almost a normal pre-talk about how I’m doing, how I do that with others but I’m aiming it directly at the person I’m talking with. So I could then continue to talk about body relaxation and strong-, and I can get them to visualize all that. Now, before I go any further, let me just tell you the limitation. So let’s say I’m having dinner or lunch or whatever and I’m talking with someone like this that I want to create something more with for whatever purpose and as I’m talking about this with them, you know, I launched into a fifteen or twenty minute nonstop talk. Well that’s going to look a little weird and when you bring them back, they’re going to know time has passed and they’re going to feel a little strange like, “What just happened?” So there you might want to just not go real deep with an altered state but what you want to do is use a lot of suggestions. So you’re still getting them to do the kinds of things you want them to do but without doing a tremendous, you know, full on trance. So you can even let them talk from time to time and just quickly alter the state a little bit more and continue like that. So for every one of those general ideas, you know, you can do that as it relates to body relaxation. You could count backwards with an embedded way. You know, sometimes we say to them, “You know, I’m going to count backwards from ten to one and you know and-,“ and then you know I start to talk to them about the ten most important things that a person can have and gain to really live a better life. And you know, I sometimes go through them in order and talk about, you know the most important being number ten and I go to number and number eight, you know. But you know the seventh reason is one of the most important to me. And the seventh reason is all about bam you make something up. And you know, the other day when you go down to the sixth reason, the person begin to say and began to talk with you about it and you know later on they said, “You know it related to number five and also to number four and you know it was just really interesting and you know they said that before they knew it we were already you know going further and that they were considering the third element of the whole thing and I though it’s really important to tell them the one most important thing. So you could do it like that. You could now start at ten, you could start at five or four. You say, I thought you that you know, I told people that there’s four critical things to living a great life and before I tell them what that is, I usually say to them, you know that there are three things that they really need to understand. But the most important one is that it has to come from deep within them. You know so you can do embedded counting and we talked about doing some embedding, embedded counting in the advanced hypnosis program as well. So, you know these are ways to take kind of overt inductions and make them more covert which is really cool. Okay. Now you want to talk about what they want. So you know you’re going to be programming them about that. Let’s say well you can do that indirectly as well. © Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 23 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
You can do that through commands or binds or all kinds of things or about what you want them to do. Okay. So, post-hypnotic suggestions is nothing more than picking a time in the future when they acknowledge that that’s going to remind them unconsciously to carry out these, these suggestions and you know let them pick a time, you know, you don’t really have to wait for a response, they’ll pick one. And then bring them out of trance. You can do that simply by changing the conversation, changing the subject, right. All right. So here’s what I want you to do. I’d like you now to stop the recording and I’d like you to do some practice. Right. So for each of these elements, I want you to practice turning it from an overt event to a more covert event. So you’re going to do a little pre-talk but you’re going to make it more overt instead of doing it, I mean you’re going to make it more covert instead of overt. You’re going to do a discussion about body relaxation but you’re going to have covert elements in there. You’re going to use suggestions about how a relaxed body creates a relaxed mind and relaxed mind means no resistance. It means, you know, being in such a calm perfectly serene state. Where the ideas just flow in. It feels like a nice massage. The words massaging your unconscious mind with the skills and the strategies and the things that it needs to really surge forward now and really have a better life. I mean, you know, give some creative suggestions around these. So do this around the pre-talk around the general body relaxation. Do-, learn to do some embedded counting, practice with that. Do some instructing that the person goes into a trance but do it indirectly. Do it via metaphor for example. Do it via quotes pattern would be a better way to say that. You’re talking to a friend of yours, you told your friend to just relax you know or whatever. But practice for each of these then practice some creative ways of suggesting what it is that you want them to do. Give them post-hypnotic suggestions and bring them out by changing the subject. That’s kind of a neat way to do a kind of elongated covert trance. And I think it’s really helpful. Let’s talk about some of the best covert hypnosis strategies that you can begin to practice right now to get really good at them. Okay. So, here’s what I considered to be, if not the most important, certainly one of the most important. And that is, shifting from the external environment to the internal environment. Right. That one thing will make all the difference in the world. You can talk about the environment that you’re in, what your-, you know where you’re at you know the environment that they’re in during the day etcetera and then how they feel about that. What they think about that. What kind of thoughts they would think about that if they were thinking about thinking about that. And as you shift to the inside, you’re going to find that their attention shifts to the inside and it by definition is an altered state. One for the most profound and easy to do altered state you can possibly ever want to work with. So I would really practice that one and get good at it. Just simply talk about, you know, the internal state. You know how it’s important to really, you know, think about things and they can have certain thoughts about what you’re saying right now. © Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 24 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
And those thoughts as they naturally wind themselves around either immediately or in time to agreeing with, with your general way of doing and talking about things enables them to see from a very interesting perspective the serious connection between the two of you. One that they may have missed before. So we’re talking about inner connections, inner thoughts, feelings, emotions right. And, and you know, and shifting them from the outside world to the inside. That shift is very, very profound. Okay. That begins the altering of their consciousness. I might say things like, “Hey. It’s really nice to meet with you today. I was thinking about this before you got here. And you know I began to think about you know how I feel about this. You know and I realized that, that there’s so many ways a person can feel and so many ways to feel good. So many ways to feel open. So many ways to just have a reaction that is so pleasant and so comfortable. And you know I realize this as I began to think of these things as I knew right in advance of you coming today that I’d be able to go through some of these with you. You may begin to turn your attention to the inside as well. To the kinds of things that you want to accomplish and the way that would make you feel in the way that would help you to relate to yourself as a person. So as I just start switching to the internal, it starts the process of trance. All right. The next key critical thing is when you’ve heard me talk about before is one I really like. It’s one that when you master it you’ll find yourself feeling so confident in your ability to induce a trance and to do it really quickly that it just is worth doing what it takes to master this strategy completely. It’s a strategy that as you get better and better at it, you’ll find that it just flows from your lips. That it just takes you to new places because it’s something that you don’t even have to think about. Really, it’s just something that you turn on and as you do that. You begin to use its power without even another thought about it. And from within that power, all the other powers can live and exist. Your ability to embed commands, to get right passed the critical judgment of another person is enhanced dramatically as you learn the skill. And naturally as you begin to employ it, in all the ways that you can, you can do what profoundly and even call a little attention to it. Where you can do it less profoundly and call less attention to it, just enough so that people begin to realize. At least at one level of the unconscious that it’s just easier to just relax and follow you. They follow you because you’re leading them and it makes sense. So there’s nothing else to do. And so what is it that I’m talking about. Yeah, that’s right. Rhythmic speaking. Sitting right there along side shifting from the external environment to the internal is rhythmic speaking and I’m telling you, those things when you start putting them together. Oh my goodness. You will have tremendous covert hypnotic ability. You don’t have to talk and use the word hypnosis. You don’t have to talk about relaxation. You don’t have to do anything. Just do the rhythmic speaking. You need to get so good at it, so comfortable with it that it becomes second nature. You’ll hear me do that in many of the inductions that are in the advanced hypnosis programs I © Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 25 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
would highly recommend you go back through some of your favorite. We broke some out for you so that you’d be able to just go and find them immediately. I highly recommend just going back through a couple of those breakout sessions and listening again and you’ll hear the rhythmic speaking. Then I highly recommend you begin a regimented practice time every single day of rhythmic speaking. Get yourself a metronome and really start in. Now, here’s a couple of cool things about rhythmic speaking. You can do this with overt trance as well. You just launch into rhythmic speaking. They already know you’re going to be doing something with them. You know, trance-wise it’s overt right. So just launch into rhythmic speaking and watch how much faster they zip right into wherever you want them to go. You can use rhythmic speaking with any kind of influenced trance, getting a yes overt, covert whatever you want. It’s just that good. It is a skill par excellence. Okay. Now, if you couple that with changing your voice tone as I just did a little bit ago. You will very quickly induce an altered state because it just sounds different and it kind of lullabies them into that altered state. And the neat thing is if you do that, well then you’ll be able to do that again in the future with them and that in of itself will induce the trance. So if I’m talking with you, in that tone using strong rhythmic speaking and the next time that you sit down and talk with me, I ease my way in to the same kind of speaking. You’ll find yourself experience yourself. Altering your consciousness, relaxing, having a much more limited sense of awareness. But a maximal awareness of you doing something from your past that you really enjoy doing while your unconscious mind is freed up now to listen to me, to carry out. That’s right. Just like that to make use of and to change. Now, you can do that so easily and as you learn to do that and just drop in then each time you do that with someone they’ll go right back out. It’ll send them right straight into the floor practically. It’s amazing and it is worth spending the time to practice because it is just simply that good. All right. Now, let’s talk about the strategy. I call it imagine this but be open minded. All right. So, I want to ask you this. Is minded a trance? You bet it is. Why? Why is openminded a trance? Well, it’s real simple. It’s because if you’re being open-minded, you’re probably having to be open-minded in spite of feeling different. So in other words you’re purposefully setting aside your values or morals or beliefs or something so that you can be open-minded just like the persons asking. All right. So you might say to them, “I’d like you to imagine this. And as you do, I want you to be open-minded to just experience it. Really experience what I’m going to say to you right now.” Then maybe you do an instantaneous connection pattern with them. And you know and you ask them later, well you know, “so by the way, how did that feel?” You know and you’ve asked them to be open-minded about having the connection while that connection is there while they’re feeling it, you just don’t bother telling them to stop feeling it. © Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 26 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
You don’t even need to ask them how it was. It’s just asking them to be open-minded about it and you’ll find that that causes people to track right along with you and do exactly as your asking. So imagine this to be open-minded. Okay. That is I think a phenomenal covert way of doing things. Okay. Another thing you can do is covertly take them in and out of trance. This is especially effective covert strategy. And the one of the best ways to do that is through your rhythmic speaking and through suggestion patterns etcetera. And just simply switch between the two, you know, a few times over the period of whatever time you go to speak with them. Let’s say you’re having dinner so you got an hour together at least. So you just switch in and out of it four or five times let’s say. And you’ll find that it drastically causes an altered state. All right. Another thing that you can do is anchoring the trance that you do create for future use. Now, you want to be careful not to do this too early. Okay. Because you know like let’s say you’re having dinner for example, you need to have a good reason to do it especially if you’re being, you know, overt you know obvious about doing it. The context counts remember. All right. But it can be done with voice tone alone and that’s why I suggest that you, you know when you really get into an altered state kind of a time with them that you’re using a different tone. As each time in the future, you want to take them back to that you simply switch into that tone. All right. One of the last things that I’ll recommend is that you attach what you want them to do to their values. And of course it could be, you know, relaxing along with their values of really getting ahead in life, whatever. But I mean, attach what you want them to do to their values and it becomes covert. Right. Everything you’re doing becomes covert because it puts them into a trance of their values. All right. So on each of those points that I’ve just made, I’d like to see you do some real practice as we end this module. Okay. It’s-, this is where I would spend several hours on each of these things and on into the future. Because the real trick to be able to do covert hypnosis with anybody you want is to be able to combine these things. So, it’s the ability to being able to at will begin to use one or the other and just being able to make them work easily and effectively. And when you do that, you’re going to find that people just follow along with you. And it’s easy to get them to alter their state of consciousness. When a person is able to alter consciousness and just relax, one of the things that happens is so many positive changes in their life. Stress goes away. They begin to feel more alive in my presence. More alert, more comfortable. And when a person is more comfortable, they begin to open themselves to new experiences and new things at the unconscious level. And when that happens, they begin to have a change now to incorporate some of the most incredible things that you always wanted to do. The ability to use strategies powerfully, the ability to learn this comfortably and naturally of course a person can begin to see coming from all around on these strategies. New ways and new successes and new ways of doing things. Ways that make them more © Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 27 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
Module 2
smooth and elegant in all that they do. Ways that help them to gain more abilities to get more yeses and to feel fantastic about all they now. You can begin in a similar way if not identical to begin to organize your thoughts. To learn these kinds of things and patterns so comfortably and so easily. In doing so is just fun it makes you happy and it’s really something that you look forward to. And you see it’s nice when you’re learning to do this that you put yourself in and out of trance in the same way that you’re putting your subjects in and out of trance. So I mean you can shift into things and out of things. You can be talking along like normal and then you can just launch back into trance talk. Really it’s up to you on how you do it. But the nice thing is that it can be done. And it can be done easily and you can drop right back into it and you can do it again. And you know what it feels like to go into a trance. And since you know what it feels like, you can see it easily and quickly and effortlessly in the person that you’re working with and when you see that, you could increase your suggestion count. You can more strongly alter your tone and discover that you can create bridge after bridge using covert hypnosis to take them where you want them to go ultimately. Be able to do things that are absolutely spectacular that other people wouldn’t even dream of knowing how to do. All right. So, the nice thing about it is you can see is that shifting in and out and in and out really does create some phenomenal things. Now, I could just tell you as you’re with me here very, very consciously that you know it’s kind of fun to just remember to forget to remember. I could ask you to think about your shoes. What color are they? Oh yeah. You know, I could shift you all around in consciousness in every which direction but you’ve already done that and you know what it’s like to, to you know leave things at the conscious level that needs to be at the conscious level while bringing things to the conscious mind that need to be there. And you know what’s cool is? With these things that we’ve been talking about leave with the conscious mind, they grow there. Because there are patterns and the unconscious mind loves to work with patterns. So there you go. You got lots to do. You got lots to work with so what I’d like you to do is spend a good amount of time working on shifting people from the external to the internal environment, rhythmic speaking imagine this and be open-minded right. Covertly taking them in and out of trance, anchoring the trance for future use at least to your voice tone and attaching what you want them to do to their values. Okay. All right. So you’ve got a lot of to do to practice all of the material we’ve covered in this lesson and I want you to really practice with this material. All right. You’re going to do need it in our next module. So get good at doing this and comfortable at doing this and we’ll talk again real soon. Okay. Take care.
© Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Page 28 of 29
Dark Side of Covert Hypnosis
© Copyright 2013 by Max Persuasion and Kenrick Cleveland. All rights reserved in all media.
Module 2
Page 29 of 29
