Subliminal Suggestion
100% Subliminal Force Technique
Obviously you don’t have to repeat everything below verbatim; you can adapt it as you feel best. The aim is to have the volunteer arrive at a card predetermined by you, using nothing more than subliminal verbal commands, although there is a handy escape route just in case.
The Effect.
The following description of performing the effect is exactly as I use it, I’ve explained it as if I’m actually performing it to attempt to give a flavour of what the spectators experience.
I deliberately drive the conversation to the some suitable topic, perhaps Derren Brown, you could equally well just ask “Do you believe in telepathy,” and start from there, it’s really dependant upon the situation and the people that you’re talking to.
The beauty of this trick, is that if your verbal manipulation doesn’t work, there’s a 100% guaranteed way out, which in itself is a most impressive trick indeed! The conversation usually goes something like this:
Me: “Yeah, its really clever how he controls people. I can actually do some of the same mind control things that he does.”
Them: “Prove it.” (the “prove it” bit usually comes after a lot of expletives or general mickey taking because people tend to think that you’re just trying to show off, and have absolutely no idea how any of it is done).
Me: “Well, okay then, but it’ll only work if you genuinely want to see how it’s done. If you try to make it not work then it won’t work, so just go with me on this and fairly follow the instructions that I give to you. Okay?”
Them: “Alright then!” (people will usually play along with you if you ask. They don’t believe that you can actually do what you claim anyway, and they’re pretty sure that you’re going to end up looking really stupid, so there’s no need for them to try and make things harder for you).
Me: “Okay, I’m going to attempt to influence your thought processes so that you end up thinking of exactly what I want you to, and in order to do that I’m going to ask you to imagine something. What I really need for you to do is to just listen to what I say before you actually start to imagine anything. Is that clear?”
Them: “Yeah, Okay”
Me: “Right. First of all then, I want you to make this picture really big and bright, and colourful, and vivid. You need something to draw the picture on, so imagine walking into a room and there high up above your head is a large – really big, kind of a screen.” (at this point make a shape with your hands to symbolise it) “Like a big piece of rectangular card that you can draw your picture on. You might need to tilt your head back and pull your neck in to be able to see it all, it’s such a big piece of card. Do you have it?”
Them: “Yes.”
Me: “Okay, well remember, don’t start to draw it yet, wait for my instructions, but the picture that I want you to draw on your card, and remember, make it as big and bright and colourful as you can, is a certain playing card.”
Them: “Okay.”
Me: “Right, start making your picture by writing in the little symbols in the corners, you know the ones marking the value of the playing card,” (wait for them to acknowledge this), “and then fill in the rest of the picture, with plenty of colour and detail. Let me know when you’ve done making it”
Them: “Okay”
Me: “You’ve got it, your sure?”
Them: “Yes.”
Me: “Right, well hopefully this has worked. Which card did you get?”
Them: “You want me to tell you?” (God knows why, but they almost always ask you this!)
Me: “Yes, that’s right.”
If all has gone well they will now say:
Them: “The King of Diamonds.”
In which case you say:
Me: “Look inside my top pocket here and take out the card.”
They are now completely amazed that you have just one card in your pocket, and it is indeed the King of Diamonds.
If things didn’t go as according to plan and they chose something else, say the 6 of clubs for example, smile with a confident, and ever so slightly smug expression on your face, and continue with:
Me: “That’s amazing! I’ve been wanting to try it out for a while but I honestly didn’t know if it’d work or not. Before I came out tonight I told the wife [or whoever you choose] that if I could pluck up enough courage to try this, I’d try and make you think of the 6 of clubs. Let me ring her up and prove it.”
You now ring your beloved and say:
Me: “Hello, Suzy? Just tell Mike [or whoever it was] which card I was going to make them think of before I came out tonight.”
Hand over the phone to Mike and watch the expression on his face as your other half says: “He said he was going to make you think of the 6 of Clubs Mike.”
You’ll now have them eating out of the palm of your hand and at a total loss as to just how you achieved it.
You might get asked to perform it again, but the best defence if they ask is to say that you used embedded subliminal commands in the instructions, and that you would only be able to make them pick the same card again.
If they actually picked the King of Diamonds then you can explain it properly, if they picked something else then just make something up and it will seem even more impressive than if things went as according to plan!
The Secret
To discover the verbal suggestion techniques used in this effect simply subscribe to The Mentalist newsletter using the form below and the secret will magically appear in your inbox!
cforms contact form by delicious:days
Please be sure to see more great mentalist effects at: www.subliminalpersuasion.co.uk
Cold Reading
Cold reading is a very powerful tool for the mentalist, when used correctly it is imperceptible and can produce quite incredible performances that appear to have the hallmarks of a psychic or supernatural nature.
Cold reading itself is often misunderstood, and it is often wrongly explained. Here we will cover the basic structure of a cold reading performance before giving you some more recommended reading.
Firstly, after the cold reader has made sure that they have created the right atmosphere to help with suggestion, he or she will recruit the help of the cold readee by making a statement such as:
“Often images, voices, and sounds can be quite unclear, and often I won’t understand the meaning or significance of it while it will clearly mean more to you than it does to me. If you are receptive and we work together then we can unlock these meanings and we will be able to interpret the vibrations to understand the messages and uncover what they mean.”
In providing this suggestion at the beginning the message is clear - it is up to the subject to interpret any suggestion made by the cold reader, to identify it’s meaning, and to provide the message. Once you have them on board with this then clearly the whole process becomes much easier.
The cold reader, or mentalist, will now proceed to deliver the reading with the full co-operation of the subject, who will either provide their clues verbally or unconsciously using non verbal communication such as body language or eye cues.
One common method used by cold readers is to make statements where they suggest one thing and at the same time suggest it’s opposite too, thereby ensuring accuracy and also making statements that probably apply to everyone, although if presented well appear to be very personal. An example might be:
“At times you can feel quite introverted, like you need peace and quiet and solitude, but at others, if you are in the right mood, you can come out of your shell and be the lie and soul of the party.”
In a similar vein to this a cold reader may use a form of subtle flattery to illicit a positive response from the subject.
Another technique that is often used is a kind of machine gun approach (this is quite an unsubtle method) where the cold reader may say something like “I have a man here, maybe like a Grandfather, Father, Uncle, Brother, Cousin,” whereupon the subject fills in the gaps for you, or they may come up with a first letter of a name, as demonstrated on our psychics page.
It is also common to throw in some statement that appears to be personal but which actually applies to almost everyone.
Statements like this can include talking about a box of old photos, with women about having in their possession a piece of jewellery (which may or may not have belonged to a deceased person, or have been given to the subject by them, or have come through the deceased’s family, etc - the possibilities are only limited by your & the subjects imagination), it may be in relation to a number (house number, telephone number, age, etc?), plus many other similar statements.
Another favourite along these lines is to talk about childhood accidents - maybe the cold reader can see blue skies and a tree in a field or orchard, a small stream or river, and they sense an accident happened here.
These kinds of vague suggestions coupled with trees, fields, water, etc give a lot of room for the subjects memories or imagination to fill in the gaps appropriately.
These really are the basic beginnings of cold reading, we will delve into them more completely on this website in due course, but in the meantime we have included a number of books that will help you to research cold reading further on our recommended reading page.
Psychics
Whenever I think of psychics I can’t help but remember that old quip:
“They are called mediums because they are not rare, and seldom well done.”
Whether you believe in psychics and psychic ability or not is irrelevant really in the context of this website, our sole purpose is to show how the mentalist can reproduce exactly the same effects using nothing other than psychology, NLP, suggestion, mind reading, cold reading, hot reading, and other mentalism effects - no supernatural powers are required.
Needless to say that even when a mentalist has produced a psychic performance using the cold hard and completely non paranormal methods that mentalists employ, the true believer will often claim that, in fact, the mentalist was using psychic powers, they just don’t realise quite how psychic they are.
Although you may well feel a Homer Simpson “D’oh” moment coming on, this highlights the sheer futility of trying to argue one way or the other whether psychic powers exist or not.
Instead lets examine the methods used by metalists to achieving a psychic like demonstration that resembles a mediums/psychics/spiritualists performance.
As you will notice with almost every subject in The Mentalists menu bar, the subjects do not sit neatly by themselves, isolated from all of the others, instead they overlap quite significantly, drawing upon areas of all of the others.
Reproducing psychic ability is no different, since it draws upon many of the other topics, probably mainly suggestion and cold reading.
We’ll go into cold reading later, but in the meantime the power of suggestion can be utilised very effectively.
Often, if you have had the pleasure of visiting a genuine psychic, you will find that their premises are suitably decorated with a variety of mystical, mysterious, spiritualist type objects, which clearly tell you you’re at the right place - and suggest to you that they are there for a purpose.
The mentalist can also use this rather obvious ploy to ensure that he or she looks similarly gifted in the black arts of speaking to the dead or picking up the auric vibrations of the victim customer lucky individual.
The manner in which you hold yourself, you speak, move, and talk, including the language you use, are all suitably good tools of suggestion to give yourself the air of a genuine psychic.
Once you move onto the reading itself you can either employ the trickery included in the mentalism section of this website, use the cold reading techniques that you have developed, or just bluff your way through - amazingly this is often good enough, since people who want a psychic reading will convince themselves that this is exactly what they have had.
I would at this point like to recount to you my own recent experience with a “genuine” psychic.
I generally don’t go in for this kind of thing, but since it was being conducted at the local pub during their halloween party, and it only cost £10 to participate, I went along to see what happened.
I have to say that I had my suspicions from the start, since the person who organised the psychic (and who was also a friend of hers) enveigled not only myself to come along, but also her landlord.
The psychic seemed to be using the rather hit and miss techniques that they do, with the usual questions:
“Do you know someone who’s name begins with an “A”? - How about a “B”?, “C”? - any letter of the alphabet?”
Or the classic to a woman of about 80:
“Do you have a male relative who might have died in WW2?”
What are the chances? She progressed in this manner, including when she got the vibes of the chap sitting next to me. What I found interesting about this was that she started with the line:
“I’ve got a male here” to which he replied it’s probably my brother, and once she had established that it was indeed his brother proceeded with the usual trivial messages that the dead seem intent on delivering.
During this encounter, one of the things that the psychic said was that “he’s telling me something about his hair,” to which the chap next to me replied that yes, he had a full head of curly hair whilst he himself was bald, which was apparently the source of some leg pulling between them.
Note that the psychic did not reveal this herself - she simply mentioned “hair” and he filled in the gaps for her, which she duly repeated back to him.
The amazing thing was that, during the interlude, the chap next to me recounted how she had got his brother correctly, and how had she known about his head of curly hair and the joking that it used to inspire between them!
In his mind he did not realise that it was he who provided this information, and she merely repeated it back to him.
The psychics performance continued along these lines for the rest of the show until the organisers landlord appeared (he arrived late), when she instantly came up with his recently deceased fathers name, how he died (he hung himself), his occupation, etc, etc, etc.
Now to me there was either a case of spontaneous psychic ability at work, or it was a classic case of hot reading, and so, since she appeared to be suddenly gifted with some genuine insight I decided to test her out.
I asked her if she could get any message from a person connected to me, and added that he’d died unusually.
Unfortunately we were straight back to the machine gun bombardment of every possible fact & figure that you could glean from that tiny piece of information:
“Was it your father? Grandfather? Brother, Uncle, a friend?”
It was a friend I confirmed, but could she tell me how he had died?
“A car crash?, Train crash?, Airplane crash?, etc.”
Eventually I had to reveal that he did, in fact, fall off a mountain, to which she instantly, unbelievably, and quite cynically replied - “are you sure it was an accident, because I’m getting the impression that he was murdered!”
Fortunately this quite shocking and ridiculously appalling suggestion convinced me that she was nothing but an out and out charlatan, and so when she suggested that she just knew that me & the organiser were going to be going into business together I just knew that we weren’t.
It seemed clear to me that the psychic had been fed the information about the landlord by the organiser, who it seemed had some ulterior motives.
You might well think that this is a bit of harmless, if not ever so slightly sadistic fun, but the reprecussions of this run a little deeper.
The organisers landlord ended up so amazed by the psychics performance that he was telephoning her every day, and taking advise on everything he did, for a fee of course.
On top of that it transpired that the organiser was now living in her rented acccomodation free of charge, since she was crying the poor tale to the landlord, and he was being told by the psychic that, in essence ”K is just destined to be in that house - if she leaves bad things will happen.”
That isn’t just harmless fun, it is really fraud and highlights the danger of believing anything that is presented to you.
It is also important that the mentalist makes sure that he stays on the side of entertainment only, and does not cross over onto the dark path of pretending to have real powers along with the rest of the devious, despicable, and downright criminal fraternity.
The worry of course is that the mentalist could be a more convincing psychic than even they could - even the “genuine” ones.
The trick really with giving a psychic performance is to study, master, and perfect the delivery of cold reading techniques. If you can manage to throw in some good old fashioned hot reading too then you can see clearly how effective it can be.
I’d also recommend the Revelations of a Spirit Medium
If you are interested in learning more about developing your psychic techniques (ie, your mentalist psychic techniques), then I recommend that you read some of the books in the recommnded reading section, and the traditional mentalism techniques in our mentalism section.
Mind Reading
Mind reading is one of those contentious subjects that is apparently used by psychics and those purporting some kind of psychic ability, and it is very difficult to prove or disprove if genuine mind reading or psychic abilities exist.
Mind reading acts are also one of the staples of mentalism.
The mentalist will traditionally rely upon one of 2 methods to achieve mind reading performances, which will be either in the form of “hot reading” or “cold reading.”
Cold reading is covered elsewhere within this website, and is really the area that we wish to concentrate upon, since it’s use allows people to appear to give facts, figures, and other information about a person that are so (apparently) accurate that there seems to be few explanations other than psychic ability.
Hot reading is the opposite technique and relies upon traditional mentalism and magic based techniques, although it is not limited to magicians and mentalists, it is undoubtedly used by many supposed “genuine” psychics.
Hot reading relies upon finding out the details and information about the subject in advance, and then “revealing” them in a suitably dramatic way to make it appear that some kind of supernatural ability has been employed.
Accusations of this kind of activity has been levelled at many psychics, including Derek Acorah (who refutes this allegation), and there is one wonderful example of an American evangelist who claimed to be given details about people directly from God, who was caught out when his wifes radio transmissions to his hidden earpiece were so dramatically eavsdropped upon and taped.
One of our favourite books on the deviousness of spirit mediums (aka psychics) is the facsimile copy of the otherwise impossible to get hold of Revelations of a Spirit Medium
It’s a real eye opener!
The methods outlined in this book range from outright trickery, through to a networked and systematic dissemination of information about wealthy spiritualist clients in each town and city that a medium could hire before visiting them - in other words, classic hot reading!
Obviously this method is unlikely to be available to a mentalist, and so other methods of obtaining personal information are employed, some requiring the participant to write things down in “sealed” envelopes (a rather clumsy and unsatisfactory method), through to far more sophisticated and elegant techniques to facilitate the illusion of reading a persons mind.
Another method employed by the mentalist is to use psychological subtleties that appear close to mind reading, but are drawing upon psychology, nlp, suggestion, and other methods outlined and discussed here, on The Mentalist.
You can find out about these different mentalism based mind reading techniques in our mentalism section.
Neuro Linguistic Programming
NLP or Neuro Linguistic Programming is a method of using language, metaphor, and other specially developed techniques like anchoring to influence a persons behaviour.
NLP was first theorised and developed into a workable “system” by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. It is essentially a method of psychological therapy designed to help people to modify their behaviour easily, and it is for this reason that it has been embraced by the mentalist.
Since the 1970’s when NLP first came into being, through to today, the principles, methods, and techniques have been refined and developed further, and there are some really quite exceptional and breathtaking courses, books, and possibilities for NLP today.
We will cover some of the principles and methods that can be adapted and used by the mentalist to influence people over time, but in the meantime we highly recommend the books included in our recommended reading section, and we may add the most effective, reputable, and worthwhile attendance courses in due course as well.
Suggestion
One of the main powers of the mentalist is the power of suggestion.
Acquiring the skill to manipulate peoples behaviour through suggestion alone requires the fusion of different skills from psychology, NLP, hypnosis (particularly conversational hypnosis), cold reading, and understanding non verbal cues, as well as the careful use of language.
The results of this merging of techniques can be quite amazing, with your persuasive skilled becoming very refined.
We will introduce some of the skills used in suggestion and persuasion throughout this website, and we have also included a number of extremely useful books in our recommended reading section.
In the meantime we have reproduced, with kind permission from www.subliminalpersuasion.co.uk, the following demonstration of how language and other persuasive techniques can be used to subconsciously make a person think of one particular playing card out of the possible 52!
Of course in true mentalism style it includes a magical solution too, in case you need it while practising your powers of persuasion, but this gives you the opportunity to practice your skills and refine them without fear of failure.
The Effect on our Subliminal Suggestion page is really the fusion of 2 separate mentalism effects, both deliver very impressive responses and can be performed individually in a variety of different ways.
The Verbal Forcing Technique is similar to the method used by Derren Brown & is explained in his video “The Devils Own Picture Book.” The Telephone effect is pure magic based Mentalism.
The Effect demonstrates how the Subliminal Persuasion Techniques of NLP, Hypnosis, & Verbal Manipulation can be combined with traditional Mentalism (Mind Reading & Psychic Illusions, etc) routines, to create something New & More Powerful.
This is just one simple facet of Subliminal Persuasion, there are some much more Exciting possibilities contained within our book “Mind Control NLP & Hypnosis.”
Whether you’re a mentalist, Curious about just How these effects are possible, or want to use the persuasion techniques in your normal life, the use of Mentalism can be extremely helpful when performing the real persuasion techniques.
Firstly, Confidence is Absolutely Essential – both you and your subject must have confidence in your abilities. Using the magical trickery of Mentalism gives you an opportunity to make 100% sure that you can successfully achieve your goal – this is very important for you whilst Practising & Perfecting your Skills.
Secondly, by performing a couple of Mentalism Tricks first & Convincing your Subject of your Abilities, You Will find much easier to effectively perform, and they Will be much more receptive, to your use of the Real Subliminal Persuasion Techniques.
Please read our Subliminal Suggestion Technique to get a flavour of the Impressive ways that these techniques can be combined – And remember, there are even more effects for sale on our site www.subliminalpersuasion.co.uk.
Psychology
I find Psychology to be one of the most fascinating subjects that you can study, and for a mentalist it is absolutely essential to understand what makes people tick!
Whether you follow Freudian psychology, the psychology of Jung, or any of the other branches that have evolved, the one common denominator is that we are all, every single person, subject to the characteristics and observations outlined in psychology as a whole.
To understand psychology is to understand the fundamental driving forces that control each one of us, and understanding how and why these forces operate gives you an incredible power of insight to be able to predict and control Human behaviour.
Psychology is not just a new age science that is purely theoretical with no real World application, it is used by sales and marketing organisations, the military, governments, in fact it is in play in all of us, even in our normal daily lives, without us being aware of it.
The initial observations of modern psychology were made by Freud in his dealings with patients in 19th Century Vienna, and his observations and conclusions soon caught the attention of other academics.
Today Freuds original works can be difficult to follow since they are translated from 19th Century German that does not read easily compared to modern English, but it has been re-examined and re-written numerous times in many different forms.
For people wanting to start to study psychology for the first time we recommend reading Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships
In this book Berne takes his experience of how people interact in a social group, and applies essentially Freudian psychology to their behaviour. The difference however is that Berne makes it much more readable, understandable, and shows how it applies to real life.
The idea of the Id, Ego, & Super Ego in Freudian psychology are, for example, replaced by the Child, Adult, and Parent, to explain how each element behaves in context to the others - this practical observation and application makes understanding Freud and interpretting behaviour much, much easier.
This book also broaches the question of group dynamics, that is, how do people behave when they are in a social group, and it opens the door to some truly remarkable, if not extremely frightening works like Propaganda
Bernays is widely regarded as the father of propaganda, or as it is more politely known today “spin,” his works and theories formed the foundations of the Nazi propaganda machine, and of course you can see them in action all around you from present day politicians, through to advertising and marketing companies.
The techniques employed and their obvious effectiveness will open your eyes to the very real possibility that we are not as individual nor as in control of our own thoughts as we would like to believe.
Another area that is fascinating is that of non verbal communication, often referred to as body language.
There are many books on the subject of body language, a lot of them are quite poor and produced for titillation rather than serious study, but there are also some excellent books on the subject too.
Many people poo-poo body language as a pseudo-science, but if you look at the work that has been produced on non verbal communication (or body language) in the animal kingdom, then it becomes clear that there is a very real sub-level of communication occuring, and it is not sufficeint to simply dismiss it out of hand.
Animals by the very virtue that they cannot communicate with language use non verbal cues extensively, and it is inevitable that Human beings will also retain these characteristics from our past.
Although we do not base our normal communication around them, they are displayed unconsciously, as though peprogrammed into us genetically, and it is well worth examining the subject and most importantly observing people to see whether you can identify a definite pattern.
We have included a good selection of our favourite books on the recommended reading page of this site covering all of the topics that we intend to discuss, and we will be adding more specific material to this website in due course.
Covert Hypnosis
The Art of Covert Hypnosis is one of the best hypnosis courses on the market, and is exactly what every mentalist is looking for.
Covert hypnosis gives you a range of skills and methods that allow you to quickly, easily, and effectively cast your hypnotic spell over just about anyone to influence them, sell an idea or product to them, or to manipulate their opinion so that they agree with you.
The techniques used in covert hypnosis give you the ability to persuade people, to make them feel compelled to act on your subconscious suggestions, and without them realising what you are doing.
Complementing the principles of conversational hypnosis, covert hypnosis gives you a range of additional tools that will help you to deal with any person, in any occassion, and to help them to reach the position or conclusion that you want them to. Once that you have mastered the different techniques in these courses you will find that they become second nature, and you automatically put them into practice without consciously thinking about it.
Of course there are many, many, hypnosis courses, books, and other literature out there, but you need to make sure that you are only digesting the best, and covert hypnosis is definitely in our top 3 of hypnosis courses.
You can find out more about covert hypnosis by clicking the image below.
The Truth About Hypnosis
Clearly there is a lot of misunderstanding where hypnosis is concerned, and so it is imperative that to develop your skills as a mentalist that you learn as much as is possible.
We highly recommend that you study the truth about hypnosis, since it is produced by some of the best, most experienced hypnotists in the World, and dispells some of the common myths, whilst teaching you facts and techniques that you would otherwise never hear about.
You can sign up for free here.
Conversational Hypnosis
Conversational hypnosis is a technique used by the mentalist to pass hypnotic suggestions to a person during the course of a normal conversation, the person being hypnotised usually has no idea that this is happening to them.
The techniques used in conversational hypnosis are based on the original work of Milton Erickson, but unsurprisingly they are not easy to find, and the ability to induce a hypnotic state during a normal verbal exchange are seen by some to be very dangerous indeed.
You can see the consequences of conversational hypnosis in the video clip below:
Amazingly, in the security footage above, the man instantly hypnotises the cashier before emptying her till of a large amount of cash - and this was no fluke, he had performed exactly the same stunt at numerous other places with a range of cashiers.
This should clearly indicate how real and how powerful the principles of conversational hypnosis are.
This course is without a doubt the most comprehensive, most thorough, and most complete information on conversational hypnosis that has ever been compiled, and we highly recommend to anyone who aspires to follow in the footsteps of the mentalist, or who’s job involves influencing the actions of others, including salespeople, law enforcement officials, the military, etc.
Learning how to use conversational hypnosis will not only be the best investment that you ever make, it will be the most rewarding one also. Click the image below to learn about conversational hypnosis.
