10 Ways to Protect Yourself From NLP Mind Control (2)

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By Jason Louv

An NLP person essentially carefully fakes the social cues that cause a person to drop their guard and enter a state of openness and suggestibility.

For instance, a person predominantly focused on sight will be spoken to in language using visual metaphors – ‟Do you see what I’m saying?”, “Look at it this way” – while a person for which hearing is the dominant sense will be spoken to in auditory language – ‟Hear me out,” “I’m listening to you closely.”

By mirroring body language and linguistic patterns, the NLPer is attempting to achieve one very specific response: rapport. Rapport is the mental and physiological state that a human enters when they let their social guard down, and it is generally achieved when a person comes to the conclusion that the person they’re talking to is just like them. See how that works, broadly? An NLP person essentially carefully fakes the social cues that cause a person to drop their guard and enter a state of openness and suggestibility.

Once rapport is achieved, the NLPer will then begin subtly leading the interaction. Having mirrored the other person, they can now make subtle changes to actually influence the other person’s behavior. Combined with subtle language patterns, leading questions and a whole slew of other techniques, a skilled NLPer can at this point steer the other person wherever they like, as long as the other person isn’t aware of what’s happening and thinks everything is arising organically, or has given consent.

That means it’s actually fairly hard to use NLP to get people to act out-of-character, but it can be used for engineering responses within a person’s normal range of behavior – like donating to a cause, making a decision they were putting off, or going home with you for the night if they might have considered it anyway.

From this point, the NLPer will seek to do two things – elicit and anchor. Eliciting happens when an NLPer uses leading and language to engineer an emotional state – for instance, hunger. Once a state has been elicited, the NLPer can then anchor it with a physical cue – for instance, touching your shoulder. In theory, if done right, the NLPer can then call up the hungry state any time they touch your shoulder in the same way. It’s conditioning, plain and simple.

How can I make sure nobody pulls this nasty thing on me?

I’ve had all kinds of people attempt to “NLP” me into submission, including multiple people I’ve worked for over extended periods of time, and even people I’ve been in relationships with. Consequently, I’ve developed a pretty keen immune response to it. I’ve also studied its mechanics very closely, largely to resist the nonsense of said people. Here’s a few key methods I’ve picked up.

1. Be extremely wary of people copying your body language.
If you’re talking to somebody who may be into NLP, and you notice that they’re sitting in exactly the same way as you, or mirroring the way you have your hands, test them by making a few movements and seeing if they do the same thing. Skilled NLPers will be better at masking this than newer ones, but newer ones will always immediately copy the same movement. This is a good time to call people on the stuff they do.

2. Move your eyes in random and unpredictable patterns.
This is hilarious to do to troll NLPers. Especially in the initial stages of rapport induction, an NLP user will be paying incredibly close attention to your eyes. You may think it’s because they’re intensely interested in what you’re saying. They are, but not because they actually care about your thoughts: They’re watching your eye movements to see how you store and access information. In a few minutes, they’ll not only be able to tell when you’re lying or making something up, they’ll also be able to figure out what parts of your brain you’re using when you’re speaking, which can then lead them to be so clued in to what you’re thinking that they almost come across as having some kind of psychic insight into your innermost thoughts.

A clever hack for this is just to randomly dart your eyes around – look up to the right, to the left, side to side, down… make it seem natural, but do it randomly and with no pattern. This will drive an NLP person utterly nuts because you’ll be throwing off their calibration.

3. Do not let anybody touch you.

This is pretty obvious and kind of goes without saying in general. But let’s say you’re having a conversation with somebody you know is into NLP, and you find yourself in a heightened emotional state – maybe you start laughing really hard, or get really angry, or something similar – and the person you’re talking to touches you while you’re in that state. They might, for instance, tap you on the shoulder. What just happened? They anchored you so that later, if they want to put you back into the state you were just in, they can (or so the wayward logic of NLP dictates) touch you in the same place.

4. Be wary of vague language.

One of the primary techniques that NLP took from Milton Erickson is the use of vague language to induce hypnotic trance. Erickson found that the more vague language is, the more it leads people into trance, because there is less that a person is liable to disagree with or react to. Alternately, more specific language will take a person out of trance. (Note Obama’s use of this specific technique in the “Change” campaign, a word so vague that anybody could read anything into it.)

5. Be wary of permissive language.

“Feel free to relax.” “You’re welcome to test drive this car if you like.” “You can enjoy this as much as you like.” Watch out for this. This was a major insight of pre-NLP hypnotists like Erickson: the best way to get somebody to do something, including going into a trance, is by allowing them to give you permission to do so. Because of this, skilled hypnotists will NEVER command you outright to do something – i.e. “Go into a trance.” They WILL say things like “Feel free to become as relaxed as you like.”

6. Be wary of gibberish.

Nonsense phrases like “As you release this feeling more and more you will find yourself moving into present alignment with the sound of your success more and more.” This kind of gibberish is the bread and butter of the pacing-and-leading phase of NLP; the hypnotist isn’t actually saying anything, they’re just trying to program your internal emotional states and move you towards where they want you to go. ALWAYS say “Can you be more specific about that” or “Can you explain exactly what you mean?” This does two things: it interrupts this whole technique, and it also forces the conversation into specific language, breaking the trance-inducing use of vague language we discussed in #4.

7. Read between the lines.

NLP people will consistently use language with hidden or layered meanings. For instance “Diet, nutrition and sleep with me are the most important things, don’t you think?” On the surface, if you heard this sentence quickly, it would seem like an obvious statement that you would probably agree with without much thought. Yes, of course diet, nutrition and sleep are important things, sure, and this person’s really into being healthy, that’s great. But what’s the layered-in message? “Diet, nutrition and sleep with me are the most important things, don’t you think?” Yep, and you just unconsciously agreed to it. Skilled NLPers can be incredibly subtle with this.

8. Watch your attention.

Be very careful about zoning out around NLP people – it’s an invitation to leap in with an unconscious cue. Here’s an example: An NLP user who was attempting to get me to write for his blog for free noticed I appeared not to be paying attention and was looking into the distance, and then started using the technique listed in #7 by talking about how he never has to pay for anything because media outlets send him review copies of books and albums for free. “Everything for free,” he began hissing at me. “I get everything. For. Free.” Obvious, no?

9. Don’t agree to anything.

If you find yourself being led to make a quick decision on something, and feel you’re being steered, leave the situation. Wait 24 hours before making any decisions, especially financial ones. Do NOT let yourself get swept up into making an emotional decision in the spur of the moment. Sales people are armed with NLP techniques specifically for engineering impulse buys. Don’t do it. Leave, and use your rational mind.

10. Trust your intuition.

And the foremost and primary rule: If your gut tells you somebody is messing with you, or you feel uneasy around them, trust it. NLP people almost always seem “off,” dodgy, or like used car salesmen. Flee, or request they show you the respect of not applying NLP techniques when interacting with you.

Hopefully this short guide will be of assistance to you in resisting this annoying and pernicious modern form of black magic. Take it with you on your phone or a printout next time you’re at a used car sales lot, getting signed up for a gym membership, or watching a politician speak on TV. You’ll easily find yourself surprised how you allow yourself to notice more and more NLP techniques… more and more… don’t you think?

For more on NLP, check out the book Introducing NLP by Joseph O’Connor or the immensely useful Neuro-Linguistic Programming for Dummies. As a bonus, here’s a great video breaking down the use of NLP techniques by media outlets on both sides of the political spectrum, from FOX News to Stephen Colbert. It gets a bit into Christian conspiracy thinking, but is VERY good information.

yogaesoteric
March 7, 2020