by Paul Sharp
Once you have established a connection with others, you can now engage in the act of beginning to persuade. This persuasion will involve introducing an idea with the goal of the other person having the same idea. If you are a salesperson, the idea is that the potential customer should get a new roof so your goal is to convince the person that they should do that. You have conditioned them by establishing an emotional connection with them through your words and demeanor, which now leaves them open to be more suggestible to you. You appear to have done them a favor by pointing out a problem with their roof and you appear genuinely interested in helping them.
How You Can Condition Others (And Be Conditioned Too)
If you follow the skills laid out in influencing others, then you will be involved in the process of conditioning them to be open to influence by you. Conditioning refers to preparing someone for another process or act, in this case, the process of persuading them or manipulating them into doing what you want. Although conditioning can happen in various ways, it basically requires that some sort of connection has to be made between the two parties to leave the second party open to being modified by the other person.
Conditioning is a psychological process that occurs in animals. An animal can be conditioned to be sensitive to pain or insensitive to it. An animal can be conditioned to crave fights and violence or they can be a pacifist. Conditioning happens all the time and it takes place all around us. We are conditioned to have certain beliefs about life by the programs that we see on television and by the books that we read in school when we are growing up. Conditioning is the process by which humans learn what is normally thought and behavior, and conditioning continues to occur even after we become adults.
In persuasion, the target can be conditioned to have certain beliefs. What this means in this context is that the individual has become open to an idea somehow. Conditioning can occur in manipulation as well, but we often think of this type of conditioning as more traumatic. In manipulation, a person can be conditioned through mental or physical abuse, or through the well-thought-out use of words or actions.
Just as others can be conditioned, you too can be conditioned by others seeking to influence you. Learning to be wary of the intentions of others is a good first defense, even if it comes with its drawbacks. Not every person seeking to influence you is doing it because they want to manipulate you or persuade you to do something that benefits them. Sometimes it is good advice to be careful with new people as you do not know what their intentions are. Over time as you get to know someone better, you can be more open with your emotions and the real you, knowing that these are the tools that a narcissist can use against you.
Chapter 5: Neuro-linguistic Programming
Neuro-linguistic programming, or NLP, is a powerful tool of mind control. NLP tactics are used by anchormen and others on the television and cable news, by politicians, coaches, and other public speakers, and by individuals acting with the goal of controlling you. Indeed, most of the targets of NLP do not realize that they are under the influence of mind control, which is one of the things that makes this tactic so powerful. NLP uses various tools to induce a trance or trance-like state in people leaving them vulnerable to suggestion. The instruments used in NLP are a type of hypnosis, and many of these techniques have been used by manipulators and others involved in mind control for years.
NLP: What Is It?
Neuro-linguistic programming is a method of mind control that was developed in the 1970s. As you will discover when we delve into history shortly, this was a period where many people were experimenting with different ideas in psychology and the behavioral sciences. There was an openness to approaches like those of NLP because they seemed to use skills and knowledge that had been compiled both as a result of men that had used mind control and hypnosis in the past, and the new types of knowledge about human beings that the hard sciences and social sciences were revealing.
When we discussed the history of dark psychology, we spoke for a minute about men like Rasputin who seemed to use arts so dark and mysterious that it is difficult for others to understand just how they managed to do what they did. Looking at pictures of Rasputin, the one thing that appears most striking about home is his eyes. He seems to stare out of the picture, almost as if he shares the room with you. Rasputin’s techniques of manipulation and control were little understood at the time, but it seems that we can today see in some of his tactics elements of what we would call NLP mind control.
Eye contact is a tool that practitioners of NLP mind control use to induce rapport in their target. Although NLP guides focus more on the tricks and less on psychology, this type of tactic taps into a desire for human beings to establish a psychological and emotional connection with others. Very powerful eye contact combined with certain words, gestures, or other cues can open the other person up for mind control or even put them into a trance. NLP techniques are used by many people today to obtain their ends, even if that goal is to sell you something for a slim margin of profit on their part.
History of NLP
Neuro-linguistic programming was developed in the 1970s by Richard Bandler and John Grinder, two men from California with backgrounds in linguistics and psychology. The aspect of NLP that stands out the most is that incorporates knowledge from different disciplines and combines these with a deep understanding of human behavior and human motivations. The traditions of most relevance to NLP are those of Milton Erickson, Fritz Perls, and Virginia Satir.
Milton Erickson is a name that has been very influential in psychology and hypnosis. Indeed, his techniques have been alleged to be used by various politicians and well-known public speakers like Tony Robbins. Ericksonian techniques are still used in psychotherapy today, but they have also been co-opted by hypnotists and practitioners of NLP because they make the other person more suggestible and more able to be conditioned and controlled. Ericksonian techniques are designed to access the unconscious mind, something which NLP has accomplished in very dramatic ways. NLP grew in popularity in the 1980s and 1990s.
The Techniques of NLP
The NLP tricks are subtle, so subtle that most people unfamiliar with NLP would likely allow them to fall under the radar. It has been argued that neuro-linguistic programming techniques have been used by the likes of the former president of the United States, Barack Obama, whose speeches are cited as examples of permissive language hypnosis, an NLP technique. As stated previously, NLP techniques are derived from an understanding of how the brain works, what motivates human behavior, how human beings form a rapport with one another, and how human beings interact and behave normally.
We mentioned in other parts of this book that a manipulator or narcissist pays attention to the cues that indicate your emotional state or your interests and motivations. A practitioner of NLP is also paying close attention to you, looking for ways to establish the bond of rapport, looking for clues to how you think, and looking for opportunities to induce a trance. Below is a list of some of the things that a person using NLP techniques is looking out for:
Using eye movements to determine how your brain processes information
Using eye movements to determine how your brain stores information
Making an assessment of what sense of perception is dominant in your brain
Making an assessment of which side of your brain is predominant
Making the determination of when you are lying
Neuro-linguistic programming represents a side of dark psychology that is relatively close to the surface in terms of public knowledge, as many people use it, but it remains yet a powerful tool of mind control. We will see later how those motivated to protect themselves can break from their programming.
Chapter 6: How to Analyze People
There are a number of skills that are important in analyzing people. The first and perhaps most important skill is having an understanding of human nature and normal human behavior. If you do not have a sense of how humans behave under normal circumstan
ces or what motivates most people then you are unlikely to correctly interpret the actions and intentions of others. Just as a judge relies on their sense of how people typically behave and what motivates them in their judgments, so too must you develop an understanding of the normal spectrum of human behavior in order to properly analyze someone.
Of course, human beings can behave in highly original ways, which makes the process of analyzing them difficult at times. Although human beings frequently behave in typically human ways – like being jealous at the success of others, or envious of a colleague who just married a beautiful wife – sometimes people can surprise you. Indeed, some people never feel jealous or envious others. Most poor people do not steal even though they may need this or that because it just is not part of their character to do so. Indeed, frequently the greatest, most flamboyant thief is the person who already has all that they need.
That being said, in order to analyze people, you are going to have to start with knowing how humans are generally. This includes understanding the spectrum of human emotion, the behaviors linked to these emotions, and the things that motivate people to do this or that. Everyone wears a mask, which means that sometimes the intentions of others are not always clear. But even with this mask, people can reveal to you their emotional state, the things that make them happy, the things that make them sad.
We all wear a mask, but perhaps only FBI agents are so skilled that they never give you some sort of clue. A spontaneous laugh, a twinkle in the eye, a giddy tapping of the foot: these are unconscious signs that men and women give of how they feel. Analyzing men and women appropriately will require taking a basic understanding of human behavior and using it to interpret the things that people say and do.
Non-verbal Communication
Non-verbal communication refers to the little clues that others give us that convey important information to us outside of language. Human beings are social animals, which means that we evolved in settings where we were generally in close proximity to one another rather than alone. For this reason, we developed the ability to perceive and to interpret the signals that others send us that indicate their emotional state, thoughts, and motivations.
It is easy to pay attention to words when we are attempting to analyze others, but because language is not always an accurate indication of how people feel it is important to also pay attention to the non-verbal cues that others send. These cues can include facial expression, body distance, the position of hands, quick movements of the hands or the feet, and the like. These non-verbal cues are not specific to human beings. Non-human primates are excellent examples of how animal societies can be built without speech. From bearing of teeth to the position of the tail, apes have a language comprised entirely of non-verbal cues.
Differentiating Fake from Real Emotion
Analyzing others accurately will require developing the ability to distinguish true sentiment from a false one. Human beings know that others are observing and interpreting them, at least the intelligent ones do, so they have become adept at hiding how they feel. A common example of this is someone who smiles even though they are not happy, but this hiding of emotion can mean appearing to be angry when one is really hurt or vulnerable. Human beings wear masks to protect themselves, as you must if you plan on defending yourself from practitioners of dark psychology. But protecting yourself also means analyzing people appropriately, and this means determining which emotions are real and which are not.
The practitioner of dark psychological tactics perceives you as prey so they are paying very close attention to your words, actions, non-verbal cues: essentially anything that indicates what’s going on inside. You may put up a wall to make your emotions more difficult for the predator to access, but most likely you will say or do something to reveal the truth. This is just as true of the predator as it is of you, the prey. They can put on a façade of smiles and pleasantries, but sometimes all it takes is one fierce look to reveal that their intentions are not so friendly.
We see this all the time in films and television shows. The new neighbor seems nice, but just when your back is turned the camera shot reveals their subtle change in expression. They are not so neighborly. Their goal is to steal your husband and wreak havoc in your life (in the case of the standard Lifetime Original Movie). To protect yourself, you need to use your understanding of human nature and your ability to analyze to figure out what is really going on. Is there a discrepancy between the surface emotion and the events taking place? Perhaps the other person is smiling, but you heard that they lost their house and are short of funds. Would most people be so giddy in this situation?
An important part of distinguishing real from fake emotion is deciding whether the surface or “fake” emotion makes sense given what you know. Also, there is a useful expression here. “When people show you who they are, believe them.” Human beings are good at being emotionally aware by dint of being so communal. A person can hide what they feel, but it may only take a brief glimmer of real emotion for you to establish the rule of what is real in this person and what is not. When the other person drops their mask for a second, make a note of what the real person beneath looks like.
Tips to Identify A Liar
Anyone who has spent time around a pathological liar knows that there are little tricks that can be used to tell when they are fibbing. Pathological liars are often highly sociable people who love to talk and always have something to say. It is this always having something to say that gets them into trouble. If you are suspicious that the person you are speaking to is a pathological liar, pay attention to the factual aspects of the things they say. This will become natural in time as you become aware the person is lying. You will simply make a mental note about facts like a specific monetary amount of something, a date, or the name of a restaurant because you know these things may potentially be false.
Paying close attention to the details is the first step in identifying a liar, and the second is knowing when to face the liar with the facts. It may not be a good idea to confront them pointedly as you may decide it is better that they did not know that you are onto them. If they said they went to a particular restaurant, ask them what they had to eat. Baked chicken and mixed vegetable stir fry. Later or the next day asks them how was the steak. If they say it was wonderful when you have caught them. They did not go to the restaurant at all. A pathological liar tells so many lies that they cannot keep track of them.
Chapter 7: How to Read Body Language
Reading body language is essential in the study of dark psychology as the cues that men and women send with their body can be indicative of an internal state that would otherwise be unknown to the person interacting with them. For example, we have discussed that human beings wear a mask, and sometimes it is the clues that people send with their body language that reveals what lies beneath that mask. It is important to be perceptive of these cues as they can alert you to such things as interest or danger, or the narcissist can use their own understanding of your subconscious cues against you.
An exhaustive list of all the body language cues that men and women send would make up a book onto itself so here we focus on the areas that readers can focus on as being particularly useful or important. First, the areas of the body that can send cues will be listed, and this will be followed by significant examples of body language is indicative of a specific internal state. Folding of the arms most people realize is generally indicative of irritation or lack of interest, but many cues are more subtle than that.
Here are the parts of the body that are important in conveying information in the form of body language:
Eyes
Lips (smile or frown)
Hands
Arms
Feet
Tongue
Teeth
Hair (especially in relation to hands and fingers)
It should come as no surprise that many of these areas of important body language clues are on the face. The parts of the face are associated wi
th emotion and intimacy in human beings so these areas are critical to pay attention to in terms of cues. Many of the most telling body language cues involve the face. Some of the more important ones are listed subsequently.
Frequent touching by the other person may indicate possession or a desire to manipulate
A person frequently touching you with their hand may be indicative of a desire to manipulate you, or it may indicate a perception of possession. We often think of touching by someone we are not involved with as indicating romantic interest, but it really suggests that the other person is acting on a motivation either to influence you in some way or to possess you. Touching a stranger, or someone else you are not close with, is very revealing and people who do this want you to be aware of this clue. But it is important to be suspicious of what their real motives are as this behavior directed toward a stranger is quite forward.
Physical distance can indicate like or dislike
A body language clue that some overlook is physical distance. Just as some may stand close to you because they feel comfortable with you or are interested in you, so too might someone mark a distance between you and them as a sign that they are not overly fond of you or feel uncomfortable. This clue can also be interpreted as representing vulnerability as someone who dislikes you, but is confident may not feel the need to mark such a distance.