In this episode of Word of Mouth Chris Ledgard considers the use of words to control minds, exploring hypnosis, brainwashing and the recruiting language of cults to find out just how influenced we are by language.
Chris is put into an altered state of consciousness by the soothing words of a hypnotherapist, to find out what kind of words are used to do this and how. Some in the medical profession are calling for hypnosis to be used for pain relief during medical procedures such as bone marrow transplantation and cancer treatment. They say that as hypnosis has no side effects it makes the operation quicker, the recovery faster and the cost less than with the use conventional anaesthetic. But does it really work, and if so, how? Chris talks to the scientists currently working on a systematic review to find out.
Can talk also be used to control and manipulate us into doing things that we would otherwise not do? Stories of people being indoctrinated into cults usually involve descriptions of brainwashing, corruption and manipulation. But are words really powerful enough to control the mind? Chris talks to an ex-cult member turned rhetorical theorist about how language is used.
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i don’t understand (yes slap me on the hand as i need to re-read tricks of the mind) but how can we not be hypnotised to do something we don’t want to do but – some things done under hypnosis – would the ppl really want to do them?
How would I know if I was following this blog of my own free will or if you’d somehow brain washed me to read it?
It works for some, for whatever reason. But def. not for all.
It’s your own mind who achieves it in the end, not the other one .. the other one is mainly there to guide you a bit .. at times it is more easy to get that type of guidance from the outside so that you can focus fully from that other state. Trust is a keyword .. But why would you want to trust someone else as yourself? At times there may be good reasons, but then again .. are you able to put that type of trust inside of yourself. Normal surviving is based on the opposite, by not letting people in that part of yourself.
I myself probably could try but would find myself mainly observing the other self of me. It’s really the self who decides, but the self’s state can be altered .. as it is with drugs, food, alcohol, sexual stimulation and such, so it will be with certain type of voices .. it’s your own body/mind that dopes you then .. we do have a dope center inside of ourself ..
But I more easily see myself slightly gigglish on the inside while being hypnotized in a private session .. as it is a almost surreal system you need to see to. Might change with age as well, your hypnotizeable qualities ..
I will listen this afternoon .. no sound on this pc ..
In reply to Tash:
In the book, DB makes a great example.. Andy Nyman gave a bite to an onion to see if he could eat it and he did, therefore he knew that if he could do that being fully awake, people would have done it under hypnosis…
Painless surgery under hypnosis… I personally believe that it’s just an other way to concentrate on something else… (and anyway no surgery is painless, it may just help with the disconfort). If I’m at the dentist, for example, I have my own way of feeling less pain, I just totally relaxed my body and concentrate on one point of the room or on a specific thought…
And in general, if you believe in something working, it usually works aso long as you genuinely believe in it.
I saw stage hypnosis once, it was amazing. All the guy did was tell people to do dumbass stuff and they did it. I know that was all it was, because we all had to sit and listen to the induction and I didn’t do anything more stupid than sitting through a stage hypnosis show. Also he openly admitted it to us.
I wish I could use this BBC iPlayer thing.
I have to say … these brittish voices .. they do work different on me … (they also make me smile all the time .. they def. dont trigger my normal brain pattern … the ones in the commercial brance are the worst … I almost start to sing with them … they are so over polite and have a high voice … we neantherthalers on this side of the pool dont have a clue why and what they are so cheered up about … and why they bow all the time (via the voice) …..
If I’d go to the same brain pattern system as I feel when I tune into the brittish voices … I feel like a gigling chick .. there is so much lack of body cells .. or .. erm .. sober brain?
So, no .. brittish hypnotizers need to use another tone of voice .. on me .. The way it is now .. I’d go into a whole other direction … I’d lie and babble and fantasize and amuse the hell out of me .. but wont buy any of it …
They do sound kinda nice though .. weird .. but nice. They dont depress me immediately .. which is the case with a lot of people here .. we tend to depress eachother with our sober psyches .. we do a little side steps now and then with complete lunacy ..
Ehem ..
My mouth also starts to do weird when I start to copy the brittish tone of voice .. and this feeling it gives on the inside …
Oh, now he gets a bit sharp in the voice … does not work either .. I start to like him already a bit less (I’m listenting to this bbc player now ..checking the hypnotizing qualities but have to say .. no chance … those voices are way too distracting .. uplifting for the main part .. but distracting .. it will take a while to enhance myself to my normal listening me again .. geeeezzz …
Now thats very interesting. Having just been invited to be tested to be a bone marrow donor, any chance Mr Brown could come and hypnotise the pain out of me first
xxx
You don’t need hypnotism to do brainwashing to be honest. You need propaganda, distortion of the truth, and the illusion of the self-fulfiling prophecy that blocks most skepticism.
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As a professionally qualified and registered Clinical Hypnotherapist of many years standing, I can tell you that if you are a private client undergoing therapy, you cannot/will not allow yourself to do anything within a hypnotic trance that you cannot/will not do in your ordinary, everyday life.
The people who do outrageous things during hypnosis stage shows do so because a) they CHOOSE to, b) there’s pressure on them from the audience and hypnotist to comply, and c) they’re probably somewhat drunk (and therefore uninhibited) anyway.
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There is always an element of control, and obedience. Slapping the sofa and demanding in a sterner voice he sit there, and the line ‘They have to follow a discipline – They do what we suggest they do’, the induction began there. He also places emphasis on certain words, with pauses, suggesting positive action. That was great, more like this Phillis please – Fanking you.
I wish this program had been longer- I would like to hear from some more “skeptics”.
Also, I got the impression that the last two interviewees believed very similar things (if not the exact same thing) about language and cults. I would have liked to hear more from both of them.
Thanks as always phillis!
If we were all deaf and blind we would have to follow who ever was leading us and hope they were taking us in the right direction. We still have choice in the matter but not much considering the options left to us being deaf and blind.
Because of that all human interaction in my opinion has a direct effect on our brain that either sits and waits for us to reject or comply, or automatically compels us to comply or reject.
Because of that all speech has the ability to lead us depending on how rigid our free will is or Idea of free will. Children follow blindly which mean they need to be protected. An adult who has never had to do anything for themselves also follows blindly.
The mechanisms that make us comply to a suggestion are many. The only question is how many does it take for you to fall under this suggestion.
People are convinced of the stupidest things everyday of their lives. Removing superstition and applying reasonable deduction seems to be our only ally. But nothing is certain. Nothing can be relied upon. Not even your own eyes and ears.
So beware… There are monsters and magicians all around us, ready to devour our souls.
I do think so that some words and sentences can make an impact on the other person and almost hypnotize him..
As I hypnotist I merely think of hypnosis as a mother of all suggestions but hypnosis in my opinion is just that a suggestion in which people are made to believe that they will follow other suggestions.
In my experience there are 3 things that make a suggestion work
1) There needs to be something to be gained by the receiver
2) It needs to plausible
3) You need to convince that what you are suggesting is going to happen *in hypnosis we convince people with ideomotor reactions, or physical phenomena (often dubbed quite wrongly trance phenomena) that occur when the body relaxes.
No if you would for instance want to cross a person’s (very unethical) norms and boundaries. It can be easily done by suggesting a person right before the threshold of that moral boundary. The thing is that recurring conditioning will actually shift that initial boundary.
You see this a lot in criminals. Most criminals start small and initially would never stab someone (at least that is their moral code in the beginning) but being on the edge so long their moral boundary shifted.
So you can more or less condition a person by only using suggestion (to get them to do what they think is still acceptable) but soon they will do a bit more and you can push them easily over that initial moral boundary (given time that is).
A study by the US Army has proven some scary things. During the Vietnam war pacifists were drafted, now they just let those pacifists carry the communication equipment or some other stuff completely unarmed and made them walk second to last or second. After several attacks these people were very quick to grab a weapon and kill without a thought. There the suggestion is easy: “No weapon, walk in ambush, nearly being killed…. Give me a GUN and I will KILL!”.
Now pain relieve in my opinion is an innate process that you can learn (up to a certain extend) when suggestion aka placebo works in this process great. But I would rather rely on a good old fashioned anesthetic.