Althouse: "Is Barack Obama.... deliberately using the techniques of neurolinguistic programming (NLP), a covert form of hypnosis...?"

October 29, 2008

"Is Barack Obama.... deliberately using the techniques of neurolinguistic programming (NLP), a covert form of hypnosis...?"

"A fundamental tool of 'conversational hypnosis' is pacing and leading—a way for the hypnotist to bypass the listener’s critical faculty by associating repeated statements that are unquestionably accurate with the message he wants to convey."

That assertion is failing to bypass my critical faculty.

UPDATE: LOL! Rush Limbaugh is talking about this theory in the first segment of his show today.

24 comments:

TMink said...: NLP is a late 70s early 80s psychotherapy approach. It has no efficacy research supporting it and is generally considered another fad from that era.

Trey; 10/29/08, 8:40 AM
bleeper said...: It's certainly not his intelligence or experience that is making otherwise sensible people wet themselves. Hope he can pull that shit on Putin and the mad mullahs.; 10/29/08, 8:45 AM
Wince said...: More fun, break out you Beatles White Album, I came across this on YouTube.

Reverse Speech Technology with YES WE CAN

I like the "Related Video" link to Hitler's reverse speech -- in English!; 10/29/08, 8:52 AM
Fred4Pres said...: Obama is the undecided voter whisperer.; 10/29/08, 8:54 AM
George M. Spencer said...: Bookstores brim with titles about how to improve one's selling skills...how to listen to customers...
how to talk to them...what words to use...how to seem empathetic!...how to overcome objections. Trial lawyers, doctors, TV personalities, psychiatrists, and politicians are all trained to win people over by the use of body language, dress, and verbal techniques.

In any event, people hypnotize themselves. They're not forcibly overcome.

And with a charismatic figure, they project their wish fulfillments onto the surface he puts forward.

One man is young, elegant, and smooth tongued; the other is old, crippled, and tongue tied. How often are we deceived by a thing's seeming nature?; 10/29/08, 8:59 AM
Salamandyr said...: Honest truth, the man's voice bugs me. He sounds like a pedantic teenager (not unlike myself at that age). And honest truth, the more he talks, the less I think of him, so if he's using NLP, he's not doing a very good job of it.; 10/29/08, 9:03 AM
Anonymous said...: Is that the same thing as wishful thinking?; 10/29/08, 9:27 AM
New York said...: NLP ends up being an attempt to formally describe what charismatic speakers do naturally.

There is definitely something to the notion that Obama is messing with people's animal cortexes. I rarely watch or here him and what I read from him does not impress me in the least.; 10/29/08, 9:39 AM
TMink said...: The idea of "Something for Nothing" is very appealing to most of us. Some of us can spot the ruse and check our wallets. It looks like about 50% of us.

Trey; 10/29/08, 9:59 AM
ricpic said...: Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood.
--T.S. Eliot; 10/29/08, 10:33 AM
Anonymous said...: I don't think it's hypnosis, but compare the way he speaks now with the way he speaks in the NPR tape from 2001. He is totally different, and it must be purposeful.

He is now deliberately obtuse and in a lower register and slower (presidential?). He constantly uses words like "distraction" to avoid real speech now but chooses active verbs and complicated ideas in the tape.; 10/29/08, 10:37 AM
Christy said...: Many of us have had courses on public speaking, read books on how to influence people, etc. Few of us work hard to integrate it naturally into our communications. Obama has. Obama's one true accomplishment is his self.; 10/29/08, 11:15 AM
rhhardin said...: It works better if you have nice eyes.; 10/29/08, 12:38 PM
rhhardin said...: You can't fool all the people all the time, but if you can do it just once, it lasts four years.

- Roger Price; 10/29/08, 12:39 PM
Anonymous said...: Hah!; 10/29/08, 12:51 PM
Revenant said...: NLP is bunk. One might as well accuse Barack Obama of using witchcraft or homeopathic therapy.; 10/29/08, 1:33 PM
Anonymous said...: NLP is new age nonsense.

But then again, so is Obama.; 10/29/08, 3:27 PM
Hector Owen said...: Obama himself is doing the voter whispering (thanks Fred4Pres); it's the campaign wizards who lurk out of the spotlight casting the spells. After all, Obama is "amabo" (I shall love, in Latin) spelled backward, and that's halfway to a spell right there. Put it together with a picture or a chant, or as we can do now a moving picture and a chant that can be repeated endlessly, and that's some wicked witchcraft.; 10/29/08, 3:46 PM
Anonymous said...: I understand that some can get very emotive at election times, however, as a Christian Brit I find it very difficult to understand why so many of your countrymen wish to vote for a man who supports acts such as this!; 10/29/08, 4:32 PM
Roberto said...: bleeper: "It's certainly not his intelligence or experience..."

Oh, God no, it couldn't possibly be related to having new ideas or intelligence or respect.

He's got America..H-Y-P-N-O-T-I-Z-E-D.

DUH.; 10/29/08, 4:42 PM
Roberto said...: curly15...is that your I.Q.??; 10/29/08, 4:43 PM
Roberto said...: "You can't fool all the people all the time, but if you can do it just once, it lasts four years."

And sometimes...eight years.

G.W. Bush; 10/29/08, 4:45 PM
Revenant said...: I find it very difficult to understand why so many of your countrymen wish to vote for a man who supports acts such as this!

Well, almost all of the news and entertainment media they're exposed to are bursting with love for Obama.

So, small wonder people think he's Jesus (only better since he's not white or conservative).; 10/29/08, 8:05 PM
David Barrow said...: Obama clearly uses NLP and hypnotic language techniques in his speeches. I have studied both for over 20 years and have multiple certifications in both. There is a lengthy paper floating around that details the various instances of the specific techniques and is extensively footnoted and referenced. I can vouch for the references, because I own practically all of the books cited.

Many of the language patterns Obama uses are taken verbatim from some of these books. Apparently, it works very well for him, as evidenced by masses of people weeping tears of joy at his public events. I have also noticed that most followers can't talk specifically about any of his policies or what he has actually done so far as president. They will make up nice-sounding responses or get angry when questioned. This is classic behavior when confronting people "under the spell" of a post hypnotic suggestion: the subject will confabulate rationalized explanations for irrational behavior.

Anyone that takes the time to research these techniques will experience them being used by Obama at his speaking events. He is clearly trained to a high degree, as far as I can tell. I would like to know who trained him or which of his advisers have the extensive training that went into producing Obama's masterful use of these techniques on the public.; 11/15/12, 11:26 AM