Covert Hypnosis

Covert Hypnosis is a group of techniques for hypnotizing someone without their knowledge, and uses methods intended to subtly communicate with their subconscious mind without them being aware of it. The goal is influence them or change their behaviour.

A commonly used example of covert hypnosis is having someone feel they have fallen in love. Another example is a salesperson who might use this method to have their prospects believe they must purchase what is being sold.

Covert hypnosis uses carefully chosen words, body language, and facial expression to place and reinforce suggestion. It gets it's name because the techniques are meant to be "covert", or hidden. In the salesperson example above, a very slight frown or smile can communicate to the subconsious mind a sense that the buyer is or isn't making a good decision. The objective of this method is for the person to believe they have made their own decisions.

The concious or rational mind has built-in "filters" such as logic and reasoning that work as defense mechanisms against suggestion. This is why a magazine advertisement or television commercial doesn't immediately make everyone respond to it's message. Covert hypnosis works by interfering with, or shutting off a persons concious analytical mind.

Derren Brown from England calls himself a "psychological Illusionist", and is perhaps the most well-known practicioner today. His technique combines covert hypnosis with Neurolinguistic Programming, or "NLP". He has videotaped a number of his efforts and published them on Youtube. 

There are a number of Covert Hypnosis courses available online. The two most well-known are "Underground Hypnosis" and "Conversational Hypnosis".

Some experts in the field refer to this as "indirect hypnotism" because it doesn't require any acknowledgement or conscious effort from the part of the subject. It is for these reasons that some people use it in an effort to dominate the will of another.

Establishing an indirect connection to a person's subconcious through speech patterns and movement is also referred to as "covert conditioning" or "covert anchoring".

Covert hypnosis is really a form of mind control. Someone using this technique will be closely watching their subject, looking for subtle gestures to indicate what they are thinking. This is then used to help influence their thoughts and manipulate their decision-making process. To the untrained eye, it looks very much like "magic".

While some of this may at first seem far-fetched, these techniques and methods are being used all around us. Modern advertising leans heavily on the use of subtlety and subliminal messaging.

Covert hypnosis is very powerful, and as with so many things, can be used equally effectively for both good and nefarious purposes. There is very little defense against it.