The Truth About Hypnosis And Seduction

In my article "The Truth about PUA" I explained how effective the techniques of pick-up artists were.

There are actually many PUA gurus but so many elements tend to appear again and again that it seemed fair to lump all the different advice together and treat it as if it were a cohesive body of work. Mostly these techniques work on principles of female psychology and social dynamics and conditioning.

The one element of PUA that is distinct from this is the application of what might be termed "hypnotic" techniques, more accurately techniques that evolve from the related discipline of Neuro-Lingustic Programming. This really deserves separate treatment.

This approach is most closely associated with Ross Jeffries, arguably the first modern pick-up artist guru. Jeffries methods are still popular, though have been overtaken somewhat by the social conditioning school associated with PUA practioners such as Mystery and Neil Strauss.

In a way this is unfortunate because there is a lot that is interesting about this approach. Despite the disturbing svengali overtones involved in combining the words "seduction" and "hypnosis", the approach mostly involves taking into a women into a comforting state of consciouness where pleasure is amplified and she wants to be seduced.

As hypnotists generally acknowledge, it is impossible to do this against someone's will. However, if a woman is ambivalent or unsure about a man's advances, or simply in a bad mood, these techniques can be very useful.

Where NLP-based seduction methods tend to be unpopular is that they often involve weird opening lines that new PUA's often have difficulty with. The goal is to bring about a sense of familiarity, comfort and pleasure to the women but this can make for some rather odd sentences. In my opinion, these lines are better used after a conversational gambit along the lines of those recommend by the social conditional school.

For example, telling a woman that you feel like you've known her for years, delivered as if you really mean it (and in some cases you may really do), can be a powerful bonding phrase.Done just right it creates an illusion of a shared history that can dramatically escalate romance. But it is very difficult to do this as an opening gambit because it is just not credible without some kind of interaction. Similarly, asking a girl if she takes a shower or bath, the goal being to make her think of a warm pleasurable sensation, can easily come off as plain creepy when delivered by a neophyte.

However, in mid-game hypnotic techniques can become quite powerful. Even PUA's who come from the social conditioning school tend to use a few NLP techniques. There is nothing really mystical about this when you think it through, it is just common sense, that in order to be in the right frame of mind to be seduced you need to take the girl into a receptive mental state free of worry and concern and focused on her own pleasure.

Some aspects of these methods are dubious however. I'll deal with two concepts I have enormous problems with:-

1) Mirroring -The technique of copying someone's body language in order that they like you. This is not so much a pick-up technique as a piece of NLP advice for virtually every social interaction you'll encounter, however it is often recommended to be used in seduction. It is astonishing how often this advice appears in populist books and publications given that there is absolutely no evidence that it works at all. Sure, close friends and lovers tend to mirror each other's body language. But that does NOT mean mirroring body language will turn somebody into your friend or your lover. It is putting the cart before the horse. I have attempted to use mirroring on numerous occasions and it has never to my knowledge made any kind of noticeable difference. No scientific study exists to support the notion that mirroring techniques make you more likeable or attractive.

2) Embedded commands - These are hidden phrases designed to extert a subliminal influence on the person you are talking to. For example "Don't think of a black cat" makes you think of a black cat because it contains the command "think of a black cat".

While it is undeniable that embedded commands can be effective when it comes to seduction I believe the concept is often applied poorly. For example a well-known and much derided embedded command contains the phrase "I don't know if this feeling is coming from above or blow me"-the idea being that the girl consciously interprets the "blow" as "below" but subconsciously starts to want to perform a sexual act on the guy.

I find it difficult to believe this would work. I think that in 99.9% of cases the word "blow" would simply bypass both subsconscious and unconscious. Moreover this command is preceded by a long and meandering speech designed to hide the embedded command which makes you sound like a bit of a fruitcake.

There is definitely something to making the girl think sexually without consciously using sexual terms, however, embedded commands are percentage moves not mind-control techniques.

A final point about the discipline of NLP itself that these seduction methods are derived from: NLP may sound scientific but it has only a tenuous basis in the scientific method itself. Many of its techniques have not stood up under scrutiny. Famed Mentalist Derren Brown's "Tricks of the Mind" contains a detailed expose of the flaws in NLP and the dubious practices of its gurus.

In summary: To some extent, yes, hypnotic seduction techniques can help you seduce women. However, it takes intelligence and practice to make the concepts work for you, and it will not create magic life-changing results. You will, however, be able to gain a significant advantage over the average guy if you learn and incorporate the theories into your dating game.