Is Barack Obama a brilliant orator, captivating millions through his eloquence? Or is he deliberately using the techniques of neurolinguistic programming (NLP), a covert form of hypnosis developed by Milton Erickson, M.D.?
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.
Techniques of trance induction include extra slow speech, rhythm, tonalities, vagueness, visual imagery, metaphor, and raising of emotion. Hypnotists often have patients count. In a speech after the primaries closed, Obama said: “Sixteen months have passed (paused)…Thousands (pause) of miles…(pause)…Millions of voices….”
Hypnotists call this a distraction technique: sending the dominant hemisphere on an assignment involving linguistic processes, thus opening the nondominant hemisphere to suggestion.
Hand gestures can be used as hypnotic anchors, or to aid in hypnotic command implantation. They can be difficult to distinguish from innocent gestures used for emphasis. Obama, however, uses some gestures extraordinarily often and for very specific words such as “believe” and “chose.” His characteristic thumb-and-forefinger gesture looks like a hand holding a pencil—as if you were in a voting booth. The gesture of pointing sends the subconscious message that a person in authority is giving a command.
Obama actually said at one time: “a light will shine down from somewhere, it will light upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will say to yourself, ‘I have to vote for Barack.’”
You will not choose to vote for Barack: you will “have to.” It is not a logical choice, but rather one directed by a mystical (subconscious) force. What purpose would a politician have for making such a statement? Obama used it only once. Perhaps he stopped either because he realized it was too obvious or because Hillary Clinton and John McCain ridiculed him for it.
Obama’s logo is noteworthy. It is always there, a small one in the middle of the podium, providing a point of visual fixation. Unlike other presidential logos, one looks through it, not at it. It might just be the letter “O,” but it also resembles a crystal ball, a favorite of hypnotists.
Obama is clearly having a powerful effect on people, especially young people and highly educated people—both considered to be especially susceptible to hypnosis. It is also interesting that many Jews are supporting a candidate who is endorsed by Hamas, Farakhan, Khalidi, and Iran.
While some believe that hypnosis is not real, others believe that it is very powerful, and very dangerous in the wrong hands. Dr. Erickson, father of modern hypnosis, was adamant that his techniques should only be used by physicians. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Leyra v. Denno that a confession obtained using hypnosis could not be used against the suspect in court.
A 66-page, extensively footnoted but unsigned article “An Examination of Obama’s Use of Hidden Hypnosis Techniques in His Speeches” is available at: http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Find-Freedom.htm?At=039963&From=News
The discussion should have broad applicability in analyzing political speech in general. Comments by those with knowledge of hypnotic techniques are especially welcome.
Additional information:
You should hear yourselves – you all really sound nuts! You all seem very afraid…typical of conservatives i suppose…always gotta have a great dark fear lurking somewhere in your collective psyche – i understand that it is the only way you can morally justify your actions as selfish small-minded people.
[...] control” like that employed by the East German secret police. An article on the AAPS website speculated that Barack Obama may have won the presidency by hypnotizing voters, especially cohorts known to be [...]
I just saw this on the Rachael Maddow show. Man what a joke.
A-HAHAHAHAHA
A-HAHAHAHAHAHA
BAAAAA-HAHAHAHAHA
(wipes tear from eye)
Yup, you guys are nuts, all right, to paint a good orator as a dastardly operator trying to “hypnotize” all who listen. But given the [lack of] quality in *your* “preznit” – W – and his many, many speech gaffes, I suppose a good orator is a shock to the right-wingnuts.
You people are hilarious!! The Obama logo… is a crystal ball!! I haven’t laughed that loud since the last time I watched the Laural and Hardy!! What is really really scary is not Obama and his crystal ball but the fact …. you people went to medical school! and you are treating patients!!
You are right on the money. I also host a conservative radio and TV talk show. I have been preaching that Obama was using hypnosis and nlp repeatedly. I even tried to reach the McCain camp to even the playing field but they ignored my attempts. I said McCain doesn’t have a chance against this type of campaign. Bill Clinton did the same thing when he ran against George Bush. PS I own one of the most successful hypnosis practices in the US and I also own a hypnosis training school and travel and speak on these issues.
Who wrote this garbage? I want to know their name. If it was a surgeon or a physician, potential patients should be able to know they are dealing with a nut job. Or worse someone who deliberately writes stories they know to be false in an attempt to scare the simple minded.
Is this a serious claim? Should I laugh because this is an obvious joke and is actually a comedy script or should I cry because there is more then 1 person who legitimately believes these claims.
You people are DOCTORS???? Bull! Typical right wing, nut job crazy rantings.
Oh…wait…I get it. This is a new comedy routine you’re trying out, right?
Aren’t those just rhetorical techniques every politician uses? I find it hard to believe that a organization of health care PROFESSIONALS could even consider putting this garbage on their site. I also love the shameless plug by robert saviola. I’m sure the guys in AAPS who somehow got a medical degree would buy into your hypnosis scam.
LOL! Are you freaking kidding me? You people need your heads checked–STAT.
But thanks for a good laugh…always appreciated.
This is the type of dismissible dribble that usually gets diverted to my spam tank! To imagine for a moment, that this may hold even the slightest of legitimacy for even one elected representative is sadly an indication of how far we’ve drifted from the reasoned principles on which we are supposed to stand. I hope these sour grapes will land firmly in the spam folder once real health care reform is passed and we can all become the beneficiaries of a good bill.
Your are NUTS! Seriously, NUTS!
Am I reading The Onion?
Either this is a joke, or you guys are batsh*t crazy.
Get a grip!
I AM A RIGHT WINGER
I am a right winger. I have been Hannitized. I have been anointed by the holy water from Limbaugh. I am Beckoned into their dark den of despair, cynicism and pessimism. I am lulled, mired, then I am led by my baser instincts. My world is drenched in hostility, anger, hatred and raw racism.
Distortion and delusion are my constant companions. I react. I respond. I regurgitate. I parrot sentence by sentence, phrase by phrase, word for word, letter by letter, never deviating from the paranoid propaganda from my mentors of hate, the disciples of deception.
I eagerly lap at every drop of the verbal puss flowing steadily from their mouths, with each wet morsel of malcontent tainted by a poison far worse than any known physical toxin. Their evil pierces through any physical barriers controlling those whose awareness is even behind primitive man.
React. Flight or fight. It’s us or them. Yes, if you’re not with us, you’re against us. Enemies give me purpose, even if no enemies exist. I have an unquenchable thirst to live my life within the confining, yet safe walls of profound ignorance, fear, delusion and hatred. These four walls separate me from the reality beyond. My head constantly filled by words spewing forth from Hannity, Limbaugh and Beck. We share a lovefest of hate. They are my radio gods. They shape my being. I am a conservative.
\Copyright 2009, LSR, All Rights Reserved
Wow, whoever wrote this is a total scumbag idiot, there’s absolutely no way a real doctor would write this… It’s really just corporately funded propaganda, and the whole AAPS organization is clearly nothing but an arm for insurance industry.
Ed, what is scary are all these are fake groups pretending to be doctors, nurses and people who actually contribute to the lives of other. The people who run this site are insurance mouthpieces. They are getting paid a tremendous amount of money to distort, deceive and destroy. They couldn’t care less about human beings or any ’cause’. All they care about is spreading their propaganda to the illiterate, ignorant and very gullible, knowing they can continue to dupe these people with deceptive, slick front groups like this one.
I am a certified hypnotherapist. Check into your facts, guys. NLP was nothing to do with Milton Erickson but was developed by Bandler and Grinder in the 1970’s. All politicians, and even all salespeople, lawyers, educators and presenters do use hypnotic techniques to persuade people of their arguments, every commercial you see on the television is attempting to hypnotize you into buying their product, there’s absolutely nothing shameful, strange or scary about it.
You cannot control another person’s subconscious mind, no matter how suggestible they are, and you cannot make somebody do something they really don’t want to do (otherwise, I would absolutely hypnotize my boss into giving me a raise, wouldn’t I?) So everybody who voted for Obama – you’ll have to face this, sore losers – really wanted to vote for him because they thought he was the best choice. The right wingers are just jealous because Obama has wonderful oratorical skills and they don’t have anybody who comes close in terms of talent or intellect.
You are a waste of life.
I was noticing after reading this how very much the lowercase b in Obama’s name resembles a thumbs-up. Surely he chose this surname to further his attempts to subconsciously encourage us!
You should always ignore the content of any story that begins with a bold faced lie. Any child with a PC and access to Google can look up the factual origins of NLP and who it was THAT developed it. In this article though they feel not only the need to lie about how NLP came to be but what it is and what it’s used for.
Here’s some factual info on NLP.
“Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) is an unwieldy name for an unusual field of study that is – or was – about the structure of subjective experience. What do we do inside our mind and body that creates our experience of the world? And, by extension, what can we do to influence other people’s experience of the world?”
“The field originally grew out of a small study group at the University of California in the 1970s. The key players were a mathematician, Richard Bandler, and a linguistics professor, Dr John Grinder. They began building “models” of how they and others thought, behaved and communicated. They “modelled” the legendary hypnotherapist and father of Ericksonian Hypnosis, Milton H Erickson; the pioneering family therapist, Virginia Satir; and the founder of Gestalt Therapy, Fritz Perls. Non-therapists included some very successful sales people and negotiators, as well as many “ordinary people” who had made changes in their own life. The Phobia Project, for example, involved Richard Bandler modelling a whole series of volunteers who used to have a phobia and no longer had it. He was interested in what they had done to “lose” their phobia, and he found they had all done more-or-less the same thing. Once he had a model of that, he taught it to others and demonstrated that anyone could do the same thing at a structural level and get the same results.”
wow. what a good article. but what is odd is that even this article has subdominate statements that connect to dominant lead words through “and” and “as” and “the.” Oh no. Obama’s crystal balls got you too! Ban all conjunctions!!! Barackcracy is in your computer!!!
I am both a certified hypnotherapist AND a Master Practitioner of NLP.
Carmen is absolutely right about all her points on the subconscious mind. I will point out that Bandler and Grinder did spend time with Erickson and did model him, and that Ericksonian concepts are a significant component of NLP. That said, if Obama was hypnotising everyone to vote for him, how come he didn’t win unanimously? Why is it that, somehow, the author of the piece was able to not be hypnotized?
There is a presupposition that there is something wrong or illegal about NLP. If the article was about Reagan, and it was found that Reagan used NLP, the author would be falling all over himself — or herself — telling us how great Reagan was for using these tools to communicate so effectively.
Face it: you lost. Get over it.
ok guys,
it was 120 am carmen, your brain was not fully functioning. A large piece of NLP was modeled from Milton. obviously your a part-time hypnotherapist. Maybe your not that good, nor do you understand models of linguistic change. Obama (giving a speech, not just having a conversation) was and is masterful at using language, persuasion and systems to communicate. I am a trainer in nlp and own hypnosis clinics. robert saviola is correct on obama, Yes the conservative are pushing their point and attacking him. Actually Ronald reagan was the first to begin using the patterns effectively clinton was masterful at these techniques, bush was not that good, he was dumb like a fox,direct, clear conviction and lied to the point of impeachment(wmd??? Where?)obama has a god-like personafication in his actions and language, people have him on such a pedastal(like he’s the great hope) and are blinded by this to their and all of our detriment. He is screwing our country financially and selling out our future to the greater world, now bush was also doing this, he just did it his way. They are pulling a great con trick, create sides, let people fight over trivialities and then pick their pockets, and enslave them slowly while they fight. also Does it really matter who wins dancing with the stars? many of your problems is that most of you are wasting your time fighting each other and missing the big point. YOUR BEING SUBJEGATED. losing your rights and freedoms. Maybe some of you would like that, I realize their intention is somewhat good, they feel they know best for you and are willing to run your lives, but really did you two sides ever take a step back and really take a look at what they are BOTH doing. I love my country and what it stands for not what they think is right because of their misguided thoughts and emotionally driven agendas!
Study enough history and you will know this to be true!!!!
Great job of parodying yourselves right wing “doctors”. I agree, this seems more like The Onion than a real medical journal.
I agree that the guy who wrote this (if he really is a doctor) should put his name out there so his patients can learn how much of a nut he is.
Talk about paranoid delusion. If Obama “hypnotized” people into voting for him why are conservatives so against him? Do conservatives honestly believe that they have superior faculties to everyone else that allows them to avoid being hypnotized? Give me a break. Conservatives used to offer a balance to liberals. What caused them to spiral into a a mere collection of delusional narcissists?
I am simply stunned by the total lack of reason displayed in this article.
Really? If I authored such an article I wouldn’t put my name on it either…
This is bull
Hi there, I have just now come across this site whilst I’m searching around Google as I’m searching for some information on hypnotherapy and EFT. It’s an interesting blog so I’ve bookmarked you and will come back tomorrow to enjoy a more detailed look when I have more time.
Found this while (unfortunately) browsing Conservapedia. This is in the entry regarding Barack Obama. Both their entry and this article are among the best examples of delusion-driven paranoia I’ve seen in a long time.
NLP this is the Tony Robbins stuff. maybe obama has the personal power program from one of Tony’s infomercials.
this is also very scary powerful techniques when you dig deeper than the personal power program. the manipulation of individuals using NLP is awsome. go to one of tony’s seminars
easy fix is to turn off you tv’s
This article equates Barack Obama’s speaking abilities, which are considerable, to his ability to hypnotize large groups of people. The charges it makes- that the use of hand gestures and speaking in a pace are deceptive examples of mind control- are absolutely ridiculous. I imagine that the author of this article speaks in a pace and does not arbitrarily begin to speak faster or slower during conversations. I imagine that he even occasionally gestures while he is talking. That is not because he is using mind control, that is because he is able to competently communicate with other humans. The phrases he points to as disingenuous can be found in the speeches of every candidate for president in the past century.
Nothing this article says is valid, and given the link to the equally unfounded charge that the President is not a citizen, it’s clear that it’s motivation was totally political and doesn’t contain an iota of factual evidence or logical cogency.
Yeah, it’s almost like he was trying to persuade us of something when he gave those speeches. Like he was trying to convince us that he was a good candidate for president, or… It’s like his word choices, logo, and campaign were an attempt to influence the way we voted… dear lord!! I’ve finally woken up, it was all a scam! I can’t believe I didn’t vote for the people who have a completely different ideology than mine!
At least he never did that stupid blinking/smiling thing that Nixon did.
Oh man… and here I thought Christmas was over. Thanks for the good laugh, AAPS!
[...] Do you remember presidential candidate Obama saying that in 2008? Sure sounds like a post-hypnotic suggestion, doesn’t it? For that matter, there is an article on the website of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, dated October 25, 2008, on precisely this. (CLICK HERE) [...]
[...] to a summary of the paper on the website of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, the hypnotist’s main objective is to bypass the listener’s critical faculty with [...]
It amazes me to see how most people don’t believe in hypnosis, brainwashing and mass manipulation and that it can’t happen to them. Something is being left out of this equation though. None of it could have happened if the press hadn’t come under his “spell” and fawned all over him for months. Uh oh, I smell conspiracy.