Research

The Theory – Does Free Will Exist? Are we free as persons? Are we persons….

His audiences constantly ask after his performances: How does Vince Lynch believe the psyche/the brain/mental life functions?

““Suggestion provides the means of directing the subconscious phase of mind… A suggestion is accepted when it is not countered by other suggestions already established in the mind. If we can get the subconscious to accept an idea, realisation follows automatically” – Ormond Mc Gill

The truth is; there is no “Ultimate Body Language Technique” Or the “Ultimate Covert Hypnosis Influence Secret”. Without an FMRI scanner it will always be impossible to read minds. Any company that teaches you these things, without first explaining potentially how what they are teaching you would exist from a research perspective; is fraudulent as they are selling to you a product you know nothing about.

Vince despite being a skeptic of many things does believe in A ‘kind of Mind Control’ to be genuinely possible: and people can be caused to do/believe anything without their consent. Infact Vince believes he performs such consent-avoidance feats; Daily! See his videos for further proof of this

The way such a model of mind control exists according to Vince relies on four elements, these are:

1) you can cause people to imagine things without their prefrontal lobe being involved in the process

2) If they place their attention on you.

3) and ‘The Amount of Attention’ assigned to a given task is assigned by how ‘valuable’ the task is, to help ‘continue the existence’ of the organism.

4) Value is defined by Neo-classical Smithian economics.

That ultimately being a person is about the deterministic interplay between our ability to store probabilities that certain events will occur in the future in line with our previous experience; VS the impossibility of humans being able to compute such a complex task – and therefore relying on ‘quick fix’ economic-decisions. (Don’t worry He’ll explain)

This page isn’t here to prove to you anything. You can carry on believing what you like about psychology. However, I realize many of you may believe in a philosophy called Neuro-Linguistic-Programming (NLP) and if you read the research below you’ll find huge gaping flaws in pretty much every NLP assumption ever made. I hope as a performer, a lecturer, a therapist you have the honesty to your clientele not to sell to them programs that are 40 years out of date and scientifically disproven.

The reading below will take you a few weeks of solid reading around, but by the end of it, you will feel confident that your opinon of psychology is one that is widely supported by academia, and this will allow you to deliver more confident presentations on psychology whether it be in your therapy clinic, your performing stage show act, or your lecturing career.

The Research

Research implying that Anyone Can Be Hypnotized

Carleton Skills Training Program - http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1988-28583-001 - After hypnotizing a room of 100 people, with 10 people been the worst hypnotic subjects (unable to display any hypnotic characteristics) when delivered a four hour presentation on hypnosis. They proceed to become akin to the top 10% best hypnotic responders.

A good overarching review of the last 30 years of Hypnosis research can be found in The Oxford handbook of hypnosis: theory, research and practice By Michael R. Nash, Amanda J. Barnier. An online version can be found here http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=UfvUOTmnLl4C&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=oxford+handbook+hypnosis&ots=iZr-_rf0Jr&sig=JTVVB1Jd3PKT3P9q-eLGPv8GzS0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Research into Anchoring

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2727677/

http://users.ugent.be/~jdhouwer/lbinvited.pdf

https://catspaw.its.queensu.ca/bitstream/1974/5428/1/Petropoulos_Apostolia_201002_MSc.pdf

http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/bodenhausen/GBPB06a.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_Association_Test

Our behaviors/attitudes are carried out automatically regardless of prefrontal-executive control

“The conscious decision to push the button was made about a second before the actual act, but the team discovered that a pattern of brain activity seemed to predict that decision by as many as seven seconds. Long before the subjects were even aware of making a choice, it seems, their brains had already decided.”

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110831/full/477023a.html#B1

http://cogprints.org/3382/1/Cogprints_PRECONSCIOUS_FREE_WILL.htm

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/isneuroscience- the-death-of-free-will/

The conscious feeling of exercising free-will is fundamental to our sense of self. However, in some
psychopathological conditions actions may be experienced as involuntary or unwilled. We have used
suggestion in hypnosis to create the experience of involuntariness (anomalous control) in normal participants.
We compared a voluntary finger movement, a passive movement and a voluntary movement suggested
by hypnosis to be involuntary. Hypnosis itself had no effect on the subjective experience of
voluntariness associated with willed movements and passive movements... The experience of
anomalous control is qualitatively and quantitatively different from the normal conscious experience of a
similar act produced intentionally. The experience of anomalous control may be produced either by
pathology, or, in our case, by suggestion. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810004000509

Research into Cognitive Priming

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priming_(psychology)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroop_test

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_stroop_test

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_Association_Test

Research showing the visual cortext is identical for dreams/hallucinations/seeing/imagining

“An Imagination is indistinguishable from an hallucination except the cognitive executive control knows its imagining”

FMRI can see the images people see in their Visual Cortext (NLP ?)

http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/09/22/brain-movies/ - Scientists can use FMRI scannners in order to watch what your imagining.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2950040/ - “Coma Patients can perform complex imaginative tasks regardless of their executive control being destroyed.”

Meta-Analysis of the 9 Main cognitive models prevalent in this decade.

In the year 2000 researchers Smith and DeCoster began a systematic comparison of the nine predominant models of
mental life, and compared and contrasted their similarities and differences; they found they on the whole shared the concept of two distinctive systems of the psyche. From this they draw a number of diagrams to further explain their points.

https://www.uniwuerzburg.de/fileadmin/uniwue/_temp_/02strack_und_deutsch.pdf (Images are from this source: see page 222)

In other-words all the time you are weighing the pro’s (positive feelings) and (negative
feelings) in the immediate short term, and long term planning of goals; and all these
emotional-states conflict with one another; eventually resulting in an overall state. That
often conflicting imaginative-states are triggered, but stronger ones gain selective
advantage over weaker ones.

With each ‘‘thought’’ brought to working memory, the strength of the somatic state
triggered by this ‘‘thought’’ determines whether the same ‘‘thought’’ is likely to recur (i.e.
will be brought back to memory so that it triggers another somatic state that reinforces the
previous one), or whether the ‘‘thought’’ is likely to be eliminated. Thus over the course of
pondering a decision, positive and negative somatic markers that are strong are reinforced,
while weak ones are eliminated. This process of elimination can be very fast. Ultimately, a
winner takes all; an overall, more dominant, somatic state emerges (a ‘‘gut feeling’’ or ‘‘a
hunch’’ so to speak) (Burns and Berchara (p265, 2007) (Accessed from http://psych.umb.edu/faculty/kaldy/courses/psy641/pdfs/Burns_Bechara.pdf)

https://www.uniwuerzburg.de/fileadmin/uniwue/_temp_/02strack_und_deutsch.pdf, p222

Research into Cold Executive Control

http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home/Zoltan_Dienes/cold%20control%20chapter.pdf - “The Prefrontal lobe is unnecessary for imagining” and “other people can cause your impulsive system to recall associations automatically”

Research into Suggestion

“Suggestion; is the word we use when someone causes us to see, hear, or feel something by merely bringing it to mind. For example, the question “Do you now feel a slight numbness in your left leg?” always prompts quite a few people to report that their left leg does indeed
feel a little strange.” – (Noble Prize Winner; Daniel Kahnemann 2011; p120) the concept of suggestion is no longer obscure: suggestion is a priming effect, which selectively evokes compatible evidence.

Kirsch, 2003: Kihlstrom) Unlike placebos, misleading question and other forms of indirect suggestion, hypnotic suggestions are requests for imaginative experiences, and for that reason they can also be termed imaginative suggestions (Braffman and Kirsche, 1999) They are suggestions for changes in experience independent of any changes in the world. When placebo’s are given recipients are led to believe that the pill contains an active substance that it does not infact contain. Leading questions imply that something that did not happen has in fact occured. In contrast hypnotic suggestions are not aimed at convincing the subject that something external is different from what it actually is. (p112, Oxford Handbook of Hypnosis: Research, Theory and Practice)

Research showing hypnosis isn’t a state

Instead of hypnotism being considered the induction of a trance state. “Hypnotic responding is widely considered an ability. In that sense, it is similar to the ability to solve mathematical probelms or accomplish other cognitive tasks.

One does not infer that people are in a mathematical state when they succeed in solving difficult probelms or that they are in an intelligent state if they score well on an IQ test. Olympic jumpers are not in jumping states, and good typists do not have to enter typing states beforee they can type successfully. The poetry of shakespeare, the symphonies of Beethoven, the Landscapes of Cezanne and the sculpture and archiecture of Michelangelo can produce profound and compelling emotional experiences in aesthetically sensitive people.

They do so without prior induction of an aesthetic trance, and we do not infer that there is an aesthetic state which is a neccessary precursor for those experiences. For the same reason, one cannot logically infer the presence of a trance state from successful hypnotic responding. (p112, The Oxford handbook of hypnosis: theory, research and practice By Michael R. Nash, Amanda J. Barnier) (Web link: (http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=UfvUOTmnLl4C&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=oxford+handbook+hypnosis&ots=iZr-_rf0Jr&sig=JTVVB1Jd3PKT3P9q-eLGPv8GzS0#v=onepage&q=induction&f=false)

Research showing hypnotic induction isn’t required

“It is important to recognize that the hypnotic induction procedure ddoes not simply

enhance attentional capacities, as some aspects of attention such as the likage between conflict monitoring and cognitive control processes appear to be weakagened.

That is to say “Apart from changes such as physical relaxation, mental calming, attentional absorption and a reduction in spontaneous conceptual thought that are associated with the experiential state of hypnotic state “trance” (that is to say the experience of trance isn’t an experience its just a feeling).. the feeling of being hypnotized the only fundamental chance in mental processing that has been demostrated so far from neuro-imagining studies as a consequence of hypnotic induction procedure is the apparently spontaneous disconnection of conflict monitoring and cognitive control described by Egner et al (2005). PAGE 388 in Oxford Handbook of Hypnosis: Theory, Research and Practice. (http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=UfvUOTmnLl4C&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=oxford+handbook+hypnosis&ots=iZr-_rf0Jr&sig=JTVVB1Jd3PKT3P9q-eLGPv8GzS0#v=onepage&q=induction&f=false)

“It has not been show than relaxation is a core component of hypnosis per se”

“In 1933 Hull showed that the hypnotic induction produced only small gains in hypnotic responding.
In discussing his research he noted “No phenomenon whatever can be produced in hypnosis that cannot be proceduced to lesser degrees by suggestions given in the normal waking condition (Hull, 1933, p. 391)” (cited from p112; The Oxford handbook of hypnosis: theory, research and practice By Michael R. Nash, Amanda J. Barnier)
“From a social-cognitive perspective, the experience of being in a trance is merely a response to suggestion, just like all of the other responses to suggestion that occur during hypnosis. Researchers such as Kirsche; 1993 and Hilgard (1973) have endorsed this proposal that the domain of hypnosis can be defined without reference to the induction of an altered state. If this were accepted, the distinction between waking suggestibility and hypnotic suggestibility would disappear. “ (cited from p112; The Oxford handbook of hypnosis: theory, research and practice By Michael R. Nash, Amanda J. Barnier)

Research showing an expectation makes no difference to hypnotizability.

The expectation can remove the awareness of intending and thus leave the person believing the imagined object is real. But without the intention there would be no hallucination, even with the expectation of hallucination. Accounts that postulate a direct effect of expectation on first-order states rather than second order states (e.g. Kirsch, 1991) have difficulty explaining why a 100 percent expectation to see an object rarely leads to seeing that object in normal clear viewing conditionis but a less than 100 percent expectation in a hypnotic context may produce an hallucination (p151, M. Nash, Barnier, 2008)

Research showing that hypnotic subjects break morals and values

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Estabrooks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

————– Social Factors ———————————

Research showing the more attention placed on a given stimulus causes dramatically more priming

In one study, a four digit number was wrote on a post-it-note attached to a questionnaire.
participants were asked to write it down into their candidate number for the questionnaire
before completing the paper.
During the questionnaire one question asked “Please estimate how many doctors you
expect there to be in the local phone book” even though, their candidate number was
unrelated doctors, or phone books, higher candidate numbers caused significantly more
participants to write higher estimates.
Later when they modified the study to make participants pay attention to the candidate
number. The extra second of attention on the number increased the correlation to be three
times as close to the candidate number (Wilson et al; 1996)

Research showing economic supply and demand dictates where attention is assigned.

Many may think? What use does economics have for solving the problem of human
rationality?
But Nobel Prize Winner Herbert Simon, states “Psychological theories of ‘intuitive thinking
cannot match the elegance and precision of formal normative models of belief and choice…
rational models of psychology are unrealistic” (American Economic Review, Vol 93, No. 5
(Dec, 2003). that is to say, he has shown economics to be a more predictive a model of
forecasting human behaviour than other social sciences.

“According to a Economic model the term ‘Decision’ is simply an inductive way of analysing
information from a agent-environment perspective. There is a whole host of debate that
occurs when you reduce human thought down to experiences that are entirely circumstance
dependent, i.e. the economics of the circumstance dictate the selected decision. *16+ this
makes it a behaviourist theory because it focuses on behaviour and ignores “thoughts,
feelings, and other internal events” it believes that these are “not part of the causes of
action. They are actions, to be explained in turn. They are caused by the same
environmental events that cause the external, overt behaviour.”
This model, of looking at the world i.e. economics directly applied to human decision making
is referred to as Bounded rationality, it shows our thoughts and feelings to be agentreprsentations
that are formed top-down from the resources available, within a higher
economic frame’ *7+ people fill specific information gaps, with the information that they
believe (from bounded-rational frame) will result in the largest expected gains.”

(Quote from Vince Lynch’s Upcoming Book Release)

Research into Conformity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments

FAQ’s

Question 1. How does Covert Hypnosis work?

The way I do covert hypnosis is by method acting and double talk, (see mentalism: Dual reality) mixed ontop of the standard non-induction, impulsive-cold-executive-control process I usually do: While never announcing your a hypnotist, and having an excuse to require the person to listen to the things you tell them to experiment with; Which sometimes means a bold experimental person, but it certainly means you need the respect of the person your speaking to, who will be willing to pause their (attentional-drone of life) just for a moment to hold the ideas you say, as if they are of some kind of importance.

And I only perform this on fasinated individuals who are made fasinated because of the economic attention-based circumstances that I’ve outlined on this page (and further in my book – Which was largely formed by my experience teaching group dynamics for PUA bootcamps with getmethegirl and my private workshops) aswell as my experience of hypnotizing in noisy enviroments on people who have the attention span of a gold-fish (not alot)

I hope that answers any questions about how to do covert hypnosis.

(I don’t care what other authors say. I know what I’ve spent my time doing for the past several years. I know whats possible and whats not.)

Question 2. “Practice makes perfect” How much do you practice?

(Which does take practice.. even for me. Let me put it in context how much I practice. If I was going to have a filming day. I would usually practice for at least 1-2 weeks in advanced of doing this routine 4-5 times a night at least 5-7days a week – sometimes sure I would have nights where I do 15 people. But these on the whole were rare.

And that practice doesn’t take into account that I have probably hypnotized well? put it this way, for a number of years I’ve personally taught individuals on a one-to-one basis who ‘I like’ (some of which are internationally recognized hypnotists now) for long periods of time. And, this meant hypnotizing on average 30-40 people a week, and I’ve had entire years of doing this and this is all outside of shows. Maybe I’m just a really forgetful, Dyslexic person! (I am) and maybe I have to do something a billion times before I trust myself to do it half decent (I do) but, the reality is I practice alot in the run up to a show, lecture, film shoot. Maybe I practice too much and put too much pressure on myself (this is definitively true)

Question 3. Can you give an example of covert hypnosis?

Answer. My original PIN Number – Really Read Minds Routine.

Is a good example of covert hypnosis. The routine looks like the when performed well: I go upto someone, I ask them if I can show them a mind reading routine, I tell them that I’m going to read their mind.

This is how it works: I walk upto someone, I check their hand sticks to mine when I shake it and instruct that it will. There’s various subtleties that vastly increase the percentage of hands that get stuck to my hand when I perform this. (And sometimes, its 100% for long periods of time) If someones hand gets stuck to my hand I say, its like ideas can get stuck in your head just the way that hand is stuck. Just like that hand is stuck, suppose for a moment I’m the worlds greatest mind reader, (nod) and if I said something that I believed you were thinking of. You’d really believe that you were thinking that thing, and I know something that it would be impossible for me to know (nod) because I’m the worlds greatest mind reader. (The loop back to the worlds greatest mind reader erases all the inbetween dialogue in the mind of the audience) Usually by this point I know if they have taken that idea on board or not.

Then I say

“Right, so If i was say your PIN number is 8133″ “There’s no way I could have known that you were thinking that, and your completely amazed that I read your mind, aren’t you?” {Nod} you completely believe thats amazing right? Tell me how I worked that out? No idea?

One might try and argue this isn’t covert hypnosis: That infact its overt hypnosis. Truth is the subject has no idea they were hypnotized, nor that I’m a hypnotist, secondly the audience only heres the words “Mind Reader” then sees the person amazed that I read their mind.

another argument is; that covert hypnosis should be something conversational. The truth is, conversations are boring, they don’t grasp people! They don’t ensure attention is allocated, and then utilize that attention onto phenomena. Hypnosis isn’t a thing, its only the results you achieve. If your going to steal money, then steal money, if your going to have a girl stuck to your lap, believe your her boyfriend and kiss you… Then do that (both those examples I do all the time) yet I’m accused of being not covert.

The truth is, this is the only way to do it. And it is covert, no one knows but you that you’ve done anything. The reason Amateurs debate with me is because; I’m sorry to say it but, they can’t actually do it, never have done it, never would even try. OK, I go out every freaking night. Do you know how boring that can get? I often have large spans of insomnia. So ALL I freaking do is do this stuff, day in day out. I can make anyone do anything.

Question 4. You talk fast, I could never talk that fast? Do I need to talk fast to be a hypnotist like you?

Answer: No timmy, you don’t. You really don’t. All kinds of people learn hypnosis and become incredible. I will explain later in the post why I choose to be fast.

Criticism: “Vince sometimes you aren’t actually pronounciating you are just making noises that are incomprehensible”

Response: Ok, I won’t deny this. At times I slur my voice, At times I mix words, at times I loose track of what I’m saying, and at times I’m a really bad hypnotist.

But I’ll tell you something; Sometimes, I speak fast, and talk with absolute clarity, the person I’m speaking to, understands exactly what I mean, I’ve only just met them. And within seconds they are stripping their top off or believing they are in love with me. And I mean literally Five seconds from meeting the person. and No–one has mentioned hypnosis, or knows I’m a hypnotist.

The fact is, if you practice the impossible. If you choose the hard way in life to do things, then by all the trials and tribulations it makes you as a person. It makes you strong, brave, powerful. Sometimes. Hands Down, Because I choose the Impossible route, and sometimes I nail it. Forgive me everyone who’s going to email me and complain; but, I really am the best. And I say that, without ego. I’m telling the hand on heart truth.

Sure today, I might not be the best. But, there have been months where I’ve hypnotized so many people, I knew what every single word I was going to say was, In response to what I knew the person would do, seconds in advance, and it was perfect. It was like I could see the future.

Hypnosis. Is about been able to illustrate ideas. If you can do this without losing comprehension, making EVERY SINGLE WORD COUNT TO THE MAXIMUM POTENTIAL THAT UTTERANCE CAN while being phenomenally quick.. Well, you’ve achieved something beautiful.

I don’t care about the people who try to put me down, who has the right to put another down (especially when its unjustified) SHAME ON YOU.

Question 5. Do you think you can hypnotize using text?..

A. Yes but it relies on jumping from one phenomena to the next, and really strong phenomena that are completely defined. In order words Binary: Something clear rather than Analogue. I started showing this approach in my early documents; for example see some hypnosis over chat performed by me if you Click Here, and there is another example of Hypnosis over IRC if you click here.

Research

FAQ’s

Incoming search terms: