There are a lot of people out there looking for ways to gain any advantage they can in everyday situations. Apparently some of them have seen some of the stage acts where a normal looking guy picks people out of the audience and appears to hypnotize them on stage and then can make them cluck like a chicken for the next 30 minutes on cue.

This is hardly the case when it comes to real hypnosis and how it can really be used to control the mind. Most of the hypnosis stage acts are just that - acts. The hypnotist looks for certain subtle signs that an individual is mentally easy to persuade into a hypnotic state or just fakes the whole thing, but we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

The reality is that hypnotizing someone who is highly susceptible to suggestion isn’t all that hard if you know what you’re doing. But even if you know nothing about hypnosis a weak minded person isn’t all that hard to influence anyway, so why would you even need the extra firepower of hypnotism? The situations in which a little extra gunpowder would come in handy are those in which you are up against an intimidating and formidable opponent. And the lure to find some way to covertly influence such people may be what you’re looking for.

The problem with using hypnosis for mind control is that it rarely works on someone with a strong sense of purpose and self. Or does it? Some people are highly in tune to their surroundings, especially the people they interact with, whether or not they are consciously aware of it. They exude a sense of power and people are drawn to them naturally. It may be the famous actor or the beautiful woman across the room. It would certainly be nice to feel like you have some sort of an advantage over them to bring about your desired result.

It turns out that when it comes to using hypnosis for mind control the mind you are really learning to control is your own. There is absolutely nothing sneaky or unethical about studying and training to use your presence, voice and words for maximum impact. Actors do it all the time. If in the study of using your voice to your greatest advantage you find that it seems to impact people you talk to - there’s nothing at all wrong with that either. Further, when you realize that you can stand toe to toe with anyone and feel in control and powerful, that’s just a nice side effect.

So in the end you might just can all those ideas about it being sleazy to influence people. Some folks do it quite naturally, thank you very much. If you choose to improve your own position in social circles by modifying the way you speak, that’s just fine with us. But it certainly doesn’t mean that you will be walking up to the Hollywood starlet and casting some sort of love potion spell on her either. But it may very well mean that you will do much better with the normal people you meet.