10 Disturbing Trends in Subliminal

 Advertising

by Martin Howard

Some of the biggest advertisers are taking their advertising away from full page ads and television spots and spending up on hidden persuasion. You won't find these secret messages in ice-cubes or flickering film footage like they were in the sixties. Subliminal advertising has gone mainstream - fake news, mind control scripts, propaganda and stealth voicemail are in wide use by corporations, government bodies, and industry groups. Have you spotted any of these?

1. Point of Sale Mind Control Scripts

Clothing store staff and car salesmen use them to close the deal - carefully planned questions and subverbal cues to get you to sign. If you've ever walked out of a store, after spending twice as much as you wanted to, chances are you've fallen victim to one of these scripts. The GAPACT is used by Gap staff to upsell you. Other salesmen use word techniques to make you buy, even when you don't have the money - because they make more by selling you 'easy' finance. When a car salesmen takes you on a test drive and asks you "Is this the type of vehicle you would like to own?", he is using a subtle mental framing trick - it can create an embarrassing distraction while you drive. The technique is called disassociation - which is the ideal state for mental manipulation.

2. Doctor-Patient Drug Kick-backs

When a doctor recommends a certain heart medication or an antidepressant, chances are he has been paid a cash bonuses and perks by the manufacturer, making it difficult to give objective advice. Some pharmaceutical firms have gone so far as to invent and promote a new syndrome in order to create a market for a new drug! Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) was devised in 1998 and publicised by planting fifty press stories and quizzes such as: "Do you have social anxiety disorder?". Soon after, Smithkline Beecham released Paxil - the 'cure' for SAD.

3. In-Store Sensory Manipulation

Scientifically tested visual displays, Muzak tapes, and even mind altering scents combine to maximize impulse spending. Specially designed music loops can keep shoppers in the supermarket for 18% longer. One study into use of airborne aromas, pumped into a Canadian mall, resulted in an increase of over $50 per customer that week. In supermarkets, scientifically generated Planograms create the ideal shelf arrangement for certain products, skewing the shopper's eyes towards high value items. Companies pay slotting allowances for favoured placement. Aisle layout are change regularly - which prevents systematic shopping - forcing extra trips past the impulse item displays.

4. Private Conversation Rental

Positive buzz can be triggered artificially for a price. Marketers now recruit secret 'buzz agents' to promote to their friends and family. One buzz agency claims to have an army of agents in every major US city. Their job is to mention or display certain products as they go about their day, using their relationships as marketing channels. Music labels, book sellers, entertainment venues, and fashion outlets are using this method to establish new brands. Today's billion dollar 12-16 year olds are so immune to traditional advertising, mass media is no longer a reliable persuasive device - so the alternative is a 'synthetic grapevine.'

5. Neuromarketing

Corporations are going to enormous lengths to probe the minds of consumers - literally tapping into their brains. The Brighthouse Institute for Thought Sciences, in Atlanta, is one lab that is scanning people's brains with MRIs, in an effort to decode and record our subconscious thoughts and devise more seductive advertising. The process is being called neuromarketing. They are hoping to determine specific biological triggers that can be used by language engineers to stimulate purchases. This is the hi-tech fulfilment of pioneer psychologists Freud and Jung who established the connection between language and behaviour.

6. Chatbots and Stealth Voicemail

Personal phone messages from businesses or political campaigners can turn up in your morning voicemail, having been delivered late the previous night. Voicemail broadcasters like DialAmerica uses massive computer installations to deliver identical copies of spoken messages to millions of householder simultaneously. On the internet, chat room 'bots' masquerading as personal real buddies are actually distributed simultaneously by powerful computers 24 hours a day. Virtual word-of-mouth communication is replacing other promotional technologies because of its speed and price.

7. Real-time Bugging of Personal Data

Your browser is probably revealing more than you might want: your location, the software and hardware you are using, details of other links you clicked on and your browsing habits. Many third party dataminers use 'cookies' to track your path across the web. Extensive realtime information is processed to target you. Larger databases harvest your personal medical and financial records to be bought and sold by interested companies and government departments. Datamining is a fuzzy science that filters you personal information for links about your personal behaviour and finances. These details are used in turn to create elaborate marketing campaigns to sell you more stuff.

8. Sidewalk Stalkers

The public space of streets, neighborhoods and communities is being mapped and targeted by viral marketers and fake grassroots organizations. In some cases the campaigns are overt but, increasingly, street 'agents' are making unannounced social approaches. Fake tourists flash around the latest camera-phone to passing crowds. 'Product seeders' circulate at sports events to find influential young players to wear their gear. Others wander the street wearing colored corporate tattoos. Personal space is the last frontier for commerce. As citizens attempt to retreat from the deluge of media advertising they can now be stalked when they step out the door.

9. Planted News Stories

Industry front groups, public relations firms and government departments are planting news stories on TV, radio, newspapers and the web. Those 'miracle drug' stories or research reports are often Video News Release (VNRs). TV newsrooms love these prepackaged news items that are distributed across the networks. It saves them time and money but it is killing community news and genuine investigative reporting. Real news items are being replaced by slick corporate promotions and political messages. According to one Nielsen Media Research Survey, about 80 percent of U.S. news directors air VNRs several times a month, and all American television newsrooms now use VNRs in their newscasts.

10. Government Propaganda

When it's time to launch a war or promote an unpopular policy, the government needs special help to sell the idea through the media. Opinion engineers are paid to "manage" public perception of inconvenient facts, and turn them around for better. Using the universal tools fear, patriotism, and phrase repetition, these high flying spin doctors can easily sway the population. The most successful public relations campaigns aim to change public perception without our awareness of the campaign. They are typically launched by governments, institutions and countries who need to change their public image, restore their reputation or manipulate public opinion. There are PR firms today who advise dictatorships, dishonest politicians and corrupt industries to cover up environmental catastrophes and human rights violations.

Martin Howard is a media researcher and author of "We Know What You Want: How They Change Your Mind".

During the past 50 years, thousands of universities and research institutions have studied the phenomenon of subliminal messages. Subliminal messages have been tested in eight areas of human behavior: dreams, memory, value norm anchor points, conscious perception, verbal behavior, Emotions, drives and perceptual defenses.

There is at present, no serious question that human behavior can be influenced by subliminal messages.

Dr. Norman Dixon, a psychologist at University College in London, England summarizes extensive research on subliminal learning in his scholarly work, "Preconscious Processing." He cites 748 references with over 80% of the studies on the effects of subliminal communication showing positive results.

Dixon provides a model for understanding the flow of information and its entry to consciousness. According to his model, five factors govern whether a stimulus surfaces at a conscious level: direction of attention, signal strength, external noise level, internal noise levels, and signal importance (meaning).

{The wrongful death action brought against Judas Priest and CBS in Reno led to a judicial interpretation regarding subliminal communication and 1st amendment rights.

First amendment rights have often been at issue when the jurisprudence process becomes involved with subliminal stimuli. Current trends, however, tend to exclude subliminal communication from protection under our freedom of speech rights. The Honorable Jerry Carr Whitehead, District Judge in the State of Nevada, eloquently argues that indeed subliminal communication violates first amendment liberties when covertly or surreptitiously employed.}

Whatever ultimate interpretations or direction of the controversy, one thing is quite certain, "subliminals" (used here as a noun referring to the general nature of their type of communication) are here to stay. {Please note that weak minds have a weak constitution, therefore, weak minds tend to give into temptation such as that offered by negative subliminal suggestion.}

HOW DOES SUBLIMINAL PROGRAMMING WORK?
The conscious and the subconscious mind making up the human brain have often been compared to a computer. The conscious mind acts as a communication center it controls all voluntary actions of the body, makes decisions, reason, calculates; it usually represents the left hemisphere of the brain or logic. In tandem with the right brain it can also think of new ideas, register pain, fear, happiness, etc. In order react automatically the conscious mind has to pull information the subconscious mind.

The subconscious mind is where everything we experience in a lifetime is stored. The subconscious mind retains everything. It doesn't screen information. It doesn't determine right form wrong, positive, from negative: it just stores everything experienced. For example have you ever heard a song on the radio that you hadn't heard for many years and start to sing along with it?

Did you ever try to remember something and say ``it's right on the tip of my tongue?". Sometimes you remember right away and sometimes it will come to you later. Most often, you do remember. This is because your subconscious mind and the latter's storage bank scanners are at work looking for the answer. Beyond storing information for reacting automatically, the subconscious mind also stores the information about the sensations which accompanied the information. If you notice, that "tip of the tongue" information usually comes to you when you experience that certain aroma, flavor, sound, texture, visual sensation or even an adjoining memory that matches with the stored information.

The human mind can give out answers based upon information it has been programmed with just as a computer does; it reacts based upon information stored. Our habits depend on our subconscious programming. We are all a product of our thinking.

Why are so many Evangelical Christians so terribly and stubbornly deceived about whether President Bush is a genuine Christian?

A Chicago University professor has discovered that President Bush uses "Christian code words" which stimulate the minds of the Christian in a manner almost subliminal. The result is that many millions of Christians are almost invisibly drawn to supporting the President because his art of speaking has led them to believe he is genuinely Born Again.

NEWS BRIEF: "Words matter: How Bush speaks in religious code", By Bruce Lincoln, Boston Globe, September 12, 2004

"George W. Bush believes God has called him to be president. You won't hear him say so openly, of course, but he regularly conveys this to a core constituency -- the religious right ... But he has also been careful. Aware that he must appeal to the center to secure reelection, he employs double-coded signals that veil much of his religious message from outsiders. Biblical references, allusions to hymns, and specialized vocabulary are keys to this communication ..."

For generations, practitioners of the "Occult Sciences" have been taught sophisticated mind control techniques by which they could hold sway over their followers, succeed in business, and be the absolute best in winning the hearts and minds of the people with whom they came into contact or of the people whom they wanted to influence. "Double-Coded Signals" are their stock-in-trade secrets by which they accomplished this feat. During President Bush's Inaugural Address, January 20, 2001, we noted that he used an Illuminati code word (Read NEWS1464) by which he signaled fellow occultists throughout the world as to his true nature and intentions without letting anyone else in on the "little secret".

But, here, we are speaking of an entirely different kind of " double-coded signals". These type of signals are very sophisticated, undoubtedly written in advance by a speechwriter skilled in this "occult science" and then delivered by the President. Keys to delivering these hidden signals are halting speech, many pauses, a lot of repetition, and painting word pictures. With this information in mind, let us return to this Boston Globe article.

"The president learned this art when he served as his father's liaison to the religious right in 1988 .... Well-connected staff introduced him to evangelical leaders and taught him to win their trust. 'Signal early and signal often' was their motto." (Ibid.)

If the President was to successfully appeal in an almost subliminal manner to the Christian Right, he had to know their inner language, thier Biblical word pictures, and key doctrines. Notice that Bush set out to learn this "Christian Right" language in connection with his "well-connected staff". Undoubtedly, this staff included people who were expert in this "Occult Science", although a lifelong Adept in Skull & Bones like President George W. Bush can be expected to have been thoroughly trained in this fine art of controlling and manipulating people's minds. Most of our current crop of politicians are using this technique virtually everyday; President Clinton was a true master of this art, but probably not any better than Bush. Let us now return to this article for crucial information:

"Accordingly, most of Bush's speeches are discreetly larded with religious content. His seemingly secular acceptance speech at the recent Republican National Convention offers a case in point. Beyond the single paragraph on abortion, gay marriage, and "faith-based" charities, a strong religious subtext was carefully crafted to slip beneath the radar."

This phrase, "carefully crafted to slip beneath the radar" speaks clearly to the bold intent of the skilled speechwriter, to subliminally speak to the inner mind of the targeted listener -- the Born Again Christians of America. These techniques over-ride -- or perhaps slip beyond -- the conscious mind and drives powerfully into the subconscious. In Seminar 1, "America's Leadership of the New World Order", we carefully examine the subliminal techniques used daily by expert advertising firms working for key retailers and factories. We learned that their major discovery was that the Conscious Mind possessed the moral safeguards which acted as a guarded gateway, controlling which stimuli was so offensive to the mind that it needed to be stopped; however, the Subconscious Mind contained no such moral guarded gateway. Therefore, using subliminal techniques, advertisers in all Mass Media advertising are able to bypass the Conscious Mind altogether and pitch their product directly to the unguarded Subconscious Mind. We show examples of just this kind of advertising.

Let us now go back to this Boston Globe article to see which types of Biblical imagery Bush has been using on Christians for a very long time.

"Biblical references were firmly planted at the beginning and end of the speech. Early on, Bush spoke of 'hills to climb' and seeing 'the valley below', an allusion to Israel's escape from slavery and Moses' vision of the Promised Land, as described in Deuteronomy 34. Given the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous use of the same passage ('I've been to the mountaintop'), Bush thus associated himself with both King and Moses, characterizing his presidency not just as a struggle for freedom, but a religious mission with risks of martyrdom."

"In his closing paragraph, Bush quoted Ecclesiastes 3, 'To everything there is a season', but quickly departed from the Biblical text. 'A time for sadness', he began, with reference to 9/11, then 'a time for struggle' -- Afghanistan and Iraq -- and finally 'a time for rebuilding'. This pattern of loss followed by recovery recurred in passages devoted to the economy, the war against terrorism, the national mood, and the state of morality since the 1960s. In all cases, Bush described losses overcome through hope, steadfastness, and faith. Only when he reached his culminating example did he name what he saw in them all. "For as long as our country stands," he proclaimed, 'people will look to the resurrection of New York City and they will say: Here buildings fell, and here a nation rose' . Resurrection." (Ibid.)

When the President used the word, "resurrection", he hit a major mental nerve with Christians. Their subconscious minds responded positively and said, "this President is one of us -- a Born Again Christian." All the religious imagery mentioned in this above paragraph, and in the paragraphs below, did hit home in the subconscious minds of untold numbers of genuinely Born Again Christians. This linguistic hypnosis is probably the reason Bush seems to have such a stranglehold on Evangelical Christians who should be objectively judging Bush on his Spiritual Fruits, not on his rhetoric.

Returning back to this Boston Globe article, we see even more elements of religious words and symbolism, most always repeated often:

"Twelve times Bush used the phrase 'I believe', many more than any other ... repetition hammered home the crucial point: Bush is a man who believes. Two of these beliefs were meant to justify his wars as holy. 'I believe that America is called to lead the cause of freedom in a new century' - I believe freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman'."

Like he has so many times, President Bush did not say "Jesus Christ", but the clearly Masonic term, "Almighty". But, he clearly "believes". Not too long ago, I listened with horror when a Fundamental Baptist pastor stood up in his podium to announce that "All of America's wars have been just"! Not only is this most definitely not true (Seminar 2, "America Determines The Flow of History") but this war in Afghanistan and Iraq is the most unholy, Illuminist-planned imaginable! Yet, this preacher stood before his packed congregation, telling them that ALL of America's wars have been just; since the word "ALL" includes this present war, Christian men and boys in the audience feel reassured that they can morally be a part of our military machine right now, even though we are most definitely fighting to produce Antichrist.

Now, let us return for our final insight from this Boston Globe article:

"In the course of his speech, the president thus suggested he is a pious man, called to lead a righteous nation. Like the nation itself, he is committed to a sacred cause and is guided in all things by his Christian faith. His sole concern in Iraq -- so he insists -- is to spread freedom, and in doing this he serves the Almighty. If you heard that and can accept it, it must be terribly reassuring. Rather less comforting is the realization that Bush is selling his dubious war to the base he has skillfully courted for years, which he knows to be credulous, fiercely patriotic, and enormously loyal." (Ibid.)

This type of skilled speech literally hypnotizes its audience. It is an Occult Art which has lately been given a distinctive name: "Neuro-Linguistic Programming"(NLP). This linguistic skill literally "programs" its target audience using targeted hyperbole in much the same way that a horoscope "hits home" with fans of astrology. We shall be starting a series of articles on this most powerful subject next week. As we head into this election season, understanding how you are being manipulated is critical.

But now you know on major reason why the vast majority of genuine Born Again Christians are so deceived about President Bush. However, Christians could not have been so deceived had they been following their Lord closely. Today's Christian ignores his Bible, is not taught correctly and thoroughly from the pulpit or the Sunday School class, ignores daily Bible Study and prayer, and does not vigorously apply Biblical doctrine to his/her daily life.

With this kind of spiritual weakness and lukewarmness, Christians have set themselves up for the kind of unparalleled spiritual deception of which our Lord warned in Matthew 24:24. This weak Christian faith is the reason people accept President Bush as a Christian based only on his words, ignoring his many evil spiritual fruits.

Many scientific studies have proven that if the subconscious mind is intentionally programmed with positive thoughts and ideas, then the conscious mind will act with the information it has received and positive results can be easily obtained.

The conscious mind can reject an idea. The subconscious mind, on the other hand, can and will accept information which is not audible/visible to the conscious mind.

Subliminal messages enter the brain at a level high enough for the subconscious mind to see, hear, and understand, but low enough so that the conscious mind is not aware and will not block them. in
This way subliminal messages are able to remove negative thoughts, behaviors and habits and to communicate positive suggestions directly to the subconscious.

The primary reason subliminal messages are so influential is because they bypass the critical filtering aspects of the conscious mind. They go directly to the regulating files we keep to direct our behavior (essentially, to replace negative emotional securities with positive ones).

Extensive studies reveal that subliminal programming works to affect human behavior in at least three ways:

1. By enlivening and activating healthy wishes and drives already present in one's unconscious.

2. By imparting new and useful information into one's unconscious mind.

3. By increasing one's unconscious selective attention while potentiating awareness.

Using subliminal programming, we are able to remove negative thoughts/ideas behaviors and habits and communicate positive new suggestions directly into the subconscious mind.

Subliminals cannot cause behavior contrary to a person's subconscious motives, drives and values. A subliminal message cannot force anyone go do anything they wouldn't want to do. For instance, you can't feed subliminals to people and expect them to exercise regularly, return to alcoholism, or go naked at the beach unless those "hidden" intentions were there already. Subliminal messages only reinforce and trigger these subconscious motives, drives and values. Through positive reinforcement, subliminals make hidden desires for self improvement more influential on conscious behavior. The mind pattern shifts towards positive thought.

How to write your own good subliminal messages

There are several factors which affect whether subliminal messages will be effective:

1. The message should be in the first person (using I or me).
2. 
   
   The message should be in the present tense.
3. 
   
   The message should be positive and must not be the reverse of a negative.
4. 
   
   You should write the message as if you are talking to yourself.

Example of using your own subliminal messages:

Good: You should use the first person (I am happy), current tense (I am happy), positive affirmations (I am happy).
(This positive affirmation would have a direct impact on the image which your mind will conjure up when you read the message).

Bad: You should be careful not to use negative affirmations (e.g. I am not sad) because these remind you of negative thoughts. (This negative affirmation would create an unhelpful image in your mind when you read the message).

Be happy and use positive affirmations

You should experiment for yourself and it is best to personalise the messages to yourself and your own situation.

Synchronized brain waves have long been associated with meditative and hypnogogic states, and audio with embedded binaural beats has the ability to induce and improve such states of consciousness. The reason for this is physiological. Each ear is "hardwired" (so to speak) to both hemispheres of the brain (Rosenzweig, 1961).

Each hemisphere has its own olivary nucleus (sound-processing center) which receives signals from each ear. In keeping with this physiological structure, when a binaural beat is perceived there are actually two standing waves of equal amplitude and frequency present, one in each hemisphere.

So, there are two separate standing waves entraining portions of each hemisphere to the same frequency. The binaural beats appear to contribute to the hemispheric synchronization evidenced in meditative and hypnogogic states of consciousness. Brain function is also enhanced through the increase of cross-collosal communication between the left and right hemispheres of the brain.