Subliminal Compliance (a.k.a. Psychological Manipulation)

[Skeptic Ginger]

BTW, this is the only reaction I have. What Jim is doing is retconning - retroactively claiming that he did or said certain things for certain purposes, when at the time he had no such purpose in mind. Jim says something, Alex replies, then Jim says "I totally manipulated you into saying that." It's a pretty ordinary tool, and not very clever.

I'm out of this loop. I challenge Mr Callahan to PM me with his planned manipulation prior to implementing it. Then we can see if he indeed was successful.

Caveat: predicting a typical response will be considered a valid criticism if that's all one can say about the supposed planned manipulation. I will be neutral in reporting the PM prediction. In fact, I'll be happy to just post the PM after the fact if that is what Mr Callahan agrees to.

 

[kitakaze]

BTW, this is the only reaction I have. What Jim is doing is retconning - retroactively claiming that he did or said certain things for certain purposes, when at the time he had no such purpose in mind. Jim says something, Alex replies, then Jim says "I totally manipulated you into saying that." It's a pretty ordinary tool, and not very clever.

Absolutely yes. I have pointed this out in the Jim Callahan vs Chad Sanborn thread. Jim takes certain suggestions about what he may be doing and endorses the ones he likes the feel of and add a little embellishment and backstory to it. It helps him project the image of being in control and as you say, when people respond to it he can claim the being in control all along. It's boring and not any kind of adept manipulation at all.

 

[kitakaze]

I'm out of this loop. I challenge Mr Callahan to PM me with his planned manipulation prior to implementing it. Then we can see if he indeed was successful.

Caveat: predicting a typical response will be considered a valid criticism if that's all one can say about the supposed planned manipulation. I will be neutral in reporting the PM prediction. In fact, I'll be happy to just post the PM after the fact if that is what Mr Callahan agrees to.

I'm very pleased to see this post as it was this type of idea that brought me over from the other thread to post.

Let's take this suggestion a bit further. First, let's up the impartiality element. Instead of using you, let's use moderator Chillzero as the person Callahan can PM with his planned manipulation.Second, and I mean this with no offense to Alex I suggest the following people as targets:

skeptigirl

Arthwollipot

Myself

Jim may choose one or all three of us if he is half as adept as he would have you believe.

I'm am quite confident he is unable. What's more, I predict he will ignore or shirk off an invitation to display the Subliminal Compliance techniques he leads you to believe he has. This should be taken as evidence that Callahan is not any kind of adept manipulator at all and the discussion can be concluded thereby robbing him of further opportunities to push the idea.

Callahan says he likes puzzles and tries to create the impression that he is a skilled manipulator in creating realities he chooses.

Bring it on, Callahan.

 

[Myriad]

For anyone that has noted the transparency of Jim Callahan's claims to be in control and manipulating others in some type of thought provoking performance and has been wondering what is the best solution to counter his games without feeding into them I have some good news.

Both Arthwollipot and myself have noted that Callahan uses a very silly type of retconning to re-enforce the idea that he is successfully manipulating people. He sees suggestions by various members of what he may have been doing. If he likes the feel of a certain suggestion, he will latch on to it and add some embellishment and back story to make it appear as though he was employing it all along. When people respond to this objectionably he simply says that the person is further showing his abilities.

Both myself and another member, skeptigirl, noted in the Subliminal Compliance thread that any real adeptness at psychological manipualtion could be tested and should be easy to show. We both independantly suggested that to eliminate the obvious retconning that Callahan was using, that he inform a neutral person by pm of his planned manipulation before doing so. I took the suggestion further and offered that to ensure impartiality in the observer that moderator chillzero be designated as the one to receive the pm of Callahan's planned manipulation.

In skeptigirl's line of suggestion the target would have potentially been a teenaged boy. With no offence intended to that young man, I suggested that the targets be Arthwollipot, skeptigirl, and myself; there are definitely others but we are the first three that came to mind for examples of people that were not playing into Callahan's games. I suggested that Callahan could choose one but given the kind of proficiency he indicates he has for this non-paranormal psychological technique that he advertises on his website, he should very easily be able to manipulate the three of us either separately or in a collective fashion. I also suggested that if Callahan either declined, refused, or ignored the invitiation that it would qualify as more than sufficient evidence that he is full of it in terms of his claims of being in control and that the question would reach conclusion.

I think we can put an end to this kind of silliness and do so in a manner that doesn't involve pleasing Jim with the insults and personal comments that he is baiting. Also note that Jim claims to be creating realities and in doing so creating value. Jim has no claim to or control of any value to be gained in any of the discussions or activities I refer to. These things are accomplished not because of Jim's desires but rather in spite of them. Any claim otherwise is semantic and another example of the retconning he employs.

I would ask that anyone who would like to comment on this post please quote it then respond in the Subliminal Compliance (aka psychological manipulation thread) as it is just meant as a heads up.

As an alternative to revealing the claim in advance to a neutral person, Mr. Callahan could simply write his claim in a brief sentence, then use this site: http://www.ideaspace.net/misc/hash/ to generate a hash code for it, and post the hash code here.

For example, at that site, I have entered my prediction for the results of this test, in a simple sentence in the field labeled "Enter your e-mail address here:". I then click the "MD4" button, and the following code appears in the Hashed Result field:

17107100441d367217263e17099c32d5

The prediction I made cannot be decoded from the hash result, because the hash result is not unique to any one sequence of characters. However, it would be extremely difficult or impossible to create a different prediction that would yield the same hash code. (Changing any part of the input text results in a completely different code sequence.) So, by posting it in this message, I have created a way to verify, in the future, that I made that prediction today.

Once I reveal the prediction, anyone else can put that same sentence into the hash code generator, and determine whether or not the resulting MD4 hash code is the same as the one I posted here. (I had better write down the exact sequence of characters, including case, spaces, and punctuation, because changing any character will change the hash code completely.) If the same hash code comes out, then it is extremely strong evidence that I really did make the prediction at the time of this post.

If I later refuse to reveal the exact prediction text, or if the prediction text I report does not match the hash code, then that would mean I have failed to verify my prediction, and (were I trying to convince anyone of my ability to make accurate predictions) strongly suggest that I made a wrong prediction or no prediction at all.

This method removes the trustworthiness of the neutral person from consideration in this test. Mr. Callahan need only write a brief sentence describing his plan; that is, what result he intends to achieve using psychological manipulation during a certain future time period; and then post the hash code for that sentence in this thread. At the end of the stated time period, he can then reveal the exact text of his plan, and we can observe whether those results have occurred. By checking the hash code against his posted one, we can also all verify individually, each to his or her own satisfaction, that the plan he reveals at the end is the same as the one he began with.

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[Legend]

Second, and I mean this with no offense to Alex I suggest the following people as targets:

None taken, I'd rather watch.

Alex.

 

[Azrael 5]

BTW, this is the only reaction I have. What Jim is doing is retconning - retroactively claiming that he did or said certain things for certain purposes, when at the time he had no such purpose in mind. Jim says something, Alex replies, then Jim says "I totally manipulated you into saying that." It's a pretty ordinary tool, and not very clever.

Reminds me of a "game" we played at first school,when someone called another an insulting name,the other would retort "Know you are said you are but what am I!" In absence of a good comeback.

This is Jim.

ETA: Jim and challenges don't go together.Expect a major "spaz"

 

[kitakaze]

As an alternative to revealing the claim in advance to a neutral person, Mr. Callahan could simply write his claim in a brief sentence, then use this site: http://www.ideaspace.net/misc/hash/ to generate a hash code for it, and post the hash code here.

(snip)

Respectfully,
Myriad

Thank you for your excellent suggestion, Myriad. I think that will prove to be a most useful tool when dealing with the likes that we are now.

 

[arthwollipot]

I am willing to participate in such an experiment.

 

[Jim Callahan]

As an alternative to revealing the claim in advance to a neutral person, Mr. Callahan could simply write his claim in a brief sentence, then use this site: http://www.ideaspace.net/misc/hash/ to generate a hash code for it, and post the hash code here.

For example, at that site, I have entered my prediction for the results of this test, in a simple sentence in the field labeled "Enter your e-mail address here:". I then click the "MD4" button, and the following code appears in the Hashed Result field:

17107100441d367217263e17099c32d5

The prediction I made cannot be decoded from the hash result, because the hash result is not unique to any one sequence of characters. However, it would be extremely difficult or impossible to create a different prediction that would yield the same hash code. (Changing any part of the input text results in a completely different code sequence.) So, by posting it in this message, I have created a way to verify, in the future, that I made that prediction today.

Once I reveal the prediction, anyone else can put that same sentence into the hash code generator, and determine whether or not the resulting MD4 hash code is the same as the one I posted here. (I had better write down the exact sequence of characters, including case, spaces, and punctuation, because changing any character will change the hash code completely.) If the same hash code comes out, then it is extremely strong evidence that I really did make the prediction at the time of this post.

If I later refuse to reveal the exact prediction text, or if the prediction text I report does not match the hash code, then that would mean I have failed to verify my prediction, and (were I trying to convince anyone of my ability to make accurate predictions) strongly suggest that I made a wrong prediction or no prediction at all.

This method removes the trustworthiness of the neutral person from consideration in this test. Mr. Callahan need only write a brief sentence describing his plan; that is, what result he intends to achieve using psychological manipulation during a certain future time period; and then post the hash code for that sentence in this thread. At the end of the stated time period, he can then reveal the exact text of his plan, and we can observe whether those results have occurred. By checking the hash code against his posted one, we can also all verify individually, each to his or her own satisfaction, that the plan he reveals at the end is the same as the one he began with.

Respectfully,
Myriad

Thanks for the information.
I will use it in the future.

But for the record the test/demonstration/experiment was started before this thread.

In fact DaSkeptic made note of it and has offered commentary that has been ignored because
it is the truth many here will not acknowledge.

The reason being, it is psychologically uncomfortable to do so.

However I will explain the value of the Twain quote tactic and when I first started using it.

Best Wishes,

Jim

 

[Azrael 5]

Thanks for the information.
I will use it in the future.

But for the record the test/demonstration/experiment was started before this thread.

In fact DaSkeptic made note of it and has offered commentary that has been ignored because
it is the truth many here will not acknowledge.

The reason being, it is psychologically uncomfortable to do so.

However I will explain the value of the Twain quote tactic and when I first started using it.

Best Wishes,

Jim

Remind me again what is your talent? Other than being irritating and boring.

 

[kitakaze]

But for the record the test/demonstration/experiment was started before this thread.

Callahan has just provided the evidence that I spoke of. We are obviously aware that the alleged adept manipulation began before this thread. That was the reason for the creation of this thread. Callahan is getting more and more sloppy.

Also note that the language he uses in that sentence is a carefully chosen attempt to de-emphasize the Subliminal Compliance skills advertised on his website.

 

[Jim Callahan]

I am sorry I did hope to post the explanation of the Mark Twain quote today.

But other things came up.

I care more about my kid than I do any forum.
(So possibly tomorrow).

I am sure you all feel the same way about you family and friends.

Best Wishes,

Jim

 

[kitakaze]

I am sorry I did hope to post the explanation of the Mark Twain quote today.

Don't apologize and don't bother. Nobody is interested in your silly retconning. Give us the juice. Use the hash site or PM chillzero and let see some real skill. Skeptigirl, Arthwollipot, and myself are ready. Looks like you are behaving exactly as I predicted. Maybe I'm a skilled manipulator.

 

[not daSkeptic]

Don't apologize and don't bother. Nobody is interested in your silly retconning. Give us the juice. Use the hash site or PM chillzero and let see some real skill. Skeptigirl, Arthwollipot, and myself are ready. Looks like you are behaving exactly as I predicted. Maybe I'm a skilled manipulator.

This is not a thread about testing Jim Callahan. If you want to discuss that, take it elsewhere. However, if you would like to discuss, in general, how to differentiate between psychological manipulation and retroactive continuity, then I would consider that a subject relevant to this thread.

 

[kitakaze]

This is not a thread about testing Jim Callahan.

Correct. In the OP you stated:

I bring this up not to discuss Callahan himself, but to discuss the subject of psychological manipulation in general. I use Callahan only as an example with which many of us here have direct experience.

I would however suggest that it was inevitable that the thread went in the direction of Callahan and whether or not he is adept at the skill he advertises. Nevertheless..

If you want to discuss that, take it elsewhere. However, if you would like to discuss, in general, how to differentiate between psychological manipulation and retroactive continuity, then I would consider that a subject relevant to this thread.

We are discussing the difference between psychological retconning and manipulation. In addition we are inviting someone to show us. I believe that person is unable to do so and will not accept the invitation to do so thereby making the fact clear. If Callahan were to accept that invitation then I completely agree another thread would be warranted. Being confident that the invitation will not be accepted, I would not like to add unnecessarily to the number of Jim Callahan threads. I apologize if this distracts from the discussion you wish you have but as you know, threads often take on a life of there own. As you can plainly see, whether or not Callahan is a skilled manipulator has contributed to a large portion of this thread.

You yourself said:

Honestly, I don't mind if Jim is involved in the discussion so long as it's on the general topic and not him specifically. He is, after all, someone who has demonstrated skill and experience in this area.

I disagree with that opinion. I don't think he has shown any real skill in this area. I don't think any of his activity here or "dying" online qualifies either. What leads you to think so?

 

[not daSkeptic]

I would however suggest that it was inevitable that the thread went in the direction of Callahan and whether or not he is adept at the skill he advertises.

It was not inevitable. The purpose of this thread is to discuss the subject in general. I selected Callahan as one example, but there are undoubtedly other figures in the field. If people cannot respect my reference to him as it was intended and insist on focusing on him, then I submit they have some sort of personal issue they need to address and should go elsewhere.

I don't think he has shown any real skill in this area. I don't think any of his activity here or "dying" online qualifies either. What leads you to think so?

I have cited the sources that lead to my opinion. If you do not think Callahan is a worthy example for the subject, then please suggest an alternative.

 

[Legend]

I am sorry I did hope to post the explanation of the Mark Twain quote today.

But other things came up.

I care more about my kid than I do any forum.
(So possibly tomorrow).

I am sure you all feel the same way about you family and friends.

Best Wishes,

Jim

In other words: I haven't yet created a BS method that I can claim to have used, so give me another day and I should have one made up.

Alex.

 

[JFrankA]

...if you would like to discuss, in general, how to differentiate between psychological manipulation and retroactive continuity, then I would consider that a subject relevant to this thread.

Retroactive continuity is part of psychological manipulation. Cold-Readers do it all the time. It's a way of convincing someone that you had the answer all along. Also, if you are really good, you make the answer just confusing enough to get your subject off balance.

I have cited the sources that lead to my opinion....please suggest an alternative.

I have been: specifically, Derren Brown. I've also mentioned generally magicians, mentalists, cold-readers, hypnotists (such as myself), and con-men...and con-women.

Remember the basic rule: The only way that any kind of psychological manipulation can work, short of actual physical abuse, is making the person forget that they have a choice.

What stops any kind of psychological manipulation is keeping in mind that you have a choice. What also helps is knowing why you made the choice you are making. So the basic goal of anyone attempting psychological manipulation is catching you off guard to make you forget you have a choice.

There are many different methods to do this, and I'll give you a short list, if you choose to indulge me:

1. Doing something that breaks a pattern. An example of that is to offer your hand as a handshake and then at the last moment pull it away, thus breaking a pattern that has been established.

2. Getting someone to agree with several statements that you've made so when you come to a statement you want them to agree with, they will be more likely to agree. A rather simple example would be something like a politician who says "Unemployment is bad." You agree. Then says "You don't want to be unemployed". You agree. "You would have a hard time if you were unemployed". You agree. "You want someone in the government to help stop unemployment". You agree. "You want someone to understands how hard it would be for you to be unemployed". You agree. "I understand how hard it would be for you if you were unemployed". You agree.

That's a rather simple example, but you get the gist. The idea is to start with facts and go to possible truths then to what you want the person to agree with.

3. Ambiguous statements or questions. "You like me to help you?" is a question that will most likely end in a "yes", but in the question is the statement "you like me". Again, a rather simple example, but it illustrates the point.

4. Emphasis on certain words. "would YOU LIKE something from ME?" ..yes, I'm sticking to simple examples.

5. What I call "bullying". That is, just using intimidation, or giving an order to someone. This can even be done in a light-hearted, friendly way. "Of course you do want to do this."

6. Out and out purposeful confusion. Words used incorrectly, misquotes, saying one thing intelligibly then saying something else similar, giving very confusing explanations, etc. (I sincerely hope that my explanations aren't confusing. )

The goal of all of these "techniques" is to confuse, misdirect or distract the person so much, that they forget that they have a choice to not listen or react. If you're good, you can keep that confusion going, because all the confusion these techniques produce are short-lived. Because once a person chooses not to fall for it, no technique in the world will work. People will tell you it will and that's where the woo comes in.

Psychological manipulation is great for a stage performance or doing a trick, or, in my case, a playing with my girlfriend. However, as a way to get people to do what you want all the time, to control people and completely manipulate them to do your bidding or fall in love with you....total woo.

 

[kitakaze]

It was not inevitable. The purpose of this thread is to discuss the subject in general. I selected Callahan as one example, but there are undoubtedly other figures in the field. If people cannot respect my reference to him as it was intended and insist on focusing on him, then I submit they have some sort of personal issue they need to address and should go elsewhere.

Respectfully, I disagree about the inevitability. The thread came about as a result of looking into JC, at a time when JC was actively posting, and there was focus on him and his claims by a number of people in the GS&P:

After doing a bit of research with good 'ol Google (which I admit should have been done a long time ago) I have discovered that the illustrious Jim Callahan is little more than a professional psychological manipulator.

I am very much with you in thinking it is lame that the thread became focused on JC and would like that to end. I would suggest that saying people have personal issues if they became focused on JC and his responses in this thread is not quite fair or realistic. Nevertheless, although I do not want to be a party to contributing to having further JC threads I will do so regarding challenging his claims at being an adept psychological manipulator out of respect and appreciation for the discussion as you intended it. I hope the discussion can continue without being derailed.

I have cited the sources that lead to my opinion. If you do not think Callahan is a worthy example for the subject, then please suggest an alternative.

Adolph Hitler is a good example of an adept psychological manipulator.

 

[kitakaze]

The new thread on challenging Callahan's Subliminal Compliance adeptness can be found here:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=133017

My apologies to daSkeptic for the derail of his discussion.