So let’s begin to talk about Mind Messing…
Do you watch TV?
Do your family and friends call you a couch potato?
If the answer is a resounding ‘yes’, then be warned, you are ‘in danger’ of having your mind messed with!
When you watch television over protracted periods of time, with no discernible sense of choosing what you watch, you enter into a mild trance-like state of mind.
Are you a regular subscriber to Zombie TV?
Television is masterful at maintaining a stranglehold on the mindʹs attention and over-stimulating the senses. Think CNN or Fox News.
Are you sitting comfortably to read this?
When you sit down on the sofa with a free flow of programmes, or surf from channel to channel, you go in to a trance state. In this heightened state of awareness the subconscious records and absorbs messages of many different kinds. It does not discern particularly what goes in. TV (and cinema) coaxes the conscious mind to give all its attention to one single thing. Therefore, no attention is available to scan what else is coming in. Consequently, the subconscious mind is exposed. This more open part of the mind is generously receptive to the suggestions and product news that bombard the senses during the commercial breaks. These are messages that, depending on your state of viewing, you do not necessarily filter.
Blissed out and drugged by TV?
TV persuaders rely on the mindʹs inclination to stay in a blissed-out state. One of the characteristic features of the trance-like state is that it has its own momentum. You do not need to exert any effort to remain in a trance. Once you are entranced, you will stay entranced until you make the effort to get out of that state.
Imagine: a country of couch potatoes!
The most common reason for viewers to watch a TV show, or a commercial, is that they were watching whatever was on previously. The television advertising industry is sustained by the massive inertia of a nation glued to the flat screen for hours on end, disinclined to hit the off-button on the remote control.
And what, you may ask yourself, about those traumatic scenes on TV?
The reality of ‘mind messing’!
Scenes and images go directly to your subconscious. There they are lodged, and not necessarily for your advantageous benefit. This diet for the mind can be thought of as being ʹtoxicʹ and can ultimately be more devastating than bad food. The latter can be rejected by the body, but television’s diet for the mind can lie in the pit of the mind waiting to emerge in an inappropriate emotional or physical way. Children especially are sensitive in this way, absorbing everything.
Going to work… on your mind
Increasingly, London Underground tube stations have introduced flights of high-resolution television screens to replace the old-fashioned framed poster advertisements alongside escalators in the network. Think about how trance-inducing these are. Why?
Imagine. You are standing on a descending escalator alongside a descending flight of images constantly in motion. These images are edited expertly to flicker, to dart, to swirl, to mesmerise as you are transported deep, and deeper, downwards into the underground system, assuring that in your already habitual mental state as an underground traveller, you are taken deeper into an altered state of consciousness. The result of inducing this state in you is to increase your absorption of the products being advertised such that the messages more easily slide beneath the boundary, or limen between your conscious mind and unconscious mind. The hidden persuaders are no longer hidden! They are working to enchant you right under your nose!
Wake up! We are seemingly oblivious to the seeds being nourished inside our fertile minds. These seeds can potentially grow and manifest in our acquiring products that have stirred and played with our emotional drivers, our insecurities, and our fear. Our desire to be happier perhaps, to be more successful, to feel more secure, and to have more self-confidence and more self-esteem, are all stirred toward purchasing action. Suddenly we find we have acquired the latest gadget or gizmo that enables us to continue working while we are on the beach holiday of our dreams!
Was your last purchase a mindful one?
Do we ever wonder whether our latest purchase was a mindful one? Was it made from a position of objective clarity and understanding? Was it made from a heartfelt desire to take care of ourselves and to set boundaries for work-life balance? Were we fully respecting our health, our well-being, and our freedom ‘to just be’ on vacation? In short was that a good conscious choice? Or was it a subliminal choice, a choice made beneath the limen of conscious awareness? Did you just get programmed day-by-day?
Helena Tepli in her blog The Diamond Tablet, writes:
“If you look around you, will see people everywhere are just following same patterns without further consideration, regardless of whether or not such behaviour makes sense or works for them. Examples are numerous: a young guy invites his date to the cinema, often not because either of them is interested in films, but simply because he heard that this is what should be done. “
Movie suggestions and trailers for films are regularly ‘suggested’ to you on the Underground, as the technology allows such ease of doing so.
Remember the ad on the Gatwick shuttle?
The powers-that-be engaged our visual and auditory faculties on the driverless train between the North and South terminals at London’s Gatwick airport.
“…Imagine taking off from the banks of the river Thames … Imagine seeing seventeen hundred years of history before your very eyes … You recognise Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament … As you slowly descend …” (are you in deep trance now?) “Fly the BA London Eye, and discover how the world sees London … Now imagine your exhilaration”
The voiceover was transcendent and alluring, and the accompanying music evocative. The words, the music, and the their arrangement in combination were a kind of ‘mind messing’ trick! Stay awake, and consider as to what might have persuaded you to take a trip on the London Eye, or a shopping trip to buy a tablet or smartphone that will enable you to work whilst on holiday? Would you not agree that’s ‘mind messing’?
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Once again, well said Deborah.
I have made it a point during these last seven years of my life Not to Watch, any news on TV. Be it National or International. Having said that, I still find the need to read newspapers or news on internet. But at least I BUFFER the impact of direct TV news. We live in this world and consequently, it is good and useful to know what is happening around you. But to be spoon fed news from TV directly is another story.
There is the TONE they say it with, the TEMPO, the INFLECTIONS, the UNCONSCIOUS ANALOGUE MARKING, and even the intention.
We simply are creatures living in a medium which is highly influenced by those who have the platform to perform on. And influence us they do. All Communication is Hypnotic. If you have doubts think again.
The ONLY SINGLE POINT I want to make here is that, by using, learning and being aware of Hypnosis both as Technique and Phenomenon, we can liberate ourselves (to a certain degree obviously) of the CULTURAL HYPNOSIS we live in today. For yes we are all entranced whether you know it or not.
We are all trancing in and out. So the least we can do is to be aware of it.
Dont you think ?!? it both ways !?! 🙂 😉