Flipnosis

“’Flipnosis’ is a special kind of persuasion. It has an incubation period of just seconds, and can disarm even the most discerning mind… it is black-belt mind control”

That’s what the back cover of this glorious book states. It’s a bold claim. In fact, they originally thought of calling the book:

“Jedi Mind Tricks for Dummies.”

Does it deliver?
Why are you asking me that? Do you really think if I had mastered Jedi mind tricks I would be wasting time writing pointless blogs?
It does, in fact, fall very disappointingly far from delivering.

It starts slow. It introduces persuasion techniques in nature. How certain features make a person appear more trustworthy etc. All well and good, but I’m stuck with the face I have, so this does not aid me in my quest for world domination.

It then goes on to introduce example after example of how other people have used Flipnosis. OK, better, but all these examples are very specific, and the techniques used would almost certainly not work elsewhere. Even in a similar situation. Here’s an example of an example:

“A flight runs into turbulence. Word that passengers are nervous reaches the cockpit. A few moments later, the pilot’s voice is heard.
‘Jesus, we’re all going to die!’ he screams. ‘Oh, shit! That was the intercom light not the engine light...’
The plane erupts with laughter and calm is restored.”

... huh? So if someone is nervous, the correct thing to do is try to freak them out and hope they find it funny? I could be wrong, but I’m fairly certain that could backfire.

The book then kind of tails of, as if it’s done its job and now just needs to wrap up.
But I’m not a bloody Jedi Knight yet!! Get back here!

The real disappointment, however, is that Dr Dutton felt the need to make such silly claims in the first place. There are actually a lot of interesting little facts and experiments in the book, but they’re spoilt by Dutton’s desire to try, and fail, to weave them all together into some elusive “Flipnosis” techniques.

Particularly as the final summary at the end basically says:
“Sometimes you’ll fudge things up, sometimes you won’t. Good luck with that.”

Then again... perhaps the book works perfectly, but I’ve just used its tricks to persuade you all not to read it.

The world is mine.