There is a term used in NLP, Presupposition.
Before presupposition the French had a term for it which pre-dates presupposition by about a hundred years first appearing around 1845 in a history of a Franco army triumph.
The term?
Fait Accompli – which means ‘the deed is done’.That roughly means to suppose that something has already happened.
Creating a reality as if it has already happened, even though it will happen in the future, is what hypnotists have been doing as a matter of course for a few hundreds of years and what subconscious minds have been doing for ever.
“When I wake you you HAVE forgotten your name.” The presupposition there is you Have forgotten it even though that hasn’t happened yet.
What you DO with it is to act as if the result is a thing of the present rather than a thing of the future.
For instance to get someone to shut the door you could say, “You found closing the door to be pleasant.”
Don’t hide it, there is no need. Their brain won’t understand it as it has no future nor past and becoming confused will give over control to the mind. Their mind will just believe it and to make it so and fell ‘pleasant’ it Has To Shut The Door. What will happen is they will look at you with a frown or even say “What?” and then they will close the door to ‘feel pleasant’.
Of course you could just say, “Please shut the door,” but that isn’t anywhere near as much fun as playing the mind game!
So to use a presupposition move your imagination into a place where Fait Accompli! And act and talk as if it is.
I have to say that I believe saying, “You found closing the door to be pleasant.” would be a complete failure 99 times out of 100. While I agree that one need not use ‘fancy’ patterns, and there is no need to hide it, I don’t actually consider that to be a useful form of the presupposition.
“Once you’ve closed the door we can get down to business” would, in my opinion be far more effective. But that is just my experience.
Jonathan,I love the way that you described presuppositions. I was especially “hit” by the idea of moving your own imagination into the where Fait Accompli. That’s powerful!
Thanks for the tip!
Hi Jeff S.
I have to say that 99 times out of a hundred is a bit strong. If you just take this entirely on it’s own without first building the connection, watching for a Momentous Moment, utilising their emotions, it would work about 70% of the time.
Now lets look at it.
You FOUND closing the door [ The door is already closed. ] to BE PLEASANT [You are already feeling pleasant - actually I'd more likely say 'Great' 'Cool' or 'Good' which is implies a reward. ]
Lets look at the alternative:
“Once you’ve closed the door” [ The door is open ] “we can get down to business” no desirable reward. Certainly that wouldn’t be desirable for me
I hate doing ‘business’. Also the ‘we can’ means you are not, presupposition supposes you already are!
I see your point and have no doubt that if you are with a client that would work, as would, “Could you shut the door please? However both of them would leave full knowledge of the door being closed. In my experiments they don’t consciously notice. That’s the power of supposition done as Fait Accompli and covertly.
Thanks Horatio