This is my third episode about Chase Hughes, the self-titled “#1 expert in behavior and influence.” My first episode about him examined his early deceptions and exaggerations, and his involvement in pick-up artistry and vitamin supplement sales. In this one, I talk about how Chase’s work relates to Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and NLP-related hypnosis. Long story short: Chase has used the NLP trainer template but repackaged it with a military/secret-agent/MK-Ultra-type spin. I examine the connections between NLP and Chase’s content. I also attempt to explain why Chase (and people like him) can acquire good reviews and fans, despite so much of it being obviously silly and also expensive. I also examine Chase’s recent promoting of supplements sold by a chiropractor. And I talk about the various people who’ve promoted Chase, from influential podcasters to Dr. Phil to his fellow Behavior Panel members, and why there seems to be such a lack of interest in these people examining his background and claims.
A later episode will focus on behavior analysis and the Behavior Panel. This episode is focused squarely on NLP/hypnosis.
There’s a transcript below with links to the resources referenced in this episode.
Episode links:
- YouTube (included video; recommended)
- Apple Podcasts
- Spotify
Various topics discussed in this video: how Chase’s concepts relate to NLP; what NLP is and why people attend those seminars; my own personal experiences working for an NLP trainer; how NLP seminars relate to other experiential/transformational multi-day seminars; good/neutral aspects of NLP/hypnosis/influence type content and training; the many influential people who’ve promoted Chase; why these things can impress people despite being so obviously silly and strange; what a hypnosis expert had to say about Chase’s stuff; why behavior-analysis and influence/hypnosis-type offerings lend themselves to exaggerated claims; and more.
TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to the People Who Read People podcast, with me, Zach Elwood. This is a podcast aimed at better understanding other people, and better understanding ourselves. You can learn more about it at behavior-podcast.com.
Recently I did an expose of Chase Hughes, the self-described “#1 expert in behavior and influence.” https://www.chasehughes.com/ That video was by far the most popular episode I’ve done. The two videos I put out about Chase have gotten more than 35,000 total views on YouTube. The popularity of this topic isn’t surprising: Chase is pretty well known due to his involvement with the Behavior Panel show, which has almost a million followers on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@TheBehaviorPanel). Chase himself has about 175,000 followers on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@chasehughesofficial/featured) . Chase has been on Dr. Phil’s show and promoted by Dr. Phil and his media company Merit Street Media (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtxCYFbwMrU).
In this episode, I want to give my thoughts on the nature of Chase Hughes’ grandiose claims and large deceptions in the influence and mind-control and hypnosis areas. I want to talk about how Chase’s stuff ties into the work and the bullshit of other people in the arena of neuro-linguistic programming, also known as NLP.
Because Chase Hughes isn’t an anomoly. What he does, the grandiose and clearly false claims he makes, ties into all sorts of similar things that various gurus and life coaches and business coaches and NLP trainers do. There are a lot of people out there looking for answers, looking for help — and a lot of people also looking for shortcuts to power and success and influence. And many of those people are easily fooled by people who claim to have authority and success; they’re willing to trust people who seem like experts; especially when these people have been promoted by other people who seem successful and who seem like experts themselves. Some of these people looking for success and secret knowledge are willing to pay a lot of money. (https://www.facebook.com/chasehughesofficial/videos/chase-hughes-training-events/302561086081605 )
People pay Chase large amounts of money
To give you a sense of what’s at stake in these areas; the harms being done… One person wrote and thanked me for my work exposing Chase. They said that they were thinking about paying Chase $20,000 for his quote “graduate course” and saw my video just in time. Another person who said they used to be Chase’s inner circle told me one person had paid Chase $100,000 to spend a week training with him. One person who met Chase in Las Vegas told me Chase was doing so-called “performance hypnosis” on a well known MMA fighter there. These are just reports; I can’t vouch for them entirely, but for a few reasons I judged the people telling me these things as both having inside information and as being truthful.
Many people wonder, “If this stuff is so illegitimate, why haven’t people talked about it before this?” or maybe wonder, “His books have good reviews and people seem to like his stuff; why is that?”
So I’ll also get into the reasons why people like Chase are able to deceive people over the long term; why they’re able to get good reviews, things like that. As part of that inquiry, we’ll also get into the various influential podcasters and coaches and NLP trainers and behavior “experts” and assorted personalities who have promoted Chase over the last few years; because all these people, wittingly or unwittingly, help create the veneer of respectability that has allowed Chase to escape scrutiny for this long. It takes a village to raise a guru.
A focus on NLP/hypnosis, not behavior analysis
Also I want to say that this video will be specifically about the mind-control and hypnosis and NLP-type content and training that Chase has promoted. This won’t get much into the behavioral analysis areas; it won’t get much into the Behavior Panel, for example. These things are related, and some connections do come up in this episode, but later I’ll do a separate episode focused specifically on the pop-behavior-analysis topic.
And also, to clarify further, when I talk about hypnosis in this video, i’m not talking about all forms of hypnosis. The hypnosis discussed in this episode is specifically about the people who claim to be able to teach you hypnotic influence techniques to make you more powerful and successful in various ways; the kind of stuff that Chase Hughes offers, basically, which ties into neuro-linguistic programming. This isn’t meant to be about the more one-on-one therapy-related forms of hypnosis, which are more legitimate. In all honesty I don’t know much about hypnosis therapy; a lot of that could be quite scammy and suspect, too. I mainly want to make clear that my talking about scammy hypnosis stuff in this video is definitely not meant to denigrate all hypnosis practices.
Some have asked, “Isn’t this normal marketing exaggeration?”
And again, if you want a summary of what I found about Chase, go to my site behavior-podcast.com and look for the first Chase Hughes episode. I’ve had some people reach out to me asking questions like, “Didn’t Chase just exaggerate his credentials a bit in a “fake it til you make it” type way? What’s the big deal about that?” or questions like “But Chase has a lot of fans; doesn’t that mean he’s legit now even if he lied a lot in the past?”. Some of these people who ask these questions maybe didn’t make it all the way through the video, which is understandable as it was an hour long, so if you have questions like that, check out the summary on my site.
But long story short, no, this goes way beyond normal marketing exaggeration. The things Chase has said include inaccurate and fraudulent claims about major aspects of his experience and credentials. Long story short; throughout the 2010s, Chase lied about having all sorts of fame and renown across many areas and industries; yet it’s quite clear he had no renown or respect, there were basically no mentions of him online until the late 2010s, when he started getting on some podcasts; these were podcast hosts who didn’t look into his background and just trusted he was who he said he was. Those appearances created a seeming veneer of respectability online for people who searched his named after that. So in snowball fashion, little by little, with more and more podcast appearances, his online presence started to seem more legitimate, at least for people who weren’t willing to take even a few minutes to vet him.
Personally I think there are relatively few people who’ve reached Chase’s level of fame who have lied in such major ways about their credentials. Most people who deceive in such ways are much more subtle and careful about it. The only really surprising thing in all of this is why no one seems to have talked about this stuff until now.
Also, aside from his claimed credentials and experiences, the things he has claimed he can do are just simply absurd to anyone who knows about psychology and behavior. But let’s get more into that now.
Chase’s absurd claims about controlling people
Let’s review a few things Chase has said about his abilities to control people.
I’ll read from the 2014 version of his website https://web.archive.org/web/20141012081856/http://www.chasehughes.com/covert-psychology.html:
The CIA developed enhanced mind control methods as a matter of public record
The CIA programmers experiments ranging from programming sexual slaves to creating hypnotic assassins, even involving teenage girls
The methods they used were elementary at best
The Ellipsis Manual contains WORLD-FIRST information available no where else on planet Earth
A person CAN be hypnotized against their will
A person can and will perform extremely violent and anti-social acts under hypnosis, without their consent or knowledge and will disregard safety, morals and law
Using the Ellipsis Manual gives an operator complete access to the psychological compromise of almost any human being they encounter
The Ellipsis Manual teaches operators a world-first set of methods ranging from covert creation of multiple personality disorder to developing mental slavery scenarios, wherein a subject will disregard all beliefs
He goes on to write:
From profiling human weaknesses and a full section detailing how to see fears and insecurities of anyone you will ever meet, the book details step-by-step instructions on exploiting these human traits to allow more pronounced control and behavioral engineering.
His website makes all sorts of grandiose claims over the years, but that should give you a sense of what’s involved. And, as Chase has gotten more attention on podcasts over the last few years, he has scrubbed these more ridiculous claims from his website, but you can still find them via the Internet Archive.
Still, his more absurd claims are still out there now in various forms. For example, the following comes from his Ellipsis Manual:
Establishing and Maintaining Control of Thought, Behavior, and Emotion
In section 2, you will learn to take your profiling and people-reading skills (which are now above the level of an FBI interrogator) and apply them in tandem with the most advanced psychological-control techniques in the world.
A little later he writes: After learning about the human social-profiling methods, you will be given the master key to the human mind…
And he writes, “Imagine your subjects standing at the wheels of their own large ships. The steering wheel is in their hands, their ships seeming to move just as they want them to. In reality, you actually have control of the rudders, not the wheel. The wheel only provides the semblance of control to your subjects; you control the movement.
What do experts say about hypnosis
Now, almost no one with serious knowledge of psychology and hypnosis thinks such things are possible. Scholars of hypnosis consistently say there is not a way to hypnotize people and control them and make them do things against their will. You can search a little about that online if you’re curious to learn more abou that.
For example, there was a recent paper https://neurosciencenews.com/hypnosis-myths-23607/ by Steven Jay Lynn and his colleagues that made the following points:
- Hypnotized individuals retain control over their actions and can resist hypnotic suggestions.
- Hypnosis should not be misconstrued as a “special state” but is more accurately a set of procedures used to modulate awareness, perception, and cognition.
- Despite widespread belief, the ability to administer hypnotic methods does not require special skills beyond those required for basic social interactions and clinical procedures.
We must keep in mind that: Big, grandiose claims require major evidence.
But let’s say there was a way to gain full control of someone’s mind. Presumably it’d be something quite complex and take a while. But Chase has claimed he can do such things in a short time, in normal everyday environments. https://web.archive.org/web/20141012081856/http://www.chasehughes.com/covert-psychology.html On his site in 2014 (and later) it said that “A subject can be controlled for behavioral engineering within as little as three minutes. A deliberately-induced multiple personality (dissociative personality) can be created in less than an hour.” He even says he can teach you how to do this stuff quickly; that page reads “From the first day, you will be able to read the thoughts of people you interact with, and you will eventually learn to control them as well.”
In short, his claims are absurd.
Thoughts from Martin Taylor, hypnosis expert
I reached out to Martin Taylor, who is a hypnosis expert (http://www.hypnotism.co.uk/). A couple people recommended that I talk to him about these things, because he’s someone who knows a lot about overstated claims of hypnosis and influence. I might interview him in future in more detail about these things. Martin does a show that he calls “hypnotism without hypnosis.” At these shows, he tells an audience the intellectual, psychological reasons for why hypnosis works, and then proceeds to influence audience members in similar ways found at hypnosis shows, without all the usual hypnosis spiel bullshit. He’s said to have been an inspiration for Derren Brown’s magic act.
When I sent Chase’s website and other work to Martin, he was recovering from being sick so didn’t have much time to look at it, and the first thing he wrote, “It’s so bad I’d like to have spent more time on it.” He went on to say, “Part of me suspects that the whole site was written and designed by some AI program: ‘ChatGPT, build me a flashy website designed to plug, as dramatically and aggressively as possible, a new psychological technique which promises the world but delivers nothing. No evidence or hard facts are necessary.’ Why, for an “international bestselling author”, does he have no Wikipedia page? Why has he not made any entries *at all* on his blog pages? But assuming it is meant to be taken seriously, I’ve had a look through his site, and looked at excerpts from his books (and their reviews) on Amazon. He seems to have distilled snake-oil into a form purer than any hitherto known. I mean, obviously, you can’t say it’s crap without seeing some demonstrations, but then, like all shysters, he doesn’t offer any. With NCI he appears to be trying to re-invent NLP. ‘Neuro-linguistic Programming’ doesn’t mean very much, but ‘Neuro-Cognitive Intelligence’ means even less. And of course, Hughes provides no indication of what it actually *is*, although he is full of what it does and can be used for” (and here he references the mission from Chase’s website, which reads ‘to forcefully push the boundaries of what’s possible with human behavior to protect national interests”).
Martin then writes, “As Hughes himself says: ‘Some want an edge. Some want the unfair advantage. Some just want a superpower. In the end, however, what we all want is choice.’ My choice is to call out this bullshit for what it is.”
I debated not even going into much detail about the level of bullshit in Chase’s content, just because I think to almost everyone the bullshit nature of this stuff is quite apparent. It can feel like explaining the obvious; It can feel a bit like explaining why water is wet. But considering the pretty extensive fan base Chase has acquired, and considering how many other similar people are out there making similar claims, I thought it was worth taking a deep dive.
Bullshit in Chase’s book, The Ellipsis Manual
As Martin mentions, one of the clues to the bullshit nature of Chase’s claims is the lack of real-world examples and demonstrations. If Chase really had all the experiences he claimed to have, doing all this amazing work for the military or in any industry, influencing and manipulating and brainwashing people, you’d think he’d have some interesting examples to reference. Let’s take his book, The Ellipsis Manual; it has no interesting or high-stakes examples of him or anyone using these skills. The examples he gives in his book are completely mundane and boring examples, like low stakes examples of getting slight clues from talking to someone in a store, talking to salespeople, things like this. He hints at how the various ideas can be combined in various ways to achieve major influence, but never even describes what that might look like in practice.
Major claims require major evidence, but there’s just not anything there in turns of how one would actually influence someone in a major way, let alone gain control of them. There’s nothing there. The lack of granular examples and demonstrations is, on its own, a valuable clue when trying to do your own research into such people.
In my opinion, Chase’s Ellipsis Manual is complete nonsense, full of half-baked and random and ambiguous ideas and practices that Chase has gathered from reading all sorts of other NLP and hypnosis and brainwashing materials, from the real to the unverified to the conspiracy-minded. This book is basically similar to Chase’s pick-up artist book, which was an amateur-ish compilation of random tidbits of ideas of dubious value and overstated importance, which Chase claimed would allow you to, within a few minutes, kiss and hook up with women. To be a good bullshit artist, you have to do some work; and Chase clearly reads a lot and takes a lot of notes. His Ellipsis Manual, and his other resources, are simply compilations of an assortment of ideas, some decent and good, some completely bad and silly.
How can Chase’s books (and other work) get good reviews?
But here’s the thing that gets some people and throws them for a loop: Chase’s book has 4.5 average rating on Amazon and more than 1,000 people have rated it (https://www.amazon.com/Ellipsis-Manual-analysis-engineering-behavior/dp/0692819908). How can that be? Simply put: People are easily impressed. All it takes to impress people sometimes is to give them a lot of ideas and to seem like an expert.
I can say that I’ve seen this in my poker tells work. A significant number of people who leave me positive reviews for my poker tells books aren’t good judges of what makes good information in that space; they are very low stakes and recreational players. The reviews that matter are those from people who are serious poker players; who have played for a living and know how to tell good information from bad. This is just to say: we must keep in mind that people who don’t know much about an area can be easy to impress.
Also, the nature of Chase’s overstated and often silly claims are that they preselect for more gullible people; I myself would look at the book description for the Ellipsis Manual and see many red flags, meaning I’d immediately be unlikely to buy it. For example, I know that controlling people in the way that Chase describes is not possible, and his grandiose claims would make me think “This guy is a charlatan.” But the people who follow through and actually purchase the book are more gullible and credulous (just as is the case for people who follow through and purchase Chase’s trainings). I don’t say this in a derogatory way; not everyone has read that much about psychology and behavior to know what’s possible in these areas. Not everyone has had the experiences in the NLP and hypnosis space that I’ve had. Many people will think, understandably, something like, “If this guy weren’t selling legitimate information, there’d be more negative reviews, and there’d be people criticizing him online.”
Some of the reviewers of his Ellipsis Manual book are more savvy. Here’s one reviewer https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B0CGW1FQ61/ref=acr_dp_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=one_star&reviewerType=all_reviews#reviews-filter-bar :
Unlike the glowing marketing “reviews” and the exaggerated reviews on here, it’s full of empty promises to teach you something that never materializes…. Although the behavior table is unique, the rest is practically copied from other body language books, neuro-linguistic processing, and cheesy hypnosis claims. If anything, I learned to sell a lie by making false claims with bits of other people’s legitimate work, and dragging out a message with the promise that it all comes together if you only practice and put in the effort. Basic sleazy salesman tactics.
Another reviewer writes:
This book feels like something more suited to the back of MAD Magazine next to the X-ray glasses than on anyone’s shelf.
Another person writes:
The book spends an awful lot of time telling you that you are now better than 99% of the world, whilst constantly telling you that you’ll learn such-and-such a technique in the following chapters. Only for the book to later say that you’ve now learned it.
What is NLP?
So let’s talk about NLP; neuro-linguistic programming, which is the template for Chase’s content and approach. As Martin Taylor said, Chase quote “appears to be trying to re-invent NLP.”
There’s a lot to say about NLP and going into detail about it would make this video very long. If you’re curious to learn more in depth about NLP I’d say go read the Wikipedia about it and search for terms like “NLP debunked” and “is NLP legit?” It’s quite a rabbithole and I recommend it; if you learn about this stuff, you’ll see these ideas pop up all over the place in various forms, so it’s a good way to be able to debunk related ideas. I’ll just go through some NLP basics, and some experiences I myself had during my time working for an NLP trainer named Steve Linder. Here’s his website here; he offered a course in something he called NeuroStrategies (https://www.strategicbrain.com/). Here’s his Facebook https://www.facebook.com/SteveLinderTrainer/ where he refers to himself as quote “one of the top personal and organizational performance strategists in the world.” I worked for him for six months; this was shortly after the 2008 economic crash, when jobs were scarce. From the beginning of reading about NLP, I thought it was mostly bullshit, but I thought the job would be an interesting experience. And it sure was.
Here’s a clip of Steve talking about his teachings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzpjrLb99xo (0:55)
Linder came from the Tony Robbins universe. Tony Robbins is essentially an NLP trainer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iEKd0ImzTc ); Robbins doesn’t use that term much, I think, but it’s all the same kinds of tactics. Various people repackage the ideas in various ways and use their own terms and trademarked brand names. For example, Steve Linder used “neurostrategies,” which he trademarked. Chase uses the brand Neuro-Cognitive Intelligence. You’ll see the word “neuro” a lot in the mix; not only is it tied to the the “neuro-linguistic programming” roots, it sounds impressive; like something science-based; something intelligent.
Some of these people branch off into other areas to train people on. For example, Steve Linder also taught investing; he had something he called DMAS: Dynamic Market Analysis System: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-XXTjZrgKo. He claimed he could help people be successful at stock investing using his special system.
Linder had been an attendee and fan of Tony Robbins; eventually he learned enough to branch out on his own and start teaching his own courses, so he became a sort of satellite, one of many satellites in the Tony Robbins world. A lot of these people share the same sets of attendees; people pay thousands, even tens of thousands, of dollars to come to these events; many attend these events frequently. For many it’s a way of life; it’s a circle of friends. Some people volunteer for free for the trainers in order to attend for free or for cheaper. It’s a whole scene.
Why do people attend the NLP and NLP-adjacent seminars and trainings? There are a few reasons but if I had to boil them down it’d be:
- People want to learn to influence and manipulate others: they want to be powerful. NLP claims to teach people short cuts to influencing people. (https://www.nlp-techniques.org/influence/) This helps explain why some business people and entrepreneur types get into it. Some trainers in these NLP and NLP-adjacent areas really lean into the darker aspect of the benefits. (And I’d argue that’s what Chase Hughes has done; he’s taken the general NLP playbook and simply put a more military and espionage theme to it; repackaging NLP concepts and other concepts into a fake “top secret” government type offering.)
- Some people who attend NLP and NLP-adjacent seminars want to learn how to connect better with others. (https://transformationacademy.com/2023/05/nlp-coaching-a-life-coachs-comprehensive-guide )Some of the people who attend these things are life and business coaches and trainers and counselors of various sorts. Just to say there can be nicer, more compassionate motivations in the mix, not just power and influence.
- Some people attend for the “transformational” aspects of these events, the life-changing aspects, which I’ll talk more about in a bit. Live NLP seminars fall into a class of other transformational seminars, like EST and Landmark Forum, and many others. (https://www.qttransformation.com/nlp-training-course/) You’re not just gaining practical strategies and tips, there’s also the chance to become a completely new and improved and wiser person.
- Added to those motivations I think are some people who simply like the community (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kathleen-la-valle-351692172_pure-nlp-activity-7217169771023233024-RCf9/). I can say that based on first hand experience, some of the people who would regularly attend these things, especially the ones who worked for these people for free, seemed quite lonely to me. There was a summer camp kind of vibe; they felt close and connected to each other. I think this is a big draw for many.
How NLP relates to hypnosis
So what kind of stuff do Steve Linder and others in the NLP space teach in these multi-day seminars? I’ll review a few of the main things that stood out.
NLP is predicated on hypnosis concepts. The so-called father of NLP is someone called Milton Erickson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_H._Erickson), a therapist who used hypnotic strategies to achieve results that were allegedly very impressive (though apparently some people question that claim). Steve Linder would jokingly refer to Erickson as “Uncle Milty” as he was such a beloved figure in the NLP world. NLP and NLP-adjacent trainers claim they have hypnotic abilities; this is where these things overlap with the hypnosis training world, which is quite similar in many aspects. There are many NLP and hypnosis trainers who have little to no real experience or training and who make a lot of grandiose claims about their skills and abilities.
Steve Linder often talked about putting people into trances. For example, a few days after I started working for him, he was talking to me about some strange bullshit-y stuff that I couldn’t follow so I had a bit of a blank expression on my face, and he said, “Oh I put you into a trance there; that happens sometimes.” Feeling completely normal, I awkwardly was like, “No, I don’t think so.” and he said something like, “Yeah, it happened. It’s no problem; it happens a lot, you’ll find out.”
He said stuff like this a lot. He had, in my opinion, basically drank own kool aid. He really believed he had amazing control over people. One claim he liked to repeat was that he was able to raise or lower the temperature in a room full of seminar attendees by using cold or heat-related words in hypnotic ways.
He also believed his writing was extremely powerful. He liked to talk about how his marketing copy and sales scripts used advanced language tactics and strategies that weren’t obvious to the untrained eye, but that were extremely effective at manipulating people and getting sales. I’ve always been a writer and to me, they read like just typical over-the-top sales copy; I didn’t think they were anything special.
NLP involves influence using language and behavior patterns
One of the main ways NLP people believe they exert control over people is via the power of language. They claim that by using specific words and phrases that tug at psychological and subconscious underpinnings of people’s thoughts, that you can influence people in all sorts of ways. One core NLP concept has been that different people have different preferred representational systems; for example, that some people used a lot of vision-related words and phrases, like “I see what you mean” and this showed that they were vision-dominant and therefore you could influence them using vision-related language. Or someone might be hearing-dominant so you could use phrases like “I hear you” to influence them. But there’s no evidence for this; many studies have debunked it. To quote from one site about NLP debunking: “After reviewing 63 papers, Heap (1988) concluded that the claims made by NLP authors about representational systems had been empirically tested and found unsatisfactory.” (And that’s just one of the many ways in which NLP concepts have been debunked.) Nevertheless you’ll still hear people repeat these things as if they’re gospel.
And these are ideas that Chase Hughes has repeated in many places. For example, there are many NLP concepts in his Ellipsis Manual. He writes in there (page 134):
The word choices of subjects reveal the sensory inputs they are using to process information, and these word choices will provide, over time, a map of how they process information and through which senses they prefer to receive that same information. In neurolinguistic programming, the sensory systems play an important role in the structuring of language, increasing its impact on subjects’ subconscious minds.
Another NLP idea is the idea that looking in different directions, like down and to the right, or up and to the left, reveals something important about what a person is thinking. NLP proponents often claim to be able to tell that a person is accessing either memories or imagination based on eye quadrant direction; in other words, they can tell if they’re lying or not. Like the representational systems stuff, there is no scientific evidence for this. Nevertheless these claims have made their way out into the world in various forms; there have even been police and security personnel who’ve gotten this kind of training, despite it being known for a long time it has no validity.
What does research say about NLP?
One study from 2012 by Wiseman was titled “The Eyes Don’t Have It: Lie Detection and Neuro-Linguistic Programming”. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3394779/ They wrote about doing three studies on the eye direction idea and finding no supporting evidence for NLP claims.
The psychologist Rob Yeung has written about NLP on his site https://www.robyeung.com/why-should-you-be-wary-about-nlp. He writes:
What is the modern psychological view of NLP?
Researchers and qualified psychologists are mostly damning about NLP. In a 2019 paper published in International Coaching Psychology Review, a group of experts wrote that: “there are many critics of NLP who view NLP as variably a pseudoscience, pop psychology or even a cult, with no evidence base for its effectiveness.”
Based on their own investigations of 90 articles that they found on the topic of NLP, they concluded: “In summary, there are no empirical studies that offer evidence for the effectiveness of coaching based solely on NLP tools and techniques.”
That’s important. They did not find that there were only a few scientific studies supporting NLP. They found no papers – zero, zilch, not one.
Eye direction tells
When it comes to the NLP eye direction ideas, Chase has also shared those, although I think in the last few years he’s been careful in how he talks about them. For example, here’s a clip of him on a podcast talking about this:
[ERIC HUNLEY CLIP https://open.spotify.com/episode/2HmIR02YswF7PA9hW0ev2T 15:40]
“Is it similar to eye accessing clues?”
“Sort of… Eye accessing is.. Don’t get me started on that… Greg and I disagree on some things. The eye accessing cues were a great start; it’s not that they were trying to bullshit the world. They’ve added to it and added to it. So it’s not that it’s been disproven; it’s that it’s been improved.
So Chase’s stance is that these ideas haven’t been debunked, they’ve just been improved. I haven’t seen Chase talk about how they’ve been improved, though; in what way have they been improved? Have they been improved or is it just a good strategy to say such things, because acknowledging their obvious weakness and lack of supporting evidence would be too harmful to people who promote these and similar ideas?
And these eye direction ideas are shared by others in the pop-behavior-analysis space.
I often see people in these spaces repeating these kinds of things, in different forms. One pseudo-behavior-expert I’ve talked about in past episodes, Jack Brown, often repeats the eye direction stuff. In one tweet, he says “It’s important to differentiate between two kinds of guilt – when one feels remorseful (ergo remorse-guilt) and when one knows they are probably going to be caught and suffer consequences (culpability-guilt) – both are characterized with glances toward one’s right lower quadrant.” https://www.readingpokertells.com/2021/08/dr-jack-brown-a-so-called-behavior-expert-is-a-fraud/
Here’s a clip of Greg Hartley, who, like Chase, is a member of the show The Behavior Panel, talking about using eye direction to get a read on someone:
[BEHAVIOR PANEL CLIP; MEGAN MARKLE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYyEx20DiKU&t=24m35s ]
She breaks eye contact, and I wish the camera were better but I’m almost certain she broke eye contact down left but she broke eye contact left for sure, in this down left any time you’re having a conversation with self and you’re thinking about how to navigate words and what you should say next you’ll find people’s eyes drift down to their left so you when you’re talking to someone, and they ask you a hard question that you need to put in perspective you are going to drift down into your left now. There can be deviation it can be hard way over here it can be somewhere in here but it’s almost always that. I’ve interrogated a lot of people and i’ve never seen a deviation from that one. Now i don’t believe in a lot of absolutes as. you guys all know that’s one i do follow that the downright eye movement for emotion.
Could there be some truth to eye direction tells? Sure; many things could be true. I believe there are many behavioral patterns that are used by practitioners that haven’t been researched yet. But one would think that someone would have found something by now, especially if these patterns are as reliable as so many in these spaces have claimed; and especially considering people have been talking about these ideas for decades now. But no, nothing has been found. But these ideas sure make for an exciting story – and also, importantly, they tell a story that’s hard to quickly debunk on one’s own.
And Chase has shared many supposedly unique observations that are related to NLP concepts. Here’s one where he talks about something he calls Gestural Hemispheric Tendency, and how it can be used to influence people.
[ERIC HUNLEY CLIP https://open.spotify.com/episode/2HmIR02YswF7PA9hW0ev2T 16:20 ]
[Paraphrased transcrip] And I asked Eric “what’s the worst traffic you’ve been in” and then with his left hand he’s explaining “people piled up as far as you can see.” And then I asked him about his vacation and he starts using his right hand, “we had a great hand.” That’s really easy to spot; ask someone a question about something bad and you already know their negative side. So the way to exploit GHT is a little bit complex but, if I know Eric gestures that way, I’m gonna move this way at the end of our conversation when i’m asking you to do something.
I’d ask you, just based on common sense and things in your own life, how much impact do you believe such things would have on you? Do you think such things could influence you in a big way? Or do you think they sound like something likely to be a very minor thing, if it’s a thing at all?
NLP and gaining rapport
Another fundamental aspect of NLP is gaining rapport with people (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7LYTROORY0) . They use things like mirroring someone’s body language and gestures, just as they try to mirror the way a person talks. This is where some of this stuff overlaps with pickup artist and public speaking and confidence training type materials; trying to gain rapport with people to be more likeable and influential. And some of those things have some validity — for example, having your arms crossed can come across as standoffish to people; body language can matter a lot; but a lot of the ideas are just overstated. Do you really think in a high-stakes situation, like a business negotiation or when you’re making a major purchase, that another person mirroring your body language and mirroring your manners of speech is going to have a big effect? Do you really believe that someone who uses these tactics can influence you into doing something really against your own wishes or judgment? But that’s what these people would have you believe; that these are powerful manipulations. They also can be aware of how silly this can sound, so they’ll say things like, “These things become really powerful when you use a lot of them together.” That can help overcome people’s rational objections; they’ll think, “Okay, you really need to work at this stuff and combine all the stuff and then you’ll have a big effect.” And then when they are never able to do it, they just assume, “I guess I didn’t practice hard enough.”
Chase: Repackaging NLP ideas in a military/spycraft theme
My overall take on Chase and his body of “work” is that he’s used the general NLP guru playbook, but has repackaged it in a rather unique military/MK-ultra/espionage sort of package. And this is what a lot of NLP people do; they repackage the basic ideas in various ways, making it seem like they’ve got some unique concepts and special knowledge. Because if you knew they were just repackaging a bunch of old ideas, you wouldn’t be willing to pay them a lot of money. You can imagine repackaging NLP ideas in all sorts of ways; another way to package them would be in a pick-up artist context. There are many ways to package these behavior and influence ideas and aim them at specific audiences.
I think there are likely others doing similar things to what Chase has done: packaging these NLP ideas in a military type package. I don’t know of any offhand. I just imagine it’s a thing.
One of the people who reached out to me recently was a former fan of Chase Hughes who had spent more than $1,000 on his content. He said he had a lot of knowledge about NLP and described Chase’s expensive content as quote “mostly repackaged NLP from the 70s.”
NLP, strange “transformational” experiences, and love bombing
Another thing that happens at these NLP seminars is that they engage in some psychologically unusual activities meant to produce strange feelings. For example, at Steve Linder’s events, they did an activity that involved participants staring into each others’ eyes for several minutes. If you’ve ever done that, it can produce some weird feelings. It’s not something people are used to doing. So activities like that, that pull you out of your normal frames of reference and functioning, and combined with the right kinds of framings about the amazingness of your experience, can really mess with people’s minds. There were people crying after doing that activity and people saying it was life changing; people hugging and saying they felt so close to people, this kind of stuff. And a lot of transformational seminars do similar things meant to make you have a life-changing, transformational moment, a big shift of whatever sort. And it works. Many people walk away feeling like their life has undergone a wild transformation; when those transformational feelings fade in a few weeks or months, they might start thinking, “Maybe I need to pay another few grand for another seminar.” These things can be addictive.
At such experiential and transformation-type events, these kinds of activities can culminate in what is called “love bombing.” (https://www.nlpcourses.com/cult-of-nlp-is-neuro-linguistic-programming-nlp-a-cult/) The group members exchange all sorts of messages of love and closeness. For many people, especially the more socially isolated and lonely attendees, this can be an amazing and special and addictive experience. Love bombing is a technique known to be used by cults, too; part of an overall strategy for forming tight bonds and attachments quickly.
Some good and okay things about NLP
Now to be completely fair to NLP and transformational seminars; I’ll say that there are some valid and interesting and useful ideas in the mix.
One important NLP concept is the power of quote “reframing” things. Basically a fancy word for assigning new narratives and stories and perspectives to things. NLP is a lot about the power of language; it’s a lot about the power of story telling. And I myself know that those things are hugely important. Changing the stories we tell ourselves are obviously hugely important; more than I think most people know. We’ve probably all had experiences where we had a painful event and memory in our life and, thanks to either therapy or just natural progression, we slowly learned to look at that event in a different framing, so it’s not as hurtful and emotionally painful to us. We “reframe” the meaning. This idea also relates to the power of positive thinking, or what’s sometimes called “growth mindset.” These can all be good and helpful ideas.
And there are other good ideas taught by NLP and transformational seminar people. For example, they teach some valid and respected and legitimate principles of psychology and behavior. If there were zero good ideas at all in the mix, these people would find it a lot harder to find and retain customers. There needs to be some legitimate stuff in there. It’s like Chase Hughe’s book The Ellipsis Manual: there’s some good and decent ideas in the mix (which also happen to be the ideas that aren’t his own) but also in the mix there’s a lot of bullshit and nonsense.
And the inclusion of real and meaningful stuff is what allows people who consume the work of Chase Hughes to say, “Hey, he’s referencing some real studies and papers; he’s not completely full of shit, like you say.” But again, I’m not saying he’s completely full of shit; it’s just a very high percentage. A dangerous percentage. Let’s just say if Chase were a hot dog, the FDA wouldn’t allow people to consume him.
One of Chase’s more expensive offerings are related to building confidence (https://www.chasehughes.com/programs) . The same dynamics would apply there; just by being told some rather simple and good things, and just by the effort of trying to become more confident, I have no doubt Chase’s students got value out of such things. And also, I think it’s clear that Chase is someone who knows a lot about confidence… A Chase Hughes customer wrote me to thank me for my work exposing Chase and also told me about their positive experiences with his content. They wrote “The ‘confidence reboot’ program helped me a lot in a very short amount of time. Just after 4weeks into it, I was even able to assert myself against my mother-in-law, I managed a regular daily routine, and my mood improved.” End quote. Again, my stance is not that people can’t get anything out of the things offered by NLP trainers and people like Chase; clearly they can and do. And then there’s also a lot to say about the placebo effect; the placebo effect is real and powerful, and can go a long way to explaining positive experiences.
Even for the stranger activities at transformational seminars, like getting everyone to stare into each others’ eyes, or other activities; those can be interesting and mind-shifting activities. Some of the people who attend these kinds of trainings are people who are pretty buttoned up and straight-and-narrow type people. Especially for those types of people, some of the weirder activities can have a similar effect to taking hallucinogenics; these activities can break normal routines and thought patterns. These can have beneficial and world-view expanding effects – but that also means that, for some of the more psychologically vulnerable people, these events and experiences can mess with their minds; some will have panic attacks or other mental disturbances. So again, yes, I do understand why people have good experiences and want to keep giving these people money and time. I don’t think all this stuff is bad.
But a lot depends on the context; a lot depends on how deceptive the practitioner is, and how exploitative and manipulative they are, and how many bad, unhelpful ideas are in the mix, and so on. And for many of the people who work in this realm, the focus seems to be largely on exploiting and manipulating people; on persuading people that the practitioners have special powers; on persuading people to keep coming back to spend thousands and thousands of dollars. Now that isn’t everyone in this space; for one thing, as I said, I think some people, including Steve Linder, really did believe they were changing people’s lives for the better – but I’m just saying I think it’s clearly a common pattern.
Chase’s foreword in an NLP/hypnosis book
One of the ways these various NLP people gain traction and popularity is via other people in those spaces promoting them. There are incentives for people in these spaces to promote each other, in a tit-for-tat way. When multiple people in these spaces are giving each other testimonials and praise, it can help create a veneer of respectability and authority and expertise.
For example, here’s an NLP book by Richard Nongard titled, “Excellence in NLP and Life Coaching: How to Structure Success and Create Influence at the Expert Level.” This book’s foreword is written by Chase Hughes. https://www.amazon.com/Excellence-NLP-Life-Coaching-Neuro-Linguistic-ebook/dp/B097RYP34S
Here’s a snippet from Chase’s foreword:
This book delivers powerful lessons in NLP and Life Coaching, with applications to hypnotherapy practice that were hard-won and time-tested. Your ability to produce change in others will always come down to the factors that the academic community ignores: Your skill level. You’re holding this book because you understand that, and Dr. Nongard is about to deliver on massive skale.
This is another theme of NLP trainers and people like Chase Hughes; the reason their work isn’t respected by academics and researchers is because researchers aren’t studying the right people. If academics knew to study the right, most skilled people, they’d be able to see how much this stuff works.
But again, this begs the question: if you were someone like Chase Hughes or another hypnotist or NLP trainer who believed they had massive insights on how to quickly influence and manipulate people, even against their will, wouldn’t you want to research that? Wouldn’t you feel compelled to involve researchers and the academic community? But I think it’s rather clear why they don’t, and why they instead merely downplay the fact that their grandiose claims aren’t supported by research.
Here’s a snippet from that NLP book, where the author, Richard Nongard, praises Chase Hughes.
Many of you have read Chase Hughes’ book titled The Ellipsis Manual. How do I know this? Because it is the best-selling book in hypnotherapy and the best-selling book on body language and is one of the best-selling books in law enforcement. It is a fantastic book written by a military intelligence specialist, Chase Hughes, who shares his twenty-plus years of experience in studying body language and interrogations, and leadership, and a range of diverse yet related topics. Chase shares some ideas that can help us to develop rapport back to the classic NLP idea.
In Nongard’s book he praises Chase many times; there are several more references to Chase using fawning language. I think Nongard genuinely believes Chase has done amazing work. And there’s a valuable lesson here, too: the people who hawk this kind of bullshit are themselves quite gullible. In many cases, they really are falling for this stuff as much as any of their customers are.
I don’t think that’s true for Chase himself; I think his deceptions are on the unusually high end of deception and manipulation. But I think a lot of people in this space, like Steve Linder, and likely this Nongard person, are being fooled as much as they are fooling others. Peddlers of bullshit are often vociferous consumers of bullshit.
Why do so many people believe this stuff?
Let’s get more into why it seems to easy for people to believe this stuff. The answer to that question involves some aspects that relate to behavior analysis. For any set of data where there’s a lot of noise and variance and things are hard to interpret, it will be easy for people to see what we want. The more high-variance and obscure the data is, the more our biases and emotions will play a role in our interpretation.
For example, let’s take the influence area: we all influence other people every day. We’re constantly influencing others with our words, our tone, our gestures, our subtle body language, all sorts of things. This means it can be easy to make people think that they have been taught to have above-average influence over others. It’s a subjective and noisy arena. And because so much of influence comes down to confidence; believing you have more influence can make you have more influence. Just ask Chase Hughes; the confidence to lie so much and to do it so confidently, has allowed him to influence many people. This isn’t rocket science; believing you’re good at influencing people, and having some confidence, will help you influence them.
And, importantly; this can even help you fool yourself. You may consume Chase’s products (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_RQDvlwFX8) and try some of the ideas out in the real world and be like, “Hey, I’m influencing people.” But are you influencing them more than you were before? Or are you just trying harder now at connecting and being social and so it can seem like you’re having more success?
These are hard to define areas, and the ambiguity is part of what makes it easy to con people in these areas. And then there’s the whole aspect of: what if I think I’m influencing people but I’m only influencing the most gullible people, those who are easily influenced, while the smarter and more aware people think I’m just acting over-the-top and strange? Just to say, things can be deceiving when it comes to rapport and influence building.
And these points apply to analyzing behavior, too. Behavior is extremely complex; specific behaviors can have all sorts of explanations. Someone who seems anxious in an interrogation or interview setting may be anxious because they’re guilty or anxious because they’re innocent and just stressed out at the situation, or anxious because they have a stomach ache, or some other unknown reason.
Behavior is complex and high-variance; and when things are complex, it’s easy to persuade others, and even persuade ourselves, that we have above-average powers. It’s easy to persuade ourselves that we are noticing important and meaningful things — and this becomes especially the case when we have information that biases our judgment. When we, for example, already know that there is good evidence that someone is guilty and lying, or whatever information we have.
Another factor in the influence and behavior-reading areas is that we seldom get immediate feedback about our reads and abilities. For example, when you seek to influence someone, and you succeed, you’ll seldom know what the factors were. Maybe they were just being nice to you; maybe they were just being nice to get out of talking to you. Maybe they did what you wanted because they were weak and easily influenced. Maybe they did what you wanted because it was just a good deal for them.
It can be the same with reading behaviors: when someone guesses what a behavior indicates, we aren’t often going to know for sure what the truth was. We’ll seldom get immediate and direct feedback on our guesses. These aspects of these softer skills of human psychology and behavior mean it’s easy for us to see what we want. I’d compare this to reading poker tells; if you watch a live stream of poker with the hole cards shown on a delay after the hand is over, you’ll get immediate feedback on whether your guesses were right or wrong about people’s behavior. This kind of immediate feedback doesn’t exist for real world interrogations and interviews. We may sometimes know later that someone wasn’t telling the truth, but that can still leave a lot of unknowns about the exact factors behind a specific behavior..
A note about behavior analysis and separating bullshit from reality
And I want to be clear here: I’m not saying that there’s no benefit or skill to reading behavior; I think there is. I’m someone who has written books about poker tells, after all, and I also think I’m above average at spotting indicators of deception and obfuscation in interrogation scenarios – and furthermore I’d say that some of those clues and patterns aren’t even technically about deception detection but just reads based on levels of comfort and looseness; reads based on common patterns of interaction that guilty or innocent people have, which aren’t even directly connected to spotting lies. (If you’re interested in deception detection, you should check out a previous episode of mine where I talk to Tim Levine about the difficulties in using behavior to spot lies: https://behavior-podcast.com/questioning-if-body-language-is-useful-for-detecting-lies-with-tim-levine ).
I also think there’s a lot of interesting and valuable stuff in the statement analysis sphere (if you’re interested in that, I recommend a previous episode where I interview Mark McClish about that: https://behavior-podcast.com/second-podcast-interview-with-statement-analysis-expert-mark-mcclish/ ).
What I am saying is that the behavioral areas are a lot more complex and high-variance than a lot of people claim, and that, similar to hypnosis and NLP, that complexity and ambiguity makes it easy for people to believe they’ve gained a lot of skill when they haven’t. Just as beginner-level poker players often have an inflated sense of their ability to read tells. They remember the times they were right but downplay and forget the times they were wrong.
The placebo effect plays a role
Another factor that helps explain why many will express satisfaction with such products and trainings is the placebo effect. Let’s say you were an MMA fighter who hired Chase to give you so-called performance hypnosis. Simply believing that Chase has amazing powers can make you believe he’s done something amazing to you; you can feel changed by that. The placebo effect is another contributing reason why people like Chase can get good reviews from people he’s worked with. In fact, that is part of what is taught in NLP and hypnosis trainings; that seeming to be an authority will help you influence people.
Another factor in this is that if people don’t get good results, they’ll assume it’s their fault for not working hard enough or not doing something right. For example, in Chase’s case, there’s probably some people who see other people being happy with Chase’s work and they think, “The problem must just be me, so I shouldn’t say anything; I don’t want to look like a fool in being the only person who didn’t get anything out of this.” I’ve had a couple people write to me about reading Chase’s Ellipsis Manual who said things like, “I always thought it was rather vague and impractical but I figured I just needed to really practice the skills, but I never did.”
These things are complex. There are multiple reasons why someone can get away with claiming, for a long period of time, that they have amazing abilities they don’t have. The perception of authority can go a long way. The emperor can go a long time without anyone mentioning that he’s naked.
The harms/damages in NLP/hypnosis deception and exaggeration
Deceptions in the NLP and hypnosis areas can have serious harms; this isn’t all just fun and games. There’s obviously the financial harms; people losing thousands or tens of thousands or even 100s of thousands of dollars. There are the psychological problems; you can google about transformational seminars and people having psychological issues stemming from their experiences.
One story that stood out from my six months in the NLP world was this: Steve Linder was hired by a guy in the Portland, Oregon area to examine his hand tremor. He thought that Steve Linder’s hypnosis might cure him of it. Linder asked the guy if his hand tremor happened when he slept and the guy said No, only when he was awake; Linder said this was proof that the hand tremor was psychological and could be cured by hypnosis. I talked to a doctor about this and she said this was bullshit; that Linder didn’t know what he was talking about; that the guy could have a serious condition that needs medical assistance. I accompanied Linder when he went to this guy’s house and did some hypnosis stuff to him. I never heard what came of that as I quit not long after; I emailed that guy a few weeks after I quit to enquire about his health but I never heard back. But just think about that for a moment; Linder was telling this guy this tremor was all in his head, that he didn’t need real medical attention for his problem. Think about how badly that might go for a guy with a serious medical problem.
Chase promoting supplements
Chase Hughes has now returned to hyping vitamin supplements of dubious quality; he’s returned to his RedShift roots. He’s been promoting products from a chiropractor named John Lieurance, who Chase refers to as Dr. John. Here’s a clip from the instagram of Dr. John, showing him treating Chase:
Dr. John runs a health and wellness supplement site at www.MitoZen.com . Here’s an image from Chase’s youtube showing him promoting an affiliate link for Mitozen.
Here’s a wayback machine look at Dr. John’s Mitozen website from 2021 (https://web.archive.org/web/20210225002626/https://www.mitozen.com/?v=f0aa03aaca95) : it reads “We use only the Finest Ingredients and Most Advanced Delivery Systems”. The word ‘systems’ is spelled with an apostrophe s. The home page features a rather silly looking Dr. John in a white coat, a stethoscope slung around his neck, holding what I think is meant to be a large, colorful mitochondria. Dr. John is all about the mitochondria, from what I’ve seen.
Underneath that it reads, “Three unique and powerful brands that are guaranteed to impress scientists, physicians and even the educated layman, GlutaGenic™, Advanced Biome Corp™ and NeuroDiol™ are all scientifically designed to be the most advanced healthcare technology in the industry.”
I searched for this “glutagenic” name and found a 2020 letter from the FTC telling Lieurance to stop saying his products could help treat covid, due to that being against the law.
The FTC letter (https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/warning-letters/fda-covid-19-letter-glutagenic_advanced_biome_corp.pdf) reads:
Some examples of the claims on your website that establish the intended use of your products and
misleadingly represent them as safe and/or effective for the treatment or prevention of COVID-19 include: (and here it quotes from the Glutagenic site:) Glutagenic™’s Viral Protection Kit is being introduced due to the recent Cornona [sic] Virus
outbreak . . . a great prevention strategy to utilize”…
Another example the FTC includes is this copy from his site: “Ways to prevent coronavirus . . . use GlutaStat Nasal Spray 2-3 times a day and at the end of the day nebulize GlutaStat.”
And there are quite a few other examples they include from Lieurance’s site.
One Mitozen product Chase has been hyping is Methylene Blue. On the notes for a recent youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4tXqcXeHHM ), Chase wrote, “Nine months ago, my brain was falling apart—I was having up to 9 seizures a day and didn’t even recognize my own family at times. Diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy, I was losing hope until I discovered something that changed everything: methylene blue. This blue dye from the 1800s, combined with melatonin and psychedelic therapy, helped me reverse my brain damage and regain my life. In this video, I’ll share how these powerful molecules transformed my brain health, stopped my seizures, and might even help someone you know. You’ll learn about the science behind mitochondria, how brain damage can be healed, and why traditional medicine may not always have the answers.”
Another product he’s apparently been hyping from MitoZen is something called Sandman-Sol (Sandman dash S.O.L.). Someone emailed me that these were quote “expensive melatonin suppositories at 200 times the daily dose” and that Chase was promoting these to his inner circle (and to be clear here, when I say ‘inner circle’ that refers to his fan base; it’s not a slang term for his anus…. sorry, that was a suppository joke; it didn’t land very well and I apologize for that) https://www.mitozen.com/product/sandman-sol/
Do these things work? I don’t know. Does Chase believe these things work? I have no clue. I saw that Methylene Blue did seem to have some legitimacy for epilepsy treatments, although I didn’t see anything about it having a major benefit. I also found sites explaining that Methylene Blue can have serious side effects (https://www.drugs.com/sfx/methylene-blue-side-effects.html) , including dizziness, rapid heartbeat, unusual bleeding and bruising, and vomiting, which likely explains why it’s not a commonly prescribed substance. But regardless of the efficacy of this substance or the melatonin suppositories, the important part is to notice a pattern in these things. Chase used to deceptively market his own vitamin supplements, which he called Redshift with Neuridium, claiming it had amazing and unique properties and that it was internationally known and used by Navy SEALs and other armed forces personnel, amongst other clearly untrue claims. Now he’s hyping several substances with the help of a chiropractor wellness guy. Are the products good quality? Do they have beneficial properties? Are they overpriced? I don’t know the answers to these things. I’m just examining a pattern.
A closer look at Chase’s sales/manipulation funnel
The person who contacted me who had spent more than $1,000 on Chase’s products sent me the following, describing Chase’s sales funnel and strategy. I’ve edited it a bit.
Following standard cult dynamics, the first step is to isolate you in an app. This app was formerly called ABR and is now NCI, which stands for Neuro-Cognitive Intelligence.
Once he has you isolated, there are weekly Friday Night Lives, where Chase pitches his audience his products. The first product he pitches is the “Confidence Reboot,” which is aimed at persuading people they need his work improving their confidence. After that it’s 20+ hours of deep hypnosis using binaural rhythms.
During these events, people can act very strange. In one case, after being banned from the group, a person ended up in the emergency room due to panic attacks.
The next upsell is the Ops manual or the Op6 bundle, each of which move you into a more isolated community–then later he pushes the $20k program.
Within the app, Chase’s volunteers use Chase’s profile to sell you products–it’s basically a profile mask that any of his salespeople can use. They use very hard sales tactics and emotional manipulation.
That was the end of that message.
Many “guru” followers are emotionally vulnerable
Regarding the mention of panic attacks and emotional disturbance..
One must remember that courses and products that claim to teach people how to be more successful and more influential can attract people who feel vulnerable and weak – and who are quite susceptible to influence. Some may have undue and unhealthy respect for authority figures, making them especially vulnerable. This kind of thing can create a feedback cycle where people like Chase can start to really believe they are very powerful; he may think something like, “Look at how much effect I have on these people,” while the people in his circle can think, “Wow, look how much effect he has on me, and other people.” These are the kinds of dynamics present in all sorts of cult-like dynamics. Some of the techniques Chase and similar “gurus” use can really mess with these people’s minds — not because they’re powerful or special techniques, but simply because the people involved in these groups are so vulnerable.
Responses from other NLP/hypnosis gurus
I wanted to include a couple interesting exchanges I had with some people in the NLP/hypnosis spheres. I thought these interactions I had with them regarding Chase Hughes were educational, for showing how little they cared about these deceptions.
I reached out to an NLP and body language trainer named Traci Brown, thinking she would be interested in my investigation into Chase. https://www.bodylanguagetrainer.com/ Here’s a page on Traci’s site (https://www.bodylanguagetrainer.com/about-body-language-expert-traci-brown/) where she talks about how she got into NLP and then into body language; she says she’s still available for 1:1 NLP training:
Traci’s response is interesting. I’ll include it here. She writes:
First- chase is not the self titled # 1. He’s ranked #1 by global gurus.org.
Are you telling me that I’m a hoax for being #3 on the list?
What is your purpose for putting so much effort into tearing someone down?
Traci’s first sentence is referring to the title of my episode, where I refer to Chase as the ‘self-titled #1 expert in behavior and influence.’ As Traci points out, she and Chase are both featured on a site called globalgurus.org, under the category of ‘Body language’: https://globalgurus.org/body-language-gurus-top-30/ Chase is #1, and Traci is #3.
Now I’ve never heard of the site globalgurus.org, but because they list Chase Hughes as the #1 expert, I think it’s quite clear that their rankings don’t mean anything. The interesting thing here is that Traci views my information about Chase as an attack on her, which is a strange deduction, as it’s not related, or at least it shouldn’t be related. But one can see why she’d perceive it as an attack; she apparently is quite worried that her credentials might be in question if Chase’s credentials are in question. My observation that Chase has lied about his credentials I think threatens the fragile house of cards on which her and many others have built their claims to expertise and authority. That is stressful; protecting her reputation seems to be the primary thing on her mind.
Now, to be clear, I know next to nothing about Traci Brown, but her reaction to my email says a lot about who she is and what she values. I think an ethical and responsible person, someone interested in truth, would simply be curious and wonder things like, “What did you find about Chase? Are these findings true? Should I tell other people interested in behavior analysis about these findings?”
Another hypnosis person I contacted was named Jonathan Royle, as Jonathan had had Chase on his show four years before https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnVBavT4PQI . Here’s Jonathan’s website where you can see he offers various courses https://jonathanroyle.sellfy.store/ , including an “THE ELITE HYPNOTHERAPY & NLP HYPNOSIS BOOTCAMP” for 997 pounds, and a “COVERT HYPNOSIS & CONVERSATIONAL HYPNOTISM COURSE” for 597 pounds. Something called “THE MILLIONAIRE BLUE-PRINT = The Lazy Person’s Way To Get Rich” for $397. Here’s a $25 book by Royle titled “Seance Secrets, Ghost Hunting Tricks & Paranormal Investigation Techniques” “https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Hunting-Paranormal-Investigation-Techniques/dp/1540567877
Royle wrote me the following. I’ve edited this, pulling a few sentences that were separated together into one place:
Anyhow pretty much EVERYTHING Chase Claims is possible with Hypnosis, Influence & Persuasion is indeed possible.
Ultimately he has promoted himself well and has positioned himself well so is skilled in Marketing and such which after all is Persuasion.
It does seem highly likely that he has at least distorted and/or amplified his background experiences, tuition etc and yes indeed that should be called out…
But it’s also true to say where we are now today in 2024 he was sold tons of books and courses, got tons of great feedback and has most certainly run sold out live courses (as I know some people who’ve attended them here in London, England)
To start with, I think Jonathan is wrong that everything Chase Hughes claims with hypnosis and influence is possible. And I think most psychology and hypnosis experts (real experts, not just stage magicians) would agree with me. Again, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Again, for people interested in stage hypnosis and how it works, I’d recommend checking out Martin Taylor http://www.hypnotism.co.uk/about-hypnosis.html, who I might talk to in future about this topic. You might also like a previous episode where I talk with the magician and psychologist Tony Barnhart (https://behavior-podcast.com/how-magicians-misdirect-attention-and-manipulate-audiences-with-anthony-barnhart ); one thing we talk about is Derren Brown, who uses magic tricks to make it seem like he’s having impressive influence on people. Some people wrongly think that Derren Brown is actually reading people’s minds and influencing them in powerful ways, but it’s just a magic show.
But getting back to Royle’s email response to me; the interesting thing about it to me is that he just doesn’t seem that interested in Chase’s many major lies. He clearly doesn’t see that as important news. He says that because Chase has gotten some good reviews and has some clients, that therefore that’s evidence that he’s doing something right and has some legitimate claim to authority in these areas. He also says that because Chase has done well in marketing, that’s an indicator that he is good at persuasion and influence. But hopefully, for reasons I’ve already discussed in this video, you’ll see that none of that is evidence of anything. Anyone can get fans and get good reviews and get clients. Lots of scammers and fraudulent people have been quite popular. It’s simply easy to impress people.
Look at people like Belle Gibson, the successful health and wellness influencer who it came out had faked cancer and other diseases. https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a12489212/belle-gibson-wellness-blogger-lied-about-cancer-fined/ Or look at the succession of people highlighted by the account Baller Busters (https://www.instagram.com/ballerbusters/), who falsely claim all sorts of success and wealth and expertise and who have many fans and clients who attend their trainings and buy their products. Again, it’s easy to fool people.
Royle’s downplaying of Chase’s lies echos the points that quite a few Chase Hughes’ fans and defenders have made in my youtube comments. They’ll say similar things, “Chase has fans and good reviews, therefore even if he used to be deceptive, it doesn’t matter; he clearly must have some skills and credibility, right?”
I would say that Royle’s rather lackluster and unexcited response to learning about Chase’s lies is similar to Traci Brown’s. There seems to be an incentive both have to avoid examining what the Chase Hughes story might tell us about their line of work. There’s a self-serving incentive to downplay the significance of the news, because to draw attention to the Chase Hughes story might indirectly hurt their own reputations.
Various “experts” and podcasters who’ve promoted Chase
And these dynamics I think apply for many of the influential people who have promoted Chase Hughes to their audience. For example, there’s Robin Dreeke, who calls himself a “Global Behavioral Expert and FBI Master Spy Recruiter.” https://www.robindreeke.com/ . His talk with Chase in 2020 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl0lkN0BkYU) has gotten more than 14,000 views on youtube. 5 months ago, in 2024, he shared another clip of Chase Hughes, which got a couple thousand views https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H26mXR_jqM. Will he notify his audience about Chase’s many lies? Or will the same dynamics apply? Will he be afraid of how Chase’s lies reflect on him? After all, he claims to be an expert at behavior and crime; for him to call attention to Chase’s lies would make people wonder why he’d so easily believe and promote someone with so many obvious red flags; I mean, Chase is a person I myself would never have had on my podcast; I would have looked into him for five minutes and concluded, “This guy is shady as hell”.
Then there’s the Easy Prey podcast, hosted by Chris Parker. He did a podcast talk with Chase Hughes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0sTbFYbyW4 in 2023 that’s gotten 61,000 views. Ironically that’s a podcast about avoiding being exploited and harmed by others. Will Chris Parker be responsible enough to update his audience about this news, to ensure they aren’t exploited by Chase? Or are there too many incentives to ignore this and carry on as usual?
Then there’s a show called Social Engineer LLC, which, like Easy Prey, is ostensibly a show about helping protect people from being exploited and harmed by criminals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj7kD-56_vs Their video with Chase from 2019 has about 10,000 views on youtube.
Here’s a guy named Leon Hendrix, who has a shown called DRVN. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A44MGp-In4w His video from just a few days ago promoted Chase as quote “the US Government’s brainwashing and interrogation expert training the intelligence agencies, a neuroscientist, and the world’s #1 human behavior expert.” Right now that video more than 230,000 views, and is going up as I speak. His video featuring Chase from July of this year has more than 1.7 million views. Leon Hendrix is a major promoter of Chase Hughes. Leon is also promoting Mitozen’s Methylene Blue product; he writes on his youtube video description: “Use Code “LEON” for 5% off”.
That’s just a few of the many people who’ve interviewed Chase Hughes and promoted him as an expert to their audience. How much does gullibility play a role? How much does a desperation for content and clicks play a role? How much does greed play a role? I’m sure the role these factors play vary for different people.
And, for what it’s worth, I reached out to all of these podcasters who have promoted Chase Hughes; the ones I’ve mentioned and a few more. Almost nobody got back to me. A couple of the people I mentioned I had exchanges with and they didn’t seem interested in updating their audiences. For a couple of them, I left comments on some of their youtube videos that were later erased. In short, no one I’ve reached out to has expressed any interest in notifying their audiences about this, although maybe some are planning to.
Then there’s the Behavior Panel members themselves. They are supposedly behavior experts, they are people who claim they can help you spot and avoid bullshit and detect deception – but they’ve worked closely with this guy for years. With every episode they put out now, with every minute that passes where they give Chase Hughes a platform, they are helping him find a large audience. What does all this tell you about the quality of their work? What does it tell you about their dedication to accurate and responsible information? How long have they known about this stuff?
And then there’s Dr. Phil. A guy who has an audience of millions, and who, presumably, has the financial resources to vet people and exercise some due diligence. He has promoted Chase to his audience, and called Chase the quote “best on the globe.” How many of the people who have paid Chase thousands of dollars, or who may do that in future, will have Dr. Phil to thank for that? I emailed Dr. Phil’s media company, Merit Street Media, about this, and haven’t heard anything back.
Disappointing stuff, to say the least. But that’s apparently the world we live in: a world where clicks and views and attention seem to matter the most to many people. Where accuracy and vetting and looking out for your audience takes a back seat.
Concluding thoughts
At the end of the day, it’s up to you what you’ll do with this information. People are free to purchase and cosume whatever materials and products they want, no matter how much bullshit I and others think they might contain. My goal with all of this is to shed some light on some major deceptions in these spaces — to help people ask a few more questions before spending a lot of money, or even before giving someone respect and time and attention.
Life is short; I think it’s a good thing to try to avoid filling your mind with nonsense.
There are just so many smart and respectable and ethical people in the world, doing great and interesting work, and so it’s disappointing that it seems so often people pay the most attention to those who overstate and deceive. A lot of my work over the years is about getting people to be more skeptical and less gullible, whether that’s online or elsewhere. We’re just surrounded by so much bullshit these days; the internet has really amplified the bullshit. While I’m on the subject, I’d like to promote the work of Brian Dunning, who runs the Skeptoid podcast; if you enjoyed this episode, I think you’d like his work. https://skeptoid.com/ He’s also got a substack I recommend: https://briandunning.substack.com/. He’s done some impressive work examining exaggerations and inaccuracies for all sorts of topics.
I think we make the world a better place by calling out bullshit and deception, and helping people realize when they’re being fooled and misled. I think we rise by helping people think critically and make better decisions.
Thanks for watching.
Music by Small Skies.