In this segment of the "Hypnosis in Politics & Marketing" conversation, Dave Asprey recounts a striking interview with Harvard hypnosis researcher Daniel Brown, who claimed to have spent a hundred hours hypnotizing convicted assassin Sirhan Sirhan, noting that a simple double‑tap on the arm could trigger a crouched, murderous state. Brown’s anecdote, coupled with his neurodegenerative condition and his scholarly work translating 13th‑century Sanskrit meditation texts, serves as a dramatic illustration of how deep hypnosis can program behavior. Dr. Manoj Doss expands the discussion by explaining two well‑studied, non‑hypnotic persuasion mechanisms: the illusory truth effect and the mere‑exposure effect, describing how repeated exposure increases perceived truth and liking through processing fluency. He acknowledges that these subtle influences shape consumer choices (e.g., preferring Coke over Pepsi) and interpersonal warmth, making it difficult to fully eliminate them. Both speakers agree that heightened awareness, personal energy, and reduced internal chaos can help individuals notice and resist manipulation, though they concede that complete immunity is unrealistic. The conversation ultimately raises the question of whether a world can be built where advertisers and politicians cannot program people, highlighting both the power and limits of psychological influence.
Chapters
Are you familiar with Daniel Brown from Harvard, his research on hypnotism?
I know of him, but I don't know specifically his work.
He came on the show and it was one of the most profound episodes ever because this is one of the world's leading experts in hypnosis, and this. Is there such a thing as a Manchurian Candidate? And he stops and he said, I spent a hundred hours with Sirhan Sirhan, and I will tell you, as a leading expert in hypnosis, he, he was hypnotized. Who did it, where they did it. When I would tap him on the arm twice, he would drop into a crouch and talk about kill points. Like, if anything in my entire career anyone has been programmed with hypnosis, it was him. And I said, oh my God, they should do a documentary on this. And he looks at me and he goes, they did. And then they deleted my eight minutes in the documentary and audited my taxes for seven years.
Oh, wow.
And he was saying this because he has a neurodegenerative condition and was like, you know, my, my career is amazing. And this is a very, very credible and knowledgeable guy who in his spare time translates 13th century Sanskrit cave meditation manuscripts so they aren't lost to the world. I mean, this is just someone who has no agenda. And I'm like, did this just happen on the show? So we know that sometimes people are programmed that way. And I'm interested in making a world where advertisers and politicians in particular cannot program people.
Yeah, but I think they, they bootstrap off of things that are, you know, are good. So as I mentioned, you know, the illusory truth effect, there's also what's known as the mere exposure effect. Same idea, except, you know, I present a stimulus to you multiple times, you're more likely to like it. It essentially goes off of this familiarity, this cortical processing, the ease of, of processing or fluency is associated, tends to be associated with things that we like more. You can think of. It takes less resources, so we like it more. Perhaps that's, you know, one story behind it. And so, you know, that can be a good thing. As much as it sucks that, oh yeah, now it means I'm going to drink, you know, Coca Cola over Pepsi. It also, you know, can mean, hey, that person that, you know, I felt a little uncomfortable around the second time I see them. I feel a little bit warmer and it's more easy to talk to them. You know, I'm less one of these people. I can usually talk to anybody, you know. But you know, some people, they're not as easily able to like and it just takes multiple times over that my partner's actually like this where she's not always warm initially but then, you know, after a few times, even if it's the most mundane conversations, it's like, all right, now she's like warmer to, you know, to people. So it's I think that it's hard to completely remove those things. And yeah, unfortunately, I think, you know, I think we just have to be aware, more aware of them.
But, you know, yeah, there's all sorts of different ways that we can be manipulated. And I think just being more aware, more conscious, having more energy and having less chaos in your system makes it easier to notice. But even then we all have our vulnerabilities and that's, that's what happens when you ride around in a human body.
