I recently finished reading Don’t Call It a Cult, Sarah Berman’s diligently reported book about NXIVM (pronounced like “Nexium”), a cult based in Albany, New York. Founded by pathological liar and arrogant shithead Keith Raniere (and that’s putting it charitably), this group used discourse about “self-actualization” and “self-development” to legitimize the increasingly wacky and abusive classes, rituals, and initiation activities they required entrants to participate in.
But they also used non-consensual hypnosis, which is pretty fucked up.
In her book, Berman gives a little history on neurolinguistic programming (NLP), a method of communication aimed at (among other things) controlling and influencing people through the use of sneaky, low-level hypnotic techniques in conversation, such as mirroring body language and verbally evoking specific emotions.
Some of my hypnokinky friends use NLP in consensually pervy ways, but NLP is also a calling card of almost every abuser I’ve ever heard of in the hypnokink community. It is so synonymous with non-consensual control that many classes on pickup artistry teach NLP techniques. (Anything the pickup artists are into is automatically deeply suspect to me.)