Shannon how can I convince someone of subliminals?

[DarthXedonias]

I would say just give him the idea (which you have) then leave the rest up to him. Whether he decides to act on it or not is his choice. I will be honest, I was like you when I found subliminals and wanted to tell some people who had gone through some very hard times most of their lives. You can probably guess how that went. Hate to say it but most people are idiots (hope I don't sound too high and mighty by saying that) and rather: (1) Be popping pills to solve their emotional and psychological issues, (2) Spending years and lots of money seeing a psychologist and not see anything come of it (not saying their aren't good psychologist but they are very, very few and far between), (3) Rely on the consensus (AKA group think) of experts to "tell" them how to deal with "their" issues (unfortunately at this time the consensus from "experts" at the moment seems to be that subliminals don't work at all), 0r (4) be too afraid to try or feel guilty because they feel like they would be cheating somehow (I've heard this one before).

To be completely honest, from your friends response I'm not very hopeful. His response was essentially I don't believe subliminals work because this psychology teacher with multiple degrees (probably) "told me so". That tells me he isn't very open minded (though he might be in other areas of his life). A open minded but healthy skeptic would response, "I know this has been said to not work but I'm going to try it anyway just to see if maybe their are some misconceptions about this method and to see if maybe its the people who are in places of authority that are wrong about this issue". I can't tell you how many times I've sat in a class room and had a professor tell me "this" and "that" are true then go do my own research only to find out that: (1) The information was outdated, (2) What he said got debunked years ago, or (3) He was forcing his ideology into the issue and wasn't remaining objective.

On a side note, I have thought, like others, about the impact subliminals would have on mass of people and how some of the reactions (positive and negative) might be to this technology. Like someone else mentioned I wouldn't be surprised if the government tried to ban it. Lets face it most people (primarily politicians) don't want people to be self actualized because self actualized people don't give up their personal power to others and don't get easily manipulated by guilt, shame, and fear. Not to mention even though each individual would benefit greatly from being self actualized there are others with conflicting self-interest that would lose out. For example,many other people selling stuff in the self help "industry" would probably see their market share dwindle (those that take long to see effects anyway) and also things like AA programs, stop smoking items, PUA bootcamps, etc. You would also see a more balanced sexual market place between the sexes. Anyway that might be fear speaking, or maybe just looking at how human nature currently is but that's my opinion on it.