The Pickup Artist Playbook

Summary

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Mind Games: "The Pickup Artist Playbook" (March 3, 2026)

Podcast: Mind Games

Hosts: Zoë Lescaze & Alice Hines
Notable Guest: Ross Jeffries (originator of "Speed Seduction," controversial NLP figure)

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Episode Overview

This episode tackles the seductive, controversial world of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) within the "pickup artist" scene. Hosts Zoë Lescaze and Alice Hines investigate whether hypnotic mind control, as championed by figures like Ross Jeffries, is fact or fiction. Blending firsthand reporting, interviews, and memorable pop culture moments, the episode examines the techniques, controversies, and broader social implications of using NLP and hypnosis for persuasion, seduction, and so-called "mind control."

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Hypnotic Promise of NLP

• The show opens with a haunting question: Can you really hypnotize someone, covertly, to do as you wish?
• Media in the 1980s, like Science Digest, inflamed fears by calling NLP “the most sophisticated mind control technology ever.” (02:26)

2. NLP and the Pickup Artist Movement

• Ross Jeffries emerges as the bridge between NLP and the modern pickup scene. He claims mastery over inducing trance in others (“I can speak to you in a way where I induce trance” – Ross Jeffries, 03:15).
• Jeffries' so-called "speed seduction" is portrayed as a direct application of NLP to real-world interactions, particularly for manipulating attraction.

3. Demo: Hypnotic Pickup in Action (Coffee Shop Scene)

• Jeffries demonstrates conversational trance induction and vague language with a woman named Jen (04:34–06:59).
• He uses open-ended statements—"You make imagery in your mind very, very vividly. You're a very vivid daydreamer..."—to guide Jen toward pleasurable states (04:34).
• Tactile anchoring: Jeffries strokes Jen’s arm with a slow, hypnotic voice to deepen the "trance." Louis Theroux (BBC) witnesses this with visible discomfort.
• Memorable quote:

  “Was that real? ...It's totally real, dude. You know, she looked like you'd hypnotized her. I did hypnotize her.”
  — Ross Jeffries (06:51)

4. The Roots: From Bandler’s NLP to Seduction Gurus

• In 1988, after Richard Bandler (NLP cofounder) was acquitted of murder, Ross Jeffries became his student and spun NLP into the "pickup artist" niche (08:00–08:09).
• The hosts explain the context:
  • Economic uncertainty and backlash against feminism in the ‘90s and 2000s fed the rise of pickup artistry, especially among disaffected men.
  • Figures like Tom Cruise’s seduction guru in Magnolia are based on Jeffries (09:13–09:45).
• Debunking the “alpha male” myth: The idea of “alpha” and “beta” males, so often used by pickup and manosphere influencers, is built on a scientific misunderstanding of wolf behavior (10:13–10:51).

5. NLP in Practice: Social Skills or Mind Control?

• Jeffries’ "radical" techniques are often just basic social skills: asking questions, listening attentively, showing curiosity (21:17–22:16).
• More advanced: Hypnotic storytelling and presuppositional language patterns ("Have you ever felt really fascinated by someone...?") are used to elicit emotions and lower defenses (22:16–22:43).
• Reframing basic rapport-building as covert, almost magical manipulations is a hallmark of speed seduction’s marketing.

6. Hypnotic Techniques Explained

• Focus and State Induction:
  • “The currency of any [persuasion] is focus...It's about engineering consciousness.” — Ross Jeffries (24:07)
• Pattern Interrupts:
  • Purposeful confusion ("mind stutter") to create a “window of suggestibility” (26:00–28:14).
    • Quote: “If I created confusion by giving you an unexpected response, it creates a temporary, what I would call a mind stutter... a window of suggestibility.” — Ross Jeffries (27:43)
• Anchoring:
  • Associating a stimulus (voice tone, touch) with a positive feeling and then re-triggering that response later. “My voice is my anchor.” — Ross Jeffries (29:21)
• Embedded Commands:
  • Presuppositional phrasing like: "I don't know how well you can imagine this..." to smuggle in subtle directives (29:22–30:05).

7. The Ethics and Illusions of Manipulation

• Nightmarish term: Negging—insults disguised as flirtation. While negging wasn’t Ross’s invention, similar patterns appear in Bandler’s therapeutic NLP (31:05).
• Both hosts reflect on where seduction ends and manipulation begins—paralleling investigative journalism’s subtle charm tactics with pickup artistry (32:08–32:43).
• Alice and Zoe question whether real "mind control" is possible:
  • Not as direct as "making anyone do anything," but persuasion, suggestion, and emotional influence are ubiquitous in human interaction (32:56–34:15).
• Jeffries describes NLP as creating a "no-escape" rhetorical situation—whatever a subject experiences is reframed as evidence the trance is working (34:32–35:10).

8. Placebo Power and the Limits of “Mind Control”

• Pickup artistry is possibly a placebo—emboldening socially anxious men with pseudoscience, which then boosts their confidence (35:43–36:13).
• High success rates could be statistics: try techniques on enough people, someone will respond (36:13–36:25).
• Crucial Conversation:

  Zoe: "Is it possible to use NLP to manipulate people?"
  Ross: "'Define manipulation…most people don’t have a will. Most people just have wishes...If you’re talking about manipulation...it just means skillful means of creating change.'” (36:35–38:18)

9. The Will, Agency, and the Vacuum Filled by Gurus

• Hosts discuss the idea that people don’t always have a strong, persistent will—leading to vulnerability to suggestion, persuasion, and even trance (38:55–39:33).
• People seek out pickup, self-help, and NLP workshops not just for skills but for meaning, direction, and certainty—needs fulfilled (or manipulated) by self-styled gurus (39:45–40:17).
• Dark side: Surrendering too much authority to a guru (as in NXIVM), creates dependency and opens the door for abuse (40:17–40:39).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "I'm really good in inducing trance...I call it bliss gnosis."
  — Ross Jeffries, 03:15
• "For women, getting some is a choice. For men, getting some is a chore."
  — Ross Jeffries, 09:23
• "The biologist who did most to popularize the idea of alphas...has even said he was completely wrong about everything."
  — Zoe, 10:24
• "Pattern interrupt...creates a temporary, what I would call a mind stutter—a window of suggestibility."
  — Ross Jeffries, 27:43
• "Most people don’t have a will. Most people just have wishes that flit in and out of their mind...If you’re talking about manipulation...it just means skillful means of creating change."
  — Ross Jeffries, 36:51–38:18
• "Maybe...we [journalists] have more in common with pickup artists than we’d like to admit."
  — Zoe, 32:08
• "We are being manipulated all the time, covertly, by advertising, by politicians…it really just depends on how you define trance or persuasion."
  — Zoe, 32:56

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Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------| | 02:11 | Core episode starts: Alice introduces the “mind control” question | 03:15 | Ross Jeffries’s introduction, claims of trance induction | 04:34 | Live pickup/hypnosis demo with Jen at the coffee shop | 06:51 | Jeffries claims: “I did hypnotize her” | 08:00 | Bandler acquitted, Jeffries enters the NLP scene | 09:23 | “For men, getting some is a chore.” TV appearance | 10:13 | Debunking "alpha male" myth in manosphere culture | 21:17 | Jeffries demonstrates speed seduction basics | 24:07 | Explanation of focus and consciousness in NLP | 26:00 | Example of a “pattern interrupt” in live interview | 29:21 | Anchoring explained—“My voice is my anchor” | 34:32 | Jeffries breaks down permissive hypnosis and “inclusive set” | 36:35 | Zoe asks: Is this all a placebo? Is real manipulation possible? | 38:55 | Discussion of will vs. wishes and the psychology of vulnerability | 40:17 | Dangers of guru dependency, NXIVM cult preview

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Takeaways

• The effectiveness of pickup artistry and NLP may owe more to basic social skills, confidence, and the placebo effect than to actual mind control.
• NLP’s techniques, like pattern interrupts, anchoring, and embedded commands, are potent as rhetorical tools, especially with suggestible audiences—but not all-powerful.
• The concept of “mind control” is nuanced—while you can't override a true “will,” nearly everyone is vulnerable to social, emotional, and hypnotic suggestion, especially when seeking meaning or validation.
• The dark side emerges when people surrender agency to gurus, making them susceptible to far more than just pickup tricks.

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Next up: exploring how NXIVM and other cults weaponized NLP’s promise of transformation and control...

Transcript

[Zoe Lascaz]

When segregation was a law. One mysterious black club owner, Charlie Fitzgerald had his own rules.

[Alice Hines]

Segregation in the day, integration at night.

[Ross Jeffries]

It was like stepping on another world.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Was he a businessman? A criminal? A hero?

[Ross Jeffries]

Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Charlie's Place from Atlas Obscura and visit Myrtle Beach. Listen to Charlie's place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, it's Emily Simpson and Shane Simpson from the Legally Brunette podcast.

[Ross Jeffries]

Each week we're bringing you true crime through a legal lens.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Whether you want all the facts on the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie or you still need to wrap your head around the Diddy verdict, we're breaking it all down step by step.

[Ross Jeffries]

And we're not just lawyers, we're also husband and wife. It makes for some pretty entertaining episodes.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Listen to Legally Brunette on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ross Jeffries]

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[Alice Hines]

there's this question that's been haunting our series. Zoe and also Neuro Linguistic programming in general. Here it is. Is it possible to hypnotize someone to get them to do what you want without them knowing?

[Zoe Lascaz]

This is the big spooky question. In 1983, Science Digest was quoting experts who warned NLP could become, quote, the most sophisticated mind control technology ever.

[Alice Hines]

A lot of academics say it's bs. There's no magic switch that works on everyone, not even hypnosis. The CIA tried to hypnotize people into becoming unwitting assassins in the 1950s and it totally didn't work right.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Manchurian Candidate stuff. But there is one school that suggests hypnotic mind control is real, and that's the pickup artists.

[Alice Hines]

Yep, the get any woman to sleep with you speed seduction guys.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Mm. And get this. There's one pickup artist in particular who got everything he knows from nlp.

[Ross Jeffries]

I'm really good in inducing trance. I can speak to you in a way where I induce trance. I will not unless you give me your consent, because it's not a toy.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Master hypnotist Ross Jeffries. Here he is in 2000, prowling Marina del Rey in Los Angeles with BBC correspondent Louis Theroux.

[Ross Jeffries]

Where are we now, Ross? This is the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, one of the primo places in the marina to pick up women.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Ross says he prefers cafes like this to clubs or bars, because in clubs

[Ross Jeffries]

and bars, women are there to reject men and get free drinks. I have to shout to be heard. It sucks. But this is a nice, friendly place. People are off their guard, you know?

[Zoe Lascaz]

His targets have just finished work. They're relaxed and down to chat. He zeroes in on a blonde woman with a 90s Meg Ryan style haircut sitting outside having a coffee and cigarette with a friend. Hello. I don't know many people. I just moved here.

[Ross Jeffries]

Talk to me. But you're from the Midwest.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Yes, I.

[Ross Jeffries]

How could you tell you're from Chicago or Wisconsin? Detroit. Detroit. But close, huh? First of all, my name is Ross. I'm Jen. Okay.

[Zoe Lascaz]

As Ross chats her up, he slips into an empty chair, not at her table, but just beside it. He sits, legs apart, confident but casual, turning slightly so he can face her. Then he launches into a speed seduction pattern.

[Ross Jeffries]

Okay, I'm going to tell you something about herself. You make imagery in your mind very, very vividly. You're a very vivid daydreamer. And in fact. So you're smiling because you know I'm right. You can look at someone and they can think you're listening. And usually you are listening. But if you're bored, you can be looking right at them. And even though you're looking right at this person, you could be a million miles away in your favorite ideal fantasy vacation spot. True. You're right. I'm absolutely right.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Notice how he keeps the language vague. He's not asking her where that fantasy vacation spot is or what it's like. He's just getting her to imagine it, to ease her into a pleasurable state. How'd you know that?

[Ross Jeffries]

I do a very rare, very unusual. Hardly anyone knows about it. It's a form of hypnosis that involves no sleep. None. I call it bliss gnosis.

[Zoe Lascaz]

The two chat a bit more and then the show cuts to Louis interviewing Ross and the woman. Jen, about what just happened.

[Ross Jeffries]

Did Ross just try and pick you up?

[Zoe Lascaz]

I didn't think of it as him picking me up, but we had a great conversation and we're gonna have coffee sometime.

[Ross Jeffries]

Did I understand about you on a much deeper level than most people? Yeah, I felt it. Yeah. And you know what? You know that feeling, right?

[Zoe Lascaz]

Just as Ross reminds her of that feeling, his voice drops into a slow, deliberate tone. He starts running a finger slowly up her arm towards her shoulder. Louis looks horrified.

[Ross Jeffries]

Better. Better. Even better right now. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. The more you focus in, the more intense the warmth. Am I on planet Lala? What is going on? Does that feel good? Do you want to be on TV or something? Does it feel good? Is that what this is about? On a scale of 1 to 10, how good does it are you? Did you hear that? Are you an accident? Did you hear that?

[Zoe Lascaz]

No, I'm not.

[Ross Jeffries]

What do you do? I work for an airline. Really? Yep. And you're so. You're not just trying to be on tv, right? No. No. I think he was just doing some voodoo on your arm. It's okay. Thank you very much, Jennifer. See you later.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Bye.

[Ross Jeffries]

Was that real? Yeah, it's totally real. Was that real? Seriously? It's totally real, dude. You know, she looked like you'd hypnotized her. I did hypnotize her.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Take a deep breath in.

[Ross Jeffries]

And breathe out. Your conscious mind is going to go totally away so that I can speak privately with your unconscious mind.

[Zoe Lascaz]

You can notice that you feel rested, more alert, confident. From Kaleidoscope and I Heart Podcasts, this is episode seven of Mind Games. I'm Zoe Lascaz.

[Alice Hines]

I'm Alice Hines.

[Ross Jeffries]

You don't know how you did it, do you? You go into a little time distortion

[Zoe Lascaz]

state

[Ross Jeffries]

and you're out of it.

[Alice Hines]

When we left off our last episode, Richard Bandler had just been acquitted of murder. People were wondering if he could have hypnotized the jury or warped his friend James Marino's mind.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Around the time Bandler walked free in 1988, he got a new student who would take NLP into the Internet age and spawn the pickup artist movement.

[Alice Hines]

Okay, so for younger listeners, we should explain what the fuck the pickup artist movement is. Here's how I figured it out. So I was in high school in the 2000s and there was this best selling book Called the Game. People's annoying older brothers were showing up at parties and they were reading it and pretending they had all these hacks to sleep with the hottest girls.

[Zoe Lascaz]

The Game introduced readers to a bunch of guys intent on restoring the natural order of the universe. You know, where every man gets the babe harem he so rightly deserves.

[Alice Hines]

Pickup artistry was a big deal in the 90s and 2000s, in part because more women were supporting themselves and some men felt like they were getting a raw deal. The movement gained so much attention that major pop culture reporters like the BBC's Louis Theroux even profiled its star.

[Zoe Lascaz]

There were economic reasons for this. The American dream was falling apart. Guys couldn't just go and get manufacturing jobs and support households with them like their dads had. At the same time, there was a huge backlash against feminism.

[Alice Hines]

And so this guy, Ross Jeffries, was the provocative face of the so called pickup artist movement.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Here he is on a major talk show of the day, Wally George's hot seat.

[Ross Jeffries]

For women, getting some is a choice. For men, getting some is a chore. If you don't recognize besides that, you are going to get your head. Hey, I have news for him, getting some is impossible.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Tom Cruise even played an alpha male seduction guru based on ross in the 1999 movie Magnolia.

[Ross Jeffries]

Respect the cock and tame the cunt.

[Alice Hines]

This is from the 90s, but it's still so relevant. Guys talk like that on the Internet today, like Incels, for instance. And then there's the so called alpha influencers like Andrew Tate, who somehow convinces men if they're misogynistic, they'll also get rich.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Okay, brief science rant. It drives me completely bonkers, Alice, how the manosphere uses the term alpha like it's a real biological concept.

[Alice Hines]

Wait, okay, so it's not?

[Zoe Lascaz]

No, the idea that there are alpha wolves doming all the beta wolves for the right to breed is total bs. It was based on studies of wolves in captivity. Packs in the wild are just families, like parents with kids. The biologist who did most to popularize the idea of alphas in the 1970s has even said he was completely wrong about everything and has begged his publisher to stop printing his book. That's crazy.

[Alice Hines]

Okay, but we're not here to talk about all the absurd claims the manosphere makes about science and what's quote unquote natural. We are here to talk about pickup artists though, and we want to use them as a case study to figure out whether hypno NLP, mind control could actually be real.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Most of the People we've met so far use NLP on willing subjects. You hire Richard Bandler because you want him to reprogram your brain. You pay gazillions of dollars to go see Tony Robbins because you want to unlock all that unlimited power. Even if you go to a car dealership and the salesman uses NLP on you without you knowing, you're only there because you're fundamentally open to buying a car.

[Alice Hines]

But women don't go to coffee shops to get hypnotized and creepily stroked on the arm.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Right? And this is what sets Ross Jeffries apart. The idea that you can use these techniques on anyone, anywhere. I went to San Diego to find out how and if it works.

[Ross Jeffries]

Good morning. I hope you're not too jet lag. I hope you're ready because I'm coming loaded for bear and have all sorts of sneaky, covert NLP hypnotic tricks up my sleeve. Zoe. Zoe. Can't wait to see you there.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Before I met Ross, he sent me many, many voice memos.

[Ross Jeffries]

The suffering of many men is inconceivable. I'm not putting down how women suffer, how women are abused.

[Zoe Lascaz]

So, full disclosure. Ross asked me to call him by his civilian name, Paul, which I did when we were talking. But because everyone knows him as Ross Jeffries, we're gonna use that for the rest of the episode. Sorry, Paul. Sorry, Ross. These days he's expanded his brand to include sales. He's embraced vipassana meditation and bills himself as a healer focused on men's pain.

[Ross Jeffries]

But the pain of men is shamed. They're not allowed to talk about it. As he said, he can't talk to anyone about it. He'd be shamed about it.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Ross had just texted me a screenshot of something called the Ross Jeffries Elite Student Mastermind Group. A man there said he was a 31 year old virgin who'd been abused as a child and that he had severe eczema all over his face and body. Speed seduction, he wrote, had been a big help.

[Ross Jeffries]

And so I send this to you because I want to share with you how I joke around and call myself the Guru.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Getting laid, that's actually one of his more polite sobriquets. He's also called himself the Guru of Gash.

[Ross Jeffries]

I use vulgar language and stuff to attract attention, but I send this to you in the hope that you paint me in a fair light. Because if you don't, the people who need that help will never reach out for it.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Ross was worried I'd drag him through the mud, which is a reasonable concern because a lot of women hate him. At least his Ross Jeffries Persona. These days, Ross is in his late 60s with short, curly white hair, mustache and beard. When we met, he was wearing a purple button down under a plum colored blazer, which honestly felt like an nlp deep cut, big deal. Hypnotherapist Milton Erickson wore a lot of purple and Erickson is one of Ross all time heroes. Ross polarizing Persona was born in the late 1980s. At the time, Ross was a failed comedy writer living in Los Angeles, furious with all the women who wouldn't sleep with him.

[Ross Jeffries]

I was very awkward, socially backward, was unattractive, or at least I thought I was. And what you project is what people see. I didn't have social skills and I was not brought up in a family where those were emphasized or modeled or taught. And I certainly didn't have any skills in attracting women.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Again, no skills until he discovered nlp. He was browsing at a bookstore when he felt an almost mystical pull.

[Ross Jeffries]

And however improbable this may seem, and use your adult ability to tell when someone's bullshitting you. You're an experienced journalist. And this is what happened. My hand floated up and I grabbed a book and it said, Frogs and the Princes, Richard Bandler and John Grinder live. I thought, oh, okay, I'll give this a shot, why not? I recall distinctly sitting down on the floor of that bookstore and flipping through it and think, well, that's interesting, huh? That's, oh, wow, this is amazing.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Frogs into Princes wasn't about getting laid. It was the first approachable, not too jargony book from NLP co founders Richard Bandler and John Grinder. It came out in 1979 with a psychedelic fantasy prince on the COVID and got a ton of people hooked on nlp, including Ross.

[Ross Jeffries]

The book revealed Erickson's conversational model where it's completely a matter of what appears to be a conversation, but it has presuppositions, it has metaphors, it has stories that immediately struck me as something of incredible power. And I began to see how I can use that in conversations with women to engineer states of emotion, which to me is what it's all about. It's about engineering consciousness.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Ross read every scrap of NLP literature he could get his hands on. Around 1988, he attended a seminar with Richard Bandler and another hypnotist named Don Wolfe in San Diego. Don gave him a hypnotic command to call Bandler an asshole anytime. Bandler said, manuel Noriega. I guess Bandler was into talking about Panamanian dictators because sure enough, he said

[Ross Jeffries]

the name, and I remember jumping up and calling him an asshole. And he came over to me and threatened to throttle me. And then something happened that I don't remember. Apparently, Richard took me backstage and hypnotized me and told me that I was going to take NLP in a completely new direction. Innovate with it.

[Zoe Lascaz]

It.

[Alice Hines]

Oh, my God.

[Zoe Lascaz]

He did it.

[Alice Hines]

He just said, new direction or nude erection?

[Zoe Lascaz]

Ugh.

[Alice Hines]

That's like this pickup artistism. It's a sneaky command to imagine boners, which supposedly gets you interested in people, though I honestly don't know if that works at all.

[Zoe Lascaz]

You don't feel it, Atlas?

[Ross Jeffries]

No.

[Zoe Lascaz]

The irresistible image of a boner that's not working on you?

[Alice Hines]

No.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Huh. Weird. Well, this and more hypnotic speed seduction tactics. After the Brick Foreign,

[Ross Jeffries]

This is Ryder Strong with a podcast called the red weather. In 1995, my neighbor Anna Trainor disappeared from a commune. It was nature, trees, and praying, and drugs. So, no, I am not your guru. Back then, I lied to everybody they

[Zoe Lascaz]

have had this case with for 30 years.

[Ross Jeffries]

I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth. You can now binge all episodes of the Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Zoe Lascaz]

It's the new me and it's the old them. Everybody's on their journey, and your journey is different to theirs.

[Ross Jeffries]

This Women's History Month, the podcast if you Knew Better with Amber Grimes spotlights women who turn missteps into momentum and lessons into power. I think coming out of where I

[Zoe Lascaz]

came from, I'm from the Bronx.

[Ross Jeffries]

I think I grew up really poor.

[Zoe Lascaz]

I didn't know that then because I very much use my creativity to romanticize life, and I'm like, my mom did a really good job of, like, you

[Ross Jeffries]

step back and you're like, whoa.

[Zoe Lascaz]

We. I don't know how we made it. So a lot of my life was, like, built out of, like, survival to get to the next place. Like, my drive, my, like, tunnel vision of, like, I got to be better. I got to achieve. This was off the strengths of, like, I want to make a better life for us.

[Ross Jeffries]

If youf Knew Better brings real talk from women who've lived it, unpacking, career pivots, relationship lessons, and the mindset shifts that changed everything. Listen to if youf Knew Better with

[Zoe Lascaz]

Amber grimes on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Almost 30 years together, four kids and some of reality TV's most unforgettable moments. We know a thing or two about living life out loud. We're taking you behind the scenes in our new podcast, Between Us with me,

[Ross Jeffries]

Heather Dubrow, and me, Terry debrow. Between Us isn't about perfect lighting or curated Instagram grids.

[Zoe Lascaz]

It's the unfiltered behind closed doors conversations you wish you could eavesdrop on. Equal parts smart, funny, and a little bit scandalous.

[Ross Jeffries]

Every week, Heather will bring you an unapologetic take on the headlines, the trends, and the cultural moments everyone's texting about.

[Zoe Lascaz]

And Terry will deliver insider beauty, health and wellness insights you won't find on TikTok.

[Ross Jeffries]

Together, we'll tell the stories, spill the secrets, and share the hacks that keep life, marriage, and everything in between feeling fresh and fun.

[Zoe Lascaz]

We may live in a gated community,

[Ross Jeffries]

but there's zero gatekeeping here and plenty of did they just say that? Moments.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Listen to between us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ross Jeffries]

I went and sat on the little ottoman in front of him and I said, hi, dad. And just when I said that, my mom comes out of the kitchen and she says, I have some cookies and milk. This is badass. Convict me just finished five years. I'm gonna have cookies and milk at Mom. On the Ceno show podcast, each episode invites you into a raw, unfiltered conversations about recovery, resilience and redemption. On a recent episode, I sit down with actor cultural icon Danny Trejo talk about addiction, transformation and the power of second chances. The entire season two is now available to binge, featuring powerful conversations with the guests like Tiffany Haddish, Johnny Knoxville, and more. I'm an alcoholic and without this program, I'm gonna die. Open your free iHeartRadio app, search the Cino show and listen. Now.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Reading his books and watching his videos, I couldn't help feeling like once you cut through the cringe, marketing a lot of Ross Jeffries speed seduction tactics are just basic social skills. Among other radical strategies, Ross recommends asking women questions about themselves and actually listening to what they have to say. Here he is demonstrating on a woman named Barbara for a crowd of men in a video someone posted on YouTube in 2020.

[Ross Jeffries]

So let me ask you, do you mind if I ask, what do you do for a living?

[Zoe Lascaz]

Sure. I'm. I'm a writer, an author.

[Ross Jeffries]

Ah, okay, cool. Now my response is one of genuine curiosity because I like creative people. This is not faint. I really enjoy it. Let Me ask you a question. I know as a writer, people face certain challenges. There's always the challenge of selling your work and all that other stuff.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Amen.

[Ross Jeffries]

Amen to that. So I'm getting some rapport. I'm pacing her world. By demonstrating verbal understanding, I demonstrate understanding, so I get rapport.

[Zoe Lascaz]

But other, more sophisticated techniques involve hypnosis, speed, seduction. Newbies learn scripted stories and language patterns designed to elicit certain reactions, like arousal and trust. The whole idea is that you can use NLP to change your own emotional state and that of your prospects.

[Ross Jeffries]

If I wanted to create a state of fascination with Barbara, and I looked at her and said, you will be fascinated with me. You will hang on every word. She's going to laugh at me.

[Alice Hines]

Okay.

[Ross Jeffries]

Now, I could try to create a fascination by saying, have you ever been really, really intrigued by someone? You ever meet someone like a teacher who is just. You knew that this person had such a passion for what they were doing that everything they said painted vivid mental images in your mind. Their words were guides to your own experience. So with each word you heard.

[Alice Hines]

Interesting. So Ross is trying to get you to daydream so you lose track of what you're doing in the conversation, or maybe that you're trying to exit this conversation.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Ross broke down methods like this for me during his interview.

[Ross Jeffries]

What's the technique? Well, let me give you the principles behind it. First and foremost, I believe that any kind of persuasion, whether it's a sale, whether it's an interview, whether it's a seduction, the currency of any of that is focus. If the person can't focus deeply on what it is you're listening to, and that smile only means that a deeper and more exploratory part of your mind is responding in a way where you didn't expect anyway. So you need to create focus. And after focus, it's a matter of what states of consciousness do you want that person in. There's all sorts of ways to evoke these states.

[Zoe Lascaz]

I'm gonna jump in. So when you slow down your voice and do Hypnote Paul speak, is that supposed to be putting me in a trance right now?

[Ross Jeffries]

I'm leaning into it so you can see it. I would normally never be this overt about it. It would be covert.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Okay, give me the same line, but covert mode.

[Ross Jeffries]

Covert. Well, you're expecting it, but no.

[Zoe Lascaz]

I mean, this is such an artificial situation. We've got folks in the other room.

[Ross Jeffries]

There's all sorts of ways to evoke these states.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Okay.

[Ross Jeffries]

For example, some of them have to do with the kinds of questions you ask. I teach my students do not use fact based conversations. For example, if I said to you, if we were on a date and I said, what do you like to do for fun? Everyone asks that. But if I asked, what's something you've always dreamed of doing, fantasized about doing, but haven't let yourself dare? That requires an answer from a different part of your consciousness. It has to activate your. You have to activate your imagination and your emotions to answer the question. That's not a seduction in and of itself, but it's the start of getting leverage into that part of your consciousness.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Another way to gain that leverage is through a hypnotic technique called a pattern interrupt, basically purposefully derailing a conversation. See if you can catch the way Ross does it here during our interview. So when you were teaching seminars still, and you were promoting them in the ineffable way you did, were you ever concerned that the crassness and the vulgarity of the Ross Jeffries ad copy would lure people who had dark intentions to your seminars? And maybe even alienate dudes in need who were kind of turned off by the sexist patter?

[Ross Jeffries]

Crass. Interjecting your personal opinion into objective journalism. Now that's crass. Now that's an NLP technique called reflexively apply to the speaker. I took your term and I reflexively applied it to you.

[Zoe Lascaz]

And that is supposed to make me feel how?

[Ross Jeffries]

It's a minor pattern interrupt. Now, you're very experienced. It's not gonna do jack shit with you. But it's a way of diverting. But more importantly, it's interrupting the pattern.

[Alice Hines]

Okay, so he's like trying to create confusion, which is supposed to derail your interview and I guess, make you forget what you were gonna ask him about.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Yes. And then you use that fleeting moment of what the fuck? To establish a new power dynamic.

[Alice Hines]

I've seen Richard Bandler doing really similar things, and honestly, I think he does it even better than Ross Jeffries. Check out this DVD called the Art and Science of Nested Loops from 2003. Bandler's describing watching someone from across the room.

[Ross Jeffries]

If you see a woman and you're really interested in her, you can try to work up the courage to walk over, or you can go like this.

[Alice Hines]

Bandler waves his hand like he's beckoning a woman over.

[Ross Jeffries]

It's easier. And she'll come over and go, yes. And you go, did you want something? Did you want something? Did you want something?

[Alice Hines]

He makes it seem like she was the One who wanted something. Not him, which I can honestly see working. He's creating an opening for conversation through disorientation.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Pattern interrupts are subtle, but that's what makes them disconcerting. The idea that merely by interrupting you or saying something that doesn't quite make sense, someone can capitalize on your confusion.

[Ross Jeffries]

There's no distinction in my mind between shifting someone's consciousness unexpectedly and a hypnotic technique. If I created confusion by giving you an unexpected response, it creates a temporary, what I would call a mind stutter. A little pause in your conscious mind, and it creates a window of suggestibility. Just a little one. Not a deep trance where you're out and I can do surgery on you. But it's the start of getting leverage into your unconscious mind.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Once you have that leverage, you can establish an anchor or embed a command. NLP tactics we've encountered before.

[Alice Hines]

And anchoring is what happened in that clip you heard at the beginning of the episode.

[Ross Jeffries]

Better.

[Alice Hines]

Better when Ross ran his finger up that woman's arm. Arm at the coffee shop?

[Ross Jeffries]

Even better right now.

[Alice Hines]

Oh, yeah.

[Ross Jeffries]

Oh, yeah. The more you focus in, the more

[Zoe Lascaz]

intense it takes finesse. You can't just abruptly start stroking people. You've got to be smooth. There are some techniques, like anchoring, that get used in various different ways. I mean, to help people anchor positive feelings about themselves, for instance, but also used out in the field on women. Can you talk about using it with women? With women? Okay. It's collaborative.

[Ross Jeffries]

It's collaborative.

[Zoe Lascaz]

It's a party. It's participatory. How do you use.

[Ross Jeffries]

Well, you say that with irony and a little sarcasm in your voice, but we'll take it as given.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Prove me wrong. Tell me about how you would use anchoring.

[Ross Jeffries]

I don't think of anything, but okay.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Tell me how you would use anchoring.

[Ross Jeffries]

My voice is my anchor.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Your voice is your anchor.

[Ross Jeffries]

I have a very distinctive voice. So if I wanted to anchor, I'd just slightly speak just a little softer. When I want to give commands and suggestions, I'd just be a little softer. I'm leaning on it so they can hear it at home. So if I were to give you commands or suggestions to describe my ideal vacation, I would anchor using my voice. I would say, do you like to travel, Debbie? Really? Tell me about your ideal travel spot. I'd let her speak and really listen. I'd say, well, I don't know how well, you can imagine this As I describe it. That's a command to imagine what I'm about to describe here's.

[Zoe Lascaz]

The idea. Because those words are subtly set off, the brain absorbs them differently than everything else in the sentence.

[Ross Jeffries]

It processes it outside of conscious awareness.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Ross admits his techniques don't work on every woman, but he says they work most of the time well enough to have inspired a host of imitators.

[Alice Hines]

Are you familiar with negging, Zoe?

[Zoe Lascaz]

Yeah, it's not a Ross thing, but it's probably the most notorious pickup artist trick, right? It's when you insult a woman in a supposedly playful way to make her self conscious. Like, oh, it's so cute how your teeth are a little crooked.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah, yeah, that's it. So you might have experienced this, and maybe it worked on you, maybe it didn't. I've been trying to figure out if negging is nlp. We don't know exactly where its inventor, who was a different pickup artist, got it from, but I did find Bandler talking about using something similar with clients. It's from this tape called Creating therapeutic change from 1987.

[Ross Jeffries]

In fact, typically I like to embarrass them once and anchor it, because one of the things about being embarrassed is it is one of the forms of unfamiliarness that allows people to escape the traditional ways that they act.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Alice, do you think that works?

[Alice Hines]

I think negging does and doesn't work. Like, it wouldn't work on me, but I think it could work on someone who is maybe, like, quite young or for some reason is in a vulnerable place in their life and is looking for approval. Someone whose neg could then be, like, hooked because they're waiting for that compliment that was withheld.

[Zoe Lascaz]

I buy that. It's kind of a diagnostic tool for pickup artists to see if the person they're talking to is seeking validation from someone else. So, Alice, I've obviously been thinking a lot about seduction while doing this reporting, and I had a kind of disturbing thought the other day. I think journalists might have more in common with pickup artists than we'd like to admit.

[Alice Hines]

I mean, absolutely. I've been thinking about the same thing throughout this whole podcast, and I would use Richard Bandler's beckoning trick to approach someone at a conference who might otherwise try to avoid me if I came on directly.

[Zoe Lascaz]

That's a good one. And I mean, it's been said before, right? Like, everyone got super pearl clutchy when Janet Malcolm, the New Yorker staff writer, famously described the journalistic process as seduction and betrayal. But I think she's dead on. Like, when we do interviews, the whole point is to put people at ease and charm them and get them to tell us stuff they don't consciously want to say.

[Alice Hines]

It makes me go back to the question we raised at the beginning of the episode. Like, is mind control real? Is it actually possible to hypnotically manipulate someone covertly and get them to do something they wouldn't otherwise do?

[Zoe Lascaz]

Okay, so, no, I don't think it's possible to hypnotically make someone a mindless puppet. But I do think we are being manipulated all the time, covertly, by advertising, by politicians, and. And it really just depends on how you define trance or how you define persuasion.

[Alice Hines]

One definition is that all communication is persuasion or manipulation. You're changing someone's emotional state when you tell an exciting story or a scary story. Think of the score of a movie or a podcast. Suspense, romance, tragedy, tragedy. Curious, scientific, investigatory. This all manipulates your emotions in a certain way. And perhaps by becoming more aware of the power dynamics that are inherently part of everyday interactions, anyone can game them,

[Zoe Lascaz]

and everyone can become Ross Jeffries. We're all pickup artists.

[Ross Jeffries]

Yay.

[Alice Hines]

Okay, but reality check. Not know how to hypnotize people. Even when I'm really on fire in an interview.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Same, unfortunately.

[Alice Hines]

Unless I'm doing it unconsciously, but I don't think I am.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Yeah, don't sell yourself short, kid. I did ask Ross about this, though. I asked him to do a demo at the end of our interview, and what he said actually felt key to understanding how covert manipulation actually works. Can you sort of break down some of the techniques that you were using?

[Ross Jeffries]

All of it. I gave you the pre talk. I said, you're not going to go to sleep. You're not going to quack like a duck. Then I gave you something called permissive hypnosis. I didn't say, you're going to listen to every word I say, Then you'll just go to sleep. I said you can listen to every word I say and you don't have to.

[Zoe Lascaz]

So what kinds of conditions are you creating with those?

[Ross Jeffries]

I'm creating a condition that no matter what happens, it's evidence to you. It's a ratification to you that the trances work.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Oh, interesting. So there's no escape.

[Ross Jeffries]

It's called the inclusive set and ratification. I'm letting you ratify through your own experience that it's working.

[Zoe Lascaz]

So what he's describing is a rhetorical trap, Right? Because he's giving you two options. You might hear every word I say, or you might not. But whatever you experience ends up reinforcing the trance.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah, it's disarming. And I could See this Maybe working on someone who wants to get hypnotized. But again, would this work on someone who is just a stranger in the street? I still am skeptical about that. I don't think any of these techniques could work on someone who's truly resistant. And that's the problem with pickup artistry overall.

[Zoe Lascaz]

I mean, I wonder if the real secret of pickup artistry is simply empowering a bunch of men who are insecure, like these guys who have been rejected a million times and they're afraid of women and should shy. And Ross Jeffries basically tells them he's giving them magic hypno powers. So when they go out, even if they don't successfully hypnotize women, they probably feel as though they have these secret weapons, and that makes them more confident, and that confidence is inherently more attractive.

[Alice Hines]

And then on top of that, the pickup artists tell them to just do not stop until you pick up a woman. So it's a numbers game. No matter what techniques you use, if you use them on 300 women in a single weekend, one of them's bound to hit.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Exactly. So at the very end of our interview, I asked Ross if speed seduction

[Alice Hines]

was just that, basically something you believe in. So it works.

[Zoe Lascaz]

A placebo effect, or maybe there's more to it. Is it possible to use NLP to manipulate people?

[Ross Jeffries]

Define manipulation.

[Zoe Lascaz]

To make them do something that they wouldn't otherwise do.

[Ross Jeffries]

I had a mentor. I don't care to mention his name. And I said to him, hey, can you use hypnosis to make people do things against their will? He gave me a very interesting answer. Zoe? He said, well, technically, no. But in fact, in reality, in actuality, most people don't have a will. I said, what do you mean by that? He said, most people just have wishes that flit in and out of their mind. Conflicting desires, but will, an actual feeling, focused, strong intent and desire. They don't have that. So if you're talking about getting people to do things against their will, most people don't have a will. If you're talking about manipulation, let's unpack what we mean by that. Because let's be clear. In our terms, manipulation, if you want to call it that, if you want to use the term, just means skillful means of creating change. For example, I had a surgery. The scars are very small, recently to fix a double hernia. That surgeon was extraordinarily good at manipulating the robot. The robot actually does the surgery. He's very good at it. I had a very short recovery time, so that's a form of manipulation. If by manipulation you mean taking someone at a certain state of consciousness and then moving them to another one in a way that does no harm, that, in fact serves them.

[Zoe Lascaz]

For Ross, there's a difference between destructive forms of manipulation, like knowingly selling someone a car that's going to explode or preying on their deepest, darkest weaknesses, and these supposedly neutral, harmless approaches to changing someone's state of mind.

[Ross Jeffries]

See, you can look at what I do, whether it's sales or seduction, as getting ideas and past the person's conscious mind into their unconscious. But you can also look at it as expanding their consciousness to include new ideas, new perspectives that they otherwise would not have had from their autopilot.

[Zoe Lascaz]

What really jumps out at me here, Alice, is the idea that people don't have a will. When he first said that, I was like, excuse me, I have a will. How dare you suggest otherwise? But I actually get it. We like to think of ourselves as these super rational, singular beings, but that's just not true.

[Alice Hines]

And that's why covert hypnosis could work. Some targets unconsciously want it to work. That's why stage hypnosis works. When people are walking on all fours and barking like a dog and pretending to be a poodle, well, it's actually kind of fun and liberating.

[Zoe Lascaz]

We're full of conflicting desires. And maybe if you do persuade someone to sleep with you, it's not about overriding their will. It's about appealing to one of their many contradictory selves.

[Alice Hines]

And you know what, Zoe? I also think that's weirdly why people seek out workshops on pickup artistry or any form of self help. We're unsatisfied with the kind of, like, pastiche of a self that doesn't feel like it has a strong direction or meaning. Gurus like Ross Jeffries or even Tony Robbins or Richard Bandler and NLP capitalize on that.

[Zoe Lascaz]

They tell followers they can fix all their internal conflicts and make them whole. And most gurus also promote the idea that they're going to give you more agency and power in that process.

[Alice Hines]

Right. But what's really scary is that once you start to depend on a guru to provide your sense of power, that person can take it away. So once you've sort of taken that step, then it means, actually, I don't know what's best for me. And you do know what's best for me. That's how it can become so scary. Like, if someone had said to me that in 12 years I was going to be branded with a leader's initials, I would have clearly given them the finger and ran out the door. What nxivm, a notorious cult whose leader was convicted of sex trafficking, stole from nlp? That's next time on Mind Games. Mind Games is a Kaleidoscope production in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The series is created and hosted by me, Alice Hines and Zoe Lascoz. It's produced by Ryder Alsop and Dara Lookpotz, edited by Kate Osborne. Editorial consulting from Adeza Egan, original composition

[Zoe Lascaz]

and mixing by Steve Bone, fact checking by Eamonn Whalen from Kaleidoscope. Our executive producers are Oz Wolosian, Mangesh Hatikador and Kate Osborne. From iHeart. Our executive producers are Katrina Norville and Nikki Itor. Hey everyone, it's Emily Simpson and Shane Simpson from the Legally Brunette Podcast.

[Ross Jeffries]

Each week we're bringing you true crime through a legal lens.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Whether you want all the facts on the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie or you still need to wrap your head around the Diddy verdict, we're breaking it all down step by step.

[Ross Jeffries]

And we're not just lawyers. We're also husband and wife. It makes for some pretty entertaining episodes.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Listen to Legally Brunette on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ross Jeffries]

This is the biggest night in podcasting. The countdown is on to our 2026 I Heart Podcast Awards. Live from south by Southwest, March 16, we'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative, talented creators in the industry. It's truly a who's who of the podcasting world. Creativity, knowledge and passion will all be on full display. And the winner of the iHeart Podcast Award is. See all the nominees now at iheart.com podcast awards.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award. Explore the best selection of audiobooks, podcasts and originals all in one easy app. Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free [e-mail] this

[Ross Jeffries]

is Ryder Strong and I have a new podcast called the red weather. In 1995, my neighbor Anna Trainor disappeared from a commune. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs. So no, I am not your

[Zoe Lascaz]

and

[Ross Jeffries]

back then I lied to everybody.

[Zoe Lascaz]

They have had this case for 30 years.

[Ross Jeffries]

I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth. Listen to the Red weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Zoe Lascaz]

When segregation was a law, one mysterious black club owner, Charlie Fitzgerald had his own rules.

[Alice Hines]

Segregation in the day, integration at night.

[Ross Jeffries]

It was like stepping in another world.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Was he a businessman? A criminal? A hero?

[Ross Jeffries]

Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him.

[Zoe Lascaz]

Charlie's Place from Atlas Obscura and visit Myrtle Beach. Listen to Charlie's place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.