Re: Are suggestions REALLY subtle commands?

[Guest guest]

To answer the question in the subject, no.

At 02:39 AM 11/23/00 -0000, Bob Marshall wrote:

>

> While reading the site of idiotic XA slogans recently posted, I

>ran across one that I often heard:

>

> " Suggestions are subtle commands. "

I've never heard this one before, but I've many times heard indirect

statements to that effect in AA. I had always heard " If you've wearing a

parachute and you've jumped out of an airplane it is suggested you

pull the ripcord " , and in the same way it is suggested that you take

the 12 steps.

>

> I even heard a number of steppers swear they have personally

>seen this definition in the dictionary.

Perhaps so, in the same way that Winston saw where 2+2=5.

People can often believe things that aren't true. I once believed I

had a disease that caused (among many other things) the consumption

of alcohol.

> An Altavista search of " suggestion " and " subtle command " (both

>singular and plural, all possible combinations and wildcards) yields

>only a handful of pages (including a couple on the way cults misuse

>words, and one on $cientology's mind control techniques!!!).

I guess this is not surprising. You might want to try dogpile.com,

and using this as the search string:

+suggestion + " subtle command "

I tried it and stumbled across this: " Foiling the Cults "

<http://www.angelfire.com/nd/wraith/>

> Does ANYBODY actually have a dictionary that

>defines " suggestion " this way? Not just more fuzzy memories and urban

>myths -- full title, publisher, date and, if possible, ISBN number,

>please.

I'd really doubt it, though there are many online ones you can try.

I've always used <http://www.m-w.com>, and checked others when I wanted

a 'second opinion'. M-W's definition of suggestion 2a, in the sense of

a hypnotic or psycological suggestion, might be in the direction of

that quote, but I still don't see it.

I found <http://www.onelook.com/> on Yahoo's site for dictionaries,

you may want to try that.

But I'll confidently say that a suggestion is not a subtle command.

Anyone who says otherwise is redefining words.

-----

http://listen.to/benbradley

[Guest guest]

" Your eyelids will become heavy ... You will start to become drowsy

.... "

>

> While reading the site of idiotic XA slogans recently posted, I

> ran across one that I often heard:

>

> " Suggestions are subtle commands. "

>

> I even heard a number of steppers swear they have personally

> seen this definition in the dictionary.

> (Probably the dictionary they got from their friend who got a

> million-dollar check from Bill Gates for spamming all of his friends

> in an " e-mail tracking test, " only to be eaten by a giant albino

> alligator who crawled forth from the sewer, having been flushed down

> a toilet 20 years ago as an unwanted pet during the baby alligator

> craze.)

> An Altavista search of " suggestion " and " subtle command " (both

> singular and plural, all possible combinations and wildcards) yields

> only a handful of pages (including a couple on the way cults misuse

> words, and one on $cientology's mind control techniques!!!).

> Does ANYBODY actually have a dictionary that

> defines " suggestion " this way? Not just more fuzzy memories and

urban

> myths -- full title, publisher, date and, if possible, ISBN number,

> please.