The Truth Behind the Conflicting Research Reports

 One week Professor A reports a study finding subliminals effective, and the next week Professor B proclaims they're not.  People ask me all the time, how can these scientists come up with opposite conclusions?  The answer is so simple!  All subliminals are not alike!  Those who test the good ones say they work.  Those who test inferior ones say they don’t.  It’s like the classic story of the blind men and the elephant.  You’re probably familiar with that.  The man who touched the trunk said that an elephant was mighty like a rope, while the one who felt the animal’s massive side thought it was mighty like a wall.  And so on and on, as each man who touched a different part came up with a different definition of “elephant.”  So it is with the researchers.

 Of course it’s not quite as simple as that.  Some of the studies are poorly designed and not valid anyway.  Some of the researchers begin with an ax to grind and their minds already made up.  This contradicts the very essence of the scientific method, which calls for open and impartial investigation.  But what if they’ve already announced to the world that subliminals don’t work, or that a rival colleague who reported positive results is a fraud?  If their professional reputation is riding on it, think how easy it would be to ignore positive results and see only the negative.  This can even happen subconsciously, while the investigator truly believes he/she is being objective.

 Fact: Not one of the researchers who has come out with negative reports has tested the latest and best technology.  I can say that with absolute certainty because the most sophisticated new advances have been made by Alphasonics.  I have a complete list of researchers who have tested Alphasonics programs, and none of them has found them wanting.  Not one of them has written a negative report.  There may be researchers out there that I don’t know about yet, but I do know that they have not tested programs by Alphasonics.

Actually, I seriously question the scientific method of any researcher who says subliminals don’t work.  He or she ought to be saying that the ones I tested didn’t work.  (Or better still, the ones I tested did not work in my particular study.)  If they haven’t tested all the different kinds of subliminals they are in no position to generalize.  

Now in defense of the researchers, it may have been some over eager newspaper reporter, gunning for a sensational headline who looked straight at the professor’s paper (which said exactly that) and still splashed it all over page one that “Subliminals don’t work.”  Most of us see the newspaper article, not the research paper.  So the sad part is that people like Marge with a weight problem that’s out of control and Bill who’s smoking himself to an early grave may pass up the best chance they have of breaking through their self defeating habits.

I personally invite any researcher who reads this report to test our new technology.  We welcome all scientific investigation!  I especially challenge the nay sayers to test it.  After all, the scientific method requires open minded objectivity.  Skepticism is fine because it keeps us probing, but cynicism stops investigation cold.  If they scoff at subliminals without testing new developments, they might as well take their place among those who insisted that the world was flat.  Or that airplanes would never fly.  History is peppered with nay sayers.  They’re not the people who have been responsible for the great advances of civilization.  That takes creativity, and creativity requires an open mind! That’s because the cynics only look backwards, at what has been done before, and insist that’s all there ever can be.  Creative people look forward to the possibilities.  That is why they find them!

The Scientific Evidence

Countless scientific studies have shown the efficacy of subliminal techniques. The Shulmans (the psychologists who studied this), as you’ll recall, investigated thousands of such studies. (Footnote#7)) For example, in a series of experiments by different researchers, people who were asked to “guess” which three-digit numbers had been read to them subliminally gave about 80% correct answers, while those in control groups who had received no subliminal numbers, guessed about 90% wrong. (Footnote#8) Suggestions about honesty imbedded in the music in retail stores reduce shoplifting dramatically, often by as much as 50%. Statistics show this in store after store after store. (We do not condone or participate in this as we believe they should be used only as self help tools!) Note, though, that the placebo effect could not have been a factor in these studies.

Yet with all the evidence, explaining subliminals to some people is a lot like explaining television to Marco Polo or fax machines to Genghis Khan.

In the best known 1957 experiment, popcorn sales at a New Jersey drive in skyrocketed 57.5% in a six week period during which movie goers were given subliminal suggestions to “Eat popcorn.” This is a misuse of subliminal techniques and has often obscured the issue. Even today there are still those who don’t differentiate between their use by advertisers to influence consumers without their knowledge and consent, and their use as a tool by an individual who makes a conscious choice to do so, to accomplish personal goals.

Even the scholarly encyclopedia of mind research, The Oxford Companion to the Mind from Oxford University Press, (Footnote#9) contains a section, “Subliminal Perception,” which begins, “Perception without awareness, evidently taken for granted by such philosophers as Democritus, Socrates, Aristotle and Leibniz,” is “still strenuously resisted by some academic psychologists.” “Hardly less interesting than the phenomena of subliminal perception has been the resistance to accepting its validity.” Then, after four pages of solid scientific studies, “Despite the very great evidence from many disciplines, there are still those who cannot bring themselves to accept the reality of subliminal perception.” The author believes this to be a “carefully sustained prejudice [which] is itself a psychological defense,” “presumably because it seems to threaten notions of free will.” “Evidence of many kinds, including that from studies of behavior under hypnosis suggest that this is, to say the least, mistaken.” In other words, subliminal learning does not interfere with your free will.

Footnotes

1. 1. Lee M. Shulman, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist and marriage counselor who was a founding member of the Michigan Society of Consulting Psychologists and former secretary of the Academy of Psychologists in Marital and Family Therapy. He has trained and supervised psychotherapists at Wayne State University and the Merrill-Palmer Institute, has been a frequent guest lecturer for graduate and undergraduate students at many universities, and serves as Chairman of the Board of Advisors for the Simonton Cancer Center. He is co-author of When to See a Psychologist and has been in private practice for over forty years. Joyce Shulman, M.S.W., Ph.D., has a masters degree in social work from the University of Michigan and a doctorate in psychology from Walden University, and has been in full-time private practice since 1975. In addition to active practices in Southern California, both Drs. Shulman have investigated subliminal learning for many years, and have applied their special expertise to the development of subliminal scripts. Co-author, Gerald P. Rafferty, Ph.D., is a writer and publisher who also conducts a consulting and counseling practice helping people achieve their business and personal goals.
2. Lee M. Shulman, Ph.D., Joyce Shulman, Ph.D., Gerald P. Rafferty, Ph.D., Subliminal: The New Channel to Personal Power, InfoBooks, Santa Monica, CA, 1990.
3. Shulman, pp. 126-129, especially p. 129.
4. Step by step instructions for kinesiology, a technique used widely by chiropractors, are given in the Shulman book, pp. 135-153. Entire books on the subject include: Muscle Response Test, by Dr. Walter Fischman, C.M.D., and Dr. Mark Grinims, D.C., Richard Marek Publishers, New York 1979, and Your Body Doesn’t Lie by John Diamond, Warner Books, New York, 1979.
5. Shulman, p. 128, offers one example.
6. Shulman, pp. 32-34.
7. Shulman, p.32
8. Hal C. Becker, Ph.D., et al, “Subliminal Communication and Hypnosis,” 1982.
9. The Oxford Companion to the Mind, Oxford University Press, 1987.
10. Shulman, p. 128.