Thanks to numerous studies it is now possible to recognize many manipulation techniques capable of weakening your will and opening your mind to forms of conditioning.

It is during this process that the potential victim must work and draw up his own defensive lines and, to do so, it is essential to recognize these mechanisms.

In this book, manipulation techniques that use torture, sensory deprivation or submission will not be described; techniques that do not find a real place in everyday life for most of us.

Manipulation techniques for the use of sects and cults that we can frequently find also in current working contexts will be described, especially in those contexts and territories where work blackmail is very strong.

These are some manipulative techniques that I personally experienced when working for social cooperatives.

However, I must warn you that my ex-boss is extremely intelligent and fully part of the most skilled persuaders of our time, he has truly extraordinary abilities: refined tastes,excellent dialectic, always available for pleasant conversations and great sensitivity towards others.

This is not to justify myself, but to make you notice that most of you will only encounter crude and illiterate bosses who will make you regret immediately having accepted the job, therefore no persuasive art; just crap.

"Love bombing" is one of the most widely used mental manipulation techniques that has the longest lasting effects.

The initial phase is characterized by enticements, seduction, non-sexual bodily contacts but full of affection (basins, caresses, hugs) and a lot of attention towards any needs of the newcomer.

The newcomer is surrounded with love by the leader and the members of the group,who put him at the center of their attention. The aim is to create a family environment.

In a second phase, one or two people already well integrated in the group, who follow the leader's instructions, dedicate themselves exclusively to him: "Partner System".

Soon the newcomer will begin to imitate the group's behavior and language, to feel accepted and be part of it.

I am aware, not all of you have been bombed with love ... I have been privileged.

Ivan Pavlov, a Russian Nobel laureate scientist, managed to demonstrate this mechanism by conducting experiments on dogs.

He first started feeding some dogs, always preceding the "lunch" by the sound of a bell, observing how the animals reacted with intense salivation to the sight of food, symbol of a natural reflex of the dog, functional to digestion and associated with hunger.

After a period of training, Pavlov subjected the dogs to the sound of the bell without giving them food; the animals reacted with the same salivation, which was a sign of emotional expectation.

Pavlov thus demonstrated how it is possible to associate emotional states (and the consequent physical reactions) with external and variable elements.These reactions are called "conditioned reflexes" and are the basis of the development of mental conditioning techniques.

Moving from dogs to humans: before receiving the salary (food) the leader makes you sign the pay check (bell) followed by a bank transfer with which you pay for your things and hope that there will also be a beer at the kiosks.

After a certain period of study and training, the leader will make you sign the paycheck (bell) and you will begin to "salivate" even if your emotional expectation will be disappointed because you will realize that your account is crying: they have not credited your salary!

They will do it, one day, after a few months, they will do it.

Pavlov's principle is based on an innate mechanism, the learning process, which is so elementary as to completely escape our attention.

In the study of the learning process Pavlov introduced the importance of"reinforcement", or positive stimulus, and of "dissuasion", or negative stimulus.

As it is easy to imagine, moving from dogs to men, the procedure and the consequent reactions change: the greater the complexity of the subject, the wider the field in which the processes multiply, while remaining the basic mechanism.

The reinforcement (positive) in my case, were small career advancements which did not correspond to any increase in salary but only responsibility.A little power, which was taken away from you (dissuasion) if you made some"mistakes".

The "Groupthink " or "group thinking" has been the subject of many experiments that have shown how individuals are strongly conditioned by the opinions of the group, in their perceptions and behaviors.

Solomon Asch, Polish social psychologist, demonstrated its validity in 1956 through one of his experiments. This consisted in including some subjects in small groups where,shown three lines of very different length, they were asked to indicate which of the three corresponded, for example, to one meter.

The other members of the group, accomplices of the experimenter, unanimously gave an evidently incorrect answer. Well, 33% of the subjects allowed themselves to be influenced by this response and in turn indicated the clearly wrong length.

If the socially accepted answer, even if incorrect, is that the normality is to wait for months to collect the salary, a large number of subjects will be influenced by this answer.

Often sects and cults create an economic dependence on adepts or induce the donation of properties, both real estate and cash. Let's see what happens in some co-ops.

It is accepted by all employees to receive late wages, 2 months becomes 3, 4, sometimes 5 and reaches 6-month peaks.

Those who just can't manage to ask the leader for advances that are weighed as"personal favors" (economic dependence) for which you are in debt and you must show gratitude.

. Employees no longer receive wages and are told that there is no money, so a new ideology must be embraced. The ideology of financial obligations provides that employees must give up wages that have not yet been collected, in order to mature their new status as a worker.

This status costs at least 6 months and is sold as a business opportunity. The new ideology becomes the object of Group Thinking and those who do not adapt are isolated.Isolation weakens the victim and makes them more vulnerable to mental attacks.

Under the name of social control are gathered all those forms of conditioning that a group puts in place towards the individuals who compose it. It is present as a form of reinforcement in indoctrination processes.

The person who has not adhered to the new ideology of financial obligations is deprived of all the positions of responsibility acquired over time with positive reinforcements; all career advancements collapse in one fell swoop.

He is deprived of the affection of the leader (this has created many problems for me)and removed from the group that has already joined the new ideology. To avoid contamination, the victim will work in isolation or in penalizing conditions with other people who, like him, have not embraced the new ideology (Pacis: the way of the giant crosses).

Once a month, the victim is placed in a circle of people who have already joined the new ideology (the meeting).

The group will transmit to him concepts and interpretative models inherent in the circle, models that he will find himself absorbing by associating them with the sensation ofrecognition of a new status.

There are no more competences or meritocracy: if the victim accepts the new ideology of financial obligations, he can be part of the group of elected representatives, if he does not accept, he returns to the hell of isolation.

Another typical mechanism of social control is that analyzed by the "Labelling Theories".

These develop from the assumption that in a given social context people tend to become as they are "labelled", according to social class criteria.

Once a given labelling has been started, the individual would be forced to feel, and therefore to behave and become in all respects, that type of person. It is evident how this mechanism is adopted by manipulators to modify the subject-victim's perception of self.

Anyone who does not accept the ideology of financial obligations is labelled as an antagonist. Even if the antagonist has not sold his money for the ideology, he will magically receive the salary and will be the only person in the whole group to receive the "punctual"salary. Here a paradox is created. Obviously, this mechanism will only polarize all the group's hatred towards the antagonist who must also undergo, at the same time, a highly calculated hierarchical mobbing.

So, the antagonist has no choice but to abandon the fold.