Performance & The Subconscious Mind- Part 16 Afformations; Noah St. John; Presuppositions
February 25, 2011 by Richard Matteson
Hi,
Learning about the Subconscious Mind; Afformations; Presuppositions
Noah St. John
Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question. ——NIELS BOHR, NOBEL PRIZE–WINNING PHYSICIST
In Part 14 of Performance Subconscious Mind we examined affirmations as a method to replace negative thoughts in the subconscious mind. I began looking at Noah St. John books and writing and thought I’d do a blog on his type of affirmation he calls, “afformations” (no typo!). We’ll also look at presuppositions and embedded commands.
St. John thought why not use affirmations that are questions that assume the result you want. For example:
Why do I perform so well?
Your subconscious mind which is goal-oriented will try and solve the question for you:
Because I’m confident; because I’ve had many successful performances; Because I love people; Because I’ve practiced and I am prepared.
By asking affirmations in a question form, your subconscious mind will find answers. If you ask the right questions you’ll get positive answers.
You can even ask questions about future events and your subconscious will find answers to help manifest what you want:
How did I land that performance at Carnegie Hall? You haven’t played there yet but your subconscious will find ways to make the performance happen.
Presuppositions
Afformations are a form of presupposition, which means you suppose something is true in advance for the sentence to make sense. One of best books on presuppositions is Lauri Karttunen’s 1974 book Presupposition and Linguistic Context. Another book, The Structure of Magic Volume I (1975), by NLP founders Bandler and Grinder, identify twenty-nine different forms of linguistic presuppositions. Linguistic presuppositions (written or spoken or thoughts in words) are what we are examining here.
Here’s an explanation of presuppositions by NLP guru Robert Dils:
True linguistic presuppositions should be contrasted with assumptions and inferences. A linguistic presupposition is something that is stated in the body of the statement itself which must be ‘supposed’ or accepted in order for the sentence or utterance to make sense. In the question, “Have you stopped exercising regularly?” for example, the use of the word stop implies that the listener has already been exercising regularly. The question, “Do you exercise regularly?” has no such presupposition. [from the article Presupposition by Robert Dils]
In the example: “Have you stopped exercising regularly?” You must assume that the person was exercising regularly for the sentence to make sense. You must make an assumption of truth. Our subconscious mind is not able to determine if the statement is true or false unless it has direct information contradicting it. If you knew the person wasn’t exercising regularly you wouldn’t believe the presupposition.
If you say for example “How did I manage to get so wealthy?” You subconscious mind will find out reasons to prove this presupposition. If there are no examples of you being wealthy, the subconscious will reject the presupposition- since it is not true.
The questions (in the form of presuppositions) and concepts used by Noah St. John are not new. Embedded commands are part of the NLP arsenal and have been used by advertisers to influence people for many years. His use of presuppositions, which he calls afformations, came to him while he was taking a shower in 1997. Let’s briefly look at embedded commands:
If you were to read my blog carefully you’d understand what I’m talking about. In the last sentence, “read my blog carefully” is the embedded command. The use of presuppositions and embedded commands will be the subject matter of other blogs. We will examine Lauri Karttunen’s “Plugs, Holes, and Filters” and Savin’s “cumulative hypothesis” as well as the construction of sentences.
Robert Dils definition of a presupposition emphasizes the subconscious belief:
“Presuppositions relate to unconscious beliefs or assumptions embedded in the structure of an utterance, action or another belief; and are required for the utterance, action or belief to make sense.” [from the article Presupposition by Robert Dils]
Presuppositions and embedded commands are one way to communicate with and influence the subconscious mind.
Noah St. John
Noah St. John is the author of the book The Secret Code of Success: 7 Hidden Steps to More Wealth and Happiness (Collins). He’s also put many articles on the web including two about “afformations.”
After reading most of his book and many of his articles I’d say that he is innovative and does present new concepts or at least fresh views of old concepts. Since we’re looking at musical performance and the focus is on understanding and learning about the subconscious so that we can perform better- most of the material is beyond the scope of this blog. He has published a short article about the subconscious mind and similar ideas are presented in his book.
Simply stated Noah contends that the conscious mind is “choice” and the subconscious mind is “no choice.” He uses the old iceberg analogy which I’ve also used (see earlier blog). The 10% above the water is conscious and the 90% below the water is the subconscious. He says you can’t know the subconscious mind because it’s hidden from us.
There’s really no information about the subconscious- nothing new. He then proceeds to offer a pyramid of seven concepts that he says will produce results and are the “Secret Code of Success.” Each level is fairly complex and presented in an easy-to-understand style of writing.
Here’s a sample from Noah dealing with the Why To’s:
A behavior is something you do that is caused by something else. You do not do anything without a reason. The true cause of all human behavior is your Why-To’s and your Why-Not-To’s. This leads us to one of the fundamental truths in my approach, which itself represents a major shift in the field of self-improvement:
You cannot change your behavior at the level of behavior.
On one plate, imagine that we have something called Your Why-To’s. These are your internal motives or Reasons Why to do something. On the other plate, we have your Why-not-To’s—your internal Reasons. Why not to do something.
Let me give you an example from your own life. Why are you reading this book right now? The answer is very simple. You’re reading this book because you perceive that there are more Benefits of reading this book (another word for Why-To’s is Benefit) than costs of doing so (another word for Why-Not-To’s is Cost).[from The Secret Code of Success]
His “why to’s” and “You do not do anything without a reason” simply ignore the problem. The subconscious mind is running the show and we don’t know exactly how or what’s there. We do things we don’t understand. We do things without logical reason- we are human.
Afformations
Here’s an afformation presented in the book:
“Why is it so easy and so okay for me to have, do, and be anything I want?”
Noah constructs a four step process:
Step 1: Ask yourself what you want.
Step 2: Form a question that assumes that What You Want is already true.
Step 3: Give yourself to the question. (which means: answer the question)
Step 4: Take new ACTIONS based on your new assumptions about life.
Noah has made a valuable contribution by taking presuppositions and given them practical application. He’s also making the information available and promoting it. Bravo!!!
This is important: Whether it’s an affirmation or an afformation or a presupposition, the subconscious mind will not believe it if it has a dominant belief (from its memory bank) that is in conflict. If it might be true the subcosncious mind will find ways to explore the presupposition.
There’s something here that we will explore further-
In the twilight zone…
More to come,
Richard