Sample manipulation technique
A manipulator needs confidence. No one can manipulate effectively if they feel insecure about whether it will work.
One needs the awareness that, when one has knowledge of the best tactics, manipulating love is easy.
This awareness, however, only comes from a deeper understanding of how manipulation works.
Take, for example, the manipulation of children so that they will adopt a certain religion. Even though children can become devout believers, their choice of faith has little to do with the objective qualities of a specific religion. Children do not become believers of one religion rather than another because the one they adopt is more convincing, just as women do not necessarily fall in love with the man who would objectively be best for them. The fact is that, for successful manipulation, the genuine qualities of neither the religions nor the men are the central factor. Manipulation mechanisms are.
Consider four people in a room: a mother, an uncle, the uncle’s wife, and a five-year-old girl.
The uncle asks, presumably addressing the mother: “Does Little Princess already understand religion?”
The mother answers: “Yes, Little Princess is already big enough. She already knows about religion.”
The uncle’s wife asks: “Are you sure she is not a Catholic?”
Then the uncle’s wife narrows her eyes, looks critically at Little Princess, and says: “I think she is a Catholic; her feet look as if she is a Catholic.”
The mother says: “No, no, no, Little Princess is not a Catholic. Of course she is a Mormon. A real Mormon, because she is already big and understands religion.”
The uncle says: “Is that true? Is Little Princess already big? Does she already know how to be a genuine Mormon? She must be very clever to already understand how to be a real Mormon.”
The one thing Little Princess does not understand in the whole conversation is the meaning of Catholic and Mormon.
What she does understand is that her being a Mormon is associated with her being "big already," and that is what she wants. She wants to be big already, and she wants to be called smart; if both of these are associated with being a Mormon, it must be great to be a Mormon.
The next day at kindergarten, Little Princess will say to another little girl she dislikes: “I think you are a Catholic! I can see it from your feet. Catholic, Catholic, Catholic!”
In successful manipulation, one must first identify a window through which one can channel the manipulation into the target’s mind.
For example, associating an unknown element (being a Mormon, not a Catholic) with a highly positive element (for Little Princess, the idea of being big already).