Let’s begin with a psychological phenomenon called the priming effect, which occurs when a person is exposed to information in the form of words, stimuli, or displayed emotions. It has been shown to increase the likelihood that the same or similar information will be repeated by the recipient. What’s interesting is that this happens beyond the recipient’s awareness through what we call associative networks. These networks involve words, thoughts, or stimuli that are related in meaning to one another. When these networks of nerve cells in our nervous system, such as the brain, are exposed to certain words, they will activate the nerve cells associated with those words, and will also activate other nerve cells linked to the meaning of those words. Let’s go through an example to get a clearer picture of this.
An example of an associative network could be when we look at a banana. This activates a group of nerve cells related specifically to bananas. The thought of bananas, or thoughts related to them, will be linked to a network with corresponding meanings. These could be apricots or mangoes because they are also yellow. It could also make us think of fruits in general or other things that are yellow. This happens very spontaneously and without conscious awareness. What participates in the associative network is our prior experience. For example, if we had never seen a mango in our lives, it wouldn’t be included in the associative network when we saw a banana. Knowledge of this phenomenon is something that is heavily taken into account in the production of advertising and the film industry. It’s meant to implant a detail in our unconscious, which will later be activated. This is used most in the film industry. For example, how actors in movies drink alcohol or smoke when they are at their worst, even though they are close to death. For the viewers, this can activate the thought of needing to smoke or drink when they encounter a similar depressing episode or need to disconnect from something miserable in life. Another example is how many Hollywood movies show a Muslim passenger being suspected by another blonde passenger of being a terrorist just because he has a certain style of clothing and a long beard. This makes us, in our everyday lives, automatically more likely to suspect people with the same outer appearance. This is the method also used by politicians to create and spread misinformation, fear, or hostility toward certain groups of people or religions to drive particular political agendas, both domestically and internationally in news outlets.
A special variant of the priming effect is the ideomotor effect, which is a psychological phenomenon where a person makes unconscious or involuntary movements or behaviors as a result of a thought or idea. No effort is needed here; just the thought is enough.
In the book Thinking Fast and Slow, written by Daniel Kahneman, a study is presented in which university students were asked to complete a word scramble and then walk down the hall to another room. When students were presented with words associated with elderly people, it took them, on average, longer to get up from their chairs and walk down the hall to the next room, compared to a control group that didn’t have word scrambles related to older people.
Even though the idea of old age hadn’t reached their conscious awareness, their actions changed. Just the thought of elderly people made people move slower. Thoughts, even ideas that people were not consciously focused on, changed how they behaved in the physical world.
This ability is called talqin in Islam. Talqin means to repeat a phrase or thought. In Western literature and society, it has been presented as (positive) affirmation. It can be done either for oneself or by others to a person. Talqin can be used in focus exercises, such as meditation, or in our daily routines, where one activates the inner ability of the soul to manifest the words. At the same time, talqin can also be something negative, where a person’s repeated negative words rub off on someone else and unconsciously change the recipient’s behavior or perspective on matters.
There is another interesting aspect of the ideomotor effect. It can also be demonstrated through an object tied to a swinging pendulum. The idea is to hold the tip of the pendulum until it becomes completely still. There should be no resistance in how you hold it. Without moving the hand or fingers that hold it, you start thinking about moving the object to the right and left, and it will start moving in that direction. If you want the object to sway back and forth, clockwise, or counterclockwise, the principle is the same. It’s enough just to create the thought, and it happens on its own.
What does this tell us?
This indicates the powerful impact a small internal thought can have on our personality and behavior in the physical world. It’s not external factors that control our lives, but rather our thoughts, intentions, and goals that are the building blocks shaping the circumstances and factors we are exposed to in life. It also shows how much influence even the smallest thought can have. Therefore, it is essential to have control over our thoughts and the senses that pick up details shaping our thoughts and personality. We need a strong filter that doesn’t absorb all the information through our senses.
As a continuation of this topic, the next article will address the conditions we need to create and find ourselves in for talqin to function optimally and yield positive results in our lives. This will, of course, be described with strong scientific support, God willing.
