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LIFE, Make your gestures seem spontaneous and unplanned. Any sexual…

- - - - Do not talk too much at present; do not try to talk. But whenever you speak, speak with self-possession. Speak in a subdued tone, and always look at the person whom you are addressing. Before one can engage in general conversation with any effect, there is a certain acquaintance with trifling but amusing subjects which must be first attained. You will soon pick up sufficient by listening and observing. Never argue. In society nothing must be discussed; give only results. If any person differ from you, bow and turn the conversation
    - - No one wants to hear about your problems and troubles. Listen to your targets’ complaints, but more important, distract them from their problems by giving them pleasure
    - - You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.
    - - Anyone can make a promise; what sets you apart, and makes you charming, is your ability to come through in the end, following up your promise with a definite action
  - - - living simply, despite their power—by matching their political values to their personal lives
    - - La Pasionaria
    - - eyes
    - - you have visions of the future, and of the wondrous things you can accomplish. Describe these things in great detail, with an air of authority, and suddenly you stand out. And if your prophecy—of prosperity, say—is just what people want to hear, they are likely to fall under your spell and to see later events as a confirmation of your predictions.
    - - Outwardly people may condemn your dark side, but it is not virtue alone that creates charisma; anything extraordinary will do. Do not apologize or go halfway. The more unbridled you seem, the more magnetic the effect.
    - - The key is learning to access your own unconscious, as Elvis did when he let go. You are full of an excitement that seems to come from some mysterious inner source. Your uninhibitedness will invite other people to open up, sparking a chain reaction: their excitement in turn will animate you still more
    - - Particularly in times of trouble, you can enhance that illusion through calmness resolution, and clear-minded practicality. It also helps to have a seductively simple message. Call it the Savior Syndrome: once people imagine you can save them from chaos, they will fall in love with you, like a person who melts in the arms of his or her rescuer. And mass love equals charisma
    - - The less obvious you are, the better
      - Keep your words vague, letting people imagine what they will. Remember: being aloof and distant only stimulates the effect
    - - You feel something more deeply than others, and no emotion is more powerful and more capable of creating a charismatic reaction than hatred, particularly if it comes from deep-rooted feelings of oppression. Express what others are afraid to express and they will see great power in you. Say what they want to say but cannot. Never be afraid of going too far. If you represent a release from oppression, you have the leeway to go still farther.
    - - The Charismatic often wins love by acting the savior, rescuing people from some difficult circumstance, but once they feel secure, charisma is less seductive to them. Charismatics need danger and risk
      - charisma depends on success, and the best way to maintain success, after the initial charismatic rush, is to be practical and even cautious
      - If it is unavoidable, do not try to continue what the Charismatic started; go in a new direction. By being practical, trustworthy, and plain-speaking, you can often generate a strange kind of charisma through contrast
      - People will admire your self-control and adaptability. Their love affair with you will move closer to the habitual affection of a man and wife
  - - - Remember that what you are offering these types is not another relationship, another constriction, but rather the chance to escape the corral and have some fun
    - - Do not mistake their restlessness and infidelity for reality—what the Pampered Prince or Princess is really looking for is one person, that parental figure, who will give them the spoiling they crave.
      - To seduce this type be ready to provide a lot of distraction—new places to visit, novel experiences, color, spectacle. You will have to maintain an air of mystery, continually surprising your target with a new side to your character
    - - Take nothing of what they say to heart, of course, but now can be seduced simply through being in contact with you. These types actually make excellent and rewarding victims
    - - Just make them the center of attention. When you are with them act as if they were stars and you were basking in their glow. Get them to talk; particularly about themselves. In social situations, mute your own colors and let them look funny and radiant by comparison.
    - - Novices are interested in people with experience, particularly people with a touch of corruption and evil. Make that touch too strong, though, and it will intimidate and frighten them
    - - You want to give them a good chase. Being a little difficult or moody, using coquetry, will often do the trick. Do not be intimidated by their aggressiveness and energy—that is precisely what you can turn to your advantage. To break them in, keep them charging back and forth like a bu
    - - Your clothes, the things you talk about, the places you take them, make a show of your difference. Exaggerate a little and they will imagine the rest, because such types tend to be self-deluders. Exotic Fetishists, however, do not make particularly good victims.
    - - The want something to complain about, they want pain. Pain is a source of pleasure for them. With this type you have to be willing and able to give them the mental rough treatment they desire. That is the only way to seduce them in a deep manner. The moment you turn too nice, they will find some reason to quarrel or get rid of you.
    - - Make them feel like. Don Juans or Sirens, masochistic streak that will come out once you stir their dormant senses. You are offering an escape from the mind, so make it as complete as possible: if you have intellectual tendencies yourself, hide them
    - - Most important in this seduction is to validate those parts of the Beauty that no one else appreciates—her intelligence (generally higher than people imagine), her skills, her character. Of course you must worship her body—you cannot stir up any insecurities in the one area in which she knows her strength, and the strength on which she most depends—but you also must worship her mind and soul. Intellectual stimulation will work well on the Beauty, distracting her from her doubts and insecurities
      - Train her to be more active and you will have an excellent victim
    - - you are bad
    - - It is easy to play this up—make a show of how little experience you have in the world, how you still see things as a child. It is also good to seem to resist their advances: Roués will think it lively and exciting to chase you. You can even seem to dislike or distrust them—that will really spur them on. By being the one who resists, you control the dynamic
    - - Idol Worshipers are easy to spot—they are the ones pouring their energies into some cause or religion. They often move around over the years, leaving one cult for another
      - First they tend to have overactive minds, which can make them quite suspicious. Because they often lack physical stimulation, and because physical stimulation will distract them, give them some: a mountain trek, a boat trip or sex will do the trick. But this takes a lot of work, for their mind are always ticking. Second, they often suffer from low self-esteem. Do not try to raise it; they will see through you, and your efforts at praising them will clash with their own self-image
    - - First they tend to have overactive minds, which can make them quite suspicious. Because they often lack physical stimulation, and because physical stimulation will distract them, give them some: a mountain trek, a boat trip or sex will do the trick. But this takes a lot of work, for their mind are always ticking. Second, they often suffer from low self-esteem. Do not try to raise it; they will see through you, and your efforts at praising them will clash with their own self-image
    - - To seduce such types, it is better to act like their equal or even their superior—the kind of treatment they never get. If you are blunt with them you will seem genuine, and they will be touched—you care enough to be honest, even perhaps at some risk.
    - - If you are not of the Floating Gender, leave this type alone. You will only inhibit them and create more discomfort.
  - - - The perfect victim is the person who stirs you in a way that cannot be explained in words, whose effect on you has nothing to do with superficialities. He or she often has a quality that you yourself lack, and may even secretly envy—the Présidente, for example, has an innocence that Valmont long ago lost or never had
      - pay greater attention to those responses outside conscious control—a blush, an involuntary mirroring of some gesture of yours, an unusual shyness, even perhaps a flash of anger or resentment. All of these show that you are having an effect on a person who is open to your influence
      - Your perfect victims are often people who think you have something they don’t, and who will be enchanted to have it provided for them
      - There is nothing to be gained from trying to seduce the person who is closed to you, or who cannot provide the pleasure and chase that you need.
    - - Haunt the periphery of your target’s life—approach through a third party, or seem to cultivate a relatively neutral relationship, moving gradually from friend to lover. Arrange an occasional “chance” encounter, as if you and your target were destined to become acquainted—nothing is more seductive than a sense of destiny. Lull the target into feeling secure, then strike.
      - INDIRECTION
        
        the brilliance of Lauzun’s seduction was that the Grande Mademoiselle believed it was she who was making all the moves
        
        your friendly conversations with your targets will bring you valuable information about their characters, their tastes, their weaknesses, the childhood yearnings that govern their adult behavior. (Lauzun, for example, could adapt cleverly to Anne Marie’s tastes once he had studied her close up.
        
        by spending time with your targets you can make them comfortable with you. Believing you are interested only in their thoughts, in their company, they will lower their resistance, dissipating the usual tension between the sexes.
        
        Once that feeling has stirred, they will wonder why you haven’t made a move, and will take the initiative themselves, enjoying the illusion that they are in control. There is nothing more effective in seduction than making the seduced think that they are the ones doing the seducing.
      - KEYS
        
        You can haunt the periphery of their existence, letting them notice you in different places but never approaching them. You will get their attention this way, and if they want to bridge the gap, they will have to come to you
        
        Take a step back; let the thoughts you are provoking come to them as if they were their own.
        
        Never mention love and you make its absence speak volumes—your victims will wonder why you never discuss your emotions, and as they have such thoughts, they will go further, imagining what else is going on in your mind
        
        “A woman is much better persuaded that she is loved by what she guesses than by what she is told,”
        
        Learn to disguise your feelings and let people figure out what is happening for themselves.
      - THE SPIDE WEB
    - - Paradox is seductive because it plays with meaning. We are secretly oppressed by the rationality in our lives, where everything is meant to mean something; seduction, by contrast, thrives on ambiguity, on mixed signals, on anything that eludes interpretation. Most people are painfully obvious
      - Radiate Mistery
      - Do not worry if this underquality is a negative one, like danger, cruelty, or amorality; people will be drawn to the enigma anyway, and pure goodness is rarely seductive
      - you need to show attributes that go against your physical appearance, creating depth and mystery
      - The power of apparently unattainable people is devilishly seductive; we want to be the one to break them down
      - hold their attention by suggesting that behind this reputation some other quality lies lurking
      - THE THEATER CURTAIN
    - - Desirability is a social illusion. Its source is less what you say or do, or any kind of boasting or self-advertisement, than the sense that other people desire you. To turn your targets’ interest into something deeper, into desire, you must make them see you as a person whom others cherish and covet. Desire is both imitative (we like what others like) and competitive (we want to take away from others what they have).
      - According to Stendhal, if there is a woman you are interested in, pay attention to her sister. That will stir a triangular desire.
      - REPUTATION
        
        Men who believe that a rakish reputation will make women fear or distrust them, and should be played down, are quite wrong
      - Do not let your targets see you so often; keep your distance, seem unattainable, out of their reach. An object that is rare and hard to obtain is generally more prized.
    - - But underlying these habits is a tremendous sense of insecurity and defensiveness. We feel we are not really living. The seducer must pick at this wound and bring these semiconscious thoughts into full awareness
      - OPENING A WOUND
        
        People are always susceptible to being seduced, because in fact everyone lacks a sense of completeness, feels something missing deep inside. Bring their doubts and anxieties to the surface and they can be led and lured to follow you
        
        Make people anxious about the future, make them depressed, make them question their identity, make them sense the boredom that gnaws at their life
        
        In your role of seducer, try to position yourself as coming from outside, as a stranger of sorts. You represent change, difference, a breakup of routines
        
        As a seducer you must bring it to the surface, make it clear how far people have strayed from their past goals and ideals. You, in turn, present yourself as representing that ideal, as offering a chance to recapture lost youth through adventure—through seduction
        
        Stirring dissatisfaction with the present and reminding people about the glorious past can unsettle their sense of identity
      - CUPID'S ARROW
    - - You are planting seeds that will take root in the weeks to come. When you are not there, your targets will fantasize about the ideas you have stirred up, and brood upon the doubts. They are slowly being led into your web, unaware that you are in control. How can they resist or become defensive if they cannot even see what is happening?
      - to sow a seductive idea you must engage people’s imaginations, their fantasies, their deepest yearnings.
      - make them when your targets are at their most relaxed or distracted, so that they are not aware of what is happening
      - Since people are always reading your looks, use them to transmit the insinuating signals you choose.
      - There are moments, particularly later on in a seduction, when it is best to communicate your idea directly, particularly once you know the target will welcome it.
    - - You do not have to spend days studying their minds; simply conform to their moods, adapt to their tastes, play along with whatever they send your way. In doing so you will lower their natural defensiveness
      - People truly love themselves, but what they love most of all is to see their ideas and tastes reflected in another person
      - Should you be an outsider (as most of us ultimately are), turn it to advantage: play on your alien nature in such a way as to show the group how deeply you prefer their tastes and customs to your own.
      - When you are mirroring someone, do not stop at the person they have become; enter the spirit of that ideal person they wanted to be
      - Mirror them for too long and they will see through you and be repelled by you. Beneath the similarity to them that you make them see, you must have a strong underlying sense of your own identity.
    - - It costs much more to resist temptation than to surrender.
      - everyone has a principal weakness, from which others stem
      - behind you is a grim past; ahead of you is a future of wealth and glory, if you follow me. Integral to the temptation strategy is a clear demonstration that the target has nothing to lose and everything to gain
      - You are looking for some repression, some secret desire that will make your victim squirm uncomfortably if you hit upon it, but will tempt them all the more.
      - Temptation is often a matter of timing, of crossing the path of the weak at the right moment, giving them the opportunity to surrender.
    - - Appear somewhere unexpectedly, say or do something sudden, and people will not have time to figure out that your move was calculated. Take them to some new place as if it only just occurred to you, suddenly reveal some secret. Made emotionally vulnerable, they will be too bewildered to see through you.
      - Dogs are reliable, a seducer is not
      - What often seduces a person is the feeling that you have expended effort on their behalf. You do not need to trumpet this too loudly, but make it clear in the gifts you make, the little journeys you plan, the little teases you lure people with
      - When you change direction, make the new direction truly new.
    - - what can I say that will have the most pleasant effect on my listeners?
      - Keep your language vague and ambiguous, letting your listeners fill in the gaps with their fantasies and imaginings
      - Now make your letters frequent, in fact more frequent than your personal appearances. This will give them the time and space to idealize you, which would be more difficult if you were always in their face
      - Your correspondence is a kind of mirror you are holding up to them—they get to see themselves reflected through your desire.
      - Plant ideas by dropping hints, writing suggestively without explaining yourself
      - Learn to sniff out the parts of a person’s ego that need validation. Make it a surprise, something no one else has thought to flatter before—something you can describe as a talent or positive quality that others have not noticed
      - Use language that quivers with sexual connotation, or, better still, suggest sexuality by making your letters shorter, more frequent, and even more disordered than before.
      - Promise something realizable, something possible, but do not make it too specific; you are inviting them to dream
      - It is more persuasive to appeal to people’s hearts than their heads
      - strong positive statements
      - Excess verbiage is a sign of selfishness
    - - Attend to your targets’ every move and desire, and reveal your attentiveness in the details and objects you surround them with, filling their senses with the mood you need to inspire. They can argue with your words, but not with the effect you have on their senses
      - the more you get people to focus on the little things, the less they will notice your larger direction. The seduction will assume the slow, hypnotic pace of a ritual
      - The key is probing their needs in a way that is not too obvious, so that when you make precisely the right gesture
      - The object that reflects its giver’s attentiveness has a lingering sentimental power, which resurfaces every time its owner sees it.
      - Never tell someone what you are feeling; let them guess it in your looks and gestures. That is the more convincing language
    - - Familiarity destroys seduction
      - Your targets cannot idealize you if they know too much about you, if they start to see you as all too human.
      - Do not spoil this golden opportunity by overexposing yourself, or becoming so familiar and banal that the target sees you exactly as you are.
      - The only thing that cannot be idealized is mediocrity,
      - The Halo separates you from other people. Do not make it disappear by becoming familiar and ordinary.
    - - Seduction is a game of reducing suspicion and resistance. The cleverest way to do this is to make the other person feel stronger, more in control of things
      - Honesty is more important than virtue, and one honest gesture will blind them to many deceitful acts
      - A person’s vulnerability, what they seem to be unable to control, is often what is most seductive about them.
      - what works best is to allow people an occasional glimpse into the soft, frail side of your character, and usually only after they have known you for a while. That glimpse will humanize you, lowering their suspicions, and preparing the ground for a deeper attachment
    - - Your task as a seducer is to bring some flesh and blood into someone’s fantasy life by embodying a fantasy figure, or creating a scenario resembling that person’s dreams. No one can resist the pull of a secret desire that has come to life before their eyes.
        You must first choose targets who have some repression or dream unrealized—always the most likely victims of a seduction. Slowly and gradually, you will build up the illusion that they are getting to see and feel and live those dreams of theirs
      - Lead the target on a journey there, give them a glimpse of Shangri- La through the mists on the mountain, and they will fall in love.
      - you must see the world as a kind of theater. Inject a certain lightness into the roles you are playing; try to create a sense of drama and illusion; confuse people with the slight unreality of words and gestures inspired by fiction; in daily life, be the consummate actor
    - - Offer something unfamiliar that will fascinate them and hold their attention. Be different in your manners and appearance, and slowly envelop them in this different world of yours. Keep your targets off balance with coquettish changes of mood. Do not worry that the disruption you represent is making them emotional—that is a sign of their growing weakness
      - You represent excitement and life; the friends and parents represent habit and boredom
      - replace the familiar things you have cut them off from with a new home, a new series of comforts.
    - - Make people compete for your attention, make them prove themselves in some way, and you will find them rising to the challenge
    - - To practice it in real life, you need to play the therapist, encouraging people to talk about their childhood. Most of us are only too happy to oblige; and our memories are so vivid and emotional that a part of us regresses just in talking about our early years
      - INFANTILE REGRESSION
        
        Never judge your targets—let them do whatever they want, including behaving badly; at the same time surround them with loving attention, smother them with comfort. A part of them will regress to those earliest years when their mother took care of everything and rarely left them alone.
      - To effect this regression you must play the role of the therapist. Get your targets to open up about their past, particularly their former loves and most particularly their first love. Pay attention to any expressions of disappointment, how this or that person did not give them what they wanted. Take them to places that evoke their youth. In this regression you are creating not so much a relationship of dependency and immaturity but rather the adolescent spirit of a first love.
    - - Invite the other person to worship something beautiful in the world. It could be nature, a work of art, even God (or gods—paganism never goes out of fashion); people are dying to believe in something. Add some rituals. If you can make yourself seem to resemble the thing you are worshiping—you are natural, aesthetic, noble, and sublime—your targets will transfer their worship to you
      - The stars, astrology, fate, are always appealing; create the sense that destiny has brought you and your target together. That will make your seduction feel more natural. In a world where too much is controlled and manufactured, the sense that fate, necessity, or some higher power is guiding your relationship is doubly seductive
      - Natalie Barney took her targets to the theater, to the opera, to museums, to places full of history and atmosphere. In such places your souls can vibrate to the same spiritual wavelength.
    - - A brush with death makes us fall in love with life; a long journey makes a return home that much more pleasurable. Your task is to create moments of sadness, despair, and anguish, to create the tension that allows for a great release. Do not worry about making people angry; anger is a sure sign that you have your hooks in them
      - Your kindness and harshness should be subtle; indirect digs and compliments are best. Play the psychoanalyst: make cutting comments concerning their unconscious motives (you are only being truthful), then sit back and listen.
      - rid yourself of your nasty habit of avoiding conflict, which is in any case unnatural. You are most often nice not out of your own inner goodness but out of fear of displeasing, out of insecurity
      - if you fear the loved one, you can never get too close or familiar with him or her. The beloved then retains an element of mystery, which only intensifies your love.
    - - Use letters to make them think about you all the time, to feed their imagination. Cultivate mystery—stop them from figuring you out. Baudelaire’s letters were delightfully ambiguous, mixing the physical and the spiritual, teasing Sabatier with their multiplicity of possible interpretations.
      - First, it is always best to keep at some distance from your targets. You do not have to go as far as remaining anonymous, but you do not want to be seen too often, or to be seen as intrusive. If you are always in their face, always the aggressor, they will become used to being passive, and the tension in your seduction will flag. Use letters to make them think about you all the time, to feed their imagination
      - The target is falling for you now, and your retreat will lead to panicky thoughts: you are losing interest, it is somehow my fault, perhaps it is something I have done. Rather than think you are rejecting them on your own, your targets will want to make this interpretation, since if the cause of the problem is something they have done, they have the power to win you back by changing their behavior
    - - You want your target to read cues not from your words or actions but from your body. You must make your body glow with desire—for the target. Your desire should be read in your eyes, in a trembling in your voice, in your reaction when your bodies draw near.
      - Let them make the first move. It will cover your tracks. The second and third moves are yours.
      - Do not talk of work, duty, marriage, the past or future. Plenty of other people will do that. Instead, offer the rare thrill of losing oneself in the moment, where the senses come alive and the mind is left behind.
      - Be undistracted, present in the moment, and the target will follow suit. The intense gaze of the hypnotist creates a similar reaction in the patient.
      - Your main weapons are your eyes, and a mysterious manner
      - Shared physical activity is always an excellent lure
      - not interested in a particular body type, a woman’s race, her level of education, her political beliefs. He was in love with her feminine presence. He was luring her into an adventure, free of society’s strictures and moral judgments.
    - - Learn to read the signs that the target is falling for you. His or her manner toward you will have changed—it will be more pliant, with more words and gestures mirroring yours—yet there will still be a touch of nervousness and uncertainty
      - Seduction is not egalitarian; it is not a harmonic convergence. Holding back at the end out of fear of offending, or thinking it correct to share the power, is a recipe for disaster. This is an arena not for politics but for pleasure. It can be by the man or woman, but a bold move is required.
      - your bold move should have a theatrical quality to it. That will make it memorable, and make your aggressiveness seem pleasant, part of the drama
      - Keeping your targets emotional will both weaken them and heighten the drama of the moment. And the best way to keep them at an emotional pitch is by infecting them with emotions of your own.
      - you are creating a moment that must stand out from the sameness of daily life
    - - Fight against inertia
        
        Fight the tendency to let things settle into comfort and routine. Stir the pot, even if that means a return to inflicting pain and pulling back.
      - Maintain lightness
        
        You will have more control if you maintain the proper spirit.
        
        Never try to change your victims; instead, induce them to follow your lead.
      - Avoid the slow burnout
        
        Once you are truly disenchanted, there is no going back, so don’t hang on out of false pity
        
        It is more compassionate to make a clean break.
      - Do not play into the hands of these bored royals by complaining, becoming self-pitying, or demanding privileges
      - After he seduces a woman, there is neither an integration nor a sacrifice. He keeps them hanging and hoping
      - Create a memorable experience and then move on, and your victim will most likely remember the delightful seduction, not the separation.
      - comfort and security are the death of seduction. A shared journey with a little bit of hardship will do more to create a deep bond than will expensive gifts and luxuries. The young are right to not care about comfort in matters of love, and when you return to that sentiment, a youthful spark will reignite
      - revive the old images, the symbols, the expressions that will stir memory
      - If you want to re-seduce someone, choose one who does not know you so well, whose memories of you are cleaner, who is less suspicious by nature, and who is dissatisfied with present circumstances
      - Never see a separation or sacrifice as final.
    - - THEATRICAL EFFECTS
        
        fashion your clothes, makeup, and attitude to have a playful, artificial, edge—a feeling that you have dressed for the pleasure of your audience
        
        Your encounters with your targets should also have a sense of drama
      - VISUAL LANGUAGE
        
        Show your targets a playful world, full of the sights and sounds that excite the baby or child within them
      - CROWDED OR CLOSE
        
        any kind of situation that brings people together in a small space for a long period of time is extremely conducive to seduction
        
        astrology books, angelic imagery, incenses, mystical-sounding music from some far-off culture
      - DISTORT THE SENSE OF TIME
      - CREATE MOMENTS
        
        parties, balls, games, a little theater
      - Keep everything light and playful, full of distractions, noise, color, and a bit of chaos. No weight, responsibilities, or judgments. A place to lose yourself in.
      - CASANOVA
        
        Better to leave her with the perfect fantasy image than to ruin her life. Besides, he enjoyed the courting and flirting more than anything else.
        
        While in your presence your targets must sense a change. Time has a different rhythm—they barely notice its passing. They have the feeling that everything is stopping for them, just as all normal activity comes to a halt at a festival.
    - - bring pleasure by creating a positive atmosphere around your name or message. Induce a warm, relaxed feeling.
      - Appear as news, never as publicity
      - Design your words and images to stir basic emotions—lust, patriotism, family values.
      - Images are more seductive than words, and visuals—soothing colors, appropriate backdrop, the suggestion of speed or movement—should actually be your real message
      - SPEAK THE TARGET'S LANGUAGE
      - CHAIN REACTION
        
        You need to act as if you have already excited crowds of people; your behavior will become a self-fulfilling prophecy
      - TELL PEOPLE WHO THEY ARE
        
        try to change their identity, their perception of reality, and you will have far more control of them in the long run. Tell them who they are, create an image, an identity that they will want to assume.
      - Seeming human and down to earth disguises the manufactured quality of your image
      - pay much greater attention to your style, the visuals, the story they tell. Convey a sense of movement and progress by showing yourself in motion. Express confidence not through facts and figures but through colors and positive imagery, appealing to the infant in everyone
      - The public has a weakness for what seems both realistic and slightly fantastical—for real events with a cinematic edge. Play to that weakness. Stage events the way Bernays did, events the media can pick up as news