- Fasting (altering blood chemistry)
- Drumming (inducing trance through rhythm)
- Isolation (stripping away external reinforcement)
- Symbols and rituals (giving form to the new states)
How to Create Pliable Mental States: The Real Mechanics of mental metaprogramming
Pliable states are mental-emotional conditions where your subconscious mind is more suggestible, more fluid, and more capable of transformation.
There are known methods for entering these states with various depths:
| Method | Mechanism | Modern Parallel |
|---|---|---|
| Imagery | setting context, creating form | images, symbols, ritual, names, words w/ concepts |
| Trance or Ecstatic States | flow state, presence | repeating chants and music patterns, sex, mild entheogens |
| Fasting or Isolation | alter blood chemistry, desire, energy | forced prioritization shift, stripping away external reinforcement |
| Meditation (e.g., breath focus) | Quieting the prefrontal cortex, increasing alpha/theta waves | Mindfulness, trance |
| Entheogens (e.g., psilocybin, ayahuasca) | Disrupting rigid brain networks (default mode network) | Neuroplasticity, openness |
| Near-death experiences (accidental) | Shock-induced neurological resets | Dissociation, radical recontextualization |
| Deep emotional crisis (surrender) | Breaking old mental structures | Ego dissolution, reprogramming |
In all of these, the mind becomes more "liquid", more able to accept new programs — new identities, new emotional truths, new possibilities.
That's why ancient rites often involved:
In each case, the goal was to soften the mind's rigidity, make it pliable, and then imprint new images, new names, new realities.