In 30's Alfred Korzybski laid foundation for General Semantics ...
In early 70's Richard Bandler (programmer!) and John Grinder (psychologist) started development of Neuro-Linguistic Programming.
Since then NLP evolved and was applied in many areas. Big Corporations were among main clients of NLP-masters. Other clients: (...There were many of them, for sure!...).
Hidden (for near everybody) technology took world under the hook. Look at ever-smiling politics, hear what about they say ... really.
Now, 10 years after M. Hall developed neurosemantics, more of this technology is available for "people" (and, I suppose, with less objections which might arose around NLP).
Mind control, which is obvious application of NLP, should be recognizable by everybody - especially citizens of "democratic" countries...