I'm not an expert in the least but they definitely use a lot of NLP. Also what you see on TV is very edited. A lot of the NLP and "psychological forces" are edited out of the final cut so it is not quite as instant as it appears.
-Isaac
PS sorry for not actually answering your question
I'm afraid this isn't really true, Isaac, apart from the fact that things aren't quite as instant as they appear on TV. Just as a matter of my own interest, though, I'd love to know why you think that NLP is involved. So Isaac, where did you get this information from? Did you read it somewhere, did someone else tell you, or did you intuit it yourself from watching the performances? I'm very interested in studying the perception of magic performances, and the beliefs audiences are willing to buy into, so I'd love to know your answer to this question. Feel free to PM me so we don't hijack this thread.
To answer the OP, the modern-classic work on psychological forces is Banachek's
Psychological Subtleties. I can almost guarantee, however, that you'll be incredibly disappointed with it to begin with. It doesn't teach you how to make your audience think of anything you want, but how to understand the psychological tendencies most people have when making certain types of choice and to nudge them in the direction you want. To achieve the type of effects you describe, start with basic mentalism techniques, specifically billet work. Learn one good billet peek and, there you go, instant mind reader. Or mind influencer, depending on how you present it. Because that's the main thing. Pick up any book on mentalism and you'll find many different methods of acquiring information. The challenge is then to present it in such a way that the method becomes invisible and all your audience see and remember is someone with a true gift, skill or power.
So, to get an overview of what you're getting yourself into with mentalism, pick up Tony Corinda's
Thirteen Steps to Mentalism and Theodore Annemann's
Practical Mental Effects. For ideas on forcing, the classic is Annemann's
202 Methods of Forcing. There are some really nice works specifically on billets if you do decide you want to go down that route, as well. Allen Zingg has a DVD set called
Master Billet Course which should keep you going for a while.