BlackMeridian

Maybe... just maybe...

2009-12-16T12:26:00.001Z

Well it's nearly mid December so I guess I should write something. At least this time I have something to report.

I have mentioned on more than enough occasions that I have found my inherently poor response to hypnosis to be incredibly frustrating. Well recently it occurred to me that what this reminds me of most is the case of the friend who never gets in touch. The valued friend who one gets on well with and who seems to mutually really enjoy the relationship, but who never seems to make any effort to maintain it. The feeling that if one simply ceased all attempts to contact them that would be the end of it; they'd never be heard from again.

This is exactly how I've been feeling about hypnosis. It's just me keeping it going by constant and awkward effort, and if I stopped trying, stopped making it happen, the whole relationship would simply vanish.

Now of course with the friend, when questioned about why they never make any effort to say hello from time to time, they may of course say that they have been busy, they may say any number of true and legitimate things about their life which of course I would have no reason to dispute. The thing is though that I've always believed that broadly speaking people do what they want to do, and that actions speak louder than words. Regardless of what a friend may say, if they placed any level of value on being in contact they would be anticipating the next time and miss it when it was no longer there.

Traditionally I have always been one to derive my own sense of self-worth more from evidence than self-assertion, so I'm sure that what I describe above is something that used to upset me. More recent times and a better sense of self have brought me to realise that some friendships do just naturally fade out and there are better things to be doing in life than try to force things. Forcing makes things worse, because there's nothing more awkward than someone being friendly to an uninvited guest because they feel obliged to do so. Overall it's better to see a lack of response, over a period of time, as a signal to move on and find other people who do want to know.

I guess ultimately what I'm getting at here is that in assessing my relationship with all things hypnotic I have to try to avoid the trap of seeing it as an entity in itself, and applying the same rule to it. It would be so easy to see hypnosis as an acquaintance with whom the relationship just isn't working and thus to just leave it and move on. So much of the time it does feel as though I am just forcing the interaction, that it's just me pretending something is there.

Fortunately I have been able to recognise the difference, that hypnosis is an intrinsic part of my personality, and to press on. This is all just as well, because the other day hypnosis got in touch with me.

What I mean by that, as I try to keep this increasingly fragile analogy going, is that recently I was given a post hypnotic suggestion without being aware of it, and not only that, I also unwittingly followed it.

To the reader who doesn't know what a post hypnotic suggestion feels like I shall try to explain it. Those who are expecting mystical external forces to seize their limbs and make them move uncontrollably in true zombie fashion will perhaps be disappointed. I find a post hypnotic suggestion doesn't really have any particular "feeling" associated but the effect is actually very familiar.

Try to imagine a situation where you feel inclined to do something but have to intervene with reasoning to stop yourself from doing it. A classic example, and one well related to impending festivities, might be being offered more chocolates from a box and finding your hand already in the box picking one before you've even considered whether you've already eaten far too many chocolates already. Indeed, it's not an unusual situation for the subconscious part of the brain to have taken action before the conscious mind fully appreciates what's going on. Indeed, one might even eat the chocolate without giving it a second thought.

The above is of course a suggestion which one gives oneself, especially if one likes chocolate. The thing is that if someone else has given you that suggestion, under hypnosis, and you have no memory of it the experience of following that suggestion is the same. You find yourself idly doing something and not knowing why, or indeed you don't even notice what you're doing because your mind is elsewhere. There is no "feeling" as such.

Then there's the other level, which is being aware of a suggestion and yet following it anyway, and the best comparison I can think of regarding that is lying in bed in the morning and resolving to get up, and yet staying in bed anyway.

So as I was saying I was recently given a suggestion in a trance that I was completely unaware of, which I subsequently followed without knowing.

How on earth did I get the suggestion without noticing? Well, when I told the friend I've been practicing with that they should consider me fair game little did I realise how inventive they could be. Catching someone completely unexpectedly is a great little convincer that hypnosis is working, as the subject will be unprepared and delighted to find that they've responded to the suggestion before they even knew what was happening. However, my friend in this case took the idea a little bit further and caught me when I'd fallen asleep! (Yes, the parties I hold in my flat are just that exciting!)

I remember a snap of the fingers, which I thought I had dreamed, but nothing else hypnotic. Apparently my eyes were fluttering like mad and I was twitching.

It's interesting because it suggests to me that the dreaming state that exists on the edge of sleep is not dissimilar to a hypnotic trance. How's that for a completely non-scientific piece of reasoning.

So yes, upon waking up I had absolutely no reason to believe anything had been going on. Until, that is, I found myself stuck where I was. What's more, I'd become stuck without even giving it a second thought, and it wasn't until my friend commented "try and move" before I realised that I was trying to and failing. It all happened in such a way as to remove any doubt as to whether it was something I was simply pretending to do.

So yes, something happened without any deliberate effort from me. My relationship with hypnosis, as a subject, is not simply wishful thinking and mindless persistence on my part.

Yay!

This was a couple of weeks ago. Needless to say my restored and limitless enthusiasm for hypnosis drove me to procrastinate over blogging about it for all this time.

I really should feel more positive than I do at the moment, but none of this has brought me out of the doldrums I've been in over the last few months. Perhaps I will find some opportunities to practice some hypnosis over Christmas.

Who knows, I might even finish "Analytical Subjects III"!

We'll see...

Disillusionment

2009-11-30T13:22:00.007Z

Well, I very nearly made it through the whole of November without writing anything!

I would like to be able to report that my lack of posts over the last month or so has been down to my being extremely busy hypnotising lots of people. Truth be told this couldn't be further from the truth and whilst I have been busy with things such as work and my girlfriend, I have also been suffering from a complete lack of enthusiasm for all things hypnotic.

The first issue I've had is the age-old one. I simply haven't been finding the opportunities I need to get hold of people to hypnotise. Going out an finding people in Oxford would be the best idea, but I'm really not so keen on the idea of going it alone. There are regular meet-ups in London of course but to go there takes quite a long time, costs too much for me to go more than once a month, and in any case the atmosphere in central London isn't one I feel particularly comfortable in.

I think the biggest issue however comes from my own experiences of hypnosis.

As subjects some people seem to be able to get incredible experiences out of hypnosis, but the more I do this the more rare those people seem to be. For the majority of people the experience is more lukewarm, and for the unfortunate few like myself those experiences don't even exist, at least to start with.

When I first discovered hypnosis I was very excited by all of the possibilities it might present in terms of things I could experience through it, as well as what exeriences I could give to others. The reality for me has been extremely disappointing, and the rewards I have reaped for months and months of working at being a better subject have been tiny.

How the hell am I supposed to go out and sell this to people I approach if my own belief in what hypnosis can really do is so compromised?!

Hypnosis without trance

2009-10-30T19:53:00.005Z

I feel I should give a plug at this point for James Rolph, who has recently started his own blog about his own unique approach to hypnosis. James has often come to the meetups in London, has a style of performance that I find extremely enjoyable to watch and from whom I have learned quite a few fun waking hypnosis tricks.

James' blog and videos can be found at http://www.hypnosiswithouttrance.com/

From my own perspective I think that "hypnosis without trance" is a bit misleading. I would personally say that trance is very much present during waking hypnosis, where a subject has their attention focused and is accepting suggestions. I suspect that James' definition of what constitutes "trance" (ie the eyes closed apparently sleep-like state) is different from mine.

Whatever one decides to call it, there is no denying the impressive results he is able to achieve through his methods. His site is definitely worth a look!

Man flu

2009-10-29T19:30:00.002Z

Yes that's right, I'm not in London this evening.

As my girlfriend has observed I have the dreaded "man flu" and find myself confined to my flat feeling sorry for myself. I have a head that's completely bunged up and for the last couple of days I've been occupied with the arduous process of trying to sneeze and cough the deeper sections of my lungs out of my body.

I'm absolutely gutted that I can't make it to the meet this evening because as always I've been really looking forward to going. Nevertheless, in my current state there's no guarantee that if I tried to go to London I'd get there, and even if I did manage to find the place I know very well that someone with my symptoms traveling on the tube would be extremely popular... not.

So I'm going to sit in tonight and concentrate on not getting any sicker.

What I have been doing all day today is watching hypnosis videos on YouTube, of varying quality of course. One that I particularly liked was this one, taken from the beginning of a Las Vegas stage hypnosis show. The optical illusion is impressive and a nice way to get the audience's attention for the more hypnotic context of the later suggestibility test.

Some good ideas here for the magnetic hands set piece. In particular like the action of rubbing hands together, which of course aids in encouraging the hands come together. I'm also beginning to like the idea of my own hypno-assistant, although I doubt my girlfriend would approve.

How not to do it!

2009-10-26T12:49:00.037Z

One thing about having hypnosis as a hobby is that subjects rarely, if not never, come to you. If you want to hypnotise people you have to ask them, or at least bring the subject up.

It rather reminds me of my experience of being male and being in my late teens to early twenties. I desperately wanted attention from women, but I learned the hard way that no amount of being an honest, considerate, and kind individual would make women notice me. Somebody, I forget who, told me "nobody is going to give you a girlfriend", and this turned out to be even truer than I cared to admit at the time. To this day I still hold to the belief that generally speaking the idea of single women is a myth perpetuated by wishful thinkers.

It is much the same when it comes to finding subjects to hypnotise. No amount of knowing how to be a good hypnotist will make the subjects come to you a bit of honest hypno-fun. The challenges are much the same. First it's a case of knowing where to go to find subjects, and secondly, if the potential subjects are strangers, having the confidence to approach them.

These musings are foremost in my mind at the moment because this weekend I was doing what I haven't done enough of recently, which is shamelessly leaping on any opportunity to bring hypnosis into the conversation when with friends. As I said before, if you never bring it up you never get the opportunity to practice.

I learned two lessons that evening, and both left me feeling rather foolish.

During one of these conversations a friend of mine, who as it happens I'd not seen in a few years said that he'd like me to hypnotise him. I was delighted to have the opportunity, so I went straight into magnetic fingers and then on to magnetic hands.

No response. The hands were rock solid in mid air.

I have nearly always found that an individual's response to magnetic hands is indicative of how good a subject they are going to be for me. It shows me how willing they are to follow suggestions and engage their imagination. Having known this person as long as I had and knowing very well that he is extremely suggestible I was frankly shocked at his lack of response to my suggestions.

I like to make a point of asking subjects who I fail with what it is they are thinking afterwards, and it was then that I found out why it hadn't been working. He told me that he was only doing it because his girlfriend had asked him to and that he wasn't expecting that it would work anyway. After I heard that I wasn't so bothered about my abilities, I just wished I'd been more perceptive about how willing my subject was.

A string of successes in front of friends is something that will build a reputation and expectations. I can't help but think that bad choices over when and who to try to hypnotise seem to have locked me into the opposite spiral as far as they are concerned.

This certainly wasn't helped by my second attempt at hypnosis that evening. Later on we were stood in a club in Oxford and a friend commented to me that I probably wouldn't be able to hypnotise her because it was too noisy. I told her that I didn't need to speak to hypnotise her. Intrigued, she asked how I would do that. I obliged by showing her a non-verbal Erickson handshake.

A non-verbal Erickson handshake is, for the practiced hypnotist, probably the most effort-free induction there is. To do it I ambiguously hold the subject's arm, making it unclear as to who is supporting it, and effectively stare out the subject until they go into trance. All I need to do is look them in the eye and give a barely inperceptible "that's right" nod any time they exhibit any signs of behaviour that is trance-like, such as blinking.

The first time she was distracted by a view of our friends over my shoulder, so I took her by the shoulders and gently turned her to face away from them so we could start again. This time her eyes closed and her head dropped forward in less than 30 seconds.

Just as I was feeling the elation that it had worked, and I stepped around to the side to talk into her ear to deepen, everything went horribly wrong. She snapped out of it suddenly with a squeal. Why? because being the clumsy idiot that I am I'd trodden on her foot!

I of course apologised immediately, but that was it for the evening as far as hypnosis was concerned. I am extremely glad that I learned this lesson on a friend and not a stranger who I'd approached, but I'm still kicking myself that I could be so stupid as to not think about where I was putting my feet!

I don't feel like a complete amateur at the moment. Really I don't.

Fun in Camden

2009-10-20T12:47:00.022+01:00

I decided that this month I would like to turn up to on of the MMH meets in London, so yesterday I booked the afternoon off work and headed down to Covent Garden in London.

The MMH regulars are a great bunch of people who are at least as adept at impromptu magic tricks as they are at hypnosis, and they often have me completely in awe when they make cards, coins and rubber bands in their hands do all sorts of crazy things.

I am currently working very hard on making a coin vanish. Ben endorsed my efforts by saying that it "works well... on 12 year olds maybe".

For the most part this was for me a Social meetup, at least for the first half. We all sat in the pub and chatted for most of the rest of the afternoon, and then went for dinner.

After much procrastination we decided that we should all head off to Camden, or rather some of us. We made our way to a very nice studenty bar in Camden where we caught up with Darren.

It was at this point that Pete Crossland asked if he could hypnotise me, a consequence of my gaining a reputation as an easy subject I suspect. He used a hand-to-eye fixation induction and tried a few tricks like sticking me to my stool, which of course worked, and then told me that Darren was invisible so I couldn't see him, which worked only in so far as that I couldn't look at Darren directly, but of course I knew he was still there and could see him in my peripheral vision.

Pete's routine certainly turned a few heads nearby. I came out of trance to find several bystanders staring at me intently as though they expected me to explode or something similar at any minute. It was the foot in the door that all impromptu hypnotists like to get, so soon two girls were being shown hypnosis.

Pete handed me over to Darren, who did a routine with me that felt rather groundbreaking in terms of my experiences as a subject. He told me that I would not be able to answer any question regardless how easy or trivial it was. In the past I have found my reaction to such suggestions to consist of hearing the answer loud and clear inside my head, but I simply cannot bring myself to say the answer out loud.

This experience was very different. I found myself completely unable to think about the question at all. Each question simply threw my mind into confusion as it scrambled around in the dark trying to find the meaning of it and follow it through. It was a very new experience for me and I was genuinely speechless!

It just goes to show how quickly response to a certain type of phenomena can actually develop once the brain actually discovers how to do it! When it comes to amnesia that is something that is genuinely quite exciting, if a little scary. Rollercoaster scary.

Once again I found myself heading off just as things were starting to kick off properly with the local students. Great to see everyone again though!

Analytical Subjects II

2009-10-13T13:06:00.012+01:00

In part 1 I talked a bit about why I think it is that analytical subjects have trouble with hypnosis. In this post I will talk about where I think most hypnotists go wrong in trying to hypnotise them and what the most common mistakes are.

Hypnotists who understand the issue with analytical subjects least fall broadly into two categories.

Firstly there are the hypnotists who are good subjects themselves and thus have difficulty comprehending how anybody could find trance difficult, which is quite understandable. In this case it is not so much a case of the blind leading the blind, rather a case of the sighted teaching the blind to play darts.

Actually no, that's an awful analogy but I'm sure you get the point. People who find it easy to be hypnotised often find it hard to explain just how they do it because they take so much of what they do for granted, like knowing where the target is.

Secondly there are the hypnotists who are not themselves good subjects or who are unwilling to even be subjects. These are often the worst offenders, because they have little or no understanding of what the experience of trance is really like and develop all kinds of misconceptions based on the reactions of their subjects. Don't get me wrong, some of the world's best hypnotists are no doubt poor subjects themselves, but it can lead to a complete lack of understanding about what the subject is experiencing.

Hypnotists who have themselves never been hypnotised will see subjects appear to fall like dominoes in their wake and think they're dealing out dynamite. Perhaps they are, but the point here is that that it doesn't always feel like that for the subject; as a general rule I think the subject nearly always underestimates how much hypnosis is really affecting them.

So the hypnotist will think that trance is this magic state and all that they have to do is get the subject there, get the subject into it and they've onto a winner. This is often a reason why such individuals have trouble experiencing hypnosis themselves; they go into a light trance with no trouble at all, but it feels so distinctly unimpressive that they believe it hasn't worked. The experience doesn't meet the expectation.

Mistake 1 - Trance or bust

Mistake, or indeed major misconception, number 1 is the nature of trance as an experience for the subject. Both of the above types of hypnotists expect trance to have some profound and, frankly, incapacitating effect on their subjects. Not only that, this expectation is picked up upon by the subject. Both parties in the hypnotic contract, hypnotist and subject, expect something astounding to happen when the word "sleep" is said.

Analytical subjects "don't get" hypnosis. They think critically by nature, thinking uncritically does not come naturally to them and especially not when they are required to do it on demand. However, having said that like anyone they do actually enter trance; they will have their eyes closed with their attention completely focused on the hypnotist, which is more than what's needed for trance. The important thing to understand though is that don't realise they're entering trance. Analytical subjects only go into a very light trance so they will not see or feel any evidence of anything unusual going on, and so they won't believe anything has happened.

This is where I think the build up of anticipation, which is usually very important for hypnotists, actually works against them when working with an analytical subject. The experience doesn't meet the expectation.

If the hypnotist expects trance incapacitate or at least impress their subject and it doesn't they will believe that they have failed to induce it. They don't recognise that, although the subject may not be convinced, trance is happening nonetheless and give up.

The hypnotist gives up, and of course that is the point at which they fail.

Mistake 2 - Special inductions

Mistake number 2 is what seems to come naturally after mistake number 1; the idea that there is a special induction out there that will work. They think their first induction failed to produce hypnosis, but if they use the right induction the magic will happen.

Many hypnotists will at this point start trying all sorts of special inductions. I lose count of all the times that I've heard of hypnotists saying words to the effect that "Oh, an analytical subject eh? You need an instant/confusion/overload induction for them!" Sure enough, the hypnotist will soon have the poor subject hopping up and down on one foot singing the national anthem backward whilst balancing a fish on their head, all so that this time when they say "sleep!" it will work!

As a subject I went through a phase of trying all sorts of inductions in the hope that something would work on me and a number of hypnotists, most notably Darren, have performed many instant and confusion inductions on me. Anyone who knows Darren will know how good he is at these, and when he demonstrated them on me he executed them flawlessly. However, none of these inductions produced a trance that was different to any of the others I'd already experienced, and as I didn't recognise that I really was in a trance I thought they hadn't worked.

If the subject didn't feel as though they were in a trance the first time they are much less likely to believe it a second time with an even bigger build up to the same thing. Trust me, the momentary confusion passes leaving the subject sat there with the same feeling they had before and when nothing appears to have happened this is when the hypnotist's credibility crumbles into dust.

Don't get me wrong, these inductions do work and they can be a lot of fun but in my personal experience they are less than useless with an analytical subject without also having the right attitude to the rest of the process. I cannot stress enough that to an analytical subject trance simply feels like the unremarkable feeling that they're sat there with their eyes closed. The more dramatic the fashion in which they are put there the more underwhelming the experience will seem to them when they arrive.

I call this approach to hypnotising an analytical subject the search for the "magic bullet" induction. This is the idea that for everybody there is a special induction that will put them in very deep instantaneously, if only it could be found. It is usually touted by hypnotists with little or no experience of trance themselves. It is impossible to disprove this assertion, as one can always insist that the magic bullet simply hasn't been found yet, however I am extremely skeptical.

In my experience if a willing subject is with a hypnotist whose approach they're comfortable with any induction is as good as any other; the subject will perform within the bounds of their abilities, perhaps pushing that envelope outwards in the process. I assert that trance is a skill; everybody has a latent ability when they start out, everybody gets better with practice, and everybody learns at a different rate. A good and experienced teacher with a good understanding of what the subject is experiencing can help this process, but I have seen and heard of nothing that will produce the step change needed to turn an analytical subject into a somnambulist in an instant.

I should stress that it is in my own best interests to be disproved on this point, but sadly so far I have not.

Mistake 3 - Trying to be clever

This mistake is less serious but definitely worth mentioning because it is more common.

The worst offender as far as this is concerned is the hypnotist that's got all the language patterns, all the clever syntax, all the textbooks, and thus all the answers they think they need. "Just say this, because it distracts the critical faculty away from the first statement and then you can confuse them with the next statement which is compounded and forced through by this particular adjective, and then hey presto!" etc etc. Then they pat themselves on the back for being so clever.

If analytical subjects are good at anything it is analysing what's going on. Foremost in their mind is always a sense of wanting to understand what's happening, the process, what the rules are and how things work. If they get the slightest impression that the hypnotist is withholding anything from them, or trying to trick or lead them blindly in any way, they get defensive until they have their answer. "What's the scam here?" sums it up nicely.

This is why overload or diversion tactics are not necessarily a good idea for analytical subject in my opinion. Far from having the desired effect the subject will in fact realise what's happening and instinctively put their attention where it's not being directed to try to understand the nature of the trick being pulled on them.

Analytical individuals do not take anything for granted, may have read up on hypnosis beforehand and faced with the usual pre-talk "lies to children" may also decide to ask difficult questions like "why?". They become suspicious if they believe the hypnotist isn't being sincere, or is unable or unwilling to answer their questions.

A lot of hypnotists simply like to aid the process of hypnosis by setting up a positive context with their subject by selective use of the information, and this isn't a bad thing at all. In such a case it's fair enough and the mistake isn't being too clever, the mistake is not being clever or subtle enough and getting caught out.

There is no need to lie to or patronise an analytical subject, and the hypnotist who does immediately loses all credibility.

Mistake 4 - Giving up

Mistake number 4 is the worst. This is giving up on the subject and writing them off as a lost cause. The belief that a number of hypnotists have is that some people cannot be hypnotised, and that some people simply aren't worth working with because they "won't go". There are some otherwise very talented hypnotists who are included in this number.

What happens is that the hypnotist, having tried and failed with everything they can think of, comes to the conclusion that the willing individual in front of them cannot be hypnotised. There are a number of rationalisations commonly used, one is to believe that some people simply can't be hypnotised, and another is believing that some fear or other form of reluctance on the part of the subject is preventing the hypnosis from working.

This is nonsense. I know this because I was once told such things myself.

There are some people who cannot be hypnotised but these are not intelligent and willing individuals. People with diminished mental abilities cannot be hypnotised. There are people who are simply unwilling to be hypnotised in a formal context, which is fair enough. I am firmly of the belief that anybody who wants to be hypnotised and puts their mind to it can do so.

Something that is worth considering is the question of what the objective of the hypnosis is, and whether can a particular subject be hypnotised to achieve the right sort of phenomena within a useful timescale. Analytical subjects don't usually give good results straight away and if the purpose of the demonstration is to entertain a group of people it is understandable if a hypnotist concludes that it's not worth the effort and moves on. Stage hypnotists have no use at all for analytical subjects because they are in the business of entertainment, they only want the best subjects they can find, and a stage hypnosis show with poor subjects too dull for words. This is of course entirely different to a one-on-one context where the focus can be focused solely on the subject's needs.

In the event that the hypnotist is having no success it is better for them to explain to the subject that perhaps a different time, a different place, and possibly a different hypnotist might be better for them, than to tell them that they can't be hypnotised. If they are willing, they can be.

...and next...

In my third and final installment I will explain how I would go about hypnotising an analytical subject.

Analytical subjects I

2009-10-09T13:30:00.017+01:00

Following on from my recent discussion of the acting dilemma I feel that I should take a while to talk about the topic of analytical subjects.

The lack of decent methods for analytical subjects, as Javier recently commented, quite rightly in my opinion, is something of an elephant in the room that hypnotists seem to shy away from talking about.

What we are talking about in this thread are the people who just "don't get" hypnosis. They just don't respond. You talk at them, give suggestions and nothing happens. There are plenty of people who just don't want to be hypnotised and will simply not go under, in a formal context anyway, and these are usually people who have been pressured into trying in the first place. What I am talking about here, however, are people who want to to be hypnotised but somehow can't seem to manage it.

I don't view my own model as definitive, but I would like it if my views on this stimulate debate. I am speaking as someone who was one of the worst examples of this sort of subject and I have a passionate desire to put across where it was that all of the approaches that hypnotists tried on me were going wrong, and even making the problem worse.

In this post I will talk about my model of hypnotisability. In subsequent posts I shall outline how I would go about hypnotising an analytical subject, or indeed how I would have liked someone to hypnotise me if I'd had access to this model this time last year. I will also explain where I think many hypnotists go wrong.

MBTI

I should talk a bit about the way my model of hypnosis explains the way in which different people respond to hypnosis differently.

My model is heavily influenced by something called the "MBTI", or Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Whilst this is not directly related to hypnosis or NLP in any way I do recommend reading a bit about it because it is a very interesting way of evaluating and understanding the way in which people make decisions.

I have mentioned MBTI before in my earlier post entitled "Typealyzer". Put simply it's a model that regards personality type as similar to left or right handedness: individuals are either born with, or develop, certain preferred ways of thinking and acting. In the model there are four opposite pairs of attributes, or dichotomies, which form 16 possible combinations (for example INSF, or ESTJ) each representing a distinct psychological type. The model asserts that individuals will, on the scale between each dichotomy, naturally prefer one type of behaviour over another, just as a right handed person will prefer to write with their right hand over their left hand. Indeed, people often find using their opposite psychological preferences more difficult, even if doing so would be to their benefit.

The four dichotomies are as follows:

Extraversion - Introversion
Sensing - iNtuition
Thinking - Feeling
Judging - Perceiving

I won't go into the meanings of these scales, interesting though they are, although I expect "Extraversion - Introversion" and "Thinking - Feeling" probably speak for themselves.

An individual's preferred behaviour type is often referred to simply by the four attributes toward which they lean. In my November article last year I subjected this blog to an analysis and the result was "ISTP". Most interestingly, if I typalyze BlackMeridian now I get this:

INTP - The Thinkers

"The logical and analytical type. They are especially attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications.

They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about."

As I said last November "INTP" has always been the result of MBTI tests I have taken in the past and it seems that with more information the algorithms the typealyser uses reach the same conclusion.

It's important to stress that these aren't laws, merely an individuals natural preferences, and something that the letters alone do not indicate is the extent of that preference. It's important to see an individual's relation to each dichotomy as a position on a scale rather than an absolute predilection for one type of behaviour or the other, and as my position on the scale between S and N has always been close to the borderline I was not too surprised when I got ISTP the first time instead of INTP. In truth I think my profile exists somewhere between the two.

My preference for Introversion and Thinking are, however, at the extreme ends of their respective scales. This would seem to indicate that I nearly always prefer to be in quiet surrounds and not be the centre of attention and that I usually like to think logically instead of emotionally, a generalised indication that is in fact very true to how I am.

MBTI is far from being a complete model of a person's brain, but it is a useful tool for understanding people and it's something that I believe in quite strongly. I feel the same way about the way my own model, which I will now explain, relates to hypnosis.

Critical or Uncritical?

So how does this relate to analytical hypnotic subjects?

I should say that I actually hate the term "analytical"; I prefer to use the term "critical", but the meaning in this context is much the same.

In my model of hypnosis I like to employ another dichotomy which, although completely unrelated to MBTI, borrows from it the idea of representing an individual's natural preference with a position on a scale. Such a scale, which I will call "U-C", or "Uncritical - Critical", would place natural somnambulism at one end, and at the other the behaviour of a willing but completely unresponsive subject - an "antisomnambulist" if you like.

The position on a scale does not state how someone will always behave, merely how they prefer to behave, what's instinctive to them. Also as with MBTI an individual's position on the scale may move depending on time, experience and context.

For the sake of my model I assert that there are two kinds of thought, critical and uncritical. Uncritical thought is when someone thinks and accepts something because it feels right to them, it's irrational and instinctive. Critical thought is the opposite of this, it's about reaching a conclusion through a logical, analytical thought process.

Uncritical thought is the kind of thought required to be in the state of hypnosis, Critical thought is the kind of thought that can be used to block hypnosis.

Needless to say everybody thinks with a mixture of both of these thought processes, but what we could do is plot a position on the U-C scale for each individual that would reflect which kind of thought process that they have a natural inclination to favour over the other.

What this means is that, in my model at least, an individual with a preference for uncritical thinking will make a better hypnotic subject than someone with a preference for critical thinking because when thrust into the unfamiliar territory of hypnosis they will favour their uncritical thoughts over their critical thoughts. Indeed, the more someone prefers to listen to their uncritical thoughts the more likely they are to listen to them to the exclusion of critical thoughts that contradict them. Their hand might, for example, get stuck to a table. Likewise the more someone favours being critical the more likely they are to shrug off such crazy irrational thoughts in favour of evidence and reasoning; of course the hand can move, what's stopping it?

Needless to say most people are nearer the middle of this scale, but some people live at the extremes. For example, one could argue that people who have "permanosis" (a term I have heard Anthony Jacquin use to describe being in a permanent state of trance) are people who are at the uncritical end of the scale. They have critical thoughts, but their thoughts are dominated by uncritical thoughts.

My assertion is that an analytical subject is someone who is well toward the critical end of the scale. Whilst they have uncritical thoughts their thought processes are dominated by critical thinking. They like to analyse, examine, reason, and will have a mistrust of how they simply feel about something if they can't find a logical reason to explain it.

Why be analytical?

So why analytical subjects analytical? I contend that they are critical simply because that's who they are, and frankly it's not as of itself a bad thing.

I said above that critical thinking can be used to block hypnosis, and I think it is this that leads many hypnotists to conclude that an analytical subject, who can't help but think critically, is someone who is afraid to go into hypnosis, or that they are resisting. This is an assertion that the completely willing subject will find at least confusing, and possibly baffling or annoying, because they know that they are doing everything they can to cooperate. They know it's nothing to do with fear.

If we stretch the definition of "fear" a little we could perhaps consider the way in which someone with a preference for a certain kind of behaviour might feel when faced with the opposite sort of behaviour. This is more a kind of awkwardness or discomfort and feeling out of place than actually being afraid. For example, an extreme introvert in a nightclub would feel very uncomfortable. A creative logical thinker in an art lesson might draw up the design for a helium-filled trans-Atlantic giant rigid airship passenger liner, complete with buoyancy and fuel consumption calculations and then feel very awkward when trying to explain their work in artistic terms to the rest of the class, who have drawn pretty flowers.

These are examples of when someone "doesn't get" something that the others around them are finding easy and natural simply because of the way they are used to thinking.

Analytical subjects just "don't get" hypnosis. It's not a defense mechanism; they just aren't accustomed to listening to the right part of their mind.

Now I have heard some people contend that young children don't have trouble with uncritical thinking and go easily and deeply into trance all the time, so therefore adults must also be able to. Perhaps so, but young children are also known to wet themselves or fall on their faces without putting a hand out, something that adults would find very difficult. Many people could put their foot in their mouth when they were children but most can't now. People grow up and develop as individuals; an adult's mind is very different to that of a child.

This is all about who someone is, and not what they were.

The good news?

The good news in all of this is that analytical subjects can be hypnotised; anybody who is willing can be. In parts 2 and 3 I will talk about the mistakes I think many hypnotists make when trying to hypnotise analytical subjects, and I will outline how I would go about it.

The acting dilemma

2009-10-07T13:26:00.076+01:00

On a couple of occasions over the last 9 months or so I have mentioned something that I have come to know as "the acting dilemma". This is a name that I believe Liz first coined, and I think it fits it very well because it is a real dilemma that doesn't seem to ever go away.

I should say if hypnosis is working for you as a subject just fine look away now. To know the acting dilemma is to become part of the acting dilemma!

It seems to me that the dilemma is what holds back an analytical subject from knowing how to be hypnotised, and that overcoming it is the only way to move forward. You see, to a great extent hypnosis works through belief. The "normal" (if there is such a thing!) subject extends their belief to the premise that hypnosis is going to work and as a consequence they find themselves responding, which then supplies the proof. Analytical subjects suffer from a critical outlook that requires proof to be provided before anything can be believed. They have it back to front, and it causes no end of trouble!

If an analytical subject can be persuaded to have a bit of faith and persistence they will soon find a seldom heard part of their mind, an irrational part that wants hypnosis to be real, calling out to them compelling their conscious mind to follow the suggestions being given. This may cause the subject to decide to play along.

It is this which poses the acting dilemma, which is as follows:

"Am I doing this because I'm hypnotised, or am I just pretending that I'm hypnotised? Am I not just acting?"

I wrote about this back in June in a post entitled "How to be hypnotised", in my answer to question 4, and in that post I explained the solution to the acting dilemma. This is not to worry and to follow the suggestions even if it feels as though you are consciously doing so. The idea is that soon enough you will find that responding becomes second nature and in effect the process becomes a subconscious one. "Fake it 'till you make it".

This works; trust me, it does! For example, initially when I was told by the hypnotist to "sleep" I would consciously close my eyes, consciously relax my body, and try to go into a trance, which frankly always felt as though I was just sitting there like a lemon with my eyes closed; nothing special at all. As I mentioned in my last post I have now reached a stage where my response to such a suggestion can feel completely involuntary and I have been in trances recently where my awareness of the world outside has fluctuated whilst a haphazard assortment of irrelevant thoughts have bounced around the inside of my mind like golf balls in a blender. It feels good, and it's definitely worth the months of "pretending".

Using this solution also becomes even easier if you use the rationalisation that telling yourself that you're only acting is in itself a rationalisation, and the real reason you're following the suggestions is hypnosis.

The problem is that using this solution to escape the acting dilemma is a bit like signing a pact with the devil, as I will explain in a minute. There is more to it, and it is news that is probably more depressing for the hypnotist than the subject.

The question is how does an analytical subject go about achieving the twin pinnacles of hypnosis, namely amnesia and hallucination? It's something that's been nagging at me for a while, but something happened recently that brought it to the front of my mind, and a recent conversation I had with Liz confirmed my suspicions.

At the last meet in London Darren hypnotised me and as part of the routine he was doing gave me a direct suggestion that I'd have amnesia for what he'd just told me. Now the fact that I'm writing this now will tell you that I did not forget Darren telling me to choose the five of spades from the deck, but that's not the point. The point is that I felt an incredibly strong urge from deep inside telling me to lie to Darren and to act as though I had forgotten!

I know I've said in the past that hypnosis certainly isn't an outside force, but as time goes by I'm increasingly finding that there are occasions when it seems that way. In this situation it was as though hypnosis was inside my mind, like a cliché demon on my shoulder, imploring me to lie against all common sense. Anyone who has experienced a post hypnotic suggestion that they're consciously aware of will know what I'm talking about, that almost instinctive desire to do something that doesn't make sense. It's a bit like the feeling that tries to make you have a little bit more of something you know you've had enough of, such as sweets, cake, ale, roller coaster rides or Scandinavian symphonic power metal.

The urge to just go along with the suggestion, even though the rational part of me was insistent that of course it could remember Darren telling me which card to pick, was very strong. I muddled through the routine with Darren, my head spinning from the dilemma, sort of saying I could remember but perhaps not, maybe; I did a very good job of confusing both of us.

Now if we go back to the dilemma and apply the same solution we reach the conclusion that to learn how to achieve amnesia it becomes necessary to follow the suggestion sincerely and pretend that it's working, even though it appears not to be. To do that though it becomes necessary to lie to the hypnotist! Likewise with hallucinations.

When I asked Liz about this she said that I was quite right about this, and that her success rate with difficult suggestions like amnesia and hallucinations was far from 100%, and certainly less than it might seem to anyone watching.

A list of all the embarassingly silly weird and wacky hallucinations I've done with her ran through my mind, and I found myself wondering which, if any, she had actually experienced as real.

"You'll never know" she said, with a grin.

I appreciated that she was sabotaging her own battle with the acting dilemma by admitting to me that she didn't forget or hallucinate everything she was told to, let alone admitting to it at the time. It occurred to me that I could use a hypnotic truth compulsion to get her to truthfully answer whether or not she was really pretending, but as I thought Liz's boyfriend wouldn't appreciate it if I destroyed her brain with a logical paradox I restrained myself on that one.

What I also realised, with some horror, was that the only way I have of telling whether someone is hallucinating, as a hypnotist, is what they tell me. It's their subjective reality after all. How do I know they aren't all lying to me! Is that all that hypnotic hallucination really is? Merely an overwhelming urge to insist that it happened when it didn't?

"I don't like to talk too much about this" Liz commented, "because it tends to depress people."

Too right, but even so I cannot conceive of any reason why Liz would persist in pretending her hallucinations exist if none of them ever did. At the end of the day she has a pain-in-the-ass analytical mind, and she'd simply give up and focus on other stuff that does work. I believe her when she says she really can hallucinate, bless her fibbing socks.

My own experience of amnesia suggestions do seem to suggest that it can be more than just an elaborate lie. I know I said I could remember the trance I mentioned earlier, or rather my rational mind was instant that it could remember. What I did find though was that when I tried to access those memories to any significant amount it was much more difficult than it should have been. It was like trying to reach out and grab a handful of smoke. It was a lot fuzzier than it should have been. Hmmm, interesting...

The trouble is that as far as I can see there is only one way in which I can find out for certain whether true amnesia or hallucinations are really possible or not and that's to keep going. I should keep walking down this path, paved with lots and lots of little white lies, getting better as a subject to the point where I can achieve these phenomena.

When I do, dear reader, rest assured that you should not believe a word I say!

Click

2009-10-07T12:31:00.020+01:00

Last November, only a month or so after I'd started out being a hypnotist, I asked the following question in one of my earliest posts, entitled "Sleep!".

"What does the experience of being zapped back into trance in an instant feel like? This is where I guess I have to ask for answers on a postcard."

I wrote it long before I actually tried hypnosis properly and had my bubble burst a bit by my apparent complete lack of receptiveness to it. That was last December, but of course since early this year I have been working hard to improve my abilities as a subject. Last night I had an experience that made me realise just how far I've come since those early months, and which I would like to share.

My response to the instruction to "sleep" so far has been one best described as "yeah, okay...". It's felt as though I have made the conscious decision to close my eyes and go back into trance, partly because I enjoy being in trance and partly because it's something you agree to do when you volunteer to be a subject. More recently I have come to accept that the above is probably more of a conscious rationalisation of what's really happening, which is probably a more subconscious process.

But it's always felt as though I've had time to think: "Trance? Yeah, okay. Why not. Let's just do that." Or indeed, as I confess I'm a bit of a junkie, sometimes: "Trance? Did someone say trance? Where? I want! My trance! Gimme!"

In either event I will allow myself to go limp, feeling compelled to go for maximum dramatic effect.

My experience last night was rather different. The friend I was with had given me the suggestion that I would go back into hypnosis whenever she clicked her fingers. On the face of it this might not seem any different from her simply saying "sleep", but for me the experience was something else entirely. This was especially as it caught me completely off guard; I did not see it coming at all. We were mid-conversation, I was in fact mid-thought when it came.

*CLICK*

It was like my reality hit a brick wall.

That's the best way I can describe it. There was no warning, no build up, no time to think about what I was doing. One moment I was sat there eyes open, chatting and thinking away, and the next everything had just stopped. For a split second the click was the only thing in the world and it seemed in the same instant that my eyes were already closed. Before I had a clue what had happened I was already in the warm darkness of trance and didn't care about the outside world. Don't ask how my body reacted, whether or not I flopped like a rag doll, I honestly don't remember noticing!

The change of state from alert wakefulness to the fuzziness of trance happened so instantaneously that there was absolutely no question whether I'd chosen to or pretended to follow the suggestion. It was all over by the time I had a clue what was happening.

It was, on balance, one of the most awesome experiences I have ever had.

The September Meet

2009-10-02T18:47:00.057+01:00

Cognitive bias, I thought to myself, is an interesting thing.

Thursday found me looking out of a train window watching the beautiful Thames valley whizzing past the window at 125mph. I had left my flat in order to make a brisk walk to the railway station to catch my train to London. I had discovered on arriving at the station that my train was running 15 minutes late. The train ahead of it, which would also have gotten me to London, I had just seen pulling out of the station as I arrived, on time to the nearest second.

"Bloody typical" would be the obvious response.

Is it typical though? Had both of the trains been on time, or if the earlier one had been late enough for me to catch and I'd gotten to London earlier than planned I probably wouldn't have batted an eyelid. Over 90% of trains in the UK arrive within 10 minutes of their scheduled time, but of course it's the occasions when they don't that catch our attention. What percentage of car journeys into urban centres can be said to suffer less than a 10 minute delay, especially at busy periods?

Best to appreciate the good things when they are present, as opposed to by their absence. So I thought as I appreciated being able to sit back and watch the mesmerising experience of the countryside rolling past. Train travel trances are much better than car travel trances I thought; you can go much deeper and there's no risk of causing an accident.

We'd agreed on a change of venue for this meet, nearer to Covent Garden, as well as the unusual date so on arriving it took me a while to find Ben, who'd found us a table in a cramped corner of the pub.

We chatted for a bit about magic tricks, and Ben told me how he'd spent time recently watching Peter Crossland and Marcus Lewis, hypnotists we know through the MMH group, working the crowd and he reckons that a couple of magic tricks are easily the best way to break the ice with strangers. Ben then demonstrated a really cool card trick to me, and I felt the need to redouble my attempts to learn a few magic tricks.

As if on cue Marcus joined us at that point, followed by Darren, and then followed by numerous phone calls from others trying to find out where the venue was. It turns out that as I had been the person to alert the Last Thursday Group to the date and venue, and as facebook in their continuing quest to evolve their interface into one that is utterly incomprehensible and impossible to use, it seems that the invites I thought I'd sent out hadn't gone out, and so only a few of us made it, and most of the others had to call us to find out where the heck we were.

After showing us a few impressive magic tricks Marcus asked if he could hypnotise me. I was actually about to ask him the same question, but I didn't especially mind going first. He used an eye fixation induction that had me staring at a playing card held in my hand, which seems to be quite popular at the moment. He then did a number of simple routines with me such as sticking me to my stool (which in this case didn't actually feel like sticking, but rather had me insisting that I was absolutely fine sitting where I was thankyou!) and having me forget my name.

Next I took a turn hypnotising Marcus. I already knew he was a highly responsive subject, so I felt confident using the Erickson handshake on him. What I wasn't prepared for was the way in which, just as I was starting, his head dropped and his legs nearly gave way under him I was already feeling very rusty with my patter, not having zapped anybody in a while, and in the noisy crowded space it seemed that it was all that I could do to keep him upright.

I tried a few suggestions, but when I brought him back from trance it didn't feel as though he was completely back, he was completely dazed and barely responded to anything I or anyone else was saying or doing. I tried patter to the effect that he would feel lucid and wide awake when I woke him up, but it really didn't seem to make much of a difference. Perhaps the situation was getting away from me simply because I was beginning to feel as though I wasn't fully in control. Whatever the reason, I wasn't feeling happy and decided to leave things there. I did a wake up and bought Marcus a drink by way of apology.

Next Darren had a go at hypnotising me with the old classics like sticking my hand to my drink and making me unable to say my name. I got my revenge by hypnotising him afterwards and having him split his sides laughing whenever I showed him a beer mat. After this I took some time out and just watched what everyone else was doing.

Darren came to me again later on and chatted to me saying that the trances I'd done with him were great, but I needed to work on my wakeups because he and Marcus had both been very groggy after I'd brought them back up from trance. I appreciated the advice from Darren and I take such comments completely seriously, they mean a lot to me, but at the same time I felt a little bit amateurish and out of my depth.

He then offered to show me a card trick. I knew he was up to something immediately; Darren doesn't know any magic tricks.

He had me staring at a card in a way that was not at all unfamiliar from the way Marcus had done to me, and I'd done to him earlier, then sure enough I was down and into trance. This time Darren tried a reverse mind reading trick on me, which I believe is taken from Anthony Jacquin's Manchurian Approach DVD. Basically it's a card trick where the subject is simply told which card to choose by the hypnotist, and then given amnesia for the suggestion.

This was the first time someone has given me an explicit instruction to forget that something has happened; Darren is just cheeky and confident enough to give something like that a try even if it probably won't work. My response to this routine made me feel closer to getting full amnesia, but very it's very hard to put the experience into words. I felt an overriding desire to go along with the routine and to lie to Darren that I couldn't remember being told which card to choose. At first that might seem like I was just pretending, and perhaps so, but the crazier thing about it was that whilst I knew very well that I had the memories of being given that suggestion I found actually getting at those memories to be very difficult! It was like trying to reach out and grab a handful of smoke, I could see what I was reaching for but when I tried to grab something for a closer look my hands were coming back empty. This hasn't really happened before.

I am getting better as a subject. Definitely.

Marcus had been chatting to the barmaid, who was interested in hypnosis and wanted to give it a try. Hypnosis wise he didn't seem to be having much success, although she clearly enjoyed having his full attention.

After hypnosis didn't really seem to work for her with Marcus, Darren stepped up and had a go.

This all led up to what I think is probably the best reaction to an induction I have ever seen, although not in hypnotic terms.

Darren had already tried one induction and she'd not "gone under", to her satisfaction, so Darren tried a hand drop induction on her. He had her push down on his hand, take a deep breath... that's right... push harder... take another deep breath... SLEEP!

The girl's eyes popped open wide in an expression of complete shock, showing white all the way around her pupils, and she recoiled as though Darren had suddenly turned into a poisonous snake. It's an image that will stay with me for a long, long time.

She clearly wasn't going to go under but Marcus used his initiative at this point. He offered to hypnotise her later, got her to write down her phone number on one of his cards, and then proceeded to do an awesome card trick routine by stringing effect after effect. It was incredible to watch.

I made it back to Paddington in good time to catch my train home. It was on time too, but then thinking back I can't remember any train back from London after a meet running late.

I'd had a good evening out, but all in all my feelings as I sat staring through the window at the blackness outside were not especially positive. For the first time at one of these meets had I managed to make myself feel like a complete amateur. Everyone else at the meets seems to be making more opportunities for themselves to get out and hypnotise people and they are absolutely awesome to watch, whereas I felt incredibly rusty and no better at this than I was many months ago.

I really need to start finding more opportunities to get out and zap somehow.

Lifting me

2009-09-29T13:09:00.001+01:00

Let me ask you a question dear reader. Which do you prefer? Pepsi or Coca-Cola?

I prefer Pepsi, and for a number of reasons. Firstly I definitely prefer the taste, and secondly I find that I find the blue colour of the cans and bottles much more pleasing than the red of its counterpart. That's why I prefer Pepsi over Coca-Cola.

Consider this though. I cannot recall having any preference for one of these drinks over the other prior to 1999.

No this isn't the result of some kind of mental millennium bug (especially as the current millennium began on 1st Jan 2001!), I believe I know the reason behind my change of feelings.

In 1999 I remember seeing a TV advert that featured the Corrs, and a song of theirs that I hadn't heard before "Lifting Me", which was in fact written especially for it. In keeping with the requirement for adverts to be surreal as possible it featured a guy with a sack in the crowd at a Corrs concert handing out cans of Pepsi to complete strangers. When he gets to the front you see a shot of Andrea, the lead singer, reaching down to him and he frantically dives into the bottom of the bag for a can to give to her, only to find that he's just run out. He cries out "Noooooo!", and then wakes up in his bed to find that in true cliché style the whole thing was all a dream.

I remember that the advert had me absolutely mesmerised when I first saw it. I was of course a really big fan of their music at the time, but there was something more. I can honestly say I never had a crush on any of the Corrs per se, but I have always been a fan of slim dark haired girls and that moment where Andrea looks right into the camera had the effect one might expect on a 17-year old male otherwise starved of female attention, not least stirring a whole bunch of assorted emotions up to the surface.

Little did I realise at the time that I was experiencing a form of hypnosis, and that my subconscious mind was being tampered with. Years later, and being familiar with what following post hypnotic suggestions feels like, I am able to recognise what happened for what it really is.

We all like to think we are rational and that the decisions we make in life are based on critical thinking and free will. In reality it is all too easy for the critical part of the mind to turn into the devils advocate for what deeper, unconscious parts of the brain want you to do, especially when gorgeous Irish women are thrown into the equation. After that advert struck such a chord with me Pepsi was always going to be my preferred drink, and it was left to my ingenious rational mind to think of some reasons why.

In my experience the subject always underestimates the amount to which hypnosis is affecting them.

You may think, when the hypnotist tells you that your hand is stuck that you are only pretending, that you are only playing along and that it isn't really hypnosis. Consider this though, when you didn't move your hand perhaps there was another mechanism at play, an unconscious reason why you didn't move it, and that telling yourself you're only pretending is how you rationalise your strange behaviour to yourself.

The hand didn't move; you were hypnotised my friend.

Neurology and models

2009-09-25T13:05:00.021+01:00

This topic is one that has come up recently on uncommonforum and much of this post is lifted from my contributions on there, so apologies to any readers who find parts of this familiar.

Consider why is it that only 1 in 5 people will respond strongly enough to hypnosis to, in the words of Kev Sheldrake, "do anything and forget everything", and indeed what is it that prevents the other 4 in 5?

My understanding of this is that it is all about neurology. For the sake of argument consider that all human thinking is made up of a mixture of critical and uncritical thinking. Some people naturally think predominantly in a way which exercises the uncritical parts of the brain, needed for deep hypnosis, much more so than others and thus when they meet a hypnotist the right neurology exists for good response to hypnotic suggestion. This way of favouring a particular way of thinking is a preference a lot like whether or not someone favours their left or right hand; most people naturally favour critical or uncritical thinking to a greater or lesser extent.

To draw an analogy, imagine asking a right handed person to write calligraphy with their left hand and regardless of their eloquence, vocabulary, wit, style and indeed their finesse writing with their favoured hand, the result of their efforts on the paper will be less than impressive. My point is that one will get a similar result when trying to hypnotise someone with a notable preference for critical thinking.

However, given enough time and practice, any right handed person can learn to write with their left hand. If the right hand is especially dominant this may take a long time, but it is always possible. This is why I believe that anybody can be deeply hypnotised given enough practice. It's simply a case of exercising that part of the brain and building up the required neurology.

Now of course I have only been a hypnotist for a year, so it would be extremely arrogant of me to push the above reasoning as any kind of objective truth. I have to stress that this is merely my model, which is based on my limited experience and understanding.

There are those who disagree with this model. For example, Ben White insists that there must be an easier way for someone to improve as a subject; truth be told I want to believe his argument because if it were true it would get me where I want to go a lot faster.

Then of course there's the argument that my model holds true for me, of course it does, merely because it's what I believe.

Joe, on uncommonforum, puts the argument that the reason I do not respond well to hypnosis is that I perceive it as losing my rationality and critical thinking, which is a part of myself that I treasure so deeply it makes me quite unwilling to turn that part off even temporarily. He suggests that I might even be afraid to do that. In this case presumably the belief that I need to learn how to be hypnotised in order to go deep is a mechanism that my subconscious has conjured up that would allow me to, using an analogy, lower myself into the cold water gently.

Given the way the mind works I have to say that I cannot discount this as a possibility. I am skeptical though.

For starters I know of other people who have developed their ability to be hypnotised over time. People who are far less restrained than me, and certainly much more willing to be submissive to another given the nature of their interest in hypnosis.

Secondly, Joe cited a line I wrote in a recent blog post:

"When I first tried to be a hypnotic subject I really wanted it to work, I will also confess that I was afraid that it would too, which was part of the excitement of it."

This line, separated from the context I wrote it in, can easily be taken out of context. Even so, I will admit that perhaps there is an element of fear in the excitement that I associate with the idea of experiencing deep hypnosis. There's an element of fear in my feelings about rollercoasters too; that's why I have a deep seated desire to go and ride on them, as many as I can!

There's a ride at Drayton Manor Park in Staffordshire called Apocalypse that, once you're helplessly locked into the harness, will lift you 54 metres above the ground, tilt you forward and have you plummet earthwards in a terrifying freefall. It scares the crap out of me, and yet I lose count of how many times I've gone back for more!

I do not believe that fear is an inhibiting factor for me.

I do value the way in which my mind works, including my critical and analytical nature, because over the years I have learned to feel good about who I am. In my opinion to do so is crucial to living a happy life. That, however, does not mean that I am not interested in or driven by the prospect of expanding the scope of my abilities and bettering myself.

So I may be building neurology I don't yet have, or I may be learning to trust a part of my mind that already exists, maybe I really am slowly overcoming some alleged inexplicably well hidden deeply held fear, or even something else yet again. Perhaps this is all just a question of terminology. At the end of the day whatever the label I or others choose to attach to the way in which my abilities as a hypnotic subject are developing what it is that really matters to me is that they are developing.

Expectation

2009-09-23T12:44:00.004+01:00

Yesterday evening I had another look at youtube to see if I could come across any other videos of people watching Derren Brown's "control the nation" show.

Derren had said during the show that his video wouldn't work if it was recorded or posted online, but it seems this hasn't deterred a lot of people from watching the show again, and getting stuck again. Needless to say if someone believes the video will work again it will, even though as I've already pointed out the video is just a piece of empty window dressing.

Most impressive though were a couple of videos I found where the individual was watching only the subliminal film, and so skipping all of Derren's vocal suggestions from before and after that were in the original program. In one case this was someone who hadn't gotten stuck the first time around, and yet just believing that the video would work was in itself enough to stick her to her chair!

All of this without hypnosis even being mentioned or any formal induction or trance. Absolutely incredible!

What I think this illustrates is that the suggestions that subjects give to themselves are just as important as those being given by the hypnotist. Build the right level of expectation and you don't even need to say or do anything to hypnotise someone.

Control the nation

2009-09-19T20:32:00.007+01:00

Last night Derren Brown went on UK television and performed a routine where he stuck viewers to their seats using a subliminal message video.

I have a great deal of admiration for Derren Brown as a performer and what I saw last night was no exception. What I thought was most impressive though was the way in which he was able to exploit the general ignorance of the vast majority of people to perform a waking hypnosis routine on television, which technically shouldn't be legal.

The program was quite long and the first half was devoted to a couple of "subliminal suggestion" routines, in which he was apparently able to influence the free choice of the people he was talking to. These were very impressive tricks, and I was especially impressed by the one set in Hamley's toy shop in London.

The second half featured the subliminal message video, in which he talked about the technology had been developed and fine tuning the effects of the video, etc. He then gave instructions on how to watch it and played the video. About half of the studio audience were stuck, and he recieved calls from people who had called in and were also stuck to their chairs.

Anybody who knows anything about hypnosis would recognise the incredibly simple way in which this trick was achieved, although hats off to Derren Brown for the delivery. It was very well done.

My understanding of how the trick worked was as follows. The subliminal message video probably didn't contain anything special at all because this trick was actually based on waking hypnosis. The program did a very good job of setting the context and builing anticipation. Derren then delievered all of the suggestions when he gave the instructions on how to watch the video under the guise of "you can expect the following...". The video itself was a useful tool in building expectation, but nothing more.

This routine is little different to the suggestibility tests used by all stage hypnotists and like those tests would not significantly affect the majority of people. A small percentage however (10%-20%) would take on board these suggestions simply because they are just that suggestible. Even 1% of an audience of millions calling in is enough to jam the switchboards. Most impressive was the high percentage (50%) of the audience who responded to the suggestions, although of course we don't know how they were selected or what pre-show work was done with them.

My understanding is that it is illegal to broadcast hypnosis inductions and suggestibility tests in the UK, but as he doesn't mention the H-word he can get away with it. He even asks one of the women in the audience "you're not hypnotised are you?" and she says "no". Of course she's hypnotised, but how would she know that? Few people recognise hypnosis even when they're in it, especially when there's not been a formal induction.

All very well done though, I take my hat off to him.

The show is currently available on 4oD and is all over youtube; definitely worth a watch, as are the videos of peoples responses to it.

Wizard's first rule

2009-09-18T12:50:00.078+01:00

Over the last few weeks I have found myself hooked on the music of a band called Nightwish, for which I can thank the influence of my girlfriend importing her music collection onto iTunes on my computer.

Those familiar with my musical taste may be surprised that I might like a heavy metal band as it's really not my thing. However, I do make an exception for Scandinavian symphonic power metal, and in particular I have been listening to their Once album. This is what happens when you mix a metal band with a philharmonic orchestra and a classically trained female singer and overcook the music to almost cliche levels, and the result is frankly awesome in my opinion. Throughout I find myself thinking that perhaps they had forgotten it was a mere album they were working on and thought they were actually making the soundtrack for some epic fantasy film.

This brings me onto something else that I've been hooked on, and Nightwish seems to engender in me, which is reading fantasy novels.

I've recently finished the Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan, which are pretty good, and spurred on by the mental images of epic journeys across strange lands engendered by Tarja Turunen's singing, decided to embark upon the doorstop that is Wizard's First Rule, by Terry Goodkind.

It is clear to me that Goodkind must have a large house with many doors to prop open because having written this book he has produced a further ten volumes to this saga, presumably to allow air to blow all the way through. This is as good a deterrent as any to starting out on the first book, but then I didn't realise this until I was half way through.

Anyway, unsurprisingly the plot of the book turns upon the concept of the the wizard's first rule, which is as follows:

"People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People’s heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool."

I'm not sure how much I agree with the term "People are stupid", but it does remind me of when someone once told me that "the person is intelligent, but people are stupid". I would say that a definition of this generalised stupidity is the rule itself; there is no need to state the stupidity explicitly.

I do think this rule speaks volumes about how people in general behave. The recent events with Dr Chicken Royale, as we now know him, and his letter to Westminster Council show very clearly how this rule can be employed to manipulate people. If one knows how to press the right buttons by using words and phrases that are anchored to the desired feelings within a person it is incredibly easy. Make someone in the council afraid of all the horrible things that their mind, in ignorance, can think of a street hypnotist doing and they will desperately want it to be illegal. Of course fear street hypnosis might be illegal and getting into trouble for failing to act to enforce it as such is just as likely.

I'm reminded of a line from Terry Pratchett's Discworld book The Truth, which is a satire and parody of newspaper journalism:

"A lie can run around the world before the truth has got its boots on."

For a significant number of people resolving that something should be a certain way because of how they feel about it is the first step down the road of proving themselves right through a carefully biased selection and interpretation of the facts available.

As an aside this is why I believe religion will never be eliminated by scientific reasoning, even though the question "does god exist?" is undoubtedly one with a scientific answer. There is an utter absence of any scientific evidence at all for the existence of a supreme being, and all the logical arguments that follow place the odds of one actually exsiting at vanishingly small (it is impossible to completely disprove the existence of anything). However, a great many people want to believe in a personal god giving purpose to their life, want to believe in Heaven and everlasting life, and of course are afraid that hell might exist. For these people the debate is closed before it even starts, their mind is already made up, and as a consequence all the evidence they see subsequently points to their god being real.

Anyone trying to counter the influence of a wizard using the first rule with alternative information expressed in rational terms, regardless of how objectively true those facts may be, will find themselves facing a difficult and sometimes impossible task.

The last part of the first rule is the part that rings most true to me. It states that people "can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool". This to me reads as saying that the more certain somebody is that they are right, the easier it is for them to believe something that is untrue.

The Theism-Atheism debate is quite often mistaken as being one between those who believe devoutly in a god, and those who believe with equal conviction that there isn't, most people being on a scale somewhere between. In fact this is greatly misrepresents the position taken by the vast majority of atheists, which is that they will believe something for which there is evidence; their belief in a god is as strong as their perception of the weight of rational evidence for one.

I think that a more representative scale is based on critical thinking about the matter. People who are willing to believe something purely on the strength of their conviction would be at one end, and those who have no conviction and seek irrefutable objective proof for everything would be at the other. Most people are somewhere in between. It's a scale between two entirely different mindsets, as opposed to opposite ends of the same kind of conviction. On this scale the atheist who is 100% convinced of the non-existence of god is grouped with the hardcore theists, but good luck to you if you try to find one.

Now, moving on to hypnosis, I personally see hypnosis as a naked demonstration of the nature and power of belief over rational thought; without belief hypnosis does not exist. Possibly one reason why so many religious organisations are against it. Pot. Kettle.

Stop me if I'm being a bit controversial. I do enjoy it.

Now, when we turn the wizard's first rule the subject of hypnosis we see a similar spread of approaches in the way people think about it. For example, there are people who really want hypnosis to work on them, and therefore it does. There are arguably people who believe that hypnosis is all powerful are afraid it will work on them, and therefore it does.

I also believe that the better someone is at believing something, at being right as far as they are concerned, the better a subject they are. Sometimes in stubborn individuals this may only take the form of a sort of covert self-hypnosis, and these individuals are able to convince themselves of all sorts of weird and wacky things.

All of this tends me toward consideration of my own beliefs and my behaviours in relation to them. So begin my problems as a hypnotic subject.

When I first tried to be a hypnotic subject I really wanted it to work, I will also confess that I was afraid that it would too, which was part of the excitement of it. My trouble, I think, was that I was and still am someone who is by nature uncertain. I am not certain that I can tell a lie from the truth, and so I investigate further and look for evidence to settle the matter. Much to my indignation my mind appears to be quite unwilling to be fooled through the process of hypnosis, directly at least.

In spite of this however, the biggest lesson I think there is to learn from the wizard's first rule, for someone used to critical thinking, is that a significant number of people do not usually think in the same way and certainly nobody does all of the the time. No matter how much you value intelligent discussion and criticality, it is an unfortunate fact of life that such rational processes do not sell products or ideas half as well as manipulating the irrational part of other person's mind. This is something which anybody in advertising can tell you.

If you want to influence others, or indeed hypnotise them, appealing to their irrational side is the way to get results. Given this kind of motivation almost anyone will believe almost anything, and they probably won't even realise it's happening.

Hmm, perhaps Nightwish signed a covert deal with the publishing companies...

The August Meet

2009-08-28T12:26:00.006+01:00

Well once again the last Thursday group met up in central London and of course I was there.

Given the recent business with the legality of hypnosis being raised, and most people being a bit on edge, the atmosphere was more social than hypnotic for a little longer than usual to start with. Dr Chicken Royale, as I shall henceforth refer to him, and his rather significant unpopularity being one of the main topics of discussion.

Soon however we came back to our senses and we were zapping away as happily as we have always done. For me the highlights were coming back from the bar to find the way blocked by Ben sprawled on the floor having been used as a demonstration subject for a drop-back induction, Darren demonstrating to me how to do the Cerbone butterfly induction, and performing an Anthony Jacquin inspired "if you can unstick and grab the money you can keep it" routine. I also had fun performing an Erickson Handshake induction on Will.

What a wonderful bunch of people. Looking forward to next month!

Legal update

2009-08-27T14:18:00.009+01:00

I have just heard from Chris that Westminster Council have decided that the 1952 Hypnotism Act also applies to private residences. This effectively means that they're saying all hypnosis everywhere is illegal unless the hypnotist has a license issued for that venue at that time.

As it happens I'm sat on the train heading into London now. I do not have a hypnosis licence for any of the locations I shall be visiting or travelling through so I shall endeavour to avoid all human interaction, lest I accidentally induce a trance and break the law.

In addition - 28/9/09

In one of their messages to Chris they paraphrase the Act somewhat stating.

"Section 2 of the 1952 Act states that no person shall give an exhibition, demonstration or performance of hypnotism on any living person... whether on payment or otherwise, at any place... unless the controlling authority have authorised that exhibition, demonstration or performance."

They emphasise that "at any place" is key.

I see this as a great example of somebody interpreting the world in such a way as to satisfy the criteria of their own existing reality; someone working for the council will want to try to regulate everything, lest private individuals be able to make decisions for themselves god forbid. Notice that the crucial line "at or in connection with an entertainment to which the public are admitted" is omitted from their statement.

Consider if we gave a similar treatment to a possibly better known directive, erring on the side of the dramatic in order to make a point.

"Thou shalt... kill thy neighbour"

Quite a significant change in meaning can be engendered by the removal of parts of a statement.

Just because I'm in a controversial mood, and it's interesting demonstrating how people will paraphrase statements to find what they want to see, let's consider another. This one is from the second amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

"...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Now notice how the way in which we might interpret the meaning of this changes somewhat in light of the, less well known, complete statement.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

I'm not stating a political view on firearms control, just seeking to illustrate how two parties might see different meanings in a single statement.

The council clearly want to interpret the meaning of section 2 of the 1952 Hypnotism act as a requirement to regulate everything, and it is in doing so that they have opened up a huge can of worms for themselves. For example, without the qualification "in connection with an entertaiment" this also applies to hypnotherapy, should it be unsuccessful, and criminalises all hypnotherapists working in Westminster, including those on the payroll of the NHS.

It remains to be seen if, in light of this, Westminster Council will go back to their original sensible position, which was indeed that Section 2 only applies to hypnosis at or in connection with an entertainment to which the public are admitted.

Legal issues

2009-08-26T20:36:00.012+01:00

The last couple of weeks, following the meet up in Covent Garden, have been a bit manic for the London Magic Mental and Hypnosis group, and to some extent this has included me and my own ambitions as an amateur hypnotist. The "Last Thursday Group", as our monthly HypnoMeets are now knows, has also been affected but to a lesser extent.

Following the meet up the week before last, which everybody enjoyed, including the members of the public that were hypnotised, questions were raised about the legality of what was going on. It turned out that much of this controversy was down to the actions of a hypnotist who goes by the name of Jonathan Royle and it was plain from the outset that although he hadn't been present he did not approve of what had gone on.

The particular issue which Royle raised was whether street hypnosis is legal under the 1952 Hypnotism Act, which is the law that regulates hypnosis for the purpose of entertainment in the UK. He insists that street hypnosis is illegal and that anybody who performs hypnosis on members of the public without a license is breaking the law.

As someone who knew little about Royle and thus previously had a neutral opinion of him I have to say that I have seen little about this individual over the last couple of weeks that endears him to me. A cursory glance at his blog may imply that his reasons for trying to discourage the LMMH meets are due to his concern for the safety of the public and for the good name of the profession of hypnosis. I'm not convinced of this however, and I believe that as one reads on the real motives for his trouble stirring become clear.

There's much about Royle's character that I find objectionable. To start with a lot of his blog post is centred around demeaning the work and character of other hypnotists for whom I have some respect, most notably Anthony Jacquin, Kev Sheldrake, Amit Badiani, and Vince Lynch. However despite being willing to publish such negative comments he has no reservations about sprinkling keywords such as "reality is plastic" all over his own work, presumably to bump up his hit rate. He also lectures the LMMH group about the morality and legality of performing street hypnosis, whilst at the same time anyone who visits his youtube channel can see him performing examples of exactly what he's railing against, indeed using significantly more violent and potentially dangerous methods.

In my opinion he is acting purely out of misguided self-interest. His self promotion is shameless and yet so far the only person I've heard saying that he's good is him. He's quite willing to try to leech off the popularity and work of others, rather than generate new and original content of his own that sells off its own merit. Indeed, despite his continuous torrent of self-affirmation, I don't think he can be said to regard his own work and expertise too highly if he feels that the only way to sell it is to try to kick down everybody else.

It did not surprise me to find out that he has spent time in prison for fraud.

Joe, on Uncommonforum, did some interesting webtrawling and found a couple of links regarding Royle (aka "Alex LeRoy" or "Alex Smith"), which make for interesting reading. Links here and here. He also indicates that a google search for "alex smith hypnosis jail" is also an education in itself. I like Joe, he's brilliant!

Unfortunately when it became clear that communications had been opened with Westminster council, who replied that they believed street hypnosis was not covered by the 1952 Act and thus would not require their approval, Royle made it his business to send a message to them to put his point across. Clearly spooked by his email, the council then did what authorities everywhere do when there is a speck of controversy and it's impossible to separate the good from the bad, which is to ban everything. Or at least try to; they have stated "no exhibition, performance or demonstration can take place" and threaten to fine anybody who does. Scary sounding stuff, but I'm not convinced they have the power to do that. As of tonight that is how things stand.

So on to the legal stuff.

Anybody who is interested can find the 1952 hypnotism act here. If you intend to perform hypnosis on the public in the UK I would encourage you to read through it, take some time to understand it and decide on your own position in relation to it.

Note that, whatever Royle may claim, there is no definitive interpretation of this document and nobody has ever been prosecuted under these laws in 57 years.

What follows is my interpretation. I think section 2 of the act is most relevant.

2 Control of demonstrations of hypnotism at other places

(1) No person shall give an exhibition, demonstration or performance of hypnotism on any living person at or in connection with an entertainment to which the public are admitted, whether on payment or otherwise, at any place in relation to which such a licence as is mentioned in section one of this Act is not in force unless the controlling authority have authorised that exhibition, demonstration or performance.

For me the crucial line here is "in connection with an entertainment to which the public are admitted". This is what satisfies me that I am acting within the law if I hypnotise a stranger in the street or even in a pub; I cannot see how either are examples of "an entertainment to which the public are admitted".

It is also my opinion that it would take much more than simply practicing hypnosis on the street to prompt the authorities to take action. No council is likely to want to bear the expense of being the test case; indeed not only would they would have to prove that what is essentially a conversation between two private citizens is "an entertainment to which the public are admitted", but they would also have to prove that it was for the purpose of entertainment, that hypnosis was actually intended, that hypnosis was actually taking place (how do you prove that?), that hypnosis actually exists (many people believe it doesn't) and indeed if it did exist that it wasn't "self-hypnosis", which is permitted under section 6, and as many hypnotists believe that all hypnosis is self-hypnosis this could be difficult.

This said however, the bottom line is that any interaction with the general public, whilst not to be shied away from, should be approached with due restraint and caution. Subjects should be treated with complete respect, and consideration should always be paid to their health and safety. The hypnotism act may be little known, tenuous and open to interpretation, but it is also in my opinion the least likely charge one would face, and quite frankly deserve, for bad conduct in any case. More likely offenses would be examples such as causing an obstruction, public order, assault, or sexual harassment, which frankly a sensible hypnotist is unlikely to be guilty of.

My personal conclusion is that as far as I am concerned street hypnosis is legal and that nobody is likely to care anyway unless you make a scene, assault someone, or make inappropriate sexual approaches, none of which are things that are in my character.

Strange new worlds

2009-08-20T12:14:00.001+01:00

Chatting with Ben recently over MSN he mentioned one of Igor Ledochowski's exercises called "strange new worlds", which is supposed to help build trust between conscious and subconscious minds. The idea is to describe a scene or story out loud, but to talk too quickly to allow conscious consideration of what's being said.

I tried this exercise last night and the results were quite... interesting. I started from the point of a friend of mine who wants a 'cello, although many of us suspect that what he actually wants is a 'cellist. In mere minutes I had invented the concept of the Scandanavian ninja 'cellist elite. A ruthless band of blonde female mercenary musicians dressed in black skinsuits and highly agile on skis, their instruments slung across their backs. They had kidnapped my friend and, via a video link from their secret base on Svalbard, were demanding a ransom as they held a bow to his throat. Fear would hardly describe the expression on his face in this perilous situation.

I don't know what any of this says about my subconscious; it already has much to answer for. I am going to retain the movie rights for "Strings of fire and ice" though.

Saturday in Bristol

2009-08-16T18:28:00.101+01:00

I seem to have had quite a busy week hypnosis wise, but then I can never get enough of it anyway.

Yesterday my mighty folding bike and I paid another visit to Bristol, which is a nice place and definitely worth a visit just to see the sights. I was, of course, there for another HypnoMeet that Rich had organised. Also attending were Javier, Lex & Liz, and Keiron, a magician and hypnotist Rich knows.

I had deliberately planned to arrive there early so I could have a bit of an explore on my bike and I passed a productive couple of hours on my own before the others arrived. I looked around the shops, had lunch, found an overdue Birthday present for someone, and miraculously managed to go into a bike shop without buying anything. Having learned my lesson from last time I wheeled my bike up Park Street this time, then I parked up and made myself comfortable in a bar to wait for the others.

Lex and Liz arrived soon afterward and after a quick drink we decided to make use of the two hours before anyone else was to show up to have a bit of a wander around the shops. Apparently there was some imperative for Liz to find an outfit for the following day. Having some vague idea of the kind of outfits that appeal to them I couldn't help but feel some apprehension, but as it turned out I needn't have worried.

Something that I should have known of course, and even my girlfriend would probably second this, is that with any outfit it's best to start with the hat and work downward. Of course I should have known that, how could I not have?!

Well anyway this became quite apparent to me that afternoon. As we passed one of those shops that will sell you plastic spiders, plastic swords, inflatable badgers, etc and of course a multitude of hats. Lex pointed this out, but Liz wasn't keen; she said she'd feel a bit self-conscious trying them on. This is where Lex demonstrated the fun that can be had with a girlfriend who can't get enough of being hypnotised. One moment we were walking up the road and the next, a few choice words later, we were making a quick u-turn and heading back to the shop.

The next 10 minutes or so were occupied by a rigorous process of hat selection. I personally was quite fond of the huge stovepipe hat for the Isembard Kingdom Brunel look, complete with LED-lit plastic cigar. It would have fit my character quite well, the crazed mechanical engineer that I am, but I didn't fancy riding home on my bike wearing it. After much deliberation Liz, admittedly in a rather more enthusiastic guise, selected a Tricorn hat. This was after going through a dozen or so other options and I'd been told off by a shop employee whose sole purpose in life seemed to be to stand in the corner and tell customers not to take pictures. I wasn't about to explain to him that the subject of the photographs was hypnotised, wouldn't remember this incident, and that was why photographic evidence was important. I put my phone away.

We were then just leaving the shop when Liz spotted a red hat in the window, one that it has to be said reminded me too much of Virgin Atlantic stewardesses, and so in we went again to buy one of those.

Then during our second attempt at leaving I found a metal enamel plate with a retro picture on it that I thought would be a great gift for my girlfriend, so we paused again whilst I bought it.

Walking away from the shop, and after a few more words from Lex, Liz was ever so slightly disoriented.

"Deja vu?" he asked her.

"Yeah..." she said "Hang on! Where did those bags come from?!"

"We've been shopping" Lex said.

What followed, as we walked further into the shopping district, was a spirited attempt by Liz to find out what was in the bags. We weren't telling of course, and a hypnotic forcefield kept her prying hands away. Lex must have decided that this was cruel, so after a while he let her carry the bags, but she was completely unable to open them.

The final revelation for Liz came when she was marching along through a clothes shop like a woman on a mission, trailing her male companions in what is the standard form for women in clothes shops, and spotted the Tricorn on her head as she passed a mirror. She had no idea how long it had been there, and of course she still doesn't.

We eventually found our way back to the Berkeley, the Wetherspoons pub that the last Bristol Meet had been in, to meet up with Rich and Javier. Rich met us at the bar, and after I'd bought a round without the aid of post hypnotic compulsion we found ourselves a quiet table in a corner. Rich, who had been learning magic, pulled out a deck of cards at this point and demonstrated a couple of near cards tricks. I was able to show off the Key trick I learned in Covent Garden on Wednesday. Lex took the opportunity to demonstrate the "strings cut" trigger he'd given Liz which turned her into a kind of human marrionette although sadly this wasn't accompanied by anybody's seat retracting into the floor or the table moving aside to allow a rocket to launch.

Javier produced a set of "salad" playing cards with NLP phrases on them, determined to get £30 worth of use out of them having spent that much buying them. Unfortunately these phrases proved completely ineffectual in helping him is his attempts to sell his jacket to Rich, presumably to try to make back the £30 deficit.

We elected to a Chinese restaurant up the road for dinner, and I enjoyed getting myself wrapped up in the world of discussing hypnosis in the way that one can around other people who share the same enthusiasm for it. The food at the restaurant was first rate, and the all the better for being an all you can eat buffet.

Over dinner I heard Rich asking Liz on the topic of who she would be happy going into trance for. As her answer made it clear that this would probably extend to him I could hear cogs turning in his head as he filed this information under "iiiiinteresting".

I contented myself with making Liz's spoon vanish from her hand just as she was diving into her ice cream desert and watching Lex get the blame for it.

Returning to the Berkeley we met up with Keiron, who is apparently new to the world of hypnosis but has a long history of practicing impromptu magic.

Rich was keen to try out a new magic trick on Liz, or at least it seemed so at first. He had her pick out a card from the deck, note to herself which one it was, then put the card back and shuffle the deck thoroughly. What he did next was a bit sneaky; he slammed his hand down flat on the table with a bang and said "sleep!". It was a shock induction of course; it certainly shocked me! Liz, however, is the kind of subject that people she trusts as hypnotists can't say certain words around in normal conversation, for example "blank", "freeze" or "sleep". When playing scrabble one must take care to speak of the "blank... unblank" tiles or "tiles with no letters on" lest the game grind to a halt as a result of her mind switching itself off, and it seems Lex has only been able to say the word "sleep" out of the corner of his mouth for the last two years. Suffice to say that her response to Rich's command was predictable and immediate.

Rich had her tell him what her card was, and then come back to the room not noticing anything had happened. Then, the mighty magician that he was, he amazed her by pulling it out of the deck.

I shall have to try that shock induction sometime, although like a lot of instant inductions it's one that the hypnotist has to be prepared for it not to work a lot of the time. Indeed, Rich told me that it works about 30% of the time.

I got in on the card action by also pointing out that her card was also on the top of the freshly shuffled deck, which it was after I'd frozen her and done a bit of re-arranging. She was also amazed when *all* of the cards were her card thanks to a few suggestions. Suffice to say that I felt like a bit of a dirty cheat for doing this and owned up straight away.

As with his earlier actual card tricks Liz demanded to know how he'd done it. Rich wasn't going to say and pushed straight on for the holy grail of hypnosis, the invisible hypnotist routine. He put her back into trance and told her that she wouldn't be able to see him, but she would be able to hear him and see anything he moved.

Imagine her confusion when, no sooner had we explained that Rich had gone looking for potential subjects, one of the pint glasses on the table started moving around on its own. In fact I don't think I've ever seen her quite so taken aback before, not even by the Harry Potter wall in Oxford. This was especially so when the levitating glass, toted by a very smug Rich, moved toward her. This time, as Lex wasn't around, I took the full blame for the levitating pint glass Liz was sure she was hallucinating.

Rich having "returned" decided it was time to get to work, and he Javier, and Keiron who had been looking on in a kind of stunned silence, started looking for tables to approach. They approached two or three, but nobody seemed particularly interested in hypnosis, not even the table of about 20 women all dressed in red skirts and white shirts, presumably on a social night out with a society of some kind. Keiron's magic went down a bit better, but the three of them still ended up returning to our table soon after they'd left.

I wasn't in the mood for approaching tables. I had taken a moment to demonstrate magnetic hands on Lex, who in spite of his insistence that he has a poor response to hypnosis responded very well to the suggestions. Had I thought at the time I might have tried to demonstrate a few more exercises on him, but is request rather caught me by surprise. I do wonder if he suffers frustration at being amongst the number of hypnotists who don't have any deep experience of hypnosis as the subject, not being able to achieve most of the effects he routinely engenders in others. It's a frustration I know well myself.

Indeed, I became aware that of the six of use around the table there were only two of use who could be considered tranceable, and this in mind I was happy when Keiron changed the subject and went into demonstrating some of his magic routines.

"Wow!" I said, impressed "That's much better than when when Rich cheated earlier."

I should have kept quiet, because this re-ignited Liz's attempts to find out just how Rich had managed to find her card earlier, and needless to say Rich wasn't giving anything away.

It was at this point I heard a quiet voice beside my right ear. "Veritas. Parkey, how did Rich do that magic trick?"

Now, earlier in the day the conversation had touched on the subject of truth triggers, and indeed Liz had given me one of these during a skype conversation about four months earlier. I find that post hypnotic suggestions are always strongest when they catch you by surprise, and I was completely astonished to hear myself saying "Rich tranced you and then..." ...and then I realised what I was saying and could only exclaim "NOOOO!!!"

"I can't believe I said that!" I gasped, feeling myself going red. "Why did I just say that?!"

Liz patted me on the shoulder, "it's called hypnosis dear."

Being a somnambulist and experiencing the full force profound hypnotic phenomena straight away must be quite an amazing experience, but for the likes of me the slow road to improvement as a subject is lined with tiny but significant milestones. I find that moments like this one, where something hypnotic almost unquestionably occurred, are exciting and very special.

What followed was an attempt by Javier to see if other people could use that trigger.

"Veritas. Parkey, is it 'Veritas' that makes you tell the truth?"

"NO!" I lied, and then having realised I'd gotten away with being able to lie, punched the air, "Yessss!".

Thus defying the whole purpose of lying I reminded myself.

Anyway the evening only went on a short while longer for me after that because I had a train to catch. Liz, fresh from her success triggering a confession for Rich out of me, proceeded to stick my hands to my drink, drink to the table, etc, although this "brattishness", as she would call it, was a little bit encouraged by a few choice words. The suggestions holding my hand to the table held for a long time before breaking, even when my ribs were under bombardment from various peoples' prodding fingers. The things I'm willing to endure for the sake of affirmation!

Around about 10pm we left the pub and I said my goodbyes, leaving the others as they headed off down the street in search of better hunting grounds, riding my bike back to the station to catch the last train home and ending another awesome evening out!

Oh, if anybody's interested in Richard Skeates' hypnosis course in Bristol on 26th October the details can be found here.

Covent Garden

2009-08-13T13:19:00.025+01:00

A bit of a flurry of hypnosis activity this week, and it's set to continue as I shall be in Bristol on Saturday for another meet up. Yesterday I attended the Monthly Mental, Magic, and Hypnosis meet, or "MMM&H" meet in Covent Garden.

(This reminds me about the old joke about the companies 3M and Goodyear merging to form "MMMGood")

This meet was a lot of fun, and although I didn't quite feel in the mood to go forth and do some zapping myself I did meet a lot of new people, get zapped myself, and pick up lots of new tips.

Heading up through Covent Garden I didn't spot the group until I was practically on top of them. However, I soon spotted Darren and a few other faces I recognised stood out on the street. There were also plenty of new faces too, and it was great to be introduced to a few new people.

I have to say that the style of street hypnosis that was going on, whilst well received by the passing public, was a little more assertive than I have been comfortable in the past, where in fact most of the strangers I have hypnotised have actually asked me to do it. Here the group were approaching passers by and seeking to engage their interest, which in most cases wasn't difficult. I wasn't particularly in the mood for approaching people, so I was happy to just watch.

I learned a heck of a lot from just being there. James showed me how to do a magic trick with a key using "energy" to lift it up on ones hand. I was also wowed by some of the other magic tricks that were demonstrated by other members of the group. I really need to learn some magic!

Someone I met for the first time there was Vince Lynch, a hypnotist I'd heard a lot about. He offered to hypnotise me and I was happy to give it a try. I'm glad I did, because I got a lot out of it.

Vince's induction was quite interesting. He had me place my feet together, close my eyes and do magnetic hands, but this time imagine that my hands were being pushed apart instead. As my hands moved steadily away from each other and around my body he said that they'd reach a point where they couldn't go any further, and when they did I'd let them drop to my sides and go into hypnosis. Once I'd done that he did quite an interesting convincer, which was to imagine myself standing on a boat swaying backward and forward. This was why he'd had me put my feet together and of course it worked beautifully; I was soon swaying backward and forward.

Next Vince did some suggestions with me, such as getting my arms to raise up. I have to say this was the most convincing ideomotor experience I have ever had, my arms seeming to have a purpose of their own, and indeed Vince kept saying "no pretending". Soon enough he had me pretending to play air guitar and piano, my eyes thankfully still closed, the instruction seeming to bypass my mind and my hands obliging of their own accord. I count myself lucky he picked the two instruments I can actually play, as opposed to something crazy like a trombone, violin or timpani.

When he asked me to pretend to be a stripper I wasn't having any of it though, my eyes were open in an instant and I was pointing at him shouting "No! No way!".

"Interesting" he said.

I'm really grateful to Vince for that experience. I learned a lot from his techniques, and his manner and confidence of delivery.

Ben seems to have somehow transformed into some kind of people approaching machine. I felt a bit in awe at his recent loss of inhibitions over walking up to complete strangers, and diving into hypnosis routines, but then he has been going out during his lunch breaks to do it. I wish that my job offered me such opportunities.

I didn't stay too late, as I had been stood up all afternoon and had things to do at home, but this was a really good meetup and I met a lot of fun and interesting new people.

Water into port

2009-08-12T12:23:00.000+01:00

The cost of buying drinks, especially good drinks, can sometimes be a bit prohibitive, but worry not because hypnosis is on hand to help!

Recently I was fortunate enough to do some hypnosis with a friend who informed me, quite unknowingly because she was in a trance at the time, that her favourite drink is port.

This kind of hypnotic interrogation is potentially a wonderfully sneaky way to get around the age old difficulty of deciding what to buy someone for their birthday or Christmas. Quite often people are able to give exactly the same answers to questions if they're awake, although trance does seem to lower inhibitions somewhat, but being able to ask questions when somebody is in trance does have other advantages. In particular being able to surprise somebody with something that they like or want always feels very rewarding for me. It's also useful in terms of being certain that what I am doing is agreeable to my subject, which I think is very important.

Anyway, now knowing my subject's beverage of choice I was able to provide a glass of said port. Or rather, a glass of water. Hallucination was able to do the rest, and it was very strange to watch somebody handling, sniffing and drinking from a small glass of water as though the liquid inside was a particularly fine vintage of port. The body language we associate with different drinks is so completely different, but of course we tend not to notice how much so.

As my friend later commented this would make for very cheap dates in restaurants; Champagne every night with Parkey! I did point out that it might be a bit strange to have Champagne served in a jug, but never mind.

Feeling very intoxicated after just a few sips is also quite possible, but with sobriety a finger's click away and forget ever having a hangover!

I love hypnosis!

Subjectivity

2009-08-11T12:42:00.015+01:00

In a conversation with Ben recently he commented that after hypnotising an alternative therapist by chance during his lunch hour he had been invited to become a member of a alternative therapies centre.

I replied to this asking whether hypnotherapy really is an alternative therapy. Hypnotherapy can be shown to work, and isn't the reason why alternative therapies are called "alternative" that if they did actually work they'd just be called "therapy".

Ben has since commented that Wikipedia says that it is not an alternative medicine because it was considered a genuine state and therefore an "orthodox" therapy. It's interesting to consider though why hypnosis seems to fit into that "alternative" category in many peoples minds.

This subject came up after I recently watched a couple of documentaries by Professor Richard Dawkins looking at the rise of an "epidemic of superstition" in modern culture, especially in healthcare. It's called "Enemies of reason" and is available on Google Videos, YouTube and 4oD; well worth watching.

The irrationality of some of the beliefs that people will attach themselves to is quite an eye opener, especially when that belief appears to satisfy some emotional need they have. What becomes very worrying though is the thought that such individuals may go to an alternative therapist instead seeing a doctor.

A lot of this comes from the rise of relativism, which is arguably derived from our living in an increasingly socially liberal and multicultural society in recent decades. I believe both of these attributes to our culture are on the whole a good thing, but whilst allowing for tolerance of others one has to be very careful not to let relativism to stray into the realm of what should always be considered objective.

Relativism should allow for an appreciation and respect of other people's subjective experiences of the world, which will by definition be different from those of others. If for example someone were to tell me that they thought red was nicer to look at than blue, or that fries taste better with salt on them, I would not be in a reasonable position to decry that assertion as wrong, because it is a subjective one. That statement is true for them, but not necessarily for anyone else.

The danger with relativism comes when people who merely have a subjective belief in something conclude that their assertion is of equal weight to a position based on objective evidence from peer-reviewed work done by scientists. One cannot take objective scientific fact and simply say "that's true for you, but not for me". It doesn't matter what you believe; the ball will fall if I drop it, all life on earth did evolve from single celled organisms, the universe is billions of years old.

I heard Richard Dawkins refer to relativism in a lecture he gave at Harvard University in 2003 in what I think is a fantastic quotable line:

"[I shall not] lose any time on fashionable claims that science is just the western patriarchal dead white male view of truth. Science works. That is why, when you go to an international conference on cultural relativism, you go by Boeing 747 rather than magic carpet."

This point is extremely important and should not be understated. Science is concerned with the objective nature of the universe that can be measured in experiments that can be re-produced and demonstrated to others. It is most definitely not on a par with assertions based upon subjective experiences; any hypnotist reading this will know just how crazy and irrational those can be, especially after a few choice words.

Indeed, whilst I do have a great deal of respect for Richard Dawkins and agree with him on the vast majority of the material his commentary covers, probably because I have firm grounding in science and the scientific method in my chosen calling in life as an engineer, I do perhaps diverge a little as a consequence what I understand about hypnosis. I think that whilst it is important to try to prevent subjective assertions from undermining scientific fact it is also important not to underestimate the importance of subjective experiences and perception - not least because 100% of the universe yet perceived by humans has been done so in this way.

Watching that documentary through the eyes of a hypnotist, as opposed to the more objective position that I used to occupy, brings up some interesting thoughts. For example there is quite an amusing scene where Dawkins is sat in a room full of people who are sat with their eyes closed calling out a mystical chant and looking quite absorbed in it all.

A year ago I would have laughed and dismissed what those people were doing as silly, ridiculous, and wonder what on earth they were hoping to achieve because it was plain to see that nothing was happening. That was, however, before the word "somnambulist" had entered my vocabulary. Now I can look at those people as they quite obviously put themselves into a trance and know that there almost certainly is something going on and that they are probably really experiencing something, although of course nothing supernatural.

Give me a sufficiently suggestible individual right now and I could sit them down somewhere comfortable, perhaps get them to stare at a candle, have them relax, and within minutes I could have them experiencing practically anything they could imagine, and especially if they came to me with the expectation of having that experience. I would know the what it was I was doing, the spiritualists who do it may not, but either way the effect of hypnotic suggestion is just as real and just as profound to the person experiencing it.

I doubt that Richard Dawkins would be a good hypnotic subject, as I suspect he would suffer from much the same critical faculty problems I seem to have.

One part of the documentary that I found particularly interesting was the part about a double blind experiment to see whether dowsers, through the use of divining rods, really could detect the presence of water. I was once given a set of divining rods as a present when I was about 10 year old and spent an afternoon playing with them in my parents back gardern. I was amazed by the way in which, sure enough, if held parallel they would cross over if held over water.

A plausible scientific explanation for a dowser's ability to find water is that through their natural senses they become aware of the location of water, maybe only subconsciously, and that this manifests itself through the ideomotor effect causing the divining rods to move at the right time. My 10 year old self soon surmised this much of course, mostly because I couldn't understand any scientific reason why the rods would move. The wonderful word "ideomotor" eluded me for many years afterward, but I understood the concept at least.

If, however, my upbringing hadn't encouraged me to question why things worked in the way they did I might have been like the dowsers in the program, trying to find reasons why my rods had suddenly stopped working in a controlled scientific experiment. As, I might add, all paranormal phenomena somehow seems to do.

Suggestions put to the subconscious mind and the belief systems that those build up are very important because they shape the way in which an individual perceives the world. For example there seems to be a tendency for the human mind to interpret information in such a way as to fit with existing models and beliefs. This is something that a hypnotist can take advantage of; when they, say, tell a subject that their hand is stuck to the table the subject will take it as read that their hand will not move and then interpret the evidence from their senses in such a way as to build their interpretation of reality around the initial premise.

This tendency not to stop and re-consider a deeply held personal belief can, however, lead to potentially frustrating disagreements between highly idealistic individuals. For example I once came across someone who, presumably as a response to environmentalists telling him that his lifestyle of commuting 30,000 miles a year in his car might not be particularly agreeable to them, had convinced himself in a kind of polarity response that cars could do no wrong in the world. His ability to interpret any evidence presented to him in such a way as to confirm his own position was in the right (at least to himself) had turned him into a legend on the local news website on which he posted.

For example he once insisted that a cyclist will produce more CO2 per mile travelled than a motorist in a car because a cyclist would be breathing hard whilst a motorist would be resting. I find it hard to imagine anyone else, regardless of their views on climate change politics, agreeing with that statement.

He went on though. When challenged about the car's engine he would argue it was modern and thus very efficient. When asked about fossil carbon and how it doesn't generally feature in the diet of cyclists he would argue that the vegetarian cyclist's green beans had obviously been flown across the world and thus the cyclist would have the food miles to answer for. Asked about where the petrol for the car was sourced from and how it got to the pump he would have none of it. No rational evidence would shift this individual from his position. He genuinely believed in the validity of his own argument and his subconscious was there loyally shaping all the information entering his mind into a form that would support it.

In fact I'm not sure if there is any way such individuals can ever be brought to re-consider a personal dogma; they are perhaps too far gone. It serves as a strong example to me of the power of belief and its influence on the critical faculty of the mind.

Becoming a hypnotist has given me a much better understanding of something that science never could explain to me, and that is the importance of the subjectivity. Humans are by their very nature irrational beings and it's hard to understand why so many people act in the way they do without taking a moment to consider the world from their perspective. Irrational beliefs and ideas may have no foundation in science, but they can manifest themselves physically in the world we live in.

For example the power of suggestion to affect an individuals health is a well established in scientific fact. There are very few people who have not heard of the placebo effect. There is no doubt that if someone believes that, say, taking a sugar pill will improve their health this will have a positive effect. Similarly personal morale is a very important factor in terms of keeping good health. I once heard Kev Sheldrake, a regular contributor to UncommonForum make an interesting comment about placebos. He said words to the effect that a placebo was just a suggestion, and that the suggestion will work without the pill, but the pill won't work without the suggestion.

Suggestion is, of course, responsible for the majority of the positive effects that alternative medicine is able to convey. There are other effects too such as regression toward the mean and cognitive bias which also play their part in building belief systems. Creating mystical fairy tales or pseudo-science with no basis in fact is, sadly, centre stage to creating these suggestions.

Something that I like about hypnosis is the way in which it uses the same mechanisms as a lot of the mumbo jumbo that's out there, but it isn't under any illusions that it's something mystical or beyond the reach of science. The way hypnosis actually works is probably as difficult to understand as human consciousness, but it seems to me that hypnosis does stand up to scientific scrutiny. It is real, and it works.

Perhaps hypnosis only works because people believe that it does, or perhaps that is just part of it and there is much more to it than that. Either way most hypnotists aren't making up nonsense about Chi Meridians or Emerald Spirits; they don't need to.

Directions and goals

2009-08-04T13:18:00.005+01:00

Sometimes I wonder where I should be going with this interest of mine, especially when I consider the apparent progress being made by others who got into this around the same time I did.

For example Darren Altman, as a performer and a good one at that, seems almost destined to become a stage hypnotist, amongst his other talents (you heard the idle speculation here first!). Likewise Ben White is moving in the direction of performing professional hypnotherapy and has already had his first paying client. Both are brilliant to watch in action and seem to be taking their respective hypnosis talent and going somewhere with it.

From the beginning for me this was not going to be a serious endeavour in terms of being something I would want to do professionally. I love my day job far too much to ever consider giving it up, and besides I have other activities that take up a lot of my spare time. This was only ever going to be a hobby for me.

That doesn't mean that I haven't had the feeling recently that I've lost a lot of the momentum I once had, and that I really should be going out and getting a lot more inductions under my belt. I should also have some kind of goal to aim for or else at the very least this blog will become very boring.

I think ultimately the next step for me must be to get out and start hypnotising people in Oxford, for which I should probably look into local laws regarding street performers and sort out public liability insurance. To be honest I still feel that I would be much happier doing street hypnosis if I had an accomplice, even if it was just someone with a camera to film it.

Ho humm... one for me to muse about for a bit.