The other half

When I first started out in hypnosis I recall making the observation that there are generally two responses someone will give when asked whether they want to give hypnosis a try:

1. "That's really cool! It's something I've always wanted to try. Yeah, I'm up for that!"


2. "NO! No way! No! No! No! Nonononononononononononono! NO!.... but can I watch you do someone else?"

I have to say that for the most part this simple pattern has held true over the last year or so. What has, however, been far less simple has been the incredibly varied response the potential subject's partner has displayed. In fact there have been such a mixture of responses that I won't even bother to try to list them. Many are positive, others are negative, and others seem to be uneasy but neutral.

Imagine the situation though. You're entering a time in your life where nearly everybody you know is in a relationship. Hypnosis just happens to, admittedly with a little bit of shameless manoeuvring on your part, come up in the conversation. When someone expresses an interest to give it a try more often than not their partner is also around.

How does the partner feel about seeing their significant other being hypnotised in front of them? It's almost certainly a question that they haven't even thought about before, and so I nearly always find myself having to keep an eye on the partner for feedback almost as much as the subject.

The majority of the people I seem to end up hypnotising are female and that means that there's nearly always a boyfriend in the equation somewhere.

Now, my own experiences with relationships do rather lead me to empathise with the paranoia that comes with being with someone very special. When a beautiful creature places unremarkable you within the inner circle of their universe the last thing you want is for anybody to come along and tilt the axes, even gently. Goodness knows I'm still waiting for my own girlfriend to wake up and realise her mistake.

Quite obviously I am not going out with the intention of seducing other people's girlfriends, and I think I would be giving myself far too much credit if I said I thought that I or my hypnotist routine were especially attractive. No, my sole interest when I have a subject in front of me is in satisfying their needs or curiosity, whatever those may be, because it is through doing so that I get my own enjoyment. This is often enough to sow the seeds of discomfort in a partner though, especially a male partner, because what they see is somebody connecting with their beloved in a way that perhaps they can't or don't, and can also be seen to be quite intimate.

That's one perspective, another is the idea that hypnosis is scary ultimate mind control. This, in my opinion rather absurd, worry is usually easy enough to alleviate in most people although some hypnotists, usually the ones who will never be hypnotised themselves, I have seen refuse to let anybody else hypnotise their girlfriend on this basis. Or they will allow it but will insist on being there so they can hear every word, lest security be compromised.

Safety is quite a legitimate worry, and I do my best to assure everyone concerned that what I'm doing is safe, which of course it is. I don't think doing the "Zap" (throw your subject on the floor and just hope they don't get concussion) induction or anything similar would go down well, and it's completely unnecessary anyway.

There was one hypnotist I met whose girlfriend had a real interest in hypnosis and enjoyed being a subject too, but he wouldn't let anyone else do anything with her. She was a great subject and really receptive to the experience, and yet this guy kept utterly failing to do anything with her because he didn't have the patience or the empathy. That's the final thing worth mentioning here; jealousy. That was an extreme example of course, but I have found that some of the worse culprits for negative feelings about seeing their girlfriend hypnotised have been other hypnotists.

One thing that I think is clear is that hypnosis has a way of bringing to the surface deeper aspects of a relationship in the same way as it does for individual personalities.

A New Look

I've given the format of the blog a bit of a revamp. Hope you like it!

And for an encore...

"I have made your arm completely rigid, stuck the palm of your hand to your head, and stuck your other hand to your thigh. For an encore, would you like me to hypnotise you?"

Recently I carried out my first non-induction hypnosis session with a subject I'd never hypnotised before. I have to say that the experience left me on a complete high as a hypnotist and I am looking forward to trying out on more people. Of course it is a nice demonstration of the view that in hypnosis the induction is more a ritual for the benefit of the subject than anything else.

The way I approached this most recent session was that I dropped my usual routine of trying a new subject out with a set piece like magnetic hands and then moving on to an induction like the rehearsal induction. This time I felt that I should be a lot bolder and just go straight in for some waking hypnosis before I even did an induction.

I should say that my inspiration for my method was mostly taken from demonstrations I have seen done by Simon Goodlad and James Tripp, who writes the Hypnosis Without Trance blog. They really know their stuff, and seeing these guys at work at various hypnosis meets over the last year or so has been absolutely awesome and a real education in itself.

So what did I do? Well, I started with something like this:

"Okay, before I do any hypnosis let's just start with a little exercise. Let's see how good your imagination is. Just go with this and we'll see what happens. Give me that arm, that's good."

I took my subject's arm, supporting it with both hands.

"That's it, just relax your arm, give it to me; That's right, completely."

"Now, I want you to imagine what it would be like if that arm was actually made of something very stiff. What if it were made of wood, or perhaps solid stone..."

At this point I was engaged in the process of putting their arm in mid air. This is the process of inducing catalepsy, making someone's muscles become stiff and rigid, and it is quite easily achieved if you direct someones attention away from that part of the body, whilst at the same time manipulating it ambiguously such that it becomes unclear who is actually supporting it. Obviously I started off taking all the weight of the arm, but by gradually removing that support whilst keeping the arm in place it is possible to get the subject to take the weight back without even realising it. Tapping on the ends of their fingers and along their arm helps this along.

"...just imagine that arm is getting stiffer and stiffer. Imagine what it would be like if you could not bend that arm..."

I kept this up and after about a minute the arm was happily supporting itself and as I tapped it various points along its length I could tell that the muscles were all locked tight. Time to test it.

"In a moment you're going to try to bend that arm and what you're going to find is that you can't; in fact, the more you try to bend it the stiffer it will become."

The arm was locked tight, it didn't bend one bit.

I wasn't even sure my subject was trying, but trying they were. I moved on to say that they couldn't move it, but I could, and it would stay where it was put, which it did. Next I bent the arm and stuck their hand to their head, then took their other hand and stuck it to their thigh. I kept this up for a minute or so, but then I told them that when I snapped my fingers they would come free.

"Well, that was fun. It seems that you have a great imagination. Now, would you like to try hypnosis?"

it was from here that I went into the 8-word induction and my subject dropped like a sack of potatoes. Of course they did; they were already hypnotised.

I think that there is an important lesson here, because I have spoken to a couple of hypnotists in the past who have told me of times that they used a rapid induction like the 8-word induction and that when they did it failed to hypnotise the subject.

Hypnosis isn't about some magic effect generated by a specific set of actions, and it doesn't happen because there is anything special about what is said and done during an induction. Hypnosis is about the relationship between the hypnotist and the subject. It's bond formed from a healthy mix of context, anticipation, expectation, imagination and positive rapport that comes out of every piece of interaction between these two people.

On numerous occasions I have seen both Simon and James have subjects with their hand completely stuck to something, unable to remember their name, and all sorts of other crazy suggestions whilst at the same time insisting that no, they haven't been hypnotised. They demonstrate so well that no formal induction is needed to get these amazing results, and of course you can use it as a springboard to go into a more conventional routine.

I think this approach has several advantages. Firstly there is no pressure on the subject when you induce a suggestible state in them because "this isn't hypnosis, it's just a exercise for your imagination". It gives the subject a chance, that isn't intimidating, to try out the foothills of hypnosis before deciding that they want to take things further.

Secondly it means that when you, the hypnotist, come to do your "induction" you are all but guaranteed an excellent response. You can use a rapid induction and your audience will see you putting someone "under" in an impressively short instant. It's good for the subject too; I got a real kick when a subject once told me that my hand drop induction had been an incredible rush for them, like jumping from a cliff.

There is also, of course, the advantage that if it doesn't work you haven't "failed to hypnotise" anyone. In fact this approach, "let's see how good your imagination is", challenges the subject to use their imagination, and of course the subtext here is that if it has no effect the problem lies with the subject and not the hypnotist.

So for any hypnosis I find it's best to think about it like this: Engage with your subject to achieve the hypnotic state first, and then, only after that, do your induction - if you feel you even have to.

Mmmm, food...

One of my brother's friends spotted this fun sign in Manchester recently. I wonder how well it works...

High five!

I've actually been doing some hypnosis recently, which has been a nice change. As I've had willing subjects I've also been able to experiment a bit, and so I thought I'd share a few of the things I've tried recently.

Here's an induction that I think is brilliant and I've used a few times recently. I was originally shown it by a fella called James Brown in Covent Garden. James Brown, by the way, is an absolutely awesome "close up" magician and mentalist, well worth looking up, and when I say he showed me this induction what I mean is that he needed a stooge to demonstrate it on, and I happened to be nearest.

My interpretation of this is a little different from James', but the principle is the same. Basically the idea is to create a pattern interrupt much like with the handshake induction, but instead by getting the subject to "high five" you and surprising them. It's a splendid induction to use with anybody who is reasonably suggestible and not suspicious, and it also works well as a re-induction off the back of the previous routine.

"Hey you did great! High five!"

So what do you do? Well basically what I do is a high five with my subject, but when my hand meets theirs I grab it and pull it toward me, simultaneously telling them to sleep. I should stress that, if you try this, no extra points will be given if you yank the subject's arm out of its socket or throw them to the ground. Just grab their hand and pull it a few inches away from them and that will be enough of a surprise for it to work! This works best if you're both standing, but be ready to catch them if they are the sort to fold up when they go into trance.

Some of you might have already spotted the flaw of course. "My friends won't shake my hand, so I doubt they will trust me with a high five" might be the obvious comeback.

Well, how about this then: If your subject is the suspicious type and doesn't go for the high five give them the compulsion, as a post-hypnotic suggestion, that they will instinctively go for the high five immediately if it comes up again. Move on with your routine and re-visit the high five later. This works as a nice convincer because hypnosis works best for some people if it catches them off guard. Your subject will be responding and then back into trance before they even realise what's happening.

Great fun!

The May '10 Meet

Well as there wasn't a meetup last month I was just a little bit keen to head into London and actually do some hypnosis this month. I made sure that there was a Last Thursday meet this month, got out of work early and made my way to London. Very few people actually turned up this month, but it was still a lot of fun.

Arriving shortly before 7pm I met up with Chris and we were joined shortly afterwards by a guy we'd not met before called Wayne. Shortly after that we were joined by a newbie by the name of James and his girlfriend Lucy.

Wayne turned out to be quite the amateur magician, the kind who makes coins appear and vanish from his hands and conjures small jars of jam out of thin air. Yes he really did produce an actual jam jar, which begs the question whether he goes around with jam in his pocket just in case anyone asks him to do a trick.

As I had a salt shaker and napkins on the table I took the opportunity to do the disappearing coin trick. Somehow I got it to work and didn't embarrass myself either. Excellent!

We'd been looking around for groups that might be good to approach, but I didn't feel particularly good about any of them to be honest. It seemed that Chris and Wayne felt much the same. Thankfully Lucy volunteered to be hypnotised, and so our hypnosis meetup actually featured some hypnosis.

Approaching Lucy as a subject had several advantages, not least that I knew she'd already been hypnotised by James and so I was completely confident that I could get her to go under, even stood up in quite a noisy bar. I also had some areas that I knew they both would like to work on; for example, he'd been unable to stick her to something in the past.

Something I really need to work on is my standard approach to a new subject. Often I end up winging my induction, instead of following a familiar route. In many ways my usual approach of trusting my instincts to bring out the appropriate words and actions in the moment works quite well, but I find it works better once I'm in the zone. Trying produce an induction on the fly before I've warmed up a bit seems to take me aback somewhat; I hope it doesn't show.

The induction I winged was sort of based on the magnetic hands set piece. Basically I had her hands come together and had her imagine they were getting bound tightly together. I could see she'd already gone from the way she was responding, so I simply said that in a moment I would tap her on the top of her hands and when I did she'd let her arms drop to her sides and go deep into hypnosis. As I did so, saying "sleep!" at the same time she went completely limp, though still standing, and I was able to deepen her whilst gently rocking her from side to side.

So I deepened her, gave the suggestion that she'd go back under if I told her to sleep. Brought her back up, checked she was comfortable, took her arm and went into an Ericksonian handshake, letting her arm become cataleptic as her eyes glazed over. I let her hang there for a moment or two, and then with "sleep!" she was going deeper again.

This was when I decided I'd have a bash at sticking the unstickable person to our table. I'm firmly of the opinion that any hypnotic phenomenon is a skill which some people may already have, but others simply have to learn; they have to be shown how. I've taught a few people to stick before and Lucy was quite clearly a better subject than many of them, so I was pretty confident I could stick her by showing her how, but first I thought I'd try a more direct method.

The way I approached it to string it off another suggestion. I took Lucy's arm and had her stare at it as I straightened it out. I got her to close her fist and focus on it as I tapped up and down the length of her arm and gave appropriate suggestions in a way I knew would induce catalepsy. I could feel her arm becoming stiffer and stiffer and told her that her arm would become completely locked rigid, that she wouldn't be able to bend it, that it'd be frozen in space etc. Sure enough she became completely unable to move her arm.

Next I kept her focusing on the stiff arm, but told her that in a moment her other hand would stick to the table, where I'd put it, and that just like her arm now she would be unable to move her hand. Then I told her that when I tapped her arm it'd come free, which it did when I tapped it, and then I said that was because her hand was now stuck.

And so it was.

As she looked at her immobile hand in complete and utter amazement I reflected on just how smug it is possible to feel as a hypnotist. I reinforced the suggestion by explaining that the more she tried to overcome that mental block that stopped her moving her hand, the more impossible it'd become, and what's more now she'd learned how to do it she would find such locks completely inescapable.

I felt sorry for James, who had tried to do this to her himself several times, but to be fair to him sometimes subjects just need a slightly different approach sometimes for them to make the right mental connections. I'm sure he will be able to get her to stick to things in future.

I tried some other suggestions on Lucy, such as making her laugh every time I clicked my fingers, and freezing like a statue below the neck if I said the word "freeze". I also demonstrated a few other inductions; I especially like doing the hand drop induction on good subjects because they all say it's quite an exhilarating experience. I also showed off a version of the "high-5!" induction, which I've been tinkering with recently.

Something that we have definitely found is the best way to find groups to approach is to hypnotise someone, ideally someone standing up in a prominent location, and to look around to see which groups are paying attention. Often there will be people who can't stop watching, and these are the people to approach and see if they're interested.

I'm not convinced that the current venue is the best place to be honest, and I have an idea for a more studenty area for the next meetup.

A good evening out though!

A Truly Hypnotic Relationship

Having spent quite a bit of time around hypnotists something that I have noticed is that one topic of conversation that rarely seems to come up is the hypnotic relationship between a hypnotist and their significant other. By that I mean do they do hypnosis with their partner and if so, what do they do? Now, whilst this is not a blog about my relationship with my girlfriend, and I won't be discussing my own relationship here, that doesn't mean that it isn't a topic that I've not given some thought. I have the accounts given by a few who have been successful with their partners to go on, but of course no names will be mentioned.

So here my thoughts on the hypnotic relationship, by which in this context I mean a romantic or sexual relationship that involves hypnosis.

When I ask other hypnotists about whether they've used hypnosis with their partners the majority of responses are that it's either something that they've not really tried for whatever reason, or that it is something they tried and their partner didn't "go under".

This is something that baffles me, because to my mind the interpersonal connection between two people in that sort of relationship is already hypnotic.

Don't believe me? Consider it this way: When a person is intensely attracted to someone else they tend to focus their thoughts on that individual, become detached from the rest of the world and accept anything about or from that person seemingly without rational thought.

Does that sound familiar?

What got me thinking along these lines was recent discussion about the state of "permanosis" (a Jacquinism for a subject being in a permanent state of hypnosis). I agreed that some subjects will enter this state of continuous hypnotic receptivity during a hypnosis session, but I added that I think permanosis is a state that can and does exist for most people in certain circumstances.

The circumstance that immediately came to mind for me is the way that someone will react when faced with someone they are extremely attracted to. Men are probably the worst at this as far as I can see, but women are also susceptible. Over the years I've seen guys become obscessed with a particular woman, follow them around and do practically anything they ask in a seemingly trancelike state. Afterward they may even say to themselves "That was stupid! Why on earth did I do that?!"

Now that's hypnosis if ever I saw it! 

So the impression I get is that many hypnotists I get fail to recognise this pre-existing hypnotic effect if try to do hypnosis with their partner. Going on what I've heard I get the impression that what they usually do is run through their normal routine, often set pieces then a rapid induction, and more often than not nothing happens.

In my opinion this is indicative of just how little understanding some otherwise brilliant impromptu hypnotists have when it comes to trance from the point of view of the subject. True it is said that close friends and family can be the hardest people to hypnotise because they may have trouble seeing someone they already know as the hypnotist, but there can be advantages too such as trust, rapport, and in the case of ones partner the pre-existing state of hypnosis I already mentioned. Hypnotists should have no excuse when it comes to hypnotising their partners, and yet so many seem to fail.    

This is of course assuming that they aren't all really giving their partners orgasm handshakes every evening and just not telling anyone.

So where are they going wrong?

Well I think the biggest mistake they make has to do with context. As I have said before hypnosis is subject oriented; it is dependant on what the subject wants to get from the experience. Now in the case of a hypnosis show on stage, or a performance in the street, establishing this need is very easy; the subject is there to be entertained and the hypnotist has quite a broad remit to try whatever they want. When, however, they sit down with their partner the context is entirely different and I think difficulties occur when they don't adapt to meet these new circumstances.

"What does my subject want from this experience?"

This is by far the most important question any hypnotist should ask, and it isn't asked often enough in my opinion. This process is two way though; not only should the hypnotist make every effort to find out what it is that their partner wants, but they should also make the effort to explain what is on offer.

Both hypnotist and subject should got into the session knowing what sort of thing they are trying to do. The trick is to discover exactly what the other partner wants, and then to use hypnosis to give that to them, or enhance it.

For example, when one considers that all aspects of intimacy come under the umbrella of the rapport between a couple and the trances they are in when they are giving each other their complete attention the mind boggles at the wealth of possibilities that present themselves when they recognise that state for what it truly is, a hypnotic one. Everything from intensifying or triggering emotions or sensations all the way through to manipulating a person's sexual response, which I am told on strong authority works very well.

I know that a lot has been said about those who have a mind control or domination fetishes or other kinks, and certainly those sorts of games are possible applications of hypnosis, but I have also talked to couples who have used hypnosis in a more conventional form of intimacy, and not necessarily sexual intimacy either. So much is possible I would need hundreds of blog posts to cover them all; I don't have the time, and I really don't want to feel that jealous!

In conclusion what I would say to the impromptu hypnotist is this: Throw out the rulebook, forget your normal routines. Discover what it is that your partner wants, have them close their eyes and listen to you, and go from there.