Last night I watched a documentary on YouTube called "My Sex Robot". It was about the men who have developed a sexual fetish around the idea of a machine as a sexual companion, or even a romantic companion. I actually found it pretty fascinating to watch, partly because I can relate to it a little myself.
I have been alone for a large proportion of my of post-adolescant life and there have been times where a surrogate partner, if only for sexual release, has seemed like a very appealing idea. The thing is though that more recently I have real trouble seeing quite how a robot can ever meet what it is I truly desire, nor give me the kind of pleasure I get from meeting real women.
The show actually featured an academic who said that there are a lot of people who are lonely and frustrated and having robots for those people can only make the world better.
I cannot disagree more.
What it all seemed to come down to was a question of the self esteem these people have. It was the idea that an artificial partner would be completely incapable of judging or rejecting you. I found this expressed particularly well by one of the men interviewed when he talked about his obsession with shop mannequins. He said that because they were lifeless they wouldn't react, and "no reaction is better than a negative one".
What's missing here is an understanding that it doesn't have to be this way for any of these people. Self esteem isn't a finite resource like oil or gas, or indeed like money, it is one that can be grown and nurtured out of nothing. My own experience of working on my own sense of self esteem has been that as it has grown the world has become a progressively more friendly and accepting place.
People are, for the most part, warm and welcoming. It's extraordinary.
Once you start to get a taste of this different world, one where you can walk up to a group of strangers and they will smile at you, accept you, be interested about you and tell you about themselves, the thought of spending a night in with a robot starts to lose its appeal. There is so much emotion conveyed in conversation with another human being and there would be none of that with a robot that had anything short of human levels of intelligence. But if you could build a machine like that you get into all sorts of ethical questions. If this machine is as intelligent as you doesn't it also deserve the same freedoms as you? Such freedoms would no doubt include the freedom to leave you.
For some reason I am reminded here of that TV series The Outer Limits where every other week the plot was basically: man builds machine; man has sex with machine; machine becomes self aware; man rejects machine; machine tries to destroy the world. A natural story progression.
Anyway, coming back to the issue, as I see it what this hinges on is that there are a lot of men out there who are just unable to connect with women. This is sad, because the guys who want a robot because it won't reject them have no idea just how receptive women really are. Out of fear they are rejecting women before they've even given women a chance to connect with them.
Learning to be an easy socialiser, which is, I think, the linchpin to having attractive women in ones life is not an overnight transition but it is something that anybody who commits themselves to can realistically achieve. It does take effort, but it is worth it.
Likewise the only way to consistently attract the women you want, as a man, is to risk rejection. This is the only way. If you are unprepared to take that risk you cannot expect to reap the rewards of female attention, companionship and, yes, sex.
I really don't think that a futuristic sex toy is the solution all those lonely men out there really want. They are just unaware that they can take steps to become the men that the lonely women (let's not forget them!) want to meet. That or they are too scared to apply themselves to it. Either way this is not something that technology will solve; quite the opposite in fact. What it really needs is the old fashioned low-tech process of learning to love oneself and connect with other human beings.
Tuesday 13 December 2011
Wednesday 23 November 2011
Raise the stakes
I had a moment recently that in many ways was one of these so called life changing events. Well, that said, it was more one of those moments that brought me to a realisation about my life purpose and my passion.
To set the scene, last weekend I was at Regent's College in London. A friend of mine, John P. Morgan, who I know through the London Hynosis Meets runs a company called The Magnetic Man and asked me if I'd like to go along to his first big seminar. John's passion in life is to help people connect with each other, and in particular to help men connect with women; it's a sort of antidote to the PUA approach to meeting women. I'm really glad I went actually, partly because the seminar itself was inspirational, but also because of something else that happened.
When we stopped for lunch, and we all made our way down the the cafeteria, John suggested to us all that we might take the opportunity to just practice talking to as many people as possible.
This was an amazing exercise. It might sound silly, but because I'd been chatting to some of the other participants about card tricks before the seminar began I wasn't going to be the guy who has said he's a bit of a card magician and a hypnotist and then have to say after lunch that I hadn't gone up and talked to any strangers.
I munched my way through a plate of chicken with pasta in carbonara sauce as I listened to the conversation of the other guys from the seminar I had sat with. They they were talking about PUA boot camps and training afternoons they'd been to; basically workshops to help guys approach women.
Great, I thought, if I listen to any more of this it's going to be far more difficult than it needs to be.
I spotted a likely looking group of people standing in the ever lengthening lunch queue, grabbed a pack of cards, stood up and wandered over.
"Hi guys, I can see you're queuing for dinner, sorry to interrupt but I'd like to show you a magic trick."
They were actually friendly enough, and quite intrigued, as indeed most people are when you wave something fantastical like magic or hypnosis under their nose. I ran through several of my usual basic tricks, thanked them for being a good audience and moved on up the ever lengthening queue stopping another couple of times to perform more tricks. It was a great place to find people who really didn't mind being entertained.
It was as I reached the beginning of the queue that I spotted three young women sitting down at a little round table. Right, I thought, time to try something a bit more intimidating.
"Excuse me," I said, wandering over, "I only have a minute or two but I'd really like to show you a few magic tricks"
They were quite pretty, but a bit young; I'd guess at 18-20 years old. They nodded their interest so I grabbed a nearby chair and, planting it so I'd be sitting with the char back between my legs, settled down to begin my routine.
I started with my favourite opening trick, which is topsy turvy cards. It's quite spectacular really, making half of the deck appear to magically flip over inside the deck. The girls were intrigued by this so I singled out one of them and moved on to another good trick, the poker player's picnic. This is an awesome self-worker of a trick in which the person you're performing to cuts the deck into four piles to discover that all of the top cards are aces. It's always fun to accuse them of having cheated unconsciously and say that you'll never play poker with them.
From the point of view of a magician this is all mechanical. The real magic happened for me with with my next and final trick called Design for Laughter. In this trick the magician appears to have gone horribly wrong but continues unaware of his mistake. I love this trick because it is a wonderful source of drama. This was something I was able to enhance further by using something I'd learned the week before on a creative writing class I've been taking. You see, something that fascinates me is the relationship between hypnosis, magic and story telling. As I see it, a magic trick is in essence a story, albeit a short one, and the same principles apply. Likewise all the best stories have a hypnotic effect on the people they are told to.
So, with this in mind when I performed this trick I incorporated a principle I have recently learned about story writing, which is that one has to build up tension, but do so in stages. I started the trick with a "hey, this should work" attitude, and escalated things over the course of the trick to the point where my entire reputation as a magician was riding on what happened next.
This was when I experienced one of the most profound moments. I was looking into the eyes of the girl I was performing the trick to, right at the moment when the tension peaked, and I saw her eyes widen. I have always found women's eyes to be beautiful and incredibly expressive but this time it was even more so. This time I could tell, I could feel from her, that she was going through a strong emotional experience. The amazing thing wasn't just that though, I was leading her through a strong emotional experience.
Nothing stronger than when I revealed her card showing I was right after all and I got screams of "Oh my god!"
This is why I love performing magic, I love being able to give those kinds of experiences. Not just that though, it's why I love writing, doing hypnosis, telling stories, dancing. It's why I love sex.
About a year ago I decided that I needed to define my raison d'être; I need to know what my purpose in this world is. The shortest version I could come up with was "To create and to share". It might sound like a cheesy corporate slogan, but I think it's true to say that the best moments of my life, the times when I have felt most fulfilled, have been when I have been true to the ideals of that statement.
I cannot wait to see where else it can take me.
To set the scene, last weekend I was at Regent's College in London. A friend of mine, John P. Morgan, who I know through the London Hynosis Meets runs a company called The Magnetic Man and asked me if I'd like to go along to his first big seminar. John's passion in life is to help people connect with each other, and in particular to help men connect with women; it's a sort of antidote to the PUA approach to meeting women. I'm really glad I went actually, partly because the seminar itself was inspirational, but also because of something else that happened.
When we stopped for lunch, and we all made our way down the the cafeteria, John suggested to us all that we might take the opportunity to just practice talking to as many people as possible.
This was an amazing exercise. It might sound silly, but because I'd been chatting to some of the other participants about card tricks before the seminar began I wasn't going to be the guy who has said he's a bit of a card magician and a hypnotist and then have to say after lunch that I hadn't gone up and talked to any strangers.
I munched my way through a plate of chicken with pasta in carbonara sauce as I listened to the conversation of the other guys from the seminar I had sat with. They they were talking about PUA boot camps and training afternoons they'd been to; basically workshops to help guys approach women.
Great, I thought, if I listen to any more of this it's going to be far more difficult than it needs to be.
I spotted a likely looking group of people standing in the ever lengthening lunch queue, grabbed a pack of cards, stood up and wandered over.
"Hi guys, I can see you're queuing for dinner, sorry to interrupt but I'd like to show you a magic trick."
They were actually friendly enough, and quite intrigued, as indeed most people are when you wave something fantastical like magic or hypnosis under their nose. I ran through several of my usual basic tricks, thanked them for being a good audience and moved on up the ever lengthening queue stopping another couple of times to perform more tricks. It was a great place to find people who really didn't mind being entertained.
It was as I reached the beginning of the queue that I spotted three young women sitting down at a little round table. Right, I thought, time to try something a bit more intimidating.
"Excuse me," I said, wandering over, "I only have a minute or two but I'd really like to show you a few magic tricks"
They were quite pretty, but a bit young; I'd guess at 18-20 years old. They nodded their interest so I grabbed a nearby chair and, planting it so I'd be sitting with the char back between my legs, settled down to begin my routine.
I started with my favourite opening trick, which is topsy turvy cards. It's quite spectacular really, making half of the deck appear to magically flip over inside the deck. The girls were intrigued by this so I singled out one of them and moved on to another good trick, the poker player's picnic. This is an awesome self-worker of a trick in which the person you're performing to cuts the deck into four piles to discover that all of the top cards are aces. It's always fun to accuse them of having cheated unconsciously and say that you'll never play poker with them.
From the point of view of a magician this is all mechanical. The real magic happened for me with with my next and final trick called Design for Laughter. In this trick the magician appears to have gone horribly wrong but continues unaware of his mistake. I love this trick because it is a wonderful source of drama. This was something I was able to enhance further by using something I'd learned the week before on a creative writing class I've been taking. You see, something that fascinates me is the relationship between hypnosis, magic and story telling. As I see it, a magic trick is in essence a story, albeit a short one, and the same principles apply. Likewise all the best stories have a hypnotic effect on the people they are told to.
So, with this in mind when I performed this trick I incorporated a principle I have recently learned about story writing, which is that one has to build up tension, but do so in stages. I started the trick with a "hey, this should work" attitude, and escalated things over the course of the trick to the point where my entire reputation as a magician was riding on what happened next.
This was when I experienced one of the most profound moments. I was looking into the eyes of the girl I was performing the trick to, right at the moment when the tension peaked, and I saw her eyes widen. I have always found women's eyes to be beautiful and incredibly expressive but this time it was even more so. This time I could tell, I could feel from her, that she was going through a strong emotional experience. The amazing thing wasn't just that though, I was leading her through a strong emotional experience.
Nothing stronger than when I revealed her card showing I was right after all and I got screams of "Oh my god!"
This is why I love performing magic, I love being able to give those kinds of experiences. Not just that though, it's why I love writing, doing hypnosis, telling stories, dancing. It's why I love sex.
About a year ago I decided that I needed to define my raison d'être; I need to know what my purpose in this world is. The shortest version I could come up with was "To create and to share". It might sound like a cheesy corporate slogan, but I think it's true to say that the best moments of my life, the times when I have felt most fulfilled, have been when I have been true to the ideals of that statement.
I cannot wait to see where else it can take me.
Tuesday 20 September 2011
Islands of reality
There's a phenomenon I have become increasingly aware of, and which today I put a name to. If like me you are into self development, or rather you find that self development is an inevitable consequence of finding new levels of fun and general awesomeness in ones life, I'm sure this might be familiar to you.
When you become a hypnotist one thing that starts to become eminently clear is that everybody's reality is a subjective one, and is based upon their set of beliefs. This is why, on any controversial matter of opinion, you'll find that everybody is absolutely factually correct. If you don't believe me on this, just ask them.
Where this gets interesting is that people of similar opinions and outlooks will tend to seek each other out, cluster together and, not only that, through their interactions strengthen their own world views. "Everybody I've spoken to thinks the death penalty is common sense", "I haven't met anybody who thinks that a 20mph speed limit is reasonable", "Getting an Apple computer is a huge rip off, everybody I speak to on my PC support web forum agrees on that". We like to be right, and it feels comforting to be around people who we think are just like us and confirm what we already know.
We absorb our reality from the people we spend time with; we soak it up like a sponge just through our daily interactions. We can refer to the people you are regularly around in this way as one's "reference group" and they are incredibly important when it comes to your personal development.
What if up until now in your life you'd always had the same sort of friends, been around the same sort of people in school, maybe university, and in work. What will that do to shape your reality? Granted you won't be exactly like all of these people, but in many respects you are living on the same social island, the same island of reality as them. You will share their limiting beliefs too.
But now we come to you, dear reader, because I hope that you, like me, understand that you are responsible for generating your own model of reality. If you don't understand this simple truism you will find that your model of reality is at the mercy of your circumstances and often dictated by other people, and this really isn't a good thing.
So all of a sudden you realise that this isn't how it has to be, and that if you tailor your model of reality to what you want to do, what you want to be, you can push the boundaries and take your life wherever you want it to go. Furthermore, why not seek out other reference groups to spend time with, people from whom you can absorb beliefs and behaviours you'd really like to have.
This is when life starts to get exciting, but it's not without its challenges. One of the biggest of these challenges is facing what happens when you leave the island to go on this adventure, because when you return things will be different.
Let me give you an example. I recently went to a wedding; the couple were some friends of mine from a long time ago, and of course most of the guests I knew there were friends from that era. I've been at parties with these predominantly quiet and shy individuals before, and I've always been quite comfortably one of the crowd.
This time, however, I didn't want to sit quietly and talk to friends all evening, then maybe get up and dance with the group later. Oh no. After the bride and groom had started the first dance and the dance floor started to fill up with couples I spotted a pretty young woman who was obviously there on her own, walked over and asked her to dance.
I ask lots of women to dance every week. Quite deliberately I've chosen to live in a world where approaching women and asking them to dance in full confidence they'll say yes is the done thing; it's normal. So I was quite able to invite this woman into my reality.
The looks I was getting from my old friends were startling. Nobody knew quite what to make of it, because to them it just isn't what happens.
How the hell did he do that? Can he really just do that?
I could sense discomfort and in some respects I felt as though I'd brought an elephant into the room which everybody was far too polite to talk about.
I was recently listening to a recording of a talk given by a hypnotist by the name of Mark Cunningham and he used a phrase "disturbing the consensual reality" which sums the situation I have described above here perfectly I think. Sometimes it will just shock people, but in some cases it can even cause resentment.
People live their lives inside cages of their own devising. Learning to spot your cages and escape them, I believe, is the best and only way to a truly fulfilling life. At the same time be prepared for the natives to get restless.
When you become a hypnotist one thing that starts to become eminently clear is that everybody's reality is a subjective one, and is based upon their set of beliefs. This is why, on any controversial matter of opinion, you'll find that everybody is absolutely factually correct. If you don't believe me on this, just ask them.
Where this gets interesting is that people of similar opinions and outlooks will tend to seek each other out, cluster together and, not only that, through their interactions strengthen their own world views. "Everybody I've spoken to thinks the death penalty is common sense", "I haven't met anybody who thinks that a 20mph speed limit is reasonable", "Getting an Apple computer is a huge rip off, everybody I speak to on my PC support web forum agrees on that". We like to be right, and it feels comforting to be around people who we think are just like us and confirm what we already know.
We absorb our reality from the people we spend time with; we soak it up like a sponge just through our daily interactions. We can refer to the people you are regularly around in this way as one's "reference group" and they are incredibly important when it comes to your personal development.
What if up until now in your life you'd always had the same sort of friends, been around the same sort of people in school, maybe university, and in work. What will that do to shape your reality? Granted you won't be exactly like all of these people, but in many respects you are living on the same social island, the same island of reality as them. You will share their limiting beliefs too.
But now we come to you, dear reader, because I hope that you, like me, understand that you are responsible for generating your own model of reality. If you don't understand this simple truism you will find that your model of reality is at the mercy of your circumstances and often dictated by other people, and this really isn't a good thing.
So all of a sudden you realise that this isn't how it has to be, and that if you tailor your model of reality to what you want to do, what you want to be, you can push the boundaries and take your life wherever you want it to go. Furthermore, why not seek out other reference groups to spend time with, people from whom you can absorb beliefs and behaviours you'd really like to have.
This is when life starts to get exciting, but it's not without its challenges. One of the biggest of these challenges is facing what happens when you leave the island to go on this adventure, because when you return things will be different.
Let me give you an example. I recently went to a wedding; the couple were some friends of mine from a long time ago, and of course most of the guests I knew there were friends from that era. I've been at parties with these predominantly quiet and shy individuals before, and I've always been quite comfortably one of the crowd.
This time, however, I didn't want to sit quietly and talk to friends all evening, then maybe get up and dance with the group later. Oh no. After the bride and groom had started the first dance and the dance floor started to fill up with couples I spotted a pretty young woman who was obviously there on her own, walked over and asked her to dance.
I ask lots of women to dance every week. Quite deliberately I've chosen to live in a world where approaching women and asking them to dance in full confidence they'll say yes is the done thing; it's normal. So I was quite able to invite this woman into my reality.
The looks I was getting from my old friends were startling. Nobody knew quite what to make of it, because to them it just isn't what happens.
How the hell did he do that? Can he really just do that?
I could sense discomfort and in some respects I felt as though I'd brought an elephant into the room which everybody was far too polite to talk about.
I was recently listening to a recording of a talk given by a hypnotist by the name of Mark Cunningham and he used a phrase "disturbing the consensual reality" which sums the situation I have described above here perfectly I think. Sometimes it will just shock people, but in some cases it can even cause resentment.
People live their lives inside cages of their own devising. Learning to spot your cages and escape them, I believe, is the best and only way to a truly fulfilling life. At the same time be prepared for the natives to get restless.
Monday 15 August 2011
"I'm no good at that"
Following on from my last post about magic I feel I should talk a little bit about incompetence.
I am reminded of a comment I once heard one of my favourite songwriters come out with many years ago now. Sharon Corr, who is a solo artist these days but was best known as the violinist from The Corrs, was talking about the business of writing music for the band to play. Whilst I forget the exact wording the pearl of wisdom she conveyed was that the thing about song writing is that when you start writing the songs you write aren't very good, but if you keep writing they do get better over time.
It may sound like the most obvious statement in the world, and yet I think that there is a truism about the human experience here that so many people completely miss throughout their entire lives.
I'm thinking, as an example now, of what most people say when I suggest they try dancing.
"Oh no," the usual response goes, "I'm no good at dancing, I have two left feet."
Well really? You've not danced much or at all before and you are stating the fact that you don't think you're any good at it as a reason not to have a go.
How, if I may ask, would you be any good at dancing if you've never done it?! Really?
As with most things, the people who are good at dancing are the people who have danced, and have danced a lot. At some point in the past they were not very good at dancing, just like you. What makes them different? Well, they stuck with it long enough to become good.
Here's the lesson:
If you want to be good at something be prepared to be very bad at it.
I think it's important to get away from this attitude toward "talent" that seems to be all pervasive in our society. This notion that exceptional ability is a gift that's given indiscriminately to a lucky few, as opposed to a competence that is earned through persistence.
The bad news is that being exceptional doesn't drop out of the sky and into your lap. The good news is that being exceptional doesn't drop out of the sky and into anybody else's lap either. Yes some people may start slightly ahead and have an easier ride due to circumstances and more resources at their disposal, but long term the one thing that will make all the difference is your attitude. With the right attitude you will always have the advantage.
Afraid you won't be a good hypnotist when you try with your first subject? Guess what, you won't be! Keep at it though and soon enough you will.
I am at present enjoying developing my fledgling skills as a magician. I am not a brilliant magician. I have come to accept that every so often my "is this your card?" will be met with a blank look and a shaking of the head. Heck, I had a day a couple of weeks ago where I did four tricks in a row and none of them worked! The one thing I can tell you for certain is that it will happen again, I will fail, and not least because as I improve my skills I will constantly be trying to execute more difficult tricks.
Push your boundaries or they will never move and you won't grow as a person. Don't just do the things you can do; do the things you can't.
"Dancing? I've never done anything like that before and it really wouldn't have occurred to me to try... Sounds like fun! Let's go!"
If you need any more inspiration, take a look at this:
Step outside your comfort zone and study yourself failing
I am reminded of a comment I once heard one of my favourite songwriters come out with many years ago now. Sharon Corr, who is a solo artist these days but was best known as the violinist from The Corrs, was talking about the business of writing music for the band to play. Whilst I forget the exact wording the pearl of wisdom she conveyed was that the thing about song writing is that when you start writing the songs you write aren't very good, but if you keep writing they do get better over time.
It may sound like the most obvious statement in the world, and yet I think that there is a truism about the human experience here that so many people completely miss throughout their entire lives.
I'm thinking, as an example now, of what most people say when I suggest they try dancing.
"Oh no," the usual response goes, "I'm no good at dancing, I have two left feet."
Well really? You've not danced much or at all before and you are stating the fact that you don't think you're any good at it as a reason not to have a go.
How, if I may ask, would you be any good at dancing if you've never done it?! Really?
As with most things, the people who are good at dancing are the people who have danced, and have danced a lot. At some point in the past they were not very good at dancing, just like you. What makes them different? Well, they stuck with it long enough to become good.
Here's the lesson:
If you want to be good at something be prepared to be very bad at it.
I think it's important to get away from this attitude toward "talent" that seems to be all pervasive in our society. This notion that exceptional ability is a gift that's given indiscriminately to a lucky few, as opposed to a competence that is earned through persistence.
The bad news is that being exceptional doesn't drop out of the sky and into your lap. The good news is that being exceptional doesn't drop out of the sky and into anybody else's lap either. Yes some people may start slightly ahead and have an easier ride due to circumstances and more resources at their disposal, but long term the one thing that will make all the difference is your attitude. With the right attitude you will always have the advantage.
Afraid you won't be a good hypnotist when you try with your first subject? Guess what, you won't be! Keep at it though and soon enough you will.
I am at present enjoying developing my fledgling skills as a magician. I am not a brilliant magician. I have come to accept that every so often my "is this your card?" will be met with a blank look and a shaking of the head. Heck, I had a day a couple of weeks ago where I did four tricks in a row and none of them worked! The one thing I can tell you for certain is that it will happen again, I will fail, and not least because as I improve my skills I will constantly be trying to execute more difficult tricks.
Push your boundaries or they will never move and you won't grow as a person. Don't just do the things you can do; do the things you can't.
"Dancing? I've never done anything like that before and it really wouldn't have occurred to me to try... Sounds like fun! Let's go!"
If you need any more inspiration, take a look at this:
Step outside your comfort zone and study yourself failing
Tuesday 2 August 2011
First Timers I ½ - Magical!
Earlier this year I wrote a blog post intended to give advice to all those wannabe hypnotists out there who have yet to take the plunge and hypnotise a subject.
I made a start at the second post, plunging into details for a routine that these hypnotists could try but every time I started writing there was always something that kept nagging at me. Something was missing from the first post, I knew that. What was worse was that I knew exactly what was missing and the reason I hadn't brought it up, which was that I didn't have the answer.
What is the biggest problem for most of us when it comes to starting out in hypnosis?
I don't know about you, but for me the problem is scarcity. It feels as though willing subjects to try this out on are few and far between. What this inevitably means is that we end up subcommunicating neediness whenever we approach a potential subject. They feel as though you want something from them and can get defensive. Some may be curious enough to get past this and give it a go, but the next pitfall comes from being worried about failure because who knows when the next opportunity will be.
This is a biggie. It's THE biggie as far as I'm concerned.
What we really need is a different frame to the situation, and I did hint at this in my last post. Your potential subject should be the one asking, begging, you to hypnotise them.
Indeed, some of the best impromptu subjects I've had in the past have actually thanked me afterward for the huge favour I've done them. One actually apologised for spoiling my quiet evening out.
So how does one arrive at this desirable state of affairs? I figured it out recently and, believe me, what you are about to read could possibly be the most useful lesson you will ever learn as an aspiring impromptu hypnotist.
6. Get a pack of cards. Learn some tricks.
You heard me.
I should explain. A couple of weeks ago I was at a party in London that John Morgan had invited me along to. It was a charity fundraiser, and so John had also invited along another of the London Magic and Hypnosis crew, a magician called Mike Stoner.
Now, Mike is absolutely awesome at what he does, and he's also a people approaching machine. So after we'd spent a little while catching up we started wandering around the tables and Mike wowed each with some incredible magic and mentalism. Now, when I say incredible I mean "that card you chose and signed with a pen isn't in the deck, it's actually here in my wallet" and "also, the name of the card you chose is written on the pen I gave you at the start" incredible.
More than watching Mike at work though, both in seeing how easy he found it to approach people and in his presentation, I am indebted to him for what did next, which was to say this:
"If you think that's impressive, my colleague here is a hypnotist."
And I was in!
Did I mention that this party had the largest number of attractive young women I've seen in one place? It's a hard life it really is!
What's the lesson here?
I'd say it's this. There's a reason why the thought of approaching a group of people and saying "Excuse me would you like to be hypnotised?" feels weird, and that's because it is! It's such an unexpected and unusual proposition that a lot of people will default to the safe "no thanks" answer before even considering it.
As I said before, a different frame is needed. If you approach a group of people with a pack of cards and whilst shuffling them in your hands ask if they like card tricks they are much, much more likely to be intrigued and keen to see what you have to offer. Often if you're at a party all you need to do is produce the cards and shuffle them before someone asks you if you know any tricks with them. Seek out any environment where people want to be entertained and you'll find an impromptu magician is always welcome.
You don't even need to learn that much magic. In these days of YouTube it's so damn easy to learn a few basic tricks too. I know just four, all based on the overhand shuffle, but that's more than enough. You can go from group to group doing the same few routines over and over and getting good at them. Your audience don't know that they've just seen your entire repertoire and they don't need to know.
Set out to do magic, not hypnosis. Set out to entertain others, not acquire something for yourself. Let the subjects come to you.
What you are doing with each group is you're setting the frame. In their eyes you become an authority figure on magic and that sort of thing, you're demonstrating to them that amazing things happen around you and that you can lead them through fun experiences.
I have found that people are naturally curious about how and when you learned magic and when the inevitable question about that comes you can reply thus:
"I'm actually a hypnotist; the magic's just a hobby."
Try it. You'll be amazed at the responses you'll get.
I made a start at the second post, plunging into details for a routine that these hypnotists could try but every time I started writing there was always something that kept nagging at me. Something was missing from the first post, I knew that. What was worse was that I knew exactly what was missing and the reason I hadn't brought it up, which was that I didn't have the answer.
What is the biggest problem for most of us when it comes to starting out in hypnosis?
I don't know about you, but for me the problem is scarcity. It feels as though willing subjects to try this out on are few and far between. What this inevitably means is that we end up subcommunicating neediness whenever we approach a potential subject. They feel as though you want something from them and can get defensive. Some may be curious enough to get past this and give it a go, but the next pitfall comes from being worried about failure because who knows when the next opportunity will be.
This is a biggie. It's THE biggie as far as I'm concerned.
What we really need is a different frame to the situation, and I did hint at this in my last post. Your potential subject should be the one asking, begging, you to hypnotise them.
Indeed, some of the best impromptu subjects I've had in the past have actually thanked me afterward for the huge favour I've done them. One actually apologised for spoiling my quiet evening out.
So how does one arrive at this desirable state of affairs? I figured it out recently and, believe me, what you are about to read could possibly be the most useful lesson you will ever learn as an aspiring impromptu hypnotist.
6. Get a pack of cards. Learn some tricks.
You heard me.
I should explain. A couple of weeks ago I was at a party in London that John Morgan had invited me along to. It was a charity fundraiser, and so John had also invited along another of the London Magic and Hypnosis crew, a magician called Mike Stoner.
Now, Mike is absolutely awesome at what he does, and he's also a people approaching machine. So after we'd spent a little while catching up we started wandering around the tables and Mike wowed each with some incredible magic and mentalism. Now, when I say incredible I mean "that card you chose and signed with a pen isn't in the deck, it's actually here in my wallet" and "also, the name of the card you chose is written on the pen I gave you at the start" incredible.
More than watching Mike at work though, both in seeing how easy he found it to approach people and in his presentation, I am indebted to him for what did next, which was to say this:
"If you think that's impressive, my colleague here is a hypnotist."
And I was in!
Did I mention that this party had the largest number of attractive young women I've seen in one place? It's a hard life it really is!
What's the lesson here?
I'd say it's this. There's a reason why the thought of approaching a group of people and saying "Excuse me would you like to be hypnotised?" feels weird, and that's because it is! It's such an unexpected and unusual proposition that a lot of people will default to the safe "no thanks" answer before even considering it.
As I said before, a different frame is needed. If you approach a group of people with a pack of cards and whilst shuffling them in your hands ask if they like card tricks they are much, much more likely to be intrigued and keen to see what you have to offer. Often if you're at a party all you need to do is produce the cards and shuffle them before someone asks you if you know any tricks with them. Seek out any environment where people want to be entertained and you'll find an impromptu magician is always welcome.
You don't even need to learn that much magic. In these days of YouTube it's so damn easy to learn a few basic tricks too. I know just four, all based on the overhand shuffle, but that's more than enough. You can go from group to group doing the same few routines over and over and getting good at them. Your audience don't know that they've just seen your entire repertoire and they don't need to know.
Set out to do magic, not hypnosis. Set out to entertain others, not acquire something for yourself. Let the subjects come to you.
What you are doing with each group is you're setting the frame. In their eyes you become an authority figure on magic and that sort of thing, you're demonstrating to them that amazing things happen around you and that you can lead them through fun experiences.
I have found that people are naturally curious about how and when you learned magic and when the inevitable question about that comes you can reply thus:
"I'm actually a hypnotist; the magic's just a hobby."
Try it. You'll be amazed at the responses you'll get.
Monday 9 May 2011
Self-deception
I was recently catching up on episodes of a podcast that I listen to, and highly recommend, called Radiolab. It's a science podcast predominantly but what I like about it most is that it is presented by telling the human stories behind the science. Go have a listen!
Anyway, there was an episode from last summer entitled Deception which was all about lies, why people tell them, and how they can be spotted. The full episode is still available to listen to here. The last section, at 47 minutes in, was to me the most interesting because it covered the subject of self-deception.
It's really worth a listen. The conclusion that the researchers being interviewed came to is that our abilities at self-deception can actually be looked on as a good thing, as a gift as such. They discovered that people who are more successful and happier in life tend to be better at deceiving themselves, where those who look at just the cold hard facts may tend to be down or depressed. The obsession with being objectively correct that many of us with a more scientific or logical background may have can be a very bad thing at times.
To me this all makes sense and it ties in with my last blog post, which was about faith. I guess faith is in itself a form of self-deception.
There is a message here to anyone looking for success or happiness in life, and I think especially to aspiring hypnotists. Disregard anything in the past that, however real and tragic it may seem, gives you negative feelings, step into the moment and go forward expecting happiness and success.
You are awesome and can do anything you put your mind to. Believe it! Deceive yourself for long enough for it to become true.
Anyway, there was an episode from last summer entitled Deception which was all about lies, why people tell them, and how they can be spotted. The full episode is still available to listen to here. The last section, at 47 minutes in, was to me the most interesting because it covered the subject of self-deception.
It's really worth a listen. The conclusion that the researchers being interviewed came to is that our abilities at self-deception can actually be looked on as a good thing, as a gift as such. They discovered that people who are more successful and happier in life tend to be better at deceiving themselves, where those who look at just the cold hard facts may tend to be down or depressed. The obsession with being objectively correct that many of us with a more scientific or logical background may have can be a very bad thing at times.
To me this all makes sense and it ties in with my last blog post, which was about faith. I guess faith is in itself a form of self-deception.
There is a message here to anyone looking for success or happiness in life, and I think especially to aspiring hypnotists. Disregard anything in the past that, however real and tragic it may seem, gives you negative feelings, step into the moment and go forward expecting happiness and success.
You are awesome and can do anything you put your mind to. Believe it! Deceive yourself for long enough for it to become true.
Wednesday 16 March 2011
Faith
Another day, another comment on Facebook written by a fellow atheist taking a dig at religion.
This time: "Science flies you to the moon; religion flies you into buildings"
Years ago I may have applauded along with the crowd at such a comment but nowadays I sigh at how my left-brained friends manage to so completely miss the point, which is one about belief.
Now, I'm agnostic; I see no evidence for the existence of a supreme being so I do not believe in one, but at the same I cannot disprove the existence of one either (if that sounds wishy-washy to you bear in mind I have a similar stance on the subject of the easter bunny).
Where I part company with many of my other godless friends is that I think that a life without faith is likely to be empty and unfulfilling. I just personally don't agree with religious faith.
To explain, as a hypnotist I feel I have more than a little insight into the human mind's capacity for belief. Let's face it, we're all capable of unquestioningly believing crazy things, evolution has wired us up that way, and the most impressive thing about belief is the way that it affects the nature of reality. I don't think that any kind of thinking is going to affect the objective universe, such as allow people to use telekinesis to unbend corkscrews, open a channel of communication to the deceased or make deities pop into objective existence, but bear in mind that none of us actually lives in an objective universe. You, and everybody you meet, live in a subjective universe, which is just your mind's interpretation of what your senses are telling you.
You are responsible for generating your perception of reality.
To the faithless the only way to think is one where belief follows evidence. This is fine if you want to work out something objective, such as calculate the age of the universe, but I think it's important to realise there are other areas in life where the scientific mindset doesn't have all the answers and can actually lead to mediocrity and misery. Those all too real entities in our worlds such as confidence, happiness, fulfillment are not objective quantities.
Faith, to me, is to place belief before evidence. Successful people, happy people, achievers, don't look for evidence that they will be successful, happy or get what they want; rather they believe it first. When we believe something our mind and body work overtime in thousands of imperceptible ways to make that thing true for us. This is why, for example, athletes will actually spend time just imagining perfect performance.
I think that a little faith is missing from a lot of peoples' lives. There are too many people waiting for evidence of the things they want from life so that they can then believe that they can have them, and in doing so they place the cart before the horse.
Faith
Faith and relationships
Here's an example that's been on my mind for the last few days.
I recently read a book entitled He's just not that into you by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo (two of the minds behind Sex and the City). It's a self-help book aimed at women wanting to understand men, but I was curious to get a bit of perspective and indeed a lot of it could apply to both sexes. It covers all sorts of different situations that might come up but there is a common theme, which is that there are times when by far the best thing to do is to cut the guy loose and move on.
This is a lot easier to say than to do of course, for both men and women, because this scene is set against the backdrop of what I've heard called, rather aptly, "the great emotional depression". This is a concept I read about in a book called If I'm so wonderful why am I still single? by Susan Page (both of these volumes reside on my allocated "scare women away" bookshelf). Page comes to a similar conclusion as Behrendt, that people perceive their own self-worth to be so low and good partners to be in such short supply that they stay in better-than-nothing relationships lest they never find anyone else. Low self esteem everywhere; it's like the economic depression of the 1930s except it's not money that's not circulating freely, it's singles.
A lot of my friends are couples and when two people are really good for one another there's a chemistry that I think is just wonderful to see and this somehow transcends my jealousy. They remind me why I am single.
There are no two ways about it, being single is very difficult at times but there are worse things than being single. There is, for example, being in a relationship that isn't going anywhere and yet holding on in hope that there is a future, somehow things will get better, or kidding oneself that this is as good as it's ever going to get. The problem is that this isn't so apparent from the inside; it's very difficult to admit to oneself that there are no butterflies and that low self esteem is at least partly responsible for cementing a relationship together.
I know lukewarm better-than-nothing relationships can be comfortable but the terrible truth is this: whilst someone is invested in such mediocrity one they are closing themselves off to finding something truly amazing. That person with the capacity to truly melt their heart may just show up, see they're unavailable, sigh, shrug shoulders and move on to pastures new without them even realising.
This is where we come back to faith; to choose to be single in todays world is a massive leap of faith. It's about knowing what you want, what you truly desire, and believing without question that somewhere out there at some point in the future you will find it. Keeping the faith through the inevitable lonely evenings is difficult; keeping it in the face of romantic opportunities that are admittedly agreeable but fall short of ones needs is even more difficult.
There's no way to prove that special person is out there; it's about having faith.
Faith in oneself
Heraclitus, a greek philosopher, once said "Character is Destiny".
The people who live truly remarkable lives suffer the same setbacks and circumstances as anyone. What makes these people different? Well the difference comes from inside of them in the form of their set of beliefs.
I think it's important to decide who you are and where you want to go with your life, be it in your career, relationships, or any other goals.
If you believe, truly believe, that you can achieve great things your mind and body will move mountains to make this true. If you decide that it is in your character you will put yourself out there, get the knowledge, take the risks, make the mistakes, earn the experience and learn the lessons to get where you want to go.
The way to a great destiny is through character and a great character comes through belief.
Faith is a wonderful thing.
This time: "Science flies you to the moon; religion flies you into buildings"
Years ago I may have applauded along with the crowd at such a comment but nowadays I sigh at how my left-brained friends manage to so completely miss the point, which is one about belief.
Now, I'm agnostic; I see no evidence for the existence of a supreme being so I do not believe in one, but at the same I cannot disprove the existence of one either (if that sounds wishy-washy to you bear in mind I have a similar stance on the subject of the easter bunny).
Where I part company with many of my other godless friends is that I think that a life without faith is likely to be empty and unfulfilling. I just personally don't agree with religious faith.
To explain, as a hypnotist I feel I have more than a little insight into the human mind's capacity for belief. Let's face it, we're all capable of unquestioningly believing crazy things, evolution has wired us up that way, and the most impressive thing about belief is the way that it affects the nature of reality. I don't think that any kind of thinking is going to affect the objective universe, such as allow people to use telekinesis to unbend corkscrews, open a channel of communication to the deceased or make deities pop into objective existence, but bear in mind that none of us actually lives in an objective universe. You, and everybody you meet, live in a subjective universe, which is just your mind's interpretation of what your senses are telling you.
You are responsible for generating your perception of reality.
To the faithless the only way to think is one where belief follows evidence. This is fine if you want to work out something objective, such as calculate the age of the universe, but I think it's important to realise there are other areas in life where the scientific mindset doesn't have all the answers and can actually lead to mediocrity and misery. Those all too real entities in our worlds such as confidence, happiness, fulfillment are not objective quantities.
Faith, to me, is to place belief before evidence. Successful people, happy people, achievers, don't look for evidence that they will be successful, happy or get what they want; rather they believe it first. When we believe something our mind and body work overtime in thousands of imperceptible ways to make that thing true for us. This is why, for example, athletes will actually spend time just imagining perfect performance.
I think that a little faith is missing from a lot of peoples' lives. There are too many people waiting for evidence of the things they want from life so that they can then believe that they can have them, and in doing so they place the cart before the horse.
Faith and relationships
Here's an example that's been on my mind for the last few days.
I recently read a book entitled He's just not that into you by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo (two of the minds behind Sex and the City). It's a self-help book aimed at women wanting to understand men, but I was curious to get a bit of perspective and indeed a lot of it could apply to both sexes. It covers all sorts of different situations that might come up but there is a common theme, which is that there are times when by far the best thing to do is to cut the guy loose and move on.
This is a lot easier to say than to do of course, for both men and women, because this scene is set against the backdrop of what I've heard called, rather aptly, "the great emotional depression". This is a concept I read about in a book called If I'm so wonderful why am I still single? by Susan Page (both of these volumes reside on my allocated "scare women away" bookshelf). Page comes to a similar conclusion as Behrendt, that people perceive their own self-worth to be so low and good partners to be in such short supply that they stay in better-than-nothing relationships lest they never find anyone else. Low self esteem everywhere; it's like the economic depression of the 1930s except it's not money that's not circulating freely, it's singles.
A lot of my friends are couples and when two people are really good for one another there's a chemistry that I think is just wonderful to see and this somehow transcends my jealousy. They remind me why I am single.
There are no two ways about it, being single is very difficult at times but there are worse things than being single. There is, for example, being in a relationship that isn't going anywhere and yet holding on in hope that there is a future, somehow things will get better, or kidding oneself that this is as good as it's ever going to get. The problem is that this isn't so apparent from the inside; it's very difficult to admit to oneself that there are no butterflies and that low self esteem is at least partly responsible for cementing a relationship together.
I know lukewarm better-than-nothing relationships can be comfortable but the terrible truth is this: whilst someone is invested in such mediocrity one they are closing themselves off to finding something truly amazing. That person with the capacity to truly melt their heart may just show up, see they're unavailable, sigh, shrug shoulders and move on to pastures new without them even realising.
This is where we come back to faith; to choose to be single in todays world is a massive leap of faith. It's about knowing what you want, what you truly desire, and believing without question that somewhere out there at some point in the future you will find it. Keeping the faith through the inevitable lonely evenings is difficult; keeping it in the face of romantic opportunities that are admittedly agreeable but fall short of ones needs is even more difficult.
There's no way to prove that special person is out there; it's about having faith.
Faith in oneself
Heraclitus, a greek philosopher, once said "Character is Destiny".
The people who live truly remarkable lives suffer the same setbacks and circumstances as anyone. What makes these people different? Well the difference comes from inside of them in the form of their set of beliefs.
I think it's important to decide who you are and where you want to go with your life, be it in your career, relationships, or any other goals.
If you believe, truly believe, that you can achieve great things your mind and body will move mountains to make this true. If you decide that it is in your character you will put yourself out there, get the knowledge, take the risks, make the mistakes, earn the experience and learn the lessons to get where you want to go.
The way to a great destiny is through character and a great character comes through belief.
Faith is a wonderful thing.
Friday 25 February 2011
Intuition
I recently had a disagreement with a person I know. I won't go into specifics but suffice to say I had stated something to her which I knew to be a fact.
No, I was told, that's not right. I was even called a liar.
Well fine, I responded, but here's why what I say is true. Fact, fact, fact, and therefore, orignal fact.
All of that is true, came the reply, but I am going to believe my intuition.
Any logically minded individual will recognise the kind of frustration this has the potential to engender. What does this say about this person? Does it mean she's stupid, or insane? Well, no. What it means is that she's just human.
Imagine you were rolling dice and you rolled a 1, say, five times in a row. What does logic tell you the result of the next roll will be? What does intuition tell you it will be?
I once knew another person who insisted to me that her first impressions of a person always turned out to be right. As I got to know her better I could see that in her subjective view of the world she was absolutely right. The reason for this was that everything she saw of a new person after their first meeting was being viewed through the filter of her first impression. It's not uncommon either, it's something everyone does to some extent.
A few months ago I was at a social gathering and I made eye contact with a woman I'd never seen before. I met her gaze and held it, and it was about four or five seconds before she looked away and wandered off. Now, any guy who has studied attraction will know what effect holding a woman's gaze until it's her that breaks it can have. Sure enough when I actually got introduced to her she was all smiles and visibly nervous. I met her on several more occasions and by the end she was dropping fairly unsubtle hints that she wanted me to ask her out.
I am willing to bet that had I acted differently in those first few moments my relationship with this person would have been entirely different. Why? Because when she and I actually met her intuition was probably already telling her that I am strong, comfortable and confident and therefore attractive. If I'd done what a lot of men do when they make eye contact with a woman, which is to look away and down, she certainly would not have thought about me in the same way. The same people, the same lives and values, but a completely different relationship.
This isn't just with women of course, men are also completely capable of thinking this way. We all, trust me, do it far more often than we realise. Women are, on the whole, much more prone to making up their mind based on the premise of their infallible "Women's intuition".
Actually, whilst I'm commenting on the complete irrationality of the fairer sex I'll mention an interesting thing I found during my brief forray into online dating, which is that in this context women trust their intuition despite (given the nature of communication being text only) most of it not being plugged into anything. It's like a case of communicational phantom limb syndrome.
Most men of course simply see large breasts and think "Hmm, that woman must definitely be a nice person!"
This is what I'm getting at: often the intuition is arguably very wrong, but as far as the person is concerned it is right. Get the other person's unconscious intuitive process on board and there is no end to the sort of stuff you can get away with; likewise strike the wrong chord and it doesn't matter how honest you are. This is why, for example, people will happily get taken in by con artists, and why some of the most harmless honourably intentioned yet lonely men get rejected by women as creepy.
So there are two things to take away from this I think. The first is the understanding that getting a person's intuition on your side is crucial to having a positive influence on them. People don't instinctively judge you as good or bad based on your expressed morals, beliefs or intentions, they base it on your presentation of yourself. Putting yourself across in a way that wins over another person's intuition is learned skill, but it's worth learning because if you can do it their logical brain will often jump through hoops to agree with you. I would call the extreme example of this hypnosis.
Conversely trying to fight a person's intuition with facts, regardless of how true and clear they are to you, is a losing battle. The telltale is the emotional attachment, and clawing at it with logic will only make it dig itself in deeper.
The second thing is to begin to recognise when this is happening to you. If somebody challenges you on something you believe and you feel yourself getting emotional about it this is a good sign that there is some level of irrationality to your thinking. One very important lesson I've learned is which feelings to take as a sign that I need to stop and reconsider my own beliefs - there's a particular feeling of discomfort that tells me I'm definitely onto something.
Admitting to being wrong in the face of strong emotions that tell us we're right can be difficult, but those who can do it stand to learn a lot and grow as people.
It's harder to be wrong than right.
So going back to my earlier disagreement. As you would expect I performed an amazing feat of conversational hypnosis, engaging her on an emotional level, so convinving her that my opinion is worthy of her trust and thus winning her over to my argument.
Actually no I didn't. Sometimes you just have to let people believe whatever bollocks they want to believe. Sometimes the best thing one can do is just walk away.
No, I was told, that's not right. I was even called a liar.
Well fine, I responded, but here's why what I say is true. Fact, fact, fact, and therefore, orignal fact.
All of that is true, came the reply, but I am going to believe my intuition.
Any logically minded individual will recognise the kind of frustration this has the potential to engender. What does this say about this person? Does it mean she's stupid, or insane? Well, no. What it means is that she's just human.
Imagine you were rolling dice and you rolled a 1, say, five times in a row. What does logic tell you the result of the next roll will be? What does intuition tell you it will be?
I once knew another person who insisted to me that her first impressions of a person always turned out to be right. As I got to know her better I could see that in her subjective view of the world she was absolutely right. The reason for this was that everything she saw of a new person after their first meeting was being viewed through the filter of her first impression. It's not uncommon either, it's something everyone does to some extent.
A few months ago I was at a social gathering and I made eye contact with a woman I'd never seen before. I met her gaze and held it, and it was about four or five seconds before she looked away and wandered off. Now, any guy who has studied attraction will know what effect holding a woman's gaze until it's her that breaks it can have. Sure enough when I actually got introduced to her she was all smiles and visibly nervous. I met her on several more occasions and by the end she was dropping fairly unsubtle hints that she wanted me to ask her out.
I am willing to bet that had I acted differently in those first few moments my relationship with this person would have been entirely different. Why? Because when she and I actually met her intuition was probably already telling her that I am strong, comfortable and confident and therefore attractive. If I'd done what a lot of men do when they make eye contact with a woman, which is to look away and down, she certainly would not have thought about me in the same way. The same people, the same lives and values, but a completely different relationship.
This isn't just with women of course, men are also completely capable of thinking this way. We all, trust me, do it far more often than we realise. Women are, on the whole, much more prone to making up their mind based on the premise of their infallible "Women's intuition".
Actually, whilst I'm commenting on the complete irrationality of the fairer sex I'll mention an interesting thing I found during my brief forray into online dating, which is that in this context women trust their intuition despite (given the nature of communication being text only) most of it not being plugged into anything. It's like a case of communicational phantom limb syndrome.
Most men of course simply see large breasts and think "Hmm, that woman must definitely be a nice person!"
This is what I'm getting at: often the intuition is arguably very wrong, but as far as the person is concerned it is right. Get the other person's unconscious intuitive process on board and there is no end to the sort of stuff you can get away with; likewise strike the wrong chord and it doesn't matter how honest you are. This is why, for example, people will happily get taken in by con artists, and why some of the most harmless honourably intentioned yet lonely men get rejected by women as creepy.
So there are two things to take away from this I think. The first is the understanding that getting a person's intuition on your side is crucial to having a positive influence on them. People don't instinctively judge you as good or bad based on your expressed morals, beliefs or intentions, they base it on your presentation of yourself. Putting yourself across in a way that wins over another person's intuition is learned skill, but it's worth learning because if you can do it their logical brain will often jump through hoops to agree with you. I would call the extreme example of this hypnosis.
Conversely trying to fight a person's intuition with facts, regardless of how true and clear they are to you, is a losing battle. The telltale is the emotional attachment, and clawing at it with logic will only make it dig itself in deeper.
The second thing is to begin to recognise when this is happening to you. If somebody challenges you on something you believe and you feel yourself getting emotional about it this is a good sign that there is some level of irrationality to your thinking. One very important lesson I've learned is which feelings to take as a sign that I need to stop and reconsider my own beliefs - there's a particular feeling of discomfort that tells me I'm definitely onto something.
Admitting to being wrong in the face of strong emotions that tell us we're right can be difficult, but those who can do it stand to learn a lot and grow as people.
It's harder to be wrong than right.
So going back to my earlier disagreement. As you would expect I performed an amazing feat of conversational hypnosis, engaging her on an emotional level, so convinving her that my opinion is worthy of her trust and thus winning her over to my argument.
Actually no I didn't. Sometimes you just have to let people believe whatever bollocks they want to believe. Sometimes the best thing one can do is just walk away.
Tuesday 1 February 2011
Serendipity from misery
Last night I figured something out about my own hypnotisability. It's early days, but I think I've hit on something fundamental, and what's more it's so blindingly obvious that I can't believe that it didn't occur to me sooner.
To make this discovery I needed to be extremely miserable. I have to say one of the best pieces of advice I've ever been given about being single, which I wish I'd know years ago, is that it's important to give oneself permission to be miserable from time to time. Don't get me wrong life is great at the moment for me but inevitably for any singleton there will be a day each month when they come home late to an empty home after a long day at work and the lack of companionship does tend to bite somewhat. In these situations it is best to face the negative feelings directly to get over them rather than to try to deny them or feel guilt for having them and end up wallowing in it for days.
For some reason on this particular occasion I decided that a hypnosis mp3 or two would be a good idea for something to listen to whilst I mulled over my state of mind. I find that when hypnosis is working best my thoughts fly off on a tangent and then fade, rather like a spark from a Catherine wheel. My idea was I'd listen to the mp3 whilst distracting myself with my own contemplation.
I went out like a light.
Not only that, over the course of the fastest hour in history the feelings turned from misery to intense joy.
Here then is my discovery about my own hypnotic response, and indeed why in the past it has varied so much. It seems that for a good trance I need to be emotionally charged.
The most ridiculous thing is that I have known about the significance of emotions in hypnosis for a long time. Indeed one of my pet peeves is the people who come to hypnosis from a background of computer programming (why are there so many of them?) and think that it is basically the same kind of dry, emotionless, command-action based process. "if this, then you will do that", and so on. A true hypnotist doesn't care about eliminating syntax errors, they are more interested in making sure their subject feels good. Crucially, following a suggestion should always be downhill for the subject; easier and more pleasant to follow than to snap out of it.
The concept that an emotional state is powerful catalyst, if not an absolute requirement for hypnosis should have been obvious to me.
This another one of those things that good hypnotic subjects know already, and thus a lot of hypnotists don't know because it's not something they've ever needed to instruct. Indeed the mp3s I have been listening to do nothing to induce an emotional state other that instructing the subject to relax.
So here's the lesson boys and girls: if you want a good trance, go for an emotional response.
To make this discovery I needed to be extremely miserable. I have to say one of the best pieces of advice I've ever been given about being single, which I wish I'd know years ago, is that it's important to give oneself permission to be miserable from time to time. Don't get me wrong life is great at the moment for me but inevitably for any singleton there will be a day each month when they come home late to an empty home after a long day at work and the lack of companionship does tend to bite somewhat. In these situations it is best to face the negative feelings directly to get over them rather than to try to deny them or feel guilt for having them and end up wallowing in it for days.
For some reason on this particular occasion I decided that a hypnosis mp3 or two would be a good idea for something to listen to whilst I mulled over my state of mind. I find that when hypnosis is working best my thoughts fly off on a tangent and then fade, rather like a spark from a Catherine wheel. My idea was I'd listen to the mp3 whilst distracting myself with my own contemplation.
I went out like a light.
Not only that, over the course of the fastest hour in history the feelings turned from misery to intense joy.
Here then is my discovery about my own hypnotic response, and indeed why in the past it has varied so much. It seems that for a good trance I need to be emotionally charged.
The most ridiculous thing is that I have known about the significance of emotions in hypnosis for a long time. Indeed one of my pet peeves is the people who come to hypnosis from a background of computer programming (why are there so many of them?) and think that it is basically the same kind of dry, emotionless, command-action based process. "if this, then you will do that", and so on. A true hypnotist doesn't care about eliminating syntax errors, they are more interested in making sure their subject feels good. Crucially, following a suggestion should always be downhill for the subject; easier and more pleasant to follow than to snap out of it.
The concept that an emotional state is powerful catalyst, if not an absolute requirement for hypnosis should have been obvious to me.
This another one of those things that good hypnotic subjects know already, and thus a lot of hypnotists don't know because it's not something they've ever needed to instruct. Indeed the mp3s I have been listening to do nothing to induce an emotional state other that instructing the subject to relax.
So here's the lesson boys and girls: if you want a good trance, go for an emotional response.
Sunday 30 January 2011
Why I love to Jive
Today I have been in London attending a workshop and it's brought me to understand a number of concepts, which I would like to share.
Readers of this blog will have noticed that I like to bring in references to other activities that I have participated in. Part of this is because I believe that a broad range of very different skills are worth more than the sum of its parts, but I also think it is true to say that an understanding of hypnosis is something that greatly enriches ones understanding of all aspects of life.
Something that has always been true of me is that I like to embrace completely new challenges from time to time. A few years ago I had a conversation with a co-worker about his interest in modern jive dancing. When, back in November, I found myself wanting to find new things to do with my time, and because dancing was definitely not me, as in not the sort of thing I'd ever even considered doing before, I of course threw myself straight into it.
If not modern jive, I can definitely recommend this attitude to life.
I also make no secret of the fact that meeting women played no small part in my motivation. As with most people whose vocation in life lies with engineering, the physical sciences or computers, my relationship with attractive young women has in the past been as a man lost in the desert's relationship with water. Meeting lots of women in an environment where the only agenda is to have fun has only been a good thing for me.
So how does modern jive relate to hypnosis? Well, I experienced a moment during the workshop today that connected so many dots it took me a couple of hours to trace all the lines. Hypnosis, trance, the subconscious and attraction all tied together, and it's beautiful.
You see as it's a partner dance one person, the man, leads and the other, the woman, follows. The link to hypnosis came out of the moment when the guy teaching the course started to demonstrate some of the more advanced concepts of lead and follow with his assistant. She was a gorgeous young woman with a wonderful petite figure, short brown hair and shining blue eyes, but the most impressive thing about her was the way she moved because it was so smooth and elegant, especially the way her hips swayed as she transfered her weight from foot to foot. She'd been dancing for five years, actually had "To live... Is to dance" tattooed on her forearm, and every movement of her body seemed so easy and natural.
It was when the teacher took her hand and started showing the men how to lead, however, that the hypnotist inside me woke up. "Oh my goodness" it said "she's going into trance". It was as plain as day, the shift in mental state was all over her face; I know that look and I'd recognise it anywhere! She was looking at the teacher with a blank receptive expression, her eyes locked on him, as her body responded to the instructions his hands gave her: forward; back; spin left; spin right. Obviously over years of dancing she has reached a point where no conscious input is required, she knows the cues and the subconscious responds making her body move as though on autopilot.
So firstly we have what every person who enjoys exercise has, which is a trance state. Secondly she is being purely feminine: she doesn't have to think along a timeline; she doesn't have to think about anything spacial; she can live and express herself in the moment. Finally we have the kind of sexual polarity that David Deida talks about between masculine and feminie that exists in the dance state (pardon the pun). Feminity is balanced against the masculinity of her dance partner who confidently leads the way into the next move and is always there to catch her.
No wonder she loves dancing!
A nice little showcase of this kind of lead and follow comes in an exercise that beginners to modern jive are shown. Partners stand facing each other and place their palms against the palms of their partner with just a little bit of pressure. The follower's role is to maintain that pressure and to move in whatever way is necessary to do so. The leader is thus able to move their partner around just by moving their own hands. The result feels exactly the same as a hypnotic hand stick and I guess a lot of the principles are the same. For the follower it's about agreeing to be led (not controlled; led) and going with it. If they really trust you, as the leader you can get them to close their eyes, lead them backward, forward, turn them in either direction and, if you're feeling particularly mischievous, without warning deposit them into the nearest sofa.
Before you ask yes I have been tempted to weave in a little hypnosis into that exercise, and I will probably at some point come up with a routine based on it.
Anyway, coming back to the hot assistant and her dance trance, so many things about what I find attractive in women slotted into place too. I have always found a woman's eyes to be the outward feature I find most attractive and I always know when a woman has had an impact on me because I have a lingering impression of her eye colour; it's possibly the closest thing I've ever had to synesthesia. Anyway I always thought my affinity for eyes was because they express personality and intelligence, and of course they do, but now I think there's more to it than that. I think that what I am seeing and being attracted to, certain looks and expressions, is an expression of something that is deeply feminine; that receptive almost entranced look especially.
Yes I did dance with that girl at the workshop. It was a lot of fun but my word was it intimidating. Asking "how did I do?" most unattractively after running through new moves was something that I found most difficult, although she did give me some very useful pointers on technique.
Going back to attraction a month or so ago following a conversation with a female friend who was having trouble finding men she was attracted to I wanted to see if there was any material out there that was the female equivalent of David DeAngelo's Double your Dating. I came across an ebook that seems to be exactly that called Sensuality Secrets written by a woman called Patty Contenta, and it turns out that she is a ballroom dance teacher. I actually found it fascinating because the emphasis is entirely different to all the material out there for men as it focuses on posture and body language, which I guess reflects how different the sense of attractiveness is to men and women.
My friend's reaction was interesting though, because she commented that a lot of the Sensuality Secrets stuff, from the preview material on the website, just comes across as being subservient. This came at around about the same time as a friend's girlfriend, who is a feminist, commented that I shouldn't be approaching women and taking it for granted I will be leading the dance, rather I should be asking them if they would like me to. I think these are responses that are indicative of the difficulties facing men in the modern era. Women are so empowered nowadays and some would even say women are so independent that they don't need men any more. What is our role supposed to be if we are no longer the breadwinners and the head of the household?
Personally I happen to think that women need men more than ever in the modern age. Women need men in order to be women, just as night cannot exist without day. It's all about polarity, and there is no escaping the behaviours and desires that evolution gave us. I think the independence and equality women have today is a very good thing; I actually find myself most attracted to strong independent women. Deep down though all women want to be led when it's time to dance; dance literally or metaphorically; they want to feel that polarity with a partner even if they don't understand it.
So, I like to dance because partner dancing is a microcosm of the relationship between a man and a woman. It's a great way for the sexes to appreciate what they want from each other when it comes to what they need from each other. Attraction is a dance, flirting is a dance, dating is a dance. As a man I can concentrate on learning the steps, leading with confidence, and letting everything flow naturally.
Above all though, dancing is fun.
Readers of this blog will have noticed that I like to bring in references to other activities that I have participated in. Part of this is because I believe that a broad range of very different skills are worth more than the sum of its parts, but I also think it is true to say that an understanding of hypnosis is something that greatly enriches ones understanding of all aspects of life.
Something that has always been true of me is that I like to embrace completely new challenges from time to time. A few years ago I had a conversation with a co-worker about his interest in modern jive dancing. When, back in November, I found myself wanting to find new things to do with my time, and because dancing was definitely not me, as in not the sort of thing I'd ever even considered doing before, I of course threw myself straight into it.
If not modern jive, I can definitely recommend this attitude to life.
I also make no secret of the fact that meeting women played no small part in my motivation. As with most people whose vocation in life lies with engineering, the physical sciences or computers, my relationship with attractive young women has in the past been as a man lost in the desert's relationship with water. Meeting lots of women in an environment where the only agenda is to have fun has only been a good thing for me.
So how does modern jive relate to hypnosis? Well, I experienced a moment during the workshop today that connected so many dots it took me a couple of hours to trace all the lines. Hypnosis, trance, the subconscious and attraction all tied together, and it's beautiful.
You see as it's a partner dance one person, the man, leads and the other, the woman, follows. The link to hypnosis came out of the moment when the guy teaching the course started to demonstrate some of the more advanced concepts of lead and follow with his assistant. She was a gorgeous young woman with a wonderful petite figure, short brown hair and shining blue eyes, but the most impressive thing about her was the way she moved because it was so smooth and elegant, especially the way her hips swayed as she transfered her weight from foot to foot. She'd been dancing for five years, actually had "To live... Is to dance" tattooed on her forearm, and every movement of her body seemed so easy and natural.
It was when the teacher took her hand and started showing the men how to lead, however, that the hypnotist inside me woke up. "Oh my goodness" it said "she's going into trance". It was as plain as day, the shift in mental state was all over her face; I know that look and I'd recognise it anywhere! She was looking at the teacher with a blank receptive expression, her eyes locked on him, as her body responded to the instructions his hands gave her: forward; back; spin left; spin right. Obviously over years of dancing she has reached a point where no conscious input is required, she knows the cues and the subconscious responds making her body move as though on autopilot.
So firstly we have what every person who enjoys exercise has, which is a trance state. Secondly she is being purely feminine: she doesn't have to think along a timeline; she doesn't have to think about anything spacial; she can live and express herself in the moment. Finally we have the kind of sexual polarity that David Deida talks about between masculine and feminie that exists in the dance state (pardon the pun). Feminity is balanced against the masculinity of her dance partner who confidently leads the way into the next move and is always there to catch her.
No wonder she loves dancing!
A nice little showcase of this kind of lead and follow comes in an exercise that beginners to modern jive are shown. Partners stand facing each other and place their palms against the palms of their partner with just a little bit of pressure. The follower's role is to maintain that pressure and to move in whatever way is necessary to do so. The leader is thus able to move their partner around just by moving their own hands. The result feels exactly the same as a hypnotic hand stick and I guess a lot of the principles are the same. For the follower it's about agreeing to be led (not controlled; led) and going with it. If they really trust you, as the leader you can get them to close their eyes, lead them backward, forward, turn them in either direction and, if you're feeling particularly mischievous, without warning deposit them into the nearest sofa.
Before you ask yes I have been tempted to weave in a little hypnosis into that exercise, and I will probably at some point come up with a routine based on it.
Anyway, coming back to the hot assistant and her dance trance, so many things about what I find attractive in women slotted into place too. I have always found a woman's eyes to be the outward feature I find most attractive and I always know when a woman has had an impact on me because I have a lingering impression of her eye colour; it's possibly the closest thing I've ever had to synesthesia. Anyway I always thought my affinity for eyes was because they express personality and intelligence, and of course they do, but now I think there's more to it than that. I think that what I am seeing and being attracted to, certain looks and expressions, is an expression of something that is deeply feminine; that receptive almost entranced look especially.
Yes I did dance with that girl at the workshop. It was a lot of fun but my word was it intimidating. Asking "how did I do?" most unattractively after running through new moves was something that I found most difficult, although she did give me some very useful pointers on technique.
Going back to attraction a month or so ago following a conversation with a female friend who was having trouble finding men she was attracted to I wanted to see if there was any material out there that was the female equivalent of David DeAngelo's Double your Dating. I came across an ebook that seems to be exactly that called Sensuality Secrets written by a woman called Patty Contenta, and it turns out that she is a ballroom dance teacher. I actually found it fascinating because the emphasis is entirely different to all the material out there for men as it focuses on posture and body language, which I guess reflects how different the sense of attractiveness is to men and women.
My friend's reaction was interesting though, because she commented that a lot of the Sensuality Secrets stuff, from the preview material on the website, just comes across as being subservient. This came at around about the same time as a friend's girlfriend, who is a feminist, commented that I shouldn't be approaching women and taking it for granted I will be leading the dance, rather I should be asking them if they would like me to. I think these are responses that are indicative of the difficulties facing men in the modern era. Women are so empowered nowadays and some would even say women are so independent that they don't need men any more. What is our role supposed to be if we are no longer the breadwinners and the head of the household?
Personally I happen to think that women need men more than ever in the modern age. Women need men in order to be women, just as night cannot exist without day. It's all about polarity, and there is no escaping the behaviours and desires that evolution gave us. I think the independence and equality women have today is a very good thing; I actually find myself most attracted to strong independent women. Deep down though all women want to be led when it's time to dance; dance literally or metaphorically; they want to feel that polarity with a partner even if they don't understand it.
So, I like to dance because partner dancing is a microcosm of the relationship between a man and a woman. It's a great way for the sexes to appreciate what they want from each other when it comes to what they need from each other. Attraction is a dance, flirting is a dance, dating is a dance. As a man I can concentrate on learning the steps, leading with confidence, and letting everything flow naturally.
Above all though, dancing is fun.
Wednesday 26 January 2011
First timers I
Right, enough of my musings; now for something actually useful.
I've had a few friends who have looked at doing a bit of hypnosis, have read a book or two, or a hundred, on how to do it and yet still haven't hypnotised anybody. This is crucial, because to my mind nobody can call themself a hypnotist until they have actually hypnotised another person, in person; it's the distinction between being a hypnotist and being a person who knows a bit about hypnosis. I should say if your sole body of experience is hypnosis over MSN, or god forbid you're one of those people who has put put up a youtube video featuring only text or a computer generated voice, you are only a person who knows a bit about hypnosis.
Anyway, I was recently chatting with a friend who has yet to put her knowledge of hypnosis into action and she said that something that's bee a problem for her is knowing what to do next. She said what would really help her would be a routine to try, so I promised I would write something to encourage her to go forward with it.
So if you're one of these people who has learned about hypnosis but never (let's face it) worked up the nerve to go and give it a go with someone, this is for you. In this post I will give you some principles to think about, and then in the next I will give you an actual routine to go and try.
So, here is my advice to newbies.
1. Deal with your anxiety.
Do you know that feeling you get when you think you'd like to bring up your interest in hypnosis or ask someone to be your subject? That feeling of anxiety that comes up and makes it so easy to do nothing and let another opportunity slip through your fingers? Some news for you: this feeling will never go away. I would say that most or indeed every hypnotist gets this feeling, but what distinguishes them is an ability to act in the face of it.
A lot of people think they can overcome anxiety by learning more, or maybe they're just procrastinating. Either way I'm afraid this doesn't work. By all means keep reading, but understand that the only way you will get to hypnotise someone is by just getting on with it.
The best analogue for the feeling I can think of for me has been in the past when there's been an attractive woman I've wanted to go and talk to. Something that the pickup artist community puts about is the idea of the so-called three second rule - when you see her you have three seconds to go over to her or it's over before it's even begun. I think employing a similar principle with opportunities for hypnosis is a good idea. In the moment don't give yourself time to think; have a routine ready so you know where to start; go straight in.
I mean it! Don't think, GO!
The good news is that this feeling is a peak not a plateau. If you can face it and climb over it you will find yourself coasting down the other side. Once over the top you'll be on what B.A. Baracas used to call "The Jazz" and trust me for that feeling alone it's worth it. Learn to embrace your anxiety as a positive sign that you're pushing the bounds of your comfort zone. It's the time for full speed ahead because if you backpedal or even coast for just a moment you will never have the momentum to make it over that peak.
2. Find a good subject
This would be worth a whole blog post in itself but I'll mention a few key things here.
I would advise against working to persuade someone to be your subject because I have never had particularly good results from doing this. More often than not they will be looking for the first opportunity to let you down gently by saying it isn't working.
Think differently; don't hunt for a subject, fish for one. Trust me, if you mention in passing to enough people that you know how to do hypnosis it will only be a matter of time before someone will ask you to hypnotise them. This is the person you want to work with.
If your reply to the above is that you've asked everyone you know and nobody wants to give it a try consider it a signal that you should be going out and broadening your circle of friends. After all, what use is this skill to you if you have nobody you can use it with?
Girlfriends/Boyfriends or family members can be the worst people to try on for the first time, so only use them if they are especially keen to try.
3. Be the hypnotist
This is the standard advice that anyone teaching hypnosis will give, with good reason of course because it is far more important than any technique you will ever learn as a hypnotist. Here's my spin on it.
It's completely possible learn an induction word for word and execute it by numbers absolutely perfectly yet have absolutely nothing will happen for the subject. If you find that this is happening for you repeatedly the chances are you are not being the hypnotist.
Hypnosis is a game of lead and follow; it's a dance. Yes knowing the steps is useful but your dance partner isn't going to follow your signal to metaphorically drop all their weight into your arms unless they are certain you can take their weight. They aren't going to cede their control over their situation to somebody who isn't themself clearly and confidently in control. This is what hypnotists mean when they talk about congruence, knowing the words but matching it with a confident tone of voice and body language. The best, if not the only, way to achieve congruence is through inner belief and confidence in what you are doing.
No method will ever hypnotise a subject; it's your undoubting belief that you are able to hypnotise the subject that hypnotises them. Learn the method, learn the principles, forget the method. Be the hypnotist.
4. You are going to fail
Don't believe what you see on youtube, not everybody is an amazing subject. You are going to come across people who just do not respond to you with hypnotic phenomena. If you get really, really good perhaps you'll achieve something like an 80% success rate in an impromptu setting. If you go to hypnotise people you are going to fail from time to time; it's inevitable. Deal with it.
Now cross out the word "fail". With the right mindset you cannot fail.
There's an expression, "sometimes you win, sometimes you learn". Success in finding a brilliant subject is a lot of fun but it's not a good teacher. Embrace the times when things don't go to plan because you will learn a lot from them. Ask your subject what they were thinking, what the experience was like, because you will start to spot patterns and improve your technique over time.
Also remember that as the hypnotist the chances are you are the only person who really knows what's going on and what's supposed to happen. Often the first sign observers and even your subject will get that something isn't quite going to plan is when you bring it to their attention. The best musicians get away with playing a wrong note by not missing a beat.
5. Have fun!
Finally if, like me, you're approaching this as a hobby for goodness sake remember that you are doing it for fun. Loosen up, relax and enjoy yourself; if you do your subject will too.
I hope this has been helpful. Part II to follow soon.
I've had a few friends who have looked at doing a bit of hypnosis, have read a book or two, or a hundred, on how to do it and yet still haven't hypnotised anybody. This is crucial, because to my mind nobody can call themself a hypnotist until they have actually hypnotised another person, in person; it's the distinction between being a hypnotist and being a person who knows a bit about hypnosis. I should say if your sole body of experience is hypnosis over MSN, or god forbid you're one of those people who has put put up a youtube video featuring only text or a computer generated voice, you are only a person who knows a bit about hypnosis.
Anyway, I was recently chatting with a friend who has yet to put her knowledge of hypnosis into action and she said that something that's bee a problem for her is knowing what to do next. She said what would really help her would be a routine to try, so I promised I would write something to encourage her to go forward with it.
So if you're one of these people who has learned about hypnosis but never (let's face it) worked up the nerve to go and give it a go with someone, this is for you. In this post I will give you some principles to think about, and then in the next I will give you an actual routine to go and try.
So, here is my advice to newbies.
1. Deal with your anxiety.
Do you know that feeling you get when you think you'd like to bring up your interest in hypnosis or ask someone to be your subject? That feeling of anxiety that comes up and makes it so easy to do nothing and let another opportunity slip through your fingers? Some news for you: this feeling will never go away. I would say that most or indeed every hypnotist gets this feeling, but what distinguishes them is an ability to act in the face of it.
A lot of people think they can overcome anxiety by learning more, or maybe they're just procrastinating. Either way I'm afraid this doesn't work. By all means keep reading, but understand that the only way you will get to hypnotise someone is by just getting on with it.
The best analogue for the feeling I can think of for me has been in the past when there's been an attractive woman I've wanted to go and talk to. Something that the pickup artist community puts about is the idea of the so-called three second rule - when you see her you have three seconds to go over to her or it's over before it's even begun. I think employing a similar principle with opportunities for hypnosis is a good idea. In the moment don't give yourself time to think; have a routine ready so you know where to start; go straight in.
I mean it! Don't think, GO!
The good news is that this feeling is a peak not a plateau. If you can face it and climb over it you will find yourself coasting down the other side. Once over the top you'll be on what B.A. Baracas used to call "The Jazz" and trust me for that feeling alone it's worth it. Learn to embrace your anxiety as a positive sign that you're pushing the bounds of your comfort zone. It's the time for full speed ahead because if you backpedal or even coast for just a moment you will never have the momentum to make it over that peak.
2. Find a good subject
This would be worth a whole blog post in itself but I'll mention a few key things here.
I would advise against working to persuade someone to be your subject because I have never had particularly good results from doing this. More often than not they will be looking for the first opportunity to let you down gently by saying it isn't working.
Think differently; don't hunt for a subject, fish for one. Trust me, if you mention in passing to enough people that you know how to do hypnosis it will only be a matter of time before someone will ask you to hypnotise them. This is the person you want to work with.
If your reply to the above is that you've asked everyone you know and nobody wants to give it a try consider it a signal that you should be going out and broadening your circle of friends. After all, what use is this skill to you if you have nobody you can use it with?
Girlfriends/Boyfriends or family members can be the worst people to try on for the first time, so only use them if they are especially keen to try.
3. Be the hypnotist
This is the standard advice that anyone teaching hypnosis will give, with good reason of course because it is far more important than any technique you will ever learn as a hypnotist. Here's my spin on it.
It's completely possible learn an induction word for word and execute it by numbers absolutely perfectly yet have absolutely nothing will happen for the subject. If you find that this is happening for you repeatedly the chances are you are not being the hypnotist.
Hypnosis is a game of lead and follow; it's a dance. Yes knowing the steps is useful but your dance partner isn't going to follow your signal to metaphorically drop all their weight into your arms unless they are certain you can take their weight. They aren't going to cede their control over their situation to somebody who isn't themself clearly and confidently in control. This is what hypnotists mean when they talk about congruence, knowing the words but matching it with a confident tone of voice and body language. The best, if not the only, way to achieve congruence is through inner belief and confidence in what you are doing.
No method will ever hypnotise a subject; it's your undoubting belief that you are able to hypnotise the subject that hypnotises them. Learn the method, learn the principles, forget the method. Be the hypnotist.
4. You are going to fail
Don't believe what you see on youtube, not everybody is an amazing subject. You are going to come across people who just do not respond to you with hypnotic phenomena. If you get really, really good perhaps you'll achieve something like an 80% success rate in an impromptu setting. If you go to hypnotise people you are going to fail from time to time; it's inevitable. Deal with it.
Now cross out the word "fail". With the right mindset you cannot fail.
There's an expression, "sometimes you win, sometimes you learn". Success in finding a brilliant subject is a lot of fun but it's not a good teacher. Embrace the times when things don't go to plan because you will learn a lot from them. Ask your subject what they were thinking, what the experience was like, because you will start to spot patterns and improve your technique over time.
Also remember that as the hypnotist the chances are you are the only person who really knows what's going on and what's supposed to happen. Often the first sign observers and even your subject will get that something isn't quite going to plan is when you bring it to their attention. The best musicians get away with playing a wrong note by not missing a beat.
5. Have fun!
Finally if, like me, you're approaching this as a hobby for goodness sake remember that you are doing it for fun. Loosen up, relax and enjoy yourself; if you do your subject will too.
I hope this has been helpful. Part II to follow soon.
Movie clip
This is a clip from the film "My best friend's girl". It's not quite hypnosis but the psycology behind it intrigues me. Anyone who has read about attraction will instantly recognise what is going on here. It's David DeAngelo's concept of Cocky & Funny as an extreme sport.
It's also hilarious!
I love Kate Hudson because she's portrayed some really good characters over the years.
It's also hilarious!
I love Kate Hudson because she's portrayed some really good characters over the years.
Thursday 20 January 2011
Attraction and Hypnosis
Okay, whilst I've been incredibly busy for the last three months I'm beginning to realise just how much I miss blogging and so I've come back for another fix. You lucky people.
The last three months or so have passed in a bit of a blur, but I have also learned a lot in that time. Those of you who know me will know that I broke up with my long term girlfriend a while ago, which was both very emotional for me but also represented a major change in direction for my life. I am beginning to rather enjoy the single life, the freedom it affords me, and being on the market again so to speak.
Well, when I say that what I mean is I seem to be filling up my time with fun new activities rather than going out with the explicit intention of finding myself a new partner.
Never mind, as my previous girlfriend was never particularly keen on this hobby my current unattached state means that the gloves are off. I now have the opportunity to talk about hypnosis and dating and how the two relate to each other. Or rather, the experience of being single and knowing about hypnotic phenomena.
I have to say that now I'm single I'm seldom in a hurry to bring up the subject of my interest in hypnosis in conversation. I think this is because the first thing that occurs to me about hypnosis is its massive potential for creepiness. There is the whole Svengali evil hypnotist manipulating people to his own ends cliche that still persists to this day attached to the term hypnotist. Many people are very wary of something that they do not understand; I know this because that's how I felt before I entered this world.
My experience of bringing hypnosis up in conversation has been that most people who don't know about it immediately equate it with controlling other people. Any woman who doesn't have the word "Svengali" in her vocabulary will still be completely familiar with the cliche, and will at least have seen hypnotists in TV shows like Little Britain in which a stage hypnotist uses his skills on a date with a woman, or to get a woman's phone number. These scenes are hilarious and obviously ridiculous but I think they deliberately make light of what to some people might be a legitimate fear about being controlled through hypnosis.
Despite this I think there are also a lot of things that I think work in ones favour. Good hypnotists are by necessity good communicators, so for example we know how to build rapport and have awareness of small signals from another person's body language, which a lot of people just don't have. There are also other things like knowing how to make people feel positive emotions and feel good just through interaction. These are all attractive qualities.
Hypnosis, to me, isn't about control, and there are words like relaxation, connection, escape, detachment and sensuality that seem more appropriate and women are much more likely to appreciate.
Yes I know the line "I know how to make you orgasm using only my voice" might attract some women, but I suspect not the kind I'd want to attract.
Anyone who knows anything about what qualities in men women find attractive will of course know that on a deeper level most women are drawn to men who are naturally able to be in control of the situation, the natural leaders. Another plus point.
One of the books I have been through in the last few months is a book called The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida. It's an extremely abstract book, but in it he describes the concepts of masculine and feminine, which exist within everyone, and suggests that attraction comes from the polarity between the two. Masculinity being characterised by strength, leadership, and being a secure fixed point, whilst femininity is colour, motion, existing in the moment and all that is beautiful in the world. This comes close to my heart in that it immediately makes me think of jive dancing, where like in most forms of partner dance the man leads and the woman follows, spinning and gyrating around him.
I think hypnosis is a kind of partner dance, in a way, because like the follower in a dance the subject is not being controlled but merely being led. This is probably why most hypnotists I meet are male, and most people who are really keen to try hypnosis are female. Just like with partner dancing there is polarity here and theoretically great potential for attraction.
So yes I feel there are upsides and downsides to bringing hypnosis up in conversation with women, but I think that the above just scratches the surface of this topic. There is a deeper question here I feel, which is to do with the concept of using ones knowledge of hypnosis in attracting women.
Let's face it, I've persuaded people that the person sat next to me is wearing a non-existent viking helmet and that their glass of flat cola is really the most delicious ginger beer they've ever tasted. Surely as a hypnotist eliciting the simple emotional response of feeling attraction toward me from women shouldn't be too difficult, especially with a little background reading from books written by experts in attraction such as David DeAngelo and Ross Jeffries.
Well it shouldn't, but how does this stack up morally?
Let's just consider for a moment that I could do a Kenny Craig. That it really would be possible for me to approach any woman I took a fancy to, wave my hands around, tell her to look in the eyes not around the eyes, snap my fingers and have her under my power. Say I could even maintain the attraction toward me from this gimmick indefinitely. What value would my connection with her really have? How would I feel about it?
It might appeal to some men but definitely not me, and I suspect in being the sculptor of her reality I would feel incredibly lonely. I think the most important thing for me in a relationship is that the person I'm with has qualified me, that they have a firm grounding in reality and yet they know me and are drawn to me because they recognise the person that I am and my array of positive attributes. I set the bar very high in being most attracted to strong, mature, intelligent and independent women; I think it helps drive me toward being my best possible self.
Okay, so we'll have none of this covert hypnotic manipulation or any of these attraction techniques. Just be yourself and be nice, like mother said, and everything will be fine, right?
Sadly not.
The unfortunate truth is that all of those things that women say they want in a man: intelligence; great conversation; being a good listener; sense of humour; adventurousness; being passionate about life; common interests; sensitivity; morality; these are all meaningless and might as well be completely invisible if the guy doesn't know how to spark attraction with the woman. If he doesn't in the best case the woman will just befriend him and in the worst case he'll be punished for his honourable intentions by being told he's creepy.
This is a big "aha!" moment that I have had in the last three months; the realisation that attraction in women, like hypnosis, is something that can be induced. Attractiveness is something that men can actually learn. Anyone who has read The Game by Neil Strauss will know that this is what in essence the pick-up artist community is all about. They have developed the art of procedurally creating the feeling of attraction in a woman and by means of such techniques leading her all the way to the bedroom. Seldom beyond it should be added.
Anyone who understands hypnosis will recognise that accidental hypnosis is occurring naturally all the time and spot it when it's happening. I experienced a similar revelation when I started to understand which male behaviours women find attractive. It's something else that's going on all the time, though most people don't realise what, how or why.
If these are things that people who are naturally good with others, and especially women, are using anyway I conclude that I have absolutely no qualms about using them myself. To not do so would be to shoot myself in the foot; to punish myself for having explicit knowledge about such things.
But wait is this manipulation? Well let's talk for a moment about something really manipulative, which is the more common approach men take. A man goes up to a woman in a bar and says "Can I buy you a drink?". He's offering her a drink but the subtext, whether he's aware of it or not, is that she is therefore obliged to talk to him or more. In fact, any occasion where a man is deliberately nice toward a woman he is attracted to in order to try to gain her approval he can unfortunately be assumed to have the words "...and please sleep with me" tagged on the end of his action.
Women spend hours prettying themselves up before they go out, enhancing their attractiveness to men's primarily visual sense of attraction with clothes that flatter them, styling their hair and using makeup. Is that manipulation? If a man's character really is to a woman what a woman's figure, face and hair is to a man, why not put in the effort to make sure that one is presenting ones best self, especially as the effects are even more pronounced for men than they are for women.
I can see why some people might object to what the pick up artists do and say they're taking advantage of the women they pick up. Personally whilst I don't condone telling lies or misleading people I think that the women who go for pick up artists know what they're doing and it's their right to enjoy enjoy themselves. Interestingly nobody seems to be raising the same objections about the proverbial busty blonde with the perfect figure who uses what she has to get what she wants.
I think the interesting question is where to draw the line when using this stuff. What is quite acceptable, and what is just self-serving manipulation?
The answer, to me, lies in the advice of John Morgan and his website Real Human Connect. Recently he and James Tripp have been putting together a dating programme called attraction games, which I'm sure will be well worth a look once it's up and running. The central premise to both of these sites is utilising the concept of play as opposed to work. The idea of just having fun and enjoying what comes naturally, as opposed to going out with a specific agenda. If the only thing on the agenda is to have a good time how can one be manipulative? Is it even possible to manipulate people into having fun?
So this is where I stand at the moment. Have to say I'm enjoying life right now.
Stay tuned. More hypnosis stuff coming.
Parkey.
The last three months or so have passed in a bit of a blur, but I have also learned a lot in that time. Those of you who know me will know that I broke up with my long term girlfriend a while ago, which was both very emotional for me but also represented a major change in direction for my life. I am beginning to rather enjoy the single life, the freedom it affords me, and being on the market again so to speak.
Well, when I say that what I mean is I seem to be filling up my time with fun new activities rather than going out with the explicit intention of finding myself a new partner.
Never mind, as my previous girlfriend was never particularly keen on this hobby my current unattached state means that the gloves are off. I now have the opportunity to talk about hypnosis and dating and how the two relate to each other. Or rather, the experience of being single and knowing about hypnotic phenomena.
I have to say that now I'm single I'm seldom in a hurry to bring up the subject of my interest in hypnosis in conversation. I think this is because the first thing that occurs to me about hypnosis is its massive potential for creepiness. There is the whole Svengali evil hypnotist manipulating people to his own ends cliche that still persists to this day attached to the term hypnotist. Many people are very wary of something that they do not understand; I know this because that's how I felt before I entered this world.
My experience of bringing hypnosis up in conversation has been that most people who don't know about it immediately equate it with controlling other people. Any woman who doesn't have the word "Svengali" in her vocabulary will still be completely familiar with the cliche, and will at least have seen hypnotists in TV shows like Little Britain in which a stage hypnotist uses his skills on a date with a woman, or to get a woman's phone number. These scenes are hilarious and obviously ridiculous but I think they deliberately make light of what to some people might be a legitimate fear about being controlled through hypnosis.
Despite this I think there are also a lot of things that I think work in ones favour. Good hypnotists are by necessity good communicators, so for example we know how to build rapport and have awareness of small signals from another person's body language, which a lot of people just don't have. There are also other things like knowing how to make people feel positive emotions and feel good just through interaction. These are all attractive qualities.
Hypnosis, to me, isn't about control, and there are words like relaxation, connection, escape, detachment and sensuality that seem more appropriate and women are much more likely to appreciate.
Yes I know the line "I know how to make you orgasm using only my voice" might attract some women, but I suspect not the kind I'd want to attract.
Anyone who knows anything about what qualities in men women find attractive will of course know that on a deeper level most women are drawn to men who are naturally able to be in control of the situation, the natural leaders. Another plus point.
One of the books I have been through in the last few months is a book called The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida. It's an extremely abstract book, but in it he describes the concepts of masculine and feminine, which exist within everyone, and suggests that attraction comes from the polarity between the two. Masculinity being characterised by strength, leadership, and being a secure fixed point, whilst femininity is colour, motion, existing in the moment and all that is beautiful in the world. This comes close to my heart in that it immediately makes me think of jive dancing, where like in most forms of partner dance the man leads and the woman follows, spinning and gyrating around him.
I think hypnosis is a kind of partner dance, in a way, because like the follower in a dance the subject is not being controlled but merely being led. This is probably why most hypnotists I meet are male, and most people who are really keen to try hypnosis are female. Just like with partner dancing there is polarity here and theoretically great potential for attraction.
So yes I feel there are upsides and downsides to bringing hypnosis up in conversation with women, but I think that the above just scratches the surface of this topic. There is a deeper question here I feel, which is to do with the concept of using ones knowledge of hypnosis in attracting women.
Let's face it, I've persuaded people that the person sat next to me is wearing a non-existent viking helmet and that their glass of flat cola is really the most delicious ginger beer they've ever tasted. Surely as a hypnotist eliciting the simple emotional response of feeling attraction toward me from women shouldn't be too difficult, especially with a little background reading from books written by experts in attraction such as David DeAngelo and Ross Jeffries.
Well it shouldn't, but how does this stack up morally?
Let's just consider for a moment that I could do a Kenny Craig. That it really would be possible for me to approach any woman I took a fancy to, wave my hands around, tell her to look in the eyes not around the eyes, snap my fingers and have her under my power. Say I could even maintain the attraction toward me from this gimmick indefinitely. What value would my connection with her really have? How would I feel about it?
It might appeal to some men but definitely not me, and I suspect in being the sculptor of her reality I would feel incredibly lonely. I think the most important thing for me in a relationship is that the person I'm with has qualified me, that they have a firm grounding in reality and yet they know me and are drawn to me because they recognise the person that I am and my array of positive attributes. I set the bar very high in being most attracted to strong, mature, intelligent and independent women; I think it helps drive me toward being my best possible self.
Okay, so we'll have none of this covert hypnotic manipulation or any of these attraction techniques. Just be yourself and be nice, like mother said, and everything will be fine, right?
Sadly not.
The unfortunate truth is that all of those things that women say they want in a man: intelligence; great conversation; being a good listener; sense of humour; adventurousness; being passionate about life; common interests; sensitivity; morality; these are all meaningless and might as well be completely invisible if the guy doesn't know how to spark attraction with the woman. If he doesn't in the best case the woman will just befriend him and in the worst case he'll be punished for his honourable intentions by being told he's creepy.
This is a big "aha!" moment that I have had in the last three months; the realisation that attraction in women, like hypnosis, is something that can be induced. Attractiveness is something that men can actually learn. Anyone who has read The Game by Neil Strauss will know that this is what in essence the pick-up artist community is all about. They have developed the art of procedurally creating the feeling of attraction in a woman and by means of such techniques leading her all the way to the bedroom. Seldom beyond it should be added.
Anyone who understands hypnosis will recognise that accidental hypnosis is occurring naturally all the time and spot it when it's happening. I experienced a similar revelation when I started to understand which male behaviours women find attractive. It's something else that's going on all the time, though most people don't realise what, how or why.
If these are things that people who are naturally good with others, and especially women, are using anyway I conclude that I have absolutely no qualms about using them myself. To not do so would be to shoot myself in the foot; to punish myself for having explicit knowledge about such things.
But wait is this manipulation? Well let's talk for a moment about something really manipulative, which is the more common approach men take. A man goes up to a woman in a bar and says "Can I buy you a drink?". He's offering her a drink but the subtext, whether he's aware of it or not, is that she is therefore obliged to talk to him or more. In fact, any occasion where a man is deliberately nice toward a woman he is attracted to in order to try to gain her approval he can unfortunately be assumed to have the words "...and please sleep with me" tagged on the end of his action.
Women spend hours prettying themselves up before they go out, enhancing their attractiveness to men's primarily visual sense of attraction with clothes that flatter them, styling their hair and using makeup. Is that manipulation? If a man's character really is to a woman what a woman's figure, face and hair is to a man, why not put in the effort to make sure that one is presenting ones best self, especially as the effects are even more pronounced for men than they are for women.
I can see why some people might object to what the pick up artists do and say they're taking advantage of the women they pick up. Personally whilst I don't condone telling lies or misleading people I think that the women who go for pick up artists know what they're doing and it's their right to enjoy enjoy themselves. Interestingly nobody seems to be raising the same objections about the proverbial busty blonde with the perfect figure who uses what she has to get what she wants.
I think the interesting question is where to draw the line when using this stuff. What is quite acceptable, and what is just self-serving manipulation?
The answer, to me, lies in the advice of John Morgan and his website Real Human Connect. Recently he and James Tripp have been putting together a dating programme called attraction games, which I'm sure will be well worth a look once it's up and running. The central premise to both of these sites is utilising the concept of play as opposed to work. The idea of just having fun and enjoying what comes naturally, as opposed to going out with a specific agenda. If the only thing on the agenda is to have a good time how can one be manipulative? Is it even possible to manipulate people into having fun?
So this is where I stand at the moment. Have to say I'm enjoying life right now.
Stay tuned. More hypnosis stuff coming.
Parkey.
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