Next Steps

You can technically do the entire guide in one session. Start with the Elman Induction, deepen, suggest a reinduction trigger and then fractionate to condition your partner and get them used to waking trance. Then lock in the reinduction trigger, and wake them up.

Practice the Elman until you have it down cold. Elman’s view was that three minutes was too long, and ideally the Elman should be performed in no more than 60 seconds.

There are many more inductions on Youtube than the ones I’ve mentioned here. You can hunt down inductions and watch people perform and explain them before you go through them yourself.

For example, the Betty Erickson induction.

Suggestions are traditionally given during sleeping trance, and then followed during waking trance, but you can also give suggestions in waking trance, and have suggestions followed in sleeping trance. You can use post-hypnotic suggestions, which are done after the session proper is over. You can have your partner give auto-suggestions that they have to follow.

It can be a bit confusing to come up with ideas for fun suggestions, so here’s a list of lists of hypnotic suggestions.

You may have noticed a theme in hypnosis. Think about compounding, pyramiding, fractionation, pacing and leading, yes sets, and conditioning. They all work by starting with something small, then pacing through multiple cycles to familiarize, intensify and ingrain a state or behavior.

Recursion and inception techniques are a variation on this theme. You can ask your subject to visualize themselves even more happier, or calmer, or more going into trance even more deeply, and then bring them inside that scene. This is useful because it allows your partner to give suggestions to themself effectively, and gives them something they can imagine on their own terms instead of you describing things to them. Here’s another example.

Derren Brown is very good at indirect suggestions and priming. You can learn lots just by watching how easily and fluently he packs suggestions into his flow of speech.

Actual scientists looked at what he was doing, and it turns out to be fairly simple and straightforward to replicate his results.

He talks about his career here.

There are far more bad books about hypnotism than good ones.

The single best book on hypnotism that I’ve personally read is General Techniques of Hypnotism by Andre M. Weitzenhoffer. This is not a light or an easy read, but every single page is worth it.

The best book on hypnotherapy is Trancework.

The best book on rapid inductions is The Instant Hypnosis and Rapid Inductions Guidebook by Rory Z Fulcher.

The best book on street hypnosis is Reality Is Plastic: The Art of Impromptu Hypnosis. A close second is Don’t Look In His Eyes.

The best book on stage hypnosis is Deeper and Deeper.

The best book on hypnokink is a split between Mind Play and Mind Play Study Guide.

The way to be a good hypnotist is to keep practicing, keep notes of what you feel are your strong and weak points, and aim to improve. This also applies to your partner. If you want to do things you are not capable of yet, then do the things that you can do and stretch them a little further each time.

Humans can do incredible things by regularly doing small things and getting a little better each time. Bodybuilders lift weights three times a week. Zen Monks meditate daily. Marathon runners go for morning jogs. In just the same way, you become a better hypnotist and your partner becomes a better subject through practice. It doesn’t matter how awkward you feel when you first start, you will get smoother and better.

This is especially useful if you have long term goals or suggestions that you want to add. There are many things you can do with hypnosis without getting into hypnotherapy, such as dealing with insomnia or stress, and you can use hypnosis to leverage new habits into your day, such as getting up before dawn or regular flossing.

There are some shortcuts that can make you more become more suggestible, but these are not as important as practice and a regular schedule.

There are exercises that subjects can do to build up trance muscles as well and describe the feeling of being hypnotized. In particular, subjects may feel too conscious and want to shut down their minds more. Meditation exercises like mantras and focusing on the feeling of trance can help.