Lumas that post of yours is scathing, personal and patronising and it doesn't flavour this topic well. Kindly leave out the jabs and hooks next time you post your opinions and you might find people more willing to read and take note.

Regards the actual subject matter of your post I agree and disagree at the same time. I agree that not everyone you think you know you know well and that many people hide things from even their families etc etc, and I'm in no way suggesting that (as I infer from your message you have personal experience of it happening) hypnosis isn't likely to cause the odd person the odd promblem or two here or there. HOWEVER, you are making it sound like all hypnosis regardless of what it is and how it is done is remarkably dangerous and can drag up all sorts of deep dark dangerous memories that can mangle the mind of your friend/colleague/client. For the record, meditation is self-hypnosis, and during my time in both the Christian and Buddhist religions I meditated many times without once bringing up a horrid repressed memory. Further more, you can hypnotise someone into scratching their nose when you say the word cheese, all it takes is a little occupying of the conscious mind while you feed the subconscious the suggestion. Now start a conversation about Switzland and watch your friend not ever realise they're doing what they're doing. Again, unlikely to delve into the darkened recesses of the hidden psyche. And if I may ask of you a question?

If I hypnotise someone by getting them to imagine themselves walking down a set of stairs into a beautiful garden, each step of the ten on a number as I count, and when we hit zero we will be in the most beautiful and pleasing garden you can ever imagine; here, there is no worry, no pain, only the flowers and plants and trees you think are beautiful; the birds, the insects and the animals that make your garden playful and friendly; etc etc etc, am I in danger of dragging up any of the problems you posted? I personally do not think so. What we have here is something you can do with yourself, and you'll be amazed at how calm and refreshed you will be afterwards. I find this kind of hypnosis to be almost risk free and without any real consequence. Moreover, if I were to offer to an inquisitive fellow the chance to by hypnotised in such a way, I doubt he would firstly ask what my training consisted of, or whether I was certified. To be honest, if he did I'd say "you learn it from books and DVDs you can buy from specialist shops". Tell people where you learnt it from for real and they won't run away, they'll be disappointed when it doesn't work. Why didn't it work? Because you yourself ruined the illusion that it would. Hypnosis is almost entirely dependent on psychosomatic behaviour on the part of the hypnotised.

If you weren't trying to scare anyone then balance your information. And leave trippin_out's age and mindset towards hypnosis out of the line of fire; he said himself he's going to put time and effort into learning things properly and you still shot him down.

Is hypnosis your living Lumas? Because I can understand your concern if it is. I wouldn't want someone walking into a classroom and teaching 6-7 yr olds everything wrongly and not caring, doing a bad job because they'd rushed into the job and not bothered. If it is, can I ask what measures you have in place to make sure that you do not hypnotise the wrong people? Medical questionairre, simply informal chat before a session, are you in position to check their medical records? I would be interested to know as it would be useful information for anyone thinking of taking hypnosis further.

It is online. People shouldn't take anything personal or even care for that matter what another completely random online person says.

I am not saying that every time you hypnotize someone that it is dangerous. I am just saying that there are dangers. One could write a whole book on the dangers of it. Do they arise that often? Probably not, but one should have the knowledge of how to deal with a negative situation if it should arise. Most DVDs and books fail to go over what the hypnotist should do in such an event.

I am not a hypnotist. Yeah I have like 8 books on it and had 2 DVDs. My uncle was a hypnotist, and not that I still talk to him, but I do remember some bad events that arose at some of his stage shows. After taking numerous college credits in Psychology and Abnormal Psychology, I know the reactions some people with mental conditions can have if they undergo hypnosis. I don't like how kids see it as just a cool power to go out and perform on people without learning about how to deal with the risks.

If you find hypnosis to be risk free, then you really need to read more about it. Again, I am not saying it is extremely dangerous to practice hypnosis. However, I am saying it is dangerous to practice hypnosis when you have no knowledge of all the risks that are involved and how to avoid/fix any situations that may arise. Therein lies the only real danger.

Well, My thougths about it is this:

A good hypnotist MUST have a serious pre-talk with his audiences before he begin the show, telling the audience about what hypnotism is and removing some stereotypes (the watch or the pendulum, the element of pure control etc.).

As well as dealing with some problems such the ones Lumas discussed, it's rare that such a situation happens, however if you hypnotise a thousand, then the odds will play against you. I have read a lot and studied a lot about Bandler and Grinder work, and they too discuss about those problems and how to overcome them.

We can't control you into not hypnotising someone, it's your own discretion, however we like to bring the facts that some begginer in hypnotism migth fall on one of those subjects and be in a very sticky situation.

I totally undertsand Lumas post and this is a vertue which you should consider before hypnotising someone.

I hate to see hypnotism as depths of trances because Modern Eriksonian hypnotism doesn't work with them, however someone going quite deep is an internally focussed state of mind, however one of which is very suggestible and loose control of their will to their subconsious (which the hypnotist may use for his skits, because hypnotism bypass the critical mind). So YOUR subconsious DECIDES about what he'd like to think about, and this you have NO control over it. If someone has hysterical paralysia, you migth end up having a paralised spectator on stage, and I don't think your next subjects will want a go.

This is not frequent, but if you don't want any legal charges against you and loosing your hard gained reputation as a hypnotist, nothing should be left by chance.

What Lumas said is true and I can confirm this, however it's Lumas and I way of thinking, it's out opinion, we are not trying to convince someone, just saying the facts.

Max.

when someone is told to sleep in a hand shake induction are they actually asleep or just in a deep trance?

Hypnosis is not sleep,
You have the fully awaked mind, on the other end you have the sleep, hypnosis is in the middle.

It's and inward focus of attention, they are in a various degree of trance depending of the subject, usually rapid inductions brings people in a deep trance quickly.

Max.

That's fair enough about your hypnosis. I'll admit I haven't read alot about it, but in the same vein I do not do alot with it. I'd personally only go so far as to use suggestion techinques that are akin to hypnosis to make it so people cannot get up out of a chair for a minute, cannot open a book, pick up a pen or similar simple effects.

As far as you're concerned about it being online and people not caring about what others think, bear in mind that people have been taken off these forums for thinking like that. All it takes is one comment sometimes and you can open a real can of worms. Remember that we are animals of communication and really, there are very few of us that would not take things written to us (as if say to our faces) personally. I always type as if I were talking to the person face to face, and try to avoid openly insulting them or belittling them. It's a public forum and anyone (ANYONE) can read what's posted here - I doubt you'd like it if someone wrote something that personally attacked your level of itelligence or commitment etc. here. I doubt even more you'd like it if someone openly and personally insulted you out in a massively public setting.

Also remember that you have absolutely no tone of voice on an Internet forum - everything you type can be read in many ways. You may well speak like you type everyday, and your friends and family would be very used to your borderline personal comments, and your tone of voice would give away that there was little ill toward intent in your words. However, here they are mere words on a screen. Just as you may sometimes wonder how you are supposed to read something in a book (humourous? serious? sad? ironic?) so too here people often wonder just how to read something written to them. I have had to explain myself as just joking before now, both here on an international forum, and on another forum that was almost 100% UK users, because my British sense of humour has not carried through my words alone.

I'll say no more regards the tangent of personal snipes and what not. Good luck with your hypnosis.

Max - the only trouble with the legal side of things is that you can take all the precautions you possibly can and then some and all it would take is one drunk to ruin you. Derren Brown talks of an incident like this in his Tricks of the Mind book - he invited someone on stage and her friend insisted on being hypnotised as well. He knew she was hammered (very drunk) so knew it wouldn't work. It didn't and she took her seat again. After the show there's a shout over the tannoy "would the hypnotist please report to the foyer". Derren arrives to see the girl passed out on the floor surrounded by paramedics, friends, teachers (gig was at an SU) and what not. Paramedics say "we heard you'd hypnotised her, can you undo what you did?" He decides to go through the motions even though she was merely unconcious from alcohol excess, gets nothing and the girl ends up in hospital. Nearly ruined his career. There's another story of the mother of a girl who was hypnotised at a show, crashed her car on the way home and died. Mother decides that the hypnotist is fully to blame because of his crazy mind powers and starts a real and genuine campaign to ban ALL stage hypnosis on the grounds of peoples' safety!

Personally I can see the need for making sure people are safe, but working with children has taught me one thing - as the man who is the chief of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents said himself "make it as safe as necessary", otherwise it's not fun anymore for anyone.

That's fair enough about your hypnosis. I'll admit I haven't read alot about it, but in the same vein I do not do alot with it. I'd personally only go so far as to use suggestion techinques that are akin to hypnosis to make it so people cannot get up out of a chair for a minute, cannot open a book, pick up a pen or similar simple effects.

As far as you're concerned about it being online and people not caring about what others think, bear in mind that people have been taken off these forums for thinking like that. All it takes is one comment sometimes and you can open a real can of worms. Remember that we are animals of communication and really, there are very few of us that would not take things written to us (as if say to our faces) personally. I always type as if I were talking to the person face to face, and try to avoid openly insulting them or belittling them. It's a public forum and anyone (ANYONE) can read what's posted here - I doubt you'd like it if someone wrote something that personally attacked your level of itelligence or commitment etc. here. I doubt even more you'd like it if someone openly and personally insulted you out in a massively public setting.

Also remember that you have absolutely no tone of voice on an Internet forum - everything you type can be read in many ways. You may well speak like you type everyday, and your friends and family would be very used to your borderline personal comments, and your tone of voice would give away that there was little ill toward intent in your words. However, here they are mere words on a screen. Just as you may sometimes wonder how you are supposed to read something in a book (humourous? serious? sad? ironic?) so too here people often wonder just how to read something written to them. I have had to explain myself as just joking before now, both here on an international forum, and on another forum that was almost 100% UK users, because my British sense of humour has not carried through my words alone.

I'll say no more regards the tangent of personal snipes and what not. Good luck with your hypnosis.

Max - the only trouble with the legal side of things is that you can take all the precautions you possibly can and then some and all it would take is one drunk to ruin you. Derren Brown talks of an incident like this in his Tricks of the Mind book - he invited someone on stage and her friend insisted on being hypnotised as well. He knew she was hammered (very drunk) so knew it wouldn't work. It didn't and she took her seat again. After the show there's a shout over the tannoy "would the hypnotist please report to the foyer". Derren arrives to see the girl passed out on the floor surrounded by paramedics, friends, teachers (gig was at an SU) and what not. Paramedics say "we heard you'd hypnotised her, can you undo what you did?" He decides to go through the motions even though she was merely unconcious from alcohol excess, gets nothing and the girl ends up in hospital. Nearly ruined his career. There's another story of the mother of a girl who was hypnotised at a show, crashed her car on the way home and died. Mother decides that the hypnotist is fully to blame because of his crazy mind powers and starts a real and genuine campaign to ban ALL stage hypnosis on the grounds of peoples' safety!

Personally I can see the need for making sure people are safe, but working with children has taught me one thing - as the man who is the chief of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents said himself "make it as safe as necessary", otherwise it's not fun anymore for anyone.

That's fair enough about your hypnosis. I'll admit I haven't read alot about it, but in the same vein I do not do alot with it. I'd personally only go so far as to use suggestion techinques that are akin to hypnosis to make it so people cannot get up out of a chair for a minute, cannot open a book, pick up a pen or similar simple effects.

As far as you're concerned about it being online and people not caring about what others think, bear in mind that people have been taken off these forums for thinking like that. All it takes is one comment sometimes and you can open a real can of worms. Remember that we are animals of communication and really, there are very few of us that would not take things written to us (as if say to our faces) personally. I always type as if I were talking to the person face to face, and try to avoid openly insulting them or belittling them. It's a public forum and anyone (ANYONE) can read what's posted here - I doubt you'd like it if someone wrote something that personally attacked your level of itelligence or commitment etc. here. I doubt even more you'd like it if someone openly and personally insulted you out in a massively public setting.

Also remember that you have absolutely no tone of voice on an Internet forum - everything you type can be read in many ways. You may well speak like you type everyday, and your friends and family would be very used to your borderline personal comments, and your tone of voice would give away that there was little ill toward intent in your words. However, here they are mere words on a screen. Just as you may sometimes wonder how you are supposed to read something in a book (humourous? serious? sad? ironic?) so too here people often wonder just how to read something written to them. I have had to explain myself as just joking before now, both here on an international forum, and on another forum that was almost 100% UK users, because my British sense of humour has not carried through my words alone.

I'll say no more regards the tangent of personal snipes and what not. Good luck with your hypnosis.

Max - the only trouble with the legal side of things is that you can take all the precautions you possibly can and then some and all it would take is one drunk to ruin you. Derren Brown talks of an incident like this in his Tricks of the Mind book - he invited someone on stage and her friend insisted on being hypnotised as well. He knew she was hammered (very drunk) so knew it wouldn't work. It didn't and she took her seat again. After the show there's a shout over the tannoy "would the hypnotist please report to the foyer". Derren arrives to see the girl passed out on the floor surrounded by paramedics, friends, teachers (gig was at an SU) and what not. Paramedics say "we heard you'd hypnotised her, can you undo what you did?" He decides to go through the motions even though she was merely unconcious from alcohol excess, gets nothing and the girl ends up in hospital. Nearly ruined his career. There's another story of the mother of a girl who was hypnotised at a show, crashed her car on the way home and died. Mother decides that the hypnotist is fully to blame because of his crazy mind powers and starts a real and genuine campaign to ban ALL stage hypnosis on the grounds of peoples' safety!

Personally I can see the need for making sure people are safe, but working with children has taught me one thing - as the man who is the chief of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents said himself "make it as safe as necessary", otherwise it's not fun anymore for anyone.

I still remember it, in about 1993, a TV show came on and a man stood in front of the camera and said "What you are about to see, is probably like nothing you've seen on TV before"
He was right.

It was the first show in the series of The Hypnotic World of Paul Mckenna. (way before he was an NLP guru)

I was completely awestruck.
Paul Mckenna came out, oozing class and good humour, you WANTED to be hypnotized on this show, you had no fear of looking like an idiot.
I had thankfully taped it and i watched it 10 times in a row, each time becoming more excited about what this person could get other people to do and how they all loved him for it.

After school i would run into 2nd hand book stores searching for hypnosis texts since i could find no local library that had them, the few books i could find were old but i devoured them all.
I found a hypnotherapist around the corner from my dance school and i would sit there and talk hypnosis with him for hours. I started doing inductions on my class mates, during lunch times little crowds would gather, the teacher even let me do it on everybody including him, it was great.
A stage hypnotist named Peter Powers came to Sydney and i snuck into his 'Adults Only Show' and seeing little me sitting there he pointed me out and we all had a large laugh about it. I spoke to him backstage and he could not have been more kind.

After all this, I did a little TV segment when i was 15 where i talked about hypnosis but then i started to get into trouble. Parents of my classmates started to complain and while i was confident that i was not venturing into areas of the mind that contained pain and possible psychosis, looking back, what the (BLANK) did i know ?

I am lucky i stopped before i screwed somebody up completely !
Regardless of my actual skill level, the belief and expectation somebody can have in hypnosis working on them can make it 50 times more powerful.

There are horror stories with hypnosis, and there are many of them. Derren Brown's story is one, which reminds me of when i started to do some pickpocketing in my act and every now and then somebody would ACTUALLY LOSE a watch or wallet and i would get blamed for it.

There is another of a hypnotherapist curing a woman of her headaches and then she died because apparently her headaches were due to a brain tumour and since she no longer had pain she saw no reason to see a doctor.

The reason you will not (or rarely) see a full hypnotic induction on TV is due to the fact they have done it in the past and people have been hypnotized over the TV and the network gets swamped with calls because their loved ones are dancing around like a chicken (or whatever the case may be).
There is a popular hypnosis trick where somebody is told they are strong and stiff as a plank of wood, they would be laid out between 2 chairs, their middle unsupported and the hypnotist would stand on this persons stomach and amazingly, the hypnotized person is strong enough to hold him.
I believe it was hypnotist Martin St James who wrote in a book a long time ago that he stopped doing this stunt due to realising it is a severe problem if you get somebody with a bad back up there.
He did not elaborate but i am sure you can appreciate this serious potential problem for what looked like a pretty cool little parlour trick which i had even tried before.

I have seen some of these 'rapid induction' things on the street of apparent strangers and it looks like russian roulette to me.
You have no idea who is walking up to you and what kind of mental state they are in and what kind of psychology they have.

I have met people that seem completely rational but can snap into a psychotic state in a heartbeat, they did not even have to be hypnotized ! They saw UFO's in a clear sky, angels and demons attacking them and then suddenly, they were back to normal again.
You can't always pick these people and if you do, you could make them 10 times worse and does anybody really want that on their mind ?

With something as fragile and as unpredictable as the mind, caution is essential when you start playing with it.

Sorry to sound alarmist, i still love hypnosis If Paul Mckenna ever did another show like those he did, i would be first in line to buy a ticket. Great fun and joy can come out of them, my brother was in one once and it was wonderful.
I think hypnotherapy is great as well, it helps lots of people, not always assured but a great tool regardless.

Now that i think about it.... i want to see a hypnosis show, who's coming ?

m.

p.s.
Wow, this is a massive post, sorry. lol.