Maybe a good place to start is with the less critical creatures of the planet!

Urban myth says various animals can be hypnotized - and its true…. though perhaps the techniques involved are less sophisticated than those needed to hypnotize a human.

Still, if you can’t hypnotize a chook, then you know you need to do some more study!

Here is how its done (Wikipedia):

A chicken can be hypnotized, or put into a trance, by holding its head down against the ground, and continuously drawing a line along the ground with a stick or a finger, starting at its beak and extending straight outward in front of the chicken. If the chicken is hypnotized in this manner, it will remain immobile for somewhere between 15 seconds and 30 minutes, continuing to stare at the line.

If you want to develop this skill then check out Sergeant Oz who’s life dream is to become the “Kevin Stone” of the chicken world! Or if you want a more scientific approach then I recommend you get the details from chicken hypnotism instructor Dr Doris White. who outlines three methods for hypnotizing chickens.

Other animals can be hypnotized as well. Check out this croc getting hypnotized!

Did you know that there are four main techniques for hypnotizing a person? Briefly, these are:

1) Fixed gaze technique (eyes fixed on an object)

2) Gradual relaxation and imagery technique

3) Forceful commands technique

4) Rhythmic rocking technique

We will cover all these methods over the next few posts. For now, however, let’s look at the first method. It is the most well known technique and is commonly associated with the swinging watch!

Therapists, however, tend to favor the second technique. Not necessarily because it is the most potent method. Research suggests that few therapists are skilled or knowledgeable about hypnotic techniques and so are reluctant to experiment on their clients!

But there are some good guidelines provided for those who would like to try this method. Stamford University has developed the

STANFORD HYPNOTIC SUSCEPTIBILITY SCALE,

which provides quite a good overview of how to proceed and also hypnosis scripts for both easy and more difficult to hypnotize people.

As you will see when you read through the method, two aspects of the hypnosis process are particularly important.

Firstly, it is important that the person to be hypnotized trusts the person doing the hypnosis. Secondly, it is important that the person being hypnotized believes that they can be hypnotized!

More on this in later posts but research has shown that attitude to hypnosis is one factor that strongly influences susceptibility to hypnosis!

COLOR ME HYNOTIZED: Under hypnosis, people saw shades of gray in this pattern of brightly-colored rectangles. Brain scans showed that hypnosis changed the way the brain worked.

According to the researchers, Kosslyn and Thompson:

…the right side of the brain alone responded to what the subjects saw when they were not hypnotized, but both sides responded under hypnosis.

What we have shown for the first time, is that hypnosis changes conscious experience in a way not possible when we are not under hypnosis.

BUT - importantly, Kosslyn and Thompson only got these results for people that they had previously identified as ” highly hypnotizables” They did not get the same changes in brain function or change in perception of color for those that scored low on the hypnotizability scale.

For we mere mortals, we can take two important conclusions away from this experiment.

1) Hypnotism has a real power to change the way people think

2) We need to be able to identify those people that are “hypnotizable” if we are to be successful in using the power of hypnosis. (However, there is some research that suggests we have the power to influence this one - more on this in the next post)

Want to know if someone can be hypnotised? Give them this quiz (developed by some big wigs psychologists- see below):

1. Do you have many vivid memories from your early childhood?
   Yes | No
2. Do you tend to lose yourself in movies, books, or TV shows?
   Yes | No
3. Do you tend to know what people are going to say before they say it?
   Yes | No
4. Do powerful visual images ever trigger a physical sensation in you? For example, do you feel thirsty during the desert scenes in Lawrence of Arabia?
   Yes | No
5. Have you ever zoned out while going somewhere and wondered how you’d gotten there?
   Yes | No
6. Do you sometimes think in images rather than in words?
   Yes | No
7. Do you ever sense when someone has entered a room, even before seeing him?
   Yes | No
8. Do you like to look at cloud shapes?
   Yes | No
9. Do smells evoke powerful memories for you?
   Yes | No
10. Have you ever been deeply moved by a sunset?
    Yes | No

The more “yeses” they give, the more hypnotizable they are! For detailed scoring follow this link

(NB: This quiz was developed by Auke Tellegen, Ph.D., emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis; and Etzel Cardeña, Ph.D., chair of psychology and anthropology at the University of Texas-Pan American, in Edinburg)

This light hearted look at hypnosis raises the primal question:

Can we trust ANYONE with this power?

Take the question of “suggestibility” There have been numerous studies attempting to find out what, if anything, makes people more suggestible. Apart from increasing the number of words that no-one can pronounce let alone understand, confusion seems to have been the main result.

Research finds that SUCCESS IN HYPNOSIS DEPENDS ON MOTIVATION

More on this in a later post. For now we can get some clarity on the subject from an experienced hypnotist Joshua Seth, who had some definitive points to make when interviewed for the Stamford University rag, The Stamford Daily

According to Seth, we can use hypnotism to hot up our sex life and get way better financial deals! Some excerpts from the interview may raise your eyebrows:

BS: Have you ever erotically hypnotized a girlfriend?

JS: Yeah, why not? Wouldn’t you, if you could?……. Read more

and…

BS: Do you get really good deals when you buy a car?

JS: Hypnosis can be applied to sales techniques and all areas of human influence, so it’s very useful when closing deals, negotiating rates, romancing people……Read more

He also provides some insights into this concept of “suggestibility”:

JS: ….A hypnotist is looking for genuine enthusiasm. I give hypnotic pretests, where everyone in the audience gets to experience it. The key to being able to be hypnotized is to want to be hypnotized. If people are there just to try to prove they can’t be hypnotized, they’re just working against themselves.

As you will see in an upcoming post, recent research does indeed suggest that success in hypnosis depends on motivation. Does that explain Seth’s success in getting good car deals?

Hypnosis has been used as a way to entertain (stage hypnosis), as a way to heal disorders (medical hypnosis) and as a way to dominate and control others!

In a relatively new application, hypnosis is being used as a tool for “focus group” research by marketers. Perhaps it is only surprising that it has taken so long to be used as a publicly acknowledged tool for marketing! And it is catching on fast as more and more companies are rushing to get in on the new buzz marketing strategy.

Brandvisioning, for example, suggest that:

By accessing the subconscious mind of their consumer, marketers can gain new, and sometimes surprising information…..Hypnosis is the best way to get access to the deepest area of the consumer’s mind.

The twist, of course, is that there is no suggestion that the consumer is being controlled, here. Rather, hypnosis is being used to more accurately “mine” information from consumers.

What’s more, big businesses is spending serious money to use hypnosis this way. Companies like Volvo, no less, are relying on these techniques.

In a recent report, Keith Hein noted

Volvo equals safety. In focus group after focus group, participants said the same thing. So, Euro RSCG Worldwide, New York, did the obvious thing: It called in a hypnotist.

Members of these unique Volvo focus groups were asked to test-drive the car. Immediately afterwards they were hypnotized and asked their true feelings about the brand. It wasn’t pretty: Many revealed that Volvo also equals being middle-aged. That idea “for some people was suffocating,” said Michael Fanuele, head of planning at Euro. “Hypnosis helped get past the cliches. We needed the conversation to get to a deeper, more emotional place.”

In other words, hypnosis now offers a whole new way for doing market research!!

Most people don’t like the thought of giving control of their thoughts or actions to someone else -understandably! But Hollywood and stage shows have both used hypnosis as a means of entertaining their audiences.

And it is more entertaining to present hypnosis as having dramatic effects - perhaps even sinister! Anyone who has watched a stage show about hyponosis will know how it seems as if the hypnotist has conplete control over his subjects.

“Not so!” says David Kay, UK Hypnotist. In fact, he says:

“There is no question of losing control or being made to do anything against your will by using hypnosis. You are in control throughout the session. Experiments have proved that people cannot be made to do anything that is truly against their will, or against their values, either during the hypnotic session or afterwards. The unwanted or noxious suggestion is always rejected.” Follow this link for more on myths.

What has become clear is that there are four main types of hypnotic suggestion:

Results from research on ’susceptibility’, have been conflicting, to say the least! All the same, there are some clear cut indications of who may be suggestible.

According to one authority, susceptibility scales “typically contain a number of test suggestions which the participant will either pass or fail. Test suggestions are either ‘motor’ or ‘cognitive’ and also either ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ in nature.”

OK - as you can see, writers on this subject like to talk mumbo jumbo. So let’s turn this into English! If you look at the above pic you will see what this means. People can be hypnotically influenced in four ways! So these tests look for a person’s suggestibility to:

Commands to DO
*commands to control actions eg - involuntary arm levitations
*commands to control thoughts eg - believe they are a chicken

Commands ‘NOT to do’
*commands to demand non-action eg - can’t bend arm
*commands to stop certain thoughts eg - can’t hear /see)

This all means that the first step to successful hypnosis is to be clear about the type of result you are after. Top salesmen that are “naturals” (research shows that they use a style which closely resembles hypnotic suggestion techniques) are clearly aiming at quadrant 3 (and sometimes even quadrant 4)

In other words, they are aiming to strongly influence thinking (target ends up “believing”, for eg, that they will be highly successful with…) in order to produce a desired outcome (a sale). Being able to tell which people are susceptible to this type of suggestion makes hypnotic suggestion more likely to succeed.

Research results on this will be in a later post but for now just consider the types of people that Scientology targets. Here is an organization that has specialized in using hypnotic suggestion techniques and that seem to have a clearer idea of who are vulnerable targets than researchers do! Now Scientology uses this power systematically to enslave vast numbers of people.

So we also need to understand that there is power in hypnosis - and that we have a responsibility to use it wisely!

These young people have taken the extraordinary step of forming themselves into a huge world wide collective taking action anonymously. They call themselves - appropriately - Anonymous. This must be a first in human history - and possible only because of the internet.Why is history being made? Why have young people (and anyone who feels inclined to join them) taken this revolutionary and unique set of actions?

Outrage at what they see as the poisonous, manipulative and destructive behavior of the people who belong to the organization known as Scientology. The article “Protest Scientology this Saturday” explains the issue and in part says:

“Scientology is designed to release information very slowly…. Scientology is not swallowed whole; it is accepted incrementally via a carefully constructed series of agreements into which the individual is led, bolstered by profoundly invasive hypnotic techniques, peer pressure, [and] hard-sell tactics……..

After a recruit has finished the expensive courses they are required to take, they are asked to undergo “auditing.” Auditing is a fancy word for hypnotic suggestion, although those who are put through it are never made aware of their vulnerability. After their auditing session, recruits are left very vulnerable, absorbing information without the ability to critically analyze it.” read more HERE

There are a huge number of videos being posted daily on youtube by Anonymous. They have a huge following of enthusiasts who wait for their daily feed of youtube action as reported by Anonymous.

But why would Power-Hypnosis.com mention any of this? For three reasons:

1) The practices of Scientology are a serious example of the power of hypnotic suggestion

2) The Anonymous debate helps us to be more aware of the power of hypnotic suggestion, how vulnerable anyone can be and how we can protect ourselves from hypnotic suggestion.

3) This debate makes the power of hypnosis and hypnotic suggestion very clear - and focuses on some of the ethical issues that need to be considered by anyone planning to use hypnosis.

Check out the video if you would like to find out how to form your own cult! (Or would just like to understand the principles of hypnotic suggestion)

His delivery is quite smooth and commanding - I like his patter.

What do you think?