MODERN HYPNOSIS TECHNIQUES. Advanced Hypnosis and Self Hypnosis: Learn how to hypnotize yourself and others. A step-by-step guide to hypnosis with more than 60 practical exercises

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Part I

(Lessons 1-6)

Introduction

Foreword

This book has a clear and well-defined goal: to provide a systematic self-study program that will teach you how to hypnotize successfully in any circumstances. To achieve this goal your full and active participation in the practical exercises included in this book, together with careful and thorough study of the individual lessons, will be essential.

In the following lessons you will learn everything you need to know and do in order to reach your goal quickly and reliably. To give you the best possible chance of achieving this, I have written this book to explain the theory behind hypnosis and suggestion in a new way, which makes it much more accessible and easier to put into practice.

Hypnosis Forum

So that both prospective and practicing hypnotists can receive answers to specific questions or exchange impressions of their first experiences, a hypnosis forum is especially available for you, which has been set up at the www.verlag4you.de website exclusively for Modern Hypnosis Techniques.

The forum is intended as a platform to give long term help in improving your knowledge and ability, and also to provide answers to any questions that newcomers might have.

And now I would like to wish you hours of fascinating study and great success in putting everything into practice.

Lesson 1

It is a long accepted fact that your own experiences remain in your memory much better than anything you might read, and it is also a fact that you can only learn to hypnotize through practical experience and not simply by reading pamphlets and books. There are tens of thousands of people who have already read all the pam-phlets and books, but in reality only a very few can hypnotize properly.

This self-study method therefore follows a course of practical exercises. You are given certain instructions on how to do the exercises. You carry these out and learn from your own success. The consolidation of your theoretical knowledge only commences once you have gained some experience from the exercises.

I believe that this method of learning will appeal to all and will be very enjoyable. I am certain also that this method will enable you to achieve your desired level of success.

Hypnosis is only technique

For those who believe that there must be some kind of supernatural power, magical force or special rays behind hypnosis and suggestions, I must say that hypnosis is simply a matter of technique. It really only involves the triggering of ideomotor actions and anyone can learn how to do it. You do not need to have a special talent for it, nor do you need an iron will or any other special quality. Any normal, intelligent, healthy person can learn how to hypnotize perfectly in a relatively short space of time following this self-study method. Hypnosis is not to be seen as something that happens by chance, rather it is an ability acquired systematically as a result of your own learning and experience. And now let’s get straight down to putting it into practice.

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The Chevreul Pendulum

There is no instrument that is simpler and easier to use, when carrying out basic suggestion and hypnosis experiments, than the Chevreul pendulum, as it is known. (The pendulum owes its name to Chevreul, who had already begun to use it in experiments at the start of the 18th century.) Moreover, experiments with the pendulum – we will use the shorter name – can be very interesting and fascina-ting.

You can make your own pendulum, like the one illustrated (ill. 1). It comprises a thin length of string or cord with a weight attached. You can use, for example, a signet ring, a metal sphere or any other small item as a weight. The string or cord should not be too thick and should measure about 16 to 24 inches long. The material you use is not important.

Ill. 1

Ill. 2

The first basic exercise (Chevreul's Pendulum)

Take the pendulum board, which has been included with the book, and the pendulum you have made. Sit at a table (ill. 2). Hold the pendulum over the large dot in the centre of the circle and try, as best you can, to hold the pendulum still. If necessary, use your other hand to hold it steady for a while. When the pendulum has come to a standstill, take your other hand away. Now relax your entire body, especially your arms, and look at the pendulum (at the object you are using as a pendulum). Try to form a picture in your mind, as vividly as you can, of the pendulum starting to circle in a clockwise direction round the circle. The more vividly you can visualize this, the sooner the pendulum will start to move in the direction you are imagining. When you carry out this exercise, think only of the pendulum and picture very vividly in your mind the pendulum starting to move clockwise. This exercise works best if you observe the following:

1.Keep your body and arm fairly relaxed – do not tense your body or arm, or hold yourself stiffly!

2.Hold the pendulum completely still and try not to make any involuntary movements!

3.Close off any conscious thoughts and focus all your attention on the vivid picture in your mind of the pendulum’s movement.

4.Although this visualization must be totally vivid, it should not be too much of an effort if you do it correctly.

5.Before the pendulum makes the movement you are visualizing, you have to experience and feel it mentally.

Why the pendulum swings

It is a well-known effect that a pendulum will swing in the direction that has been visualized vividly. In earlier times, the pendulum’s movement was deemed to have been caused by secret and magical powers, or by magnetic rays etc. Today we know that it is ideomotor actions that cause the pendulum to move. As a result of vivid vsualization, which is identical to creating vivid ideas (vital ideas), very slight muscle movements are triggered in the ideomotor system (unconscious state) in the arm muscles, which correlate with the visualization, and these cause the pendulum to move. This phenomenon is actually one of the most important and most fundamental aspects of suggestion and hypnosis.V i v i di d e a s (produced by vivid visualization)c a u s ei d e o m o t o ra c t i o n s .This is the first basic law of suggestion.

The second basic exercise

Sit at the table again with the pendulum and the pendulum board (ill. 2) and bring the pendulum to a standstill. Now picture the pendulum in your mind as it swings back and forth from left to right along the thick L - R line. Once the pendulum starts swinging distinctly along the line, change the image in your mind, so that now you picture the pendulum swinging from top to bottom along the O - U line. In just a few seconds the pendulum’s movement will change. First of all, it will form the shape of a flat oval, and then it will gradually change and adjust to the new direction. When the pendulum swings distinctly along the O - U line, then you have completed the exercise.

The task-oriented ideomotor system

This exercise shows clearly that the ideomotor system is task-oriented. The pendulum’s movements (ideomotor actions) always adjust to match the goal of the vivid mental visualization. In other words, dynamic ideas (triggered by vivid mental visualization) cause task-oriented actions through the ideomotor system. This is what hypnotherapy, for example, is based on. In hypnotherapy, task-oriented suggestions for healing are made to the patient’s ideomotor system (subconscious), which then produces the appropriate effect (ideomotor actions).

The second basic law therefore is:t h ei d e o m o t o rs y s t e m(subconscious)w o r k si nat a s k - o r i e n t e dm a n n e r .This is especially important for the suggestion technique, as it follows from this law that each suggestion must be clearly formulated and expressed with a clear goal to achieve, so that the ideomotor effect triggers the desired action in just the same way. Suggestions that are formulated unclearly not only lead to failure, they can also be dangerous!

The third basic exercise

Sit at a table with the pendulum and the pendulum board (ill 2.). Think about a time early tomorrow morning when you want to wake up. Now choose a time that is half an hour earlier than you would usually wake up. Hold the pendulum still and picture the pendulum vividly in your mind as it swings over the area where the number is that represents the hour you want to wake up. (For the half hour, use the dividing line between the individual number sections). After just a few seconds, the pendulum will start to swing. Now follow the pendulum with your eyes as it swings back and forth, and on every swing say the hour quietly and monotonously, for example: "eight o’clock – eight o'clock …" and so on. Remain seated for about three to five minutes and then stop the exercise. You will find that you really do wake up at the time that you visualized and that you repeated to yourself as the pendulum swung.

Dynamic ideas take effect on schedule

From this exercise you will see that dynamic ideas can also take effect on schedule, that is, the desired ideomotor action can be triggered at a given time (which in this instance is demonstrated by waking up at the scheduled time).

This effect is the basis of the so-called post-hypnotic suggestion (post-hypnosis). The third basic law is as follows:D y n a m i ci d e a sc a nb es t o r e di nt h ei d e o m o t o rs y s t e m .T h e s ew i l lt h e nt r i g g e ri d e o m o t o ra c t i o n sa tt h er i g h tt i m e .

Tips on successful self-study

Self-study is not simply a matter of reading through the lessons. Self-study involves much more. First of all, read all six lessons in each section all the way through, so that you get the total picture and overview. Then go back to the first lesson and go through it slowly, studying it carefully. Mark everything that you think is particularly important with a red pen. Only start practicing the individual exercises when you have studied all six lessons. You should proceed in the same way with all eight parts (booklets) of the Modern Hypnosis Techniques.

Before you start an exercise, think carefully about every specific detail. Only start the exercise itself when you are completely clear on all the details. This applies to all the exercises in this book.

You can prepare yourself to carry out the suggestion exercises using the imagination exercises. These consist, first of all, of carrying out the entire exercise in your head with an imaginary test person. Form a vivid mental picture in your head of a test person standing in front of you. Act and talk to this person, and do everything that you need to do to carry out the exercise. This will help you to become familiar with the specific details and, when you have a real test person in front of you, it will then seem completely normal and will not be new to you. For exercises that appear difficult to you, repeat the exercise with your imaginary person as often as necessary until you feel more confident.

Lesson 2

The Carpenter effect

As early as 1874, the English doctor, W.B. Carpenter, had already identified the ideomotor principle. This principle states that simply the mental image alone of a movement will cause the movement to happen to a lesser extent. This phenomenon, which we can see in the pendulum exercises, is also known as the Carpenter effect. When awake, and when the entire consciousness of SELF is alert, the mental picture of a movement causes only a slight, often scarcely discernible, duplicate of this movement. In a hypnotic state, when the SELF-conscious state has been entirely or partly deactivated, a mental picture which is created by suggestion (emotional influence) can trigger the corresponding movement in its entirety.

It is important for us to know that the mental picture of a movement can be enough to trigger it. Mental pictures therefore have a tendency to become reality.

What are ideomotor actions?

Ideomotor actions are those actions (activities, undertakings, movements, effects etc.) that are triggered by ideas. At this point I would like to emphasize that these ideas must be vivid and dynamically (vitally) animated. In no way should they be considered to be simply thoughts or imaginary words. The more vivid and animated (dynamic) an idea is, the clearer and more perceptible the action. You must bear this in mind in all the following suggestion and hypnosis experiments. The distinction between thoughts and dynamic ideas will be made clear to you by the fourth basic exercise, which now follows. Repeat the exercise until the difference is clear to you.

The fourth basic exercise

Sit at a table with the pendulum and the pendulum board (ill. 2) and bring the pendulum to a standstill. Then, as in the first basic exercise, picture in your mind very vividly how the pendulum starts to move in a circle in a clockwise direction. You must make sure that you make it very, very vivid. You can also use your eyes in this exercise by following the pendulum’s imagined movement to the right with your eyes. Let your eyes follow the circle around. This will strengthen the mental picture and make it more animated. At the same time, you should start to repeat the following phrase in your head: The pendulum circles to the left in an anticlockwise direction! --- The pendulum …" etc.

This creates a conflict between visualization and thought. That is to say, it creates an internal conflict between dynamic ideas and thoughts. You will see that visualization triumphs over thoughts and the pendulum really does turn to the right, exactly as you pictured it.

The difference between thoughts and visualization

This fourth basic exercise shows us that:

1.both mental pictures (dynamic ideas) and thoughts can be at the center of our consciousness at the same time.

2.both can be contradictory at the same time.

3.in a contest or conflict between thoughts and visualization, visualization will always win.

4.there is a clear difference between thoughts and visualization.

The subconscious or ideomotor system

In all the literature on hypnosis, and even more so in all the psychology literature, you can read a lot about a so-called subconscious. In the subconscious, suggestions and autosuggestions are supposed to materialize. Well then, just who can picture this dubious subconscious? In this self-study method, I use the term ideomotor system for this subconscious. This allows you to picture something beyond this term, and this is important if you want to achieve success and not just accumulate factual knowledge.

The word ideomotor is made up of idea and motor. In this combination it means: cause movement to happen through ideas. System is understood to mean that part of our entire nervous system that makes it possible for ideomotor actions to take place. You can picture the human ideomotor system as the part of the nervous system that plays a role in the perception of vivid ideas and in triggering ideomotor actions. You have to admit that this description is much clearer than the word subconscious, for which it is much more difficult to picture the meaning in practice.

Additional basic exercises

When mastering suggestion and hypnosis, a lot depends upon your own experience. This is why I would advise you to carry out more exercises with the pendulum yourself. Here are some suggestions:

1.Lengthen the pendulum and try the exercises when standing up.

2.Use the pendulum when you are in different moods. If you are agitated, concentrating actively on a mental picture will calm and distract you.

3.Try to devise other pendulum exercises yourself.

The pendulum, as it is used here, is a material, scientific instrument.

Please do not use it for superstitious games and fooling around, such as for fortune-telling, divining lottery numbers etc. As a future hypnotist, you should think clearly and objectively, for it is only from this that success can grow.

Those people who are involved in superstition and mysticism do not enjoy success in life, for their thinking is not focused on the essential, or on the reality to be found in and around them. If you do not search for truth where it really is to be found, namely in life and in being active, then you place yourself outside of life, and should not be surprised when success avoids you like a leper in every aspect of life.

Clear basic terms

Before we carry on to the next set of exercises with test people, I would like to try and explain some basic terms to you.

1.Idea: By idea we mean a mental prototype, a fundamental term. We have to differentiate between normal ideas that do not trigger ideomotor actions and vivid ideas. For this reason, from now on we will use a new word:v i d e e(formed from vital and idea). By this we mean vivid (vital) ideas that have an effect on the ideomotor system and trigger actions there.

2.Imagine - visualize: By this we mean activities that consist of imagining or visualizing an idea or videe. Imagine = to form or have a mental picture (an idea or videe). Visualize = to form a picture of something in your conscious mind.

3.Suggestion - autosuggestion: By suggestion we generally mean any type of mental influence. This includes everything that contains videes, including: words, gestures, actions, images, symbols, written words etc. Suggestion is the act of placing videes through words, gestures, acts, images, symbols, the written word etc. in the ideomotor system of a person. Autosuggestion = suggestion made to oneself, influencing oneself, placing videes in one’s own ideomotor system through talking oneself into believing something or by visualization etc.

A new term: videe

To explain this new term videe as clearly as possible, here is an example: If you were to picture Napoleon in your mind as you might have seen him in a painting, then you would be picturing an idea. This is passive and would not have any particular effect on you. However, if you were to picture yourself as Napoleon or you were to picture having to play the role of Napoleon, then you would be placing a videe in your subconscious. Your entire behavior, your appearance, your facial expression and your entire personality would purposely alter to fit the videe. Please note: ideas are passive mental images, passive prototypes. Hence, they do not produce any effect on the ideomotor system. Videes, on the other hand, are active, dynamic mental images, and are active and effective prototypes. They trigger actions in the ideomotor system.

Lesson 3

The first suggestion exercise

You can carry out this exercise in the presence of several people, each of whom, from now on, will be called a test person (abbreviation: TP, plural: TPs). Tell your TPs that you would like to carry out some interesting psychological experiments that show how easy it is to turn vivid visualizations into reality. First of all, give a demonstration yourself showing how easily the pendulum starts to swing for you as a result of simple visualization. Then let the first TP sit at the table, whilst you position yourself at the other side of the table (ill. 3).

Now say to the TP: Hold the pendulum exactly as I did just now. Look at the pendulum and make it stand still over the centre of the circle. If the TP does not manage to do this straight away, hold the pendulum firmly until it comes to a standstill. From now on, do not pay any attention to your arm or to the hand that is holding the pendulum. Instead, pay very close attention to the words that I say to you. --- Picture the pendulum very, very vividly in your mind and watch it swing back and forth from left to right. --- It swings back and forth more and more along the L-R line. At the same time move your finger on the table to indicate this back and forth swinging motion as shown in ill. 3. When doing so, adapt the rhythm of your finger to match the back and forth movements that start to appear, appearing weakly at first. When the pendulum starts to swing more distinctly, continue saying: Now the swinging is becoming stronger --- stronger and stronger. --- The pendulum swings further and further, back … and forth … back … and forth … back …. and forth. Adjust the speed of your last words to the speed of the pendulum’s swinging. When the pendulum’s swinging is completely distinct, end the exercise and say to the