James Tripp - Hypnosis Without Trance

Prelude

As I’ve written these notes mostly for myself, you could take this as an incomplete and condensed overview of this book. Even if you read these notes, I’d recommend giving the book a read if this looks like your sort of thing. James’ writing is a hell of a lot smoother to breeze through than this document.

In addition to reading this, give Weaver’s notes a read. It’s not a summary of the book like this - but more of an expansion on the original work. I’ve ganked some of his ideas in some new asides, linking to his text.

I’ve also sprinkled in some notes from How To Hypnotise… Without Trance from James Tripp on youtube.

Introduction

Given the HWT (hypnosis without trance) paradigm, when creating ‘trance,’ you should not go for a state of trance, but to actually just create all the components of trance. You are not looking for an overall trance ‘state,’ but just the components of it that you need. A helpful perspective is to focus more on process rather than the state of hypnosis. Suggestibility and modifications are not an on and off switch, and deepening does not (always) help with suggestions, therefore, directly working on the suggestion itself is the ideal approach.

Sooo… Why bother with trance?

After I applied some of the techniques from this book, I certainly felt like trance was unnecessary aside from being a convincer. Given the Hypnotic Loop provided later, it gives you all the tools you need to create the ‘state of trance,’ almost by just suggesting indicators of trance starting to happen.

After reading Binaural Histolog’s Guide, I’m starting to see ‘trance’ as the subjective experience for the subject, while experiencing the effects of a hypnotic context. While at first it felt like hypnosis without trance techniques ripped the wings off the butterfly, it opened me up to the idea of creating and tailoring types of trance tailored to the experience or changes I was trying to create, rather than trying to get to “trance” so I could know my subject was primed and ready for suggestions.

In addition, from personal experience, once a subject experiences trance, it’s much easier for them to get back there again.

Weaver has some more thoughts over at HWT Notes: About Hypnotic Trance

The role of the operator is to use their verbal and nonverbal communication skills to help facilitate a shift in subjective reality. The co-operator’s role is to engage with the operator on their suggestions and directions, and eventually (hopefully feeling as if this is happening to them) to create the desired shift.

Important!

Let your co-operator know that they have an active and participatory role, and ask for their engagement, being clear and explicit. Coaching engagement will almost always be better than deepening trance.

Setting Expectations

Wordweaver had some solid thoughts on setting your subject up for success. As a perk, his notes are more useful to the sessions I’m interested in - where you have plenty of time to talk, enjoy your subject’s company, and goals for phenomena beyond their hand being stuck to the table. If you’re lazy, here’s the short list.

• There is no failure, only feedback

• An experiment

• Failure is lovely

• This is a skill

  You can read more at Wordweaver’s HWT notes - A note on failure

They present an ideodynamic model, suggesting that thought can lead to ideomotor, ideosensory, ideoemotive, and ideocognitive shifts.

Ideomotor

This is done with moving muscles ‘happening’ rather than ‘doing.’ Ideomotor signaling is asking for something to respond passively without the active participation of the co-operator, letting it happen. From here, you can ask part of the ‘unconscious’ mind to do something, or even some component of something. (This might be interesting to use to exploit double binds.)

Ideosensory

It’s what you think. You can create positive or negative shifts.

Ideoemotive

Also what you think - emotions, still including positive or negative shifts.

Ideocognitive

Things like amnesia and confusion.

Ideodynamic Bridging

Using one ideodynamic modality to help another one. For example, if someone does well with ideosensory suggestions, but not great with ideomotor, utilize the one that works well to push into the one you’d like to improve. Or, asking them to bind an emotion to an active action… “The more you feel this joy the more you know this joy, and the more those fingers lock together, and this joy becomes you.”

For example, if you give a ‘try and fail to move’ test, and they move anyway, ask them… “That’s right (utilization), and it slowly lifts (utilization), (utilizing before seeking information), what is happening for you right now?” If there’s another sensation, you can use ‘ideodynamic bridging’ to help adjust the suggestion.

The Hypnotic Loop

James suggests the model below, as a loop: (Beliefs ⇒ Imagination ⇒ Physiology ⇒ Experience).

“Once they’re in a loop, you can back off a bit, as it’s (ideally) self reinforcing.”

Ideomotor signaling to check internal state?

Hey - a novel idea, use some ideomotor signaling to overall gauge the effectiveness of suggestions?

James suggests stacking multiple running loops on top of each other, monitoring them, breaking, tweaking, and reinforcing them as needed.

Repeating suggestions

A note from binauralhistolog’s talk on the Erotic Hypnosis discussion

Binaural mentioned that you can repeat the same suggestion many more times than you’d initially think, up to 15 times. But, they noted, seven times really is all right. If it feels like you’re telling them a mantra, you’ve gone too far.

Hypnotic Focus

Hypnotic focus is the uncritical focus on the current absorbed experience. This can be difficult to achieve if the environment is not ideal, or if the co-operator has a very active critical faculty. This requires skill to work with (if using suggestion alone), but sometimes you can work with it given a frank discussion and a little coaching.

Plausibility (as a feeling)

Some people may find some suggestions more plausible than others, and some plausible frames may enhance other plausible frames. (EG, some people may thing it’s silly their hand will stick to the table, but others may feel they can lock their muscles in place.) Given framing, the reason for plausibility can be pretty much anything, which James underscores…

• Because the hypnotist has magical powers
• Chi energy
• Because we are bringing different brain systems online
• The power of Anubis
• VR Immersion
• Voodoo
• A special state of mind

You need buy in for these two levels:

1. The process (hypnosis. chi, voodoo)
2. You as the operator (hypnotist, chi-controller, voodoo… person…) This does not mean you need to be seen as an expert. Just be grounded and certain of what you are doing.

The Five Steps to HWT

(These aren’t meant to be strictly adhered to.)

1. Setup and pre-framing
2. Managing buy-in and establishing hypnotic focus
3. Setting up, testing, and reinforcing loops
4. Close the loops
5. Crediting and empowering

Stage 1 - setup and pre-framing

Your pre-talk. Or, with HWT, establishing yourself (or hypnosis) as capable, establishing hypnotic possibility (hypnosis is science, hypnosis is real, if I can hypnotize your dog I can hypnotize you,) and get them curious!

When introducing hypnosis, you can introduce yourself as the hypnotist. James suggests that you should build a legend around yourself if you’re planning on being a career hypnotist (so your name comes up and is immediately associated with hypnosis.) If you’ve got clout, people will come to you, but otherwise, you’ll have to generate your own curiosity by presenting yourself and asking how people have felt about hypnosis, or if people have experienced it before.

Fuck stage presence (when you’re starting out)

All right, we’re going on a little rant detour here. Either strap in or get out of the choppa.

The part I emphatically disagree with in Anthony Jacquin’s Reality is Plastic is that you need to present yourself as The Hypnotist. If you’re doing stage hypnosis, or even if you’re doing street hypnosis, this will get you some free expectation. In the recreational communities I play in, this is entirely unnecessary - and I’ve even seen it prevent newbies from trying in the first place.

Contrary to Mike Mendel’s idea that your prestige is a major factor in the quality of your subject’s experience, your swagger alone won’t drop your subject into a deep mind-blowing trance.

If you’re practicing, it’s not only fine, but welcome to present yourself as yourself. If you’re new, that’s OK! You don’t need confidence in yourself, only confidence that hypnosis is a real thing.

Street and stage hypnosis are both related, but different, games. I’ve found plenty of willing, kind, and helpful subjects that were perfectly fine being asked “hey - I want to try a thing, you got a few?” I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have received a warm response to that question if I was presenting myself as some hotshot.

I still consider myself ‘new,’ but no longer a beginner. I have plenty of presence and confidence, and earning my reputation as a competent, or at least trustworthy, hypnotist was as simple as practicing and talking with people.

Binaural Histolog has some thoughts on how to act as a hypnotist, and Wordweaver has their own thoughts on communicating with Power, Warmth, Presence, and Humor.

Then, you’ll want to check the co-operator’s attitude. Consider the difference between saying experienced hypnosis and been hypnotized before - an experience is more approachable than giving up control. They suggest trying to engage to create not wait and see. (I lean a bit to wait and see personally, but using this attitude is worth tinkering with.) Ask them about their previous experiences, avoid previous pitfalls, and explain (or slyly redirect) misconceptions or mishaps. If they’re new, try ‘what do you imagine it would be like’ to go into hypnosis. Ask them if they’re curious about finding out that it can work for them. (Not if, but that it can work for them.) You want to make sure that they’re cooperating to make it work, not giving you a “sure, why not” just to prove you wrong. Check for congruity in their response (cooperation in their body language, affect, voice tones, and what they’re saying.)

Why even say “Hypnosis”

The whole idea behind using the term ‘hypnosis’ is to increase expectation. If your subject has reasonable expectations of what hypnosis can do for them, there’s no reason to throw this free momentum out. However, be aware of that for them clause - if they’ve had poor experiences in the past, you might want to go the “this isn’t quite like hypnosis” route.

Further reading in Wordweaver’s notes on HWT: Maps, Belief Systems and Mindsets

When you’ve got them on board - pick a frame. There’s plenty of examples…

• Hypnosis is a perfectly natural type of focused attention, and it can allow you to create shifts in experience
• Applied neuroscience
• A way of releasing yourself from stuck patterns
• A way of connecting to the unconscious and reflexive part of your mind…
• Working with your cognition to experience automatic responses or make healthy changes

If they’re not sure not quite hyped, you can give them a taster with the ‘not hypnosis frame.’

Would you like to do something that will give you a sense of how powerful your own mind can be?

Oakely dokelie.

It’s not really hypnosis… but it’ll give you a sense of how hypnosis works, yeah?

The author notes that this last sentence gets around the trepidation, while also inferring that it does work without having to ‘give in’ to it, and encourages agreement with the yeah at the end.

I don’t like the idea of going for this, but if you ask them if there are any changes they’d like to make (EG - to be more easygoing) you can integrate that into the suggestions. Eg: “and as that hand continues to rise you can continue to wonder, what is possible with the rest of that mind of yours, perhaps finding creative or flexible possibilities, your mind perhaps surprising you with a more easygoing response… or maybe experiencing some of those easygoing qualities as that hand continues to rise…”

They suggest view every interaction as giving a gift.

They also suggest that Stage 1 is the most important stage, where the pre-framing or pretalk does most the work. The pre-talk will make your life easier if you spend some time on it, even with experienced subjects. If part of the experience goes sour, your framing makes the difference between your subject feeling disappointed and frustrated or your subject becoming a teammate you can work with.

When I fuck up the hardest, it’s usually because I rushed through the pre-talk. (The second is where someone will cooperate just enough to try and prove to me that they can’t be hypnotized, usually by explicitly avoiding instructions. )

Responsibilites of the Hypnotic Partnership

From How To Hypnotise… Without Trance - Part 7 of 17.

Operator (Hypnotist):

• To facilitate (coach) the experience and engage the subject.
• Lead.
• Remind them that they can alter their reality.
• Engender cooperation.

Co-Operator (Subject):

• Generate the hypnotic phenomena, they have the capability of doing this unconsciously.
• Follow.

Pre-Framing Imagination

The question “how good are you at using your imagination” is not just a gauge to see if you should use ‘imagine’ or ‘visualize’ during your suggestions. It’s to help pre-frame how to imagine… Such as, asking “and would you say you’re pretty good at allowing yourself to be absorbed into an experience, even in your mind?” This isn’t to check and make sure they can do it, but it’s to set the expectation of how they’d ideally experience what you ask them to imagine.

Stage 2 - Managing buy-in and establishing hypnotic focus

This is setting up yes and compliance sets. You can also use this conversationally in as “are you able to imagine something?” Or “you can imagine things, yeah?”

You can…

• Adjust their posture (which requires compliance)
• Apply witch-doctoring (making changes or asking questions that appear necessary, but really aren’t)

The idea behind establishing focus isn’t to shift anything, just to get them to stop being critical internally, and to try something different without question. So if you’re doing the hand stick, demonstrate, and ask them to focus on a point on the back of the hand. At this point, you can start pacing and leading their focus and experience.

Stage 3 - Managing Hypnotic loops

At this point, you’ll begin to describe something using the imagination part of the loop, like their hand sticking to the table, and you can start pacing and leading their imagination.

You can soften a suggestion with ‘You can really almost begin to imagine that…’

If things aren’t working, check in! Ask what they’re experience, and coach their engagement, and ask them to discover what it might be like if they were going into it.

Stopping uh-huhs and distractions

If you’re trying to apply HWT, Wordweaver suggests that you can easily coach people into going with the flow. If they’re giving you uh-huhs or unnecessary verbal acknowledgement, let them know that there’s nothing they need to say at the moment, and they can just enjoy the experience. If they look distracted, give them something to focus on - which is likely one of the reasons why James says you should have the subject look at the back of their hand and focus their attention on it.

Wordweaver HWT Notes: Managing buy-in and establishing focus

I stole this tip from another hypnotist - if your subject is easily distracted, or starts analyzing, ask them to count. You can have them count groups (20, 20, 60) or even ask them to count down in threes. It’s okay if they mess up, it’s expected, and it’s even a good thing - they can start over, and it’ll make the distraction even more effective. This ameliorates some of the problems of both distraction and unwanted analysis.

Testing:

Soft tests ask about your co-operator’s experience, and don’t really have a fail state, such as a double bind… “What’s more stuck right now, your hand or fingers?” And you can pace and lead with that to make it stronger.

Hard digital tests are binary - such as, “go ahead and try to pull away your hand and see what happens.” Or, “see that it barely moves.”

Hard analog tests can have varying degrees of success. “And as I tap the back of your hand, you’ll find that it begins to move up on it’s own.”

Of course - it’s natural to move from soft to hard. =)

They suggest this pattern:

• Listen to your co-operator’s reply and echo it using their own language
• Pace the response
• Lead into reinforcement of the loop
• Apply a stronger test, implying that they will find it stronger and more of a challenge

A thing you can also do with this is try a ‘reality report’ and get them to reinforce it themselves… Such as… “What’s it like now as you try to unstick your finger and find that it just sticks more… and your palm sticks more?” If they say it’s really weird, parrot phrase that directly.

Loop Transitioning: Expansion and Transference

Expanding or transferring this phenomena uses these steps:

1. Clearly establish the phenomena in one location.
2. Obtain a neurohandle (James’ term) 🙄 or a nominalization (NLP term) for the quality of the phenomena. “What’s that hand like as you can’t drop it?”
3. Do what you need to do to put it somewhere else. Another technique is to immediately let go of a loop, to jump into reinforcing another loop. “And as I [blah], you’ll find that as [current loop stops], just as easily as [new phenomena begins.]”

🦈 A rant about reflective listening

Parrot phasing, neurohandles, and nominalizations are all forms of Reflective Listening. This takes some skill to get right - use their exact words, but try not to be ‘stiff’ in your response. Be conversational.

Graham Old’s book on the Leisure Induction has more graceful examples of how to handle parrot phrasing. Simply using phrases like “Stuck… is that right?” or “Glued down…” with an appropriately applied sense of curiosity or mutual amusement will take you a hell of a lot further than a ham-fisted “Oh, I see your hand is stuck there…”

Linking

Pre-engineering: “When you do X, you’ll find that Y.” Post-engineering: Suggest something strange has already happened when you released another loop. “Something else [repeat nominalization] has happened… you’ll notice that…”

(Check out Wordweaver’s notes on Post/Retro engineering - they’ve even linked a cool video. )

Nesting

Just leave multiple loops open. Such as, set up catalepsy, hard test it, then add an amnesia loop on top. Close the amnesia loop, and ask them what they’re experiencing catalepsy wise.

You can use this to sneakily bail your dumb ass out if something fails. Say you want both catalepsy and amnesia, and both succeed, and you can continue on normally. However, if the amnesia fails, utilize it, saying “that’s right… just as your feet have released themselves, as those are indeed yours.”

Hypnotic Ladder

I’d rather call this a plausibility ladder - but gradually step up your game in suggestion plausibility.

Stage 4: Loop conclusion and return to control

Suggest a way they can leave the phenomena, then ask about how ‘strange’ it was, or highlight how their experience was.

Stage 5: Credit and Empowerment

Give them a treat on the way out. It’s improvised - but telling them that they created the trance, and they may have more potential than they realized. Or something.

From Youtube, “just take a deep breath in… and snap just allow everything to return to normal.”

Suggestion (1): Verbal Patterns

There’s some information on pacing and leading, direction and suggestion (do thing vs can you do thing,) and direct and indirect suggestions. I’m skipping taking notes on this since I’ve seen it in 5 other books at this point before.

Positive and Negative suggestions

Positive suggestions say how to do something, negative suggestions say what should not happen.

Keep in mind…

While the ‘try not to think of the pink elephant’ suggestion will make you think of pink elephants, I think that ‘try and find that you cannot move your hand’ is a perfectly fine suggestion. I think the problem is ‘try not to think of’ is self-defeating.

(Some hypnotist right now, living rent free in my head, is yelling at me to never use a variation of “can’t.” You can always ask them to compare to a previous experience and see how much more difficult something is.)

While I’m not sure it’s a negative suggestion, the phrase ==you don’t have to== seems handy.

Presuppositions

An easy way to use this is to slip in a quality they MAY notice, alongside an instruction they could notice something surrounding it. The idea is to presuppose a fact into a description that they may notice - but guide them to evaluate only whether or not they’re focusing on the initial ask.

You may begin to notice that hand… ==and it’s tendency to want to rise…== all on it’s own… like it wants to move up into the air out of it’s own volition. Structured by… [clear instruction], [supposed facts and information that may be noticed]…

Subordinate clause of time

[before, after, during, as, since]

Are you happy to experience hypnosis ==while your friends are watching?==

====What happens ==when you look at me and your name is gone now?==

Stated or Implied All

A type of double bind where it’s implied that the effect is there in various amounts, and all conditions are now true.

I don’t know if ==your palm or fingers are more stuck== now to the table at this point… Go ahead and try - and tell me which one feels more stuck.

Awareness Predicates

[notice, realize, aware, know]

The following presupposes a location of where their name is in their mind - before, it may not have a location.

And as you
==notice where== your name is in your mind… [pace], you can become aware of [lead.] [pace], you can know [lead.]

It’s worth noting…

Additionally, you can soften these with “you may or may not”, or “you may,” or strengthened with “you will.”

Adverb Presuppositions

[deeply, easily, wonderfully] And when will you notice just how easily you can sink deeper?

And as you continue to see the hand in front of you… just allow yourself to feel fully that hand stuck in place.

Temporal Presuppositions

[begin, end, start, stop, continue, precede, already] And as you continue to notice your breathing, and as you continue to look at that point on your hand… you can begin to feel your hand being stuck there on the table…

Commentary Terms

[fortunately, luckily, curiously, happily, obviously, interestingly, strangely] And as you look at the back of your hand, obviously you can feel the cool surface as your hand lies flat against the table. Strangely, you may have noticed that you’ve started to feel some warmth as you’ve removed that hand from the table. And as you continue to notice your breathing, I don’t know if you’ve noticed a really interesting thing beginning to happen… probably outside of consciousness, but you may be becoming aware… of your feet beginning to stick deeply to the ground. Isn’t that an interesting thing? Isn’t that curious?

Linkages

So you’re breathing comfortably and listening to the sound of my voice and becoming curious about this pleasant experience of hypnosis. [when, during, while, as] While that hand is stuck on that table, you can find that you can continue to relax… [makes, forces, causes, requires, creates] Notice how every touch on the back of your hand makes it go just a small amount more numb.

Questions

What would it be like for your hand to glue itself to the table? Can you feel that locking now? How quickly or slowly will you find that you’ve sunken down to a nice, comfortable trance? What’s that like for you now?

Circular logic (ish)
What’s that like when you look at me and your name’s
gone now..? like there’s now nothing where it was… nothing! Notice nothing. Look at me what’s that like when you try to say that name and there’s nothing?

Anticipation Hooks

“That’s interesting… totally stuck. Now here’s the thing… (pause)” (Follow this up with a direct suggestion, after closing another ‘loop.’)

Associative and Dissociative language

In short, use words like “that” and “it” to describe things you’d like your co-operator to dissociate from, and things like “your” and “this” for things you’d like them to associate with. I might call snake oil on this, but eh.

Playing With Time

Sorry, what was that name. And now, how does that feel? Sorry, what was that problem that you had? What are you noticing now that’s different from before. And after all this, what are you noticing that’s different than before?

Amplifying Experiences

Pretty much ‘more’ and ‘er’ words. Bigger, heavier, lighter, wetter, more confusing, stiffer, goopier

Associations in Abstract

A direct suggestion linking two unrelated things. “You’ll find.” “Every time you try and unstick your hand, you’ll find it more and more stuck.”

Pre-Engineering Pattern

1. Setup (In a moment, but not yet, I’ll [do blah])
2. Association (And when I do, [this happens])
3. Consequence (Only as quickly as Z) This is a slight modification to how I’d set up a trigger. In a moment, but not yet [trigger] And when I do, you’ll find that [previous phenomena stops] But only as fast as [new phenomena begins] (EG, your hand will unstick, but you’ll forget the number four.)

Divide and Conquer Pattern

This uses a double bind that assumes everything is partially working. H: “Which foot is more stuck, your left or right?” C: “The right.” H: “All right. And as you try to move that right foot, you’ll find your left foot sticks more solidly.”

‘Feel That’ Ambiguity

So, here’s a silly one. Start tapping on the back of their hand gently, or something they can already clearly feel, literally… But leave it ambiguous, and then use that to suggest something else you’d like them to agree with.

As you continue to look at that hand, you can feel that… (pause) that’s right, feel that… (pause) starting to solidify… all the way through…

Suggestion (2): Nonverbal Patterns and Magic Words

Analog Marking

Analog marking is just embedding suggestions, ==and since it’s so simple we can just relax the definition.==

Rant (ish)

I still feel like analog marking is silly sometimes, but… it ‘feels’ effective when I’m using it, and I’m having fun with it so far, so… I’m going to continue using it. 😅

Examples and tips:

• “As you try to un==stick== that hand ==more fully== now…”
• Use intonation or slight pauses
• Uses slight gestures, shift your body, tap a finger, switch the eye you’re looking into 🙄
• Tap your subject on the shoulder, or the back of the hand

Pacing Nonverbal Communication (and Pantomiming)

This is similar to ‘calibrating’ with your subject, or, following with what they’re doing nonverbally. Matching their tone, pace, body language, to the point where you can start to ‘lead’ a bit. In addition, this is useful in behavior modeling (without explicitly stating it, showing what it would be like to have their hand stuck) or pantomiming what you’d like to happen (closing a hand to hide information away, or pushing it to the side.)

They also suggest the “that’s right” or “just like that” phrases fit into this category - where you take their nonverbal behavior (breathing slowing, head slumping) and without directly pointing out what they did, suggest they did something correctly. If you’ve instructed your subject to look at something, look at it with them, as this suggests a ‘shared experience.’

In addition, you can use your facial expressions to communicate without being questioned, like looking confused or perplexed when you ask them what their name was. (I kinda… hate this suggestion. This feels difficult to pull off and that it has a high risk of backfiring.)

As another thing you can do, act as if you’re experiencing the same thing and same states as you’re going along. It’ll help you be congruent in your communication.

Magic Words

Try

This one’s a bit obvious with try to move your hand. Use it to imply failure. It’s nice to follow up with an “and find that…”

Can

They use this as a softer version of an imperative instruction - “And you can allow yourself to relax” Instead of “allow yourself to relax.”

Allow

Softening for leading.

Now

Use this tool when you want to suggest something has not yet happened, but can begin, well, now. I kind of just like this one because it’s fun and playful.

Almost as If

Really, just a softer “imagine that…” However, you can avoid the instruction to imagine something, while reaping the majority of the benefits.

Present Continuous Sense

[experiencing, continuing, happening, becoming, ing words] Swap your relax for a relax__ing_ in either pacing or leading, suggesting that it’s continu_ing instead of it happening once.

Congruence in Hypnotic Communication

Pleasantly, they suggest that you can method act as ‘THE HYPNOTIST,’ and while that’s ideal, it’s a big ask. Presenting yourself as a confident experimenter is also an option, and really, that fits my personality quite a bit better (depending on the relationship.)

Additional Catalyzing Concepts

While the hypnotist may be direct and indirect in their behavior, they are always leading the subject. An interesting note that, while Erickson gave indirect suggestions, they were very ‘forceful.’ For example, directly teasing someone out of a crowd with “and of course you can’t be hypnotized, just in the same way you couldn’t take four steps onto the stage” and then proceeding to hypnotize them (allegedly.)

On utilization and flexibility, they mention a hypnosis TOTE, but not to interrupt it, but to use the Test Operate Test Exit process for what you’re doing. Utilize whatever the subject is doing and tell them it’s right, and then utilize that to steer the direction where you want.

Curiosity Framing is a technique where you can provide suggestions that your subject be curious as to what will happen. It’ll increase absorption and suggest indirectly that they don’t ‘know’ already what will happen. You can also use it to hype up a suggestion…

You know it’s an interesting thing… something really curious has just happened. Now what’s that like, when you try to live your hand and you find it sticks even more now; it’s a weird thing, isn’t it?

Contrast Convincers are just… contrasting where phenomena isn’t. “That’s right… your arm is just stuck… and notice just how easy it is for you to move your other arm.” As the speedrunners say, “it’s free,” so use it.

If you want some free pacing and leading, you can narrate whatever actions you are taking.

Now as I touch you on the elbow [touch the elbow], you can feel that softening now, I’m going to take you by the wrist and the arm [take the wrist and the arm], you feel that softening just letting go [gently shaking it loose], that’s right, and as that hand touches the head now [placing the hand firmly on the head] locking it solidly in place.

There’s some NLP eye direction reading bullshit in here, but they did mention a handy anecdote stating someone had problems remembering things when they were forced to stare directly back at someone. So… I think that looking around to an area that requires less processing will reduce cognitive load, and the forced awkward stare just made things a little rougher.

You can use a mantra to keep someone’s inner dialogue busy. They suggest using “your thoughts are gone,” and even going as far as, if someone’s REALLY heavy on thought, you can talk them into thinking about what it means for their thoughts to be gone, for them, and they can dig into that. They even pace reminding them of the mantra.

If your co-operator is popping themselves out when they’re about to experience a phenomena, you can use distraction and overload to avoid that. Strategically… “Although you may not yet feel them moving they can move together… as you become aware of your feat… and your breathing now… comfortably… as you continue to breathe you can just forget… this moment.” You can also just distract them by gently touching them on their shoulders.

My favorite part in here, although I’ve started doing it already, is coaching engagement. Coach them so that they look relaxed, what they can do, how things may feel… much of it taking place during the pre-talk. I’d also include this with letting them know that they don’t need to respond verbally, or the phrase I leeched off of Mind Play “there’s nothing you need to do, there’s nothing you need to say, you don’t even need to consciously listen to the sound of my voice.” I’m pretty sure half of the people I’ve tranced are tired of hearing me say that line.

If someone laughs during phenomena, it’s a great sign, since they only just noticed it. (You may however, have to keep pacing them back into it.)

Instead of constantly praising your subject, cultivate respect and understanding, letting them know when things are doing well. Avoid being condescending and belittling them.

When asking them to focus on something, you can suggest they immerse themselves into it, or allow themselves to become completely absorbed in the focus. It’s also worth noting that you ask them to focus on something ‘intently,’ or even possibly, focusing on it with intention. You can also use something like “and you can allow your mind to become completely engrossed in that idea now.”