Monsters and Magical Sticks
Introduction
(The author talks a lot about how cool and smart he is.)
Fore-Warned/Acknowledgements
Yup, nothing good here either.
Chapter 1: Into Hypnosis Lightly
The author spends a hell of a lot of time explaining that hypnotic states and phenomena happen all around us, without hypnotic ritual.
Chapter 2: Meta 4 - Change - Life
There are three metaphors that make the author feel like he’s cool and gonna drop a fat knowledge bomb on you…
- Appearances are deceiving enough to cause ruin, and emulation is not always good.
- Your environment decides your awareness, therefore your possibilities.
- A monkey acclimates to their environment.
- The author is suggesting you look to your past experiences to reevaluate hypnosis.
Chapter 3: Everyday Hypnosis/Learning
The author provides a cheap example of pacing and leading his waiter into having a great day.
Finally - a novel idea - during standard therapy, the client ‘uses hypnosis’ on the therapist to describe their situation, and the therapist fills in the blanks. They give a few examples of revivification, ‘regression,’ and using that to find associated states.
They infer that asking 2 + 2, the reflexive automatic response to 4 is hypnotic, or a conditioned response. According to that line of logic, all learned behavior and education is hypnotic in nature, and are learned by hypnotic transaction. (I hate this book.)
They give a far-fetched example of one of their clients that self-sabotaged because they were told to ‘never be better than their father.’ From the author’s perspective, no matter how real someone’s problems are, if they are ‘acting psychotic,’ it doesn’t make sense to approach it from a sensible manner - and that you should find the causes directly. The author suggests that many problems are conditioned responses, where the cause is illogical or hidden.
Chapter 4: Forget It
They provide an example where a subject was given a suggestion with amnesia to do something silly, and when it came time for her to do it, she came up with her own logic for doing so. Disassembling this explanation would not bear fruit, given that she hallucinated her explanation.
They give some really far fetched suggestions of associations from things from early childhood, and how they pushed these back away with breaking state with NLP. They then eschew how this magically fixed their whole life.
(I hate this book. I want something useful out of this but man the credibility of the author is REALLY lacking at this point. I’m really hoping they’re trying to sell an idea more than trying to make up bullshit stories.)
They provide the suggestion that you shouldn’t believe everything you read about hypnosis. And fuck I’m tired of this book already.
Chapter 5: Belief Systems
They introduce the idea of Bandler and Grinder’s MAPs - that we do not directly interact with the world.
Just as attempting to convince a hypnotic subject with logic that the “growling dogs” are not real will be met with resistance, so too will attacking his inner belief systems most often be met with the same results: “resistance.”
Heller, Steven; Steele, Terry Lee. Monsters and Magical Sticks: There’s No Such Thing As Hypnosis? (p. 52). The Original Falcon Press. Kindle Edition.
They continue to suggest that beliefs come from memories, simply from association. Providing information that doesn’t fit into someone’s MAP will result in a negative hallucination. (EG - ‘everyone hates’ the subject, and the client has affectionate friends, they’ll never really believe it.)
Ah, and something else good, from someone that ‘couldn’t be hypnotized.’ He suggests they ignore everything he says, and just listen to their inner voice on what they think they need to do to be hypnotized.
I then told him that no matter what I said he should ignore my remarks, and instead listen to his own inner voice saying the “proper” words. He nodded his head, and I began saying a few unimportant things, such as “you continue just as you are” and “that’s right…even more slowly” (timed to his breathing). After a few more such comments, I said, “and keep on listening to your own inner voice.” With that I shut up. After three or four minutes I took his right wrist gently and began to slowly raise his right arm straight out in front of him, and then held it there for about 30 seconds.
Heller, Steven; Steele, Terry Lee. Monsters and Magical Sticks: There’s No Such Thing As Hypnosis? (pp. 55-56). The Original Falcon Press. Kindle Edition.
And finally, an excellent point - if you’re in a ‘map’ where hypnosis is ineffective, get the hell out of the map. It feels as if this idea could be supplied outside of the areas suggested in this book.
Erickson - Beliefs - Metaphors
Allegedly, they asked Erickson if they perceived symptoms and complaints as metaphors that contain a story about a ‘real’ problem. Erickson responded that they felt belief systems are metaphors, and that the individual operates and responds metaphorically to the world. That’s why he uses metaphoric approaches.
(My mood’s improved a bit, finally, something juicy in this book.)
Chapter VI: Systems Two
They talk about VAK systems and preferences, however, they offer the tip to look at what the other person is trying to paint in their output system. Through their description, are they trying to give you the view, the sounds, or the feelings, stepping back to a secondary modality, or - not mentioned in this book, are they auditory digital. Try to follow what system they use for their logic to arrive at a feeling or view, more than the conclusion they arrive at. Auditory thinkers can be difficult to pull out. The author uses the following technique at their Clinical Hypnosis: Innovative Technique©️ seminars:
- They pick three people, ideally one for each VAK
- They ask the visual to hold out their hand and to get the feeling of warmth in ‘that’ hand
- Usually, they will fail
- Then, they’ll ask them to look up to the picture of a warm day
- THEN it will come
- (They’re suggesting they use their visual thinking to arrive at the warmth)
- They will then ask the kinesthetic to get a clear picture of the sun
- They will fail, according to the author’s model
- Then, they will ask them to feel the warm day on their hand
- Then they can build up the picture of the sun
- With the auditory, they will try to figure what is not their secondary system
- First, they’ll ask them to try to get a picture
- They’ll fail
- Then, they’ll ask them to remember the sound
- Then, ask them to remember the warmth of the sand on their hand.
- Slowly raise that hand and build a picture of the sun
- Allegedly, this builds from auditory ⇒ kinesthetic ⇒ visual… This means that the visual is likely the least preferred. Whatever man. 🤷 (The author proceeds to get lost in the sauce, describing how he helped an auditory thinker get out of their painful kinesthetic system by describing the sound of the waves.)
The author suggests, with analog marking, TRYING THIS YOURSELF - shifting modalities to help a patient.
All right - this isn’t the point of this paragraph in this book, but all the analog marking for helpful instructions is kind of neat. I’ll bold the analog-marked instructions…
Becoming aware of the output system of the people around you may be the beginning of a very exciting adventure. To help you to take that trip, I would like to give you an exercise that you can choose to go out and enjoy doing, or you can just do it and then choose to enjoy it. You can even choose not to choose to do it. That is also your choice.
Heller, Steven; Steele, Terry Lee. Monsters and Magical Sticks: There’s No Such Thing As Hypnosis? (pp. 67-68). The Original Falcon Press. Kindle Edition.
The interesting bit is the triple bind at the end, but it’s done with analog marking. You could read that as “you can even choose not to choose to do it” or, split up into parts, “choose to do it.”
All right, another aside, but this one is interesting… providing you can give someone a double or triple bind, but use their preferred VAK system to lead them.
Within a few minutes, her breathing rate had deepened and her general demeanor was much improved. Several minutes later she began to laugh, and stated, “I have a picture but it doesn’t make any sense. In fact, it looks ridiculous.” I said, “You now have several choices as to how to deal with that picture”—an implied suggestion that there were options in reaching a new solution. “You can remember the sound of the wind and see the picture being blown further and further away until you can see a beautiful sky. In that clear sky is a bright warm sun, and you can soon feel all that warmth and comfort.” This last statement offered her the option of moving back to her kinesthetic system, but now in a pleasurable way. This would result in a basic restructuring of her kinesthetic experience. “Another choice you have is to question some object or person in your picture. If you do so, listen first to the sound of that voice, and then the words, until it is clear to you.”
Heller, Steven; Steele, Terry Lee. Monsters and Magical Sticks: There’s No Such Thing As Hypnosis? (pp. 69-70). The Original Falcon Press. Kindle Edition.
The author says if you detect the right system, you can use that to build rapport by matching it.
Chapter 7: GIGO
Wow. NLP eye directions. What’s an eyeroll amount to? (Sorry I just really doubt the effectiveness of this…)
I’m… going to see if there’s anything novel in here. I think there is something to say about looking away from a visually complex scene to help free up cognitive processing, (as in, sometimes, when lying, or even just trying to construct a complex sentence,) but the direction seems bunk. I’m sharing my own opinion here and taking liberty and not regurgitating notes.
The author notes that someone has a preferred ‘unconscious system,’ as denoted by the eye chart.
A novel note, is that sometimes people will allegedly avoid a system that’s painful. EG, someone describing an emotional injury in visual or auditory terms, or auditory digital to avoid going into how it felt.
I’m skimming the rest of this chapter.
Chapter 8: Systems - So What?
Allegedly, matching your patient’s preferred system can build rapport. I’m skipping this fucking chapter.
Chapter 9: Patterns
Fuck this - as they suggest non-sequiturs can knock someone out of a pain or depression pattern. I’d fucking slap my therapist.
Chapter 10: Left Meets Right Meets Left
Yup, I still feel like I’m reading horse-shit.
Chapter 11: Unconscious Versus Conscious
Whatever man.
I’m not reading this book anymore. If I learn anything - I don’t want it to be from here.