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Book Reviews

My opinions change as much as BTC values when Elon takes his phone to the shitter - so in the end, it’s up to you to come to your own conclusions.

I’ve marked my favorites with a 🥥. Some of these books even made me nut twice.

Absolute Bangers! Must Reads

🥥🥥 James Tripp - Hypnosis Without Trance

This is the book that demystified hypnotic suggestion for me. It taught me a boatload of stuff I didn’t know I needed - how to frame hypnosis, soft vs hard testing suggestions, how suggestions work (and fail,) and what to do when something isn’t working. By far my favorite book on doing hypnosis.

🥥🥥 Graham Old - Hypnosis with the Hard to Hypnotize

The information here is useful even in a recreational setting. While a bit heavy-handed on the anti-confusion point of view, Graham’s perspectives are on the level. The book mostly covers working with ‘difficult’ subjects, and will give you new techniques to work with them. You’ll even realize a lot of the problem could be in your approach, rather than the subject themselves.

Contextual Reads

Lewd

Wiseguy - Mind Play

I like this book. It will get you started. It will not teach you how anything works from a modern perspective.

I can recommend it with the following caveats…

  • It doesn’t accurately describe the modern landscape of hypnosis. As expected from a book on kink.
  • It doesn’t provide much guidance as to what to do when a suggestion doesn’t work.
  • The approach they use works well in hypnokink - but falls short if you want to learn a more collaborative approach.
  • You’d better like hot dogs and vagooters. If you’re ace, you’ll need to put in some work and creative energy to have fun with the later chapters.
  • The book tends to anthropomorphize the subconscious. This is fine for hypnokink and gives real weight to suggestion… but… isn’t really accurate.
  • This book is for beginners. As such, it misses a lot of nuance - leaving beginners to parrot what they’ve read in this book. Their takes are safe and sane, but man is it obvious when you hear an opinion be regurgitated from this book without a second thought.
  • The book recommendations in here mostly suck. :/ Sorry.
  • You won’t learn how to pre-frame hypnosis well here.
  • The book caters well to trance fetishists… but that doesn’t help you learn what’s going on under the hood.

On the plus side, I like it for:

  • A starting point - what should a hypnokink session look like if you’ve never done this before.
  • How do I make triggers?
  • What do suggestions look like in the real world?
  • The humor is solid, the writing is inviting, and he doesn’t seem to take himself so seriously.
  • Take some of the theory with a grain of salt.
  • They nailed that trance depth does not matter for taking suggestions.
  • Your grandma’s horny cookbook.

In the end, this book is more on “how to do a hypnokink ritual” than “how do you do hypnosis.” I wrote a lot more on this book here).

Here’s what you can get out of this book:

  • Basic Inductions (plenty to get going with). Including a neat “Ericksonian” style script that’s fun to disassemble when you’ve improved. It’s crazy to go from “how does this shit even work” to “oh that’s so eeeeeasy!”
  • Basic Safeties.
  • A basic NLP style on structuring suggestions - with the understanding there’s not much information on troubleshooting.
  • The “standards” scripts aren’t bad.
  • The Kinky Human Tricks section is full of inspiration. I’m gray ace, furry, and into slightly heavier BDSM, so it took a bit to learn from these triggers and scripts.

Instead, I’d opt for the Mind Play Study Guide. But… Read my caveats there.

🥥 Wiseguy - The Mind Play Study Guide

I (respectfully) disagree with this book’s limited lens on how hypnosis works.

Wait. So then why would I recommend this book?

This book is fun.

This is your hot roommate’s family cookbook of hypnokink that you stole and copied. There’s not much science, but damn those cookies are bomb.

Pick and choose what you want to learn about. Fun new induction gimmicks? Goofy triggers? Deepeners? NLP style suggestions? How to co-dom? Text hypnosis? Triggers and trigger creation? All there. This is a bag of toys.

As much as I disagree with its perspective on hypnosis, the advice here will not get you in trouble. If you dig deeper into things like Hypnosis Without Trance, you’ll just have your toolbag violently expanded.

The Brainwashing Book

Neat if you want to learn a bit more about brainwashing from a conditioning perspective. This is more of a meta-overview of approaches you can take with a long term partner. There isn’t a lot here if you’re only interested in hypnosis. Pick it up if you want a 101 on brainwashing.

Kinky NLP - Neurolinguistic Programming for Erotic Hypnotists

This is my favorite Sleepingirl book. This provides down-to-earth examples on how to use NLP in a hypnokink perspective. Also, depending on your community background, you may also not realize what NLP really is. NLP is easily conflated with ‘waking hypnosis,’ and this is very much not the case. Worth a read.

Mastering Erotic Hypnosis

So - take their views on inducing trance with a grain of salt. Completely ignore the personality based suggestibility types - it will not help you. It does provide some troubleshooting advice - but I would point you to Hypnosis Without Trance for that.

With those two gripes out of the way, surprisingly they have a lot of good takes as well. I like their nuance in Therapy vs Therapeutic, and the book did give me a more comfortable understanding of working with individuals with DID. It has very practical advice and inspiration on hypnokink in general.

I don’t feel like this book is worth picking up on the merit of their practical perspectives on practice - even though I agree with many of them. It is worth picking up if you play with wide variety of partners - as it provides a great pack of starter concepts and approaches for slightly niche kinks.

Therapeutic - Easy Reading

🥥 Graham Old - Mastering the Leisure Induction

EXCELLENT for the beginner. Everything you need to do to create or revivify experiences. Takes time to figure out how to work this into a recreational approach.

FWIW - if you are going into a hypnokink space, applying these techniques will be difficult when you’re just starting.

Graham Old - Revisiting Hypnosis - PHRIT

How to guide someone through learning self hypnosis. I’ve also used this in a recreational setting to highlight subject agency and reduce spontaneous amnesia.

Graham Old - The Elman Induction

A great way to understand “The Elman Induction”, presented alongside Dave Elman’s approach. It hammers in that the Elman induction is a process, rather than a set of instructions. This is gentler than most perspectives on the technique - providing some interesting, permissive options.

Graham Old - The Hypnotic Handshakes

When I was starting out - handshake inductions seemed like bullshit dark magic to me. Graham breaks these inductions down - they are just a bit of focus-grabbing, utilization, pacing and leading.

Graham Old - My Friend John

I need to reread this one. I love Graham’s work but I felt I got the least out of this book by comparison to all the others. Sure - I can do a My Friend John induction now, but it really felt like I just read a bunch of transcripts in the end.

Again, I need to reread it. I might have missed something out of this when I digested the whole book in two hours. 😅

Graham Old - Online Hypnosis

Smooth and well explained inductions! Some of these apply easily to vr.

Mostly deals with the hassles and complications of doing hypnosis over voice or video call. If you bought the Masterclass set it’s worth a read.

Graham Old - Therapeutic Inductions

An interesting take on inductions. They provide a flexible framework for building inductions, and later on, as the title suggests - an approach to building therapeutic elements directly in your inductions. Before I read this book, I already saw inductions and deepeners as really just an extension of the same techniques, where the line was blurred. Much the same way, reading this book extended the concept that let me blur the lines between pretalk and induction.

If you’ve already dug down the rabbit hole of socio-cognitive approaches to hypnosis, and you think of hypnosis as a ritual and collection of tools, you probably don’t need this book. But - if you’re like “WTF why do inductions work,” this will be an insightful and easy to understand resource.

Clinical and Academic - Hard Mode

🥥 Clinical Hypnosis and Self-Regulation

If you want an aggressive, direct injection of modern(ish) science - this is the ticket. This will probably challenge some of your views with it’s unapologetic non-state angle. While I think you should still learn some Ericksonian and state based techniques, this will round those perspectives right the fuck out.

This book is a slog to get through, and man, some of the scripts are painfully awkward, but many of the theories and approaches very useful, especially when something doesn’t work with your usual approach. If you want something a bit easier, James Tripp’s Hypnosis Without Trance is probably a better choice. However, if you want some brutal and not-terribly-outdated science covering primarily tranceless approaches, read this.

🥥 Hypnotic Realities

Frankly, a bit terrifying! But - you’ll learn a lot.

Not particularly useful from a therapeutic perspective, but great if you want some ideas on how to deliver indirect suggestions. Just be sure to offer Ernest Rossi a breath mint when you’re done with the book. You’ll understand after you give it a read.

Take what Rossi says with a grain of salt. It felt like he was more excited to compliment Erickson than come up with plausible explanations of intent half the time. BUT. You will absolutely learn new techniques.

Maybe also avoid recreational age regression.

Maybe… Don’t Read

Jacquin - Reality is Plastic

Some people like it - I’m not a fan. Some hypnotists I respect dig this book.

My beef isn’t that it’s wrong about anything. It’s that it’s very unhelpful to beginners - it’s target audience. It entirely misses a collaborative approach that I prefer. If you run onto a low responder with just this book under your belt you are fucked.

Mindfucking Mindfully: A Guide to Mental Manipulation for BDSM and Sadomasochism

A few useful bits here and there, but nothing mindblowing. A few small techniques and handy thoughts on consent and planning for some harder scenes.

LeeAllure, DJ Pynchon - Hypnotic Amnesia

Doesn’t vibe with my learning style.

It feels like I just get to watch a hypnokinky couple tell each other ways to forget things for a whole book. It’s nice if you want to see how a more ‘mature’ relationship plays out, but you’re going to have to draw out your own inspiration.

If you’re having trouble with getting hypnotic amnesia suggestions to work, you’ll find no help here. Maybe try Binaural Histolog’s guide instead.

Tranceworks

Not surprisingly - this book is far more useful for a clinical setting. While they cover a swath of approaches for applying tools in a clinical setting, many of these ideas will not translate easily into recreational practice. So - if you’re a doctor or therapist - two thumbs up. The stuff here is good.

This is one of the books I read earlier on in my hypnosis journey. Initially, it wasn’t really useful. However, the value in this book lies in it’s balanced perspectives. After reading Clinical Hypnosis and Self Regulation, as well as digging through some other academic articles, re-reading Section 1 has been helpful in both solidifying a broader range of ideas on hypnotic mechanisms, as well as tempering some more aggressive and reductive (but still reasonable) claims made by socio-cognitive researchers.

Urban Tantra

Useful if you want to try tantra or see a different approach to suggestion. I’m ace, so a lot of this just felt like a lot of talking about how to play with hot dogs and vagooters. There are some interesting things to learn about self suggestion in here, but you won’t get a lot out of this if you’re not onto Tantra.

Good thoughts, ideas and perspectives. It’s just not for me.

Garbage

Flagg - The Forked Tongue Revisited: A handbook for treating people badly

More like a collection of war stories and a drunk old man’s advice on how to get shit done. A few mildly useful bits on how to structure a sadistic approach, but there’s more bad advice in here than good.

Monsters and Magical Sticks

I need to re-read this one - but man, I don’t know what the fuck they were smoking. I will probably say this a lot - but one hypnotist I respect says I should give this a re-read.

Terence Watts - Crucial!

A pile of indirect magical imagery suggestions for growth and healing. Starts out with a pile of pseudo-scientific personality archetypes and ends with a pile of imagination wankery.

You don’t need 7 plus or minus 2 to do overload or confusion. Go read Graham Old’s Hypnosis with the Hard to Hypnotize book instead and actually learn something.