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Kev Sheldrake - Developing Suggestions and Getting Phenomena

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04E1kXoHqBc

Law Safety Ethics

A license is required to practice stage hypnosis in the UK. But… this is defined as the following…

“Hypnotism” includes hypnotism, mesmerism, and any similar act or process which produces or is intended to produce in any person any form of induced sleep or trance in which the susceptibility of the mind of that person to suggestion or direction is increased but does not include hypnotism, mesmerism, or any such similar act or process which is self-induced.

Ask about:

  • Filming
  • Touch

Hypnosis vs Magic

It’s up to you if you want to use trickery in part of what you do. Both separating magic from hypnosis, or using sneaky physiological advantage. They suggest magnetic palms, but… I think there is a physiological advantage there.

Routine

“An amateur does a thousand shows. A professional does one show, a thousand times.”

-Kev Sheldrake

Ask what they’d like. It creates expectation.

“If this is successful with you, what would you like to experience?

  • Would you like your hand stuck to something?
  • Would you like to forget your name?
  • Or would you just like to feel amazing?”

Suggestion Meat

The pretalk is the most important part. This sets everything up. Pretalk about the following:

  • Expectancy
  • Imagination
  • Compliance
  • Self Deception

EXERCISE - Expectancy Enhances Response Compliance Imagination and Self-deception… Eductate.

You can say that…

  • They need to follow your instructions - that’s how it’ll be most likely to work.
  • Most people enjoy doing this…
  • It’s fun and easy to do.
  • Make sure they feel safe and in control.

View hypnotic engagement as a series of hypnotic exercises.

Pass or Fail is a novice frame.

“Yeah, I can take you through a series of hypnotic exercises. And together… we can see how well you’re going to do at them. Some people do really well, some people do less well… But if you enter into this with the right spirit and imagination, with the idea that this will be enjoyable and fun, then there’s a good chance that you’ll be able to succeed at all of these.”

It’s largely the subject’s ability on how well they take suggestions. It’s up to you as the hypnotist to enhance their expectancy.

Ensure that…

  • They will follow suggestions to the letter…
  • They will not fight you.
  • They want this to happen.
  • They’re an active participant.
  • They are fully engaged in making the suggestions work.
  • They know the response will feel automatic, to some degree.
  • “Are you prepared to engage with these suggestions?”
  • “Are you prepared to try and make these things feel automatic?”

It puts at least some responsibility in their hands.

Passive subjects do nothing and just think suggestions will take hold and things will occur. They are very very bad subjects. 🤣

Compliance is used in…

  • They need to do the f’ing thing.
  • Professor Graham Workstaff (?) defined accepting suggestions with a model.

Paths:

  • Figured out what is appropriate for the hypnotic role and what is expected of them.
  • They apply normal cognitive strategies to the suggestions to make the suggestions believable.
  • If these strategies fail, they simply comply or sham. (This is still compliance…)

“We know from brain scans that there is much more going on than just imagination.” Imagination is a precursor, though. Imagining along with the suggestion is a good strategy to have that suggestion take effect.

Make sure suggestions are taken… Perhaps provide an example:

  • Imaging that your hands are going to touch.
  • I want you to see or feel this in your mind.
  • What are you imagining?

“Goal directed fantasies are the means to make a suggestion work.” If you remove the GDF from the suggestions, and just have the hypnotist suggest the words, the suggestions are interestingly more likely to be taken. Don’t insert the balloons, don’t insert the glue. The suggestion is more likely to be taken. Also, it’s not mandatory, but if the subject invents their own, it works really well.

Also, imagining the goal worked across the board on all types of suggestions, not just ideomotor. Also on amnesia or hallucinations. Imagine the suggestion working. Imagine the suggestion working automatically.

Some people will engage in self-deception if the suggestion has cues to pretend. They use a self-deception process to feel the suggestions as involuntary. Self deception is more successful when the definition of reality forms a good fit with observation.

“If you induce self-deception in poor subjects, they experience their actions as if they were involuntary.” It turns poor subjects into good subjects.

The subjects that engage in self-deception are the good subjects, and the good news is, is that the method can be taught. (And they can also be taught to interpret their responses as involuntary and automatic.)

“First, make the suggested response happen automatically. This simply means that you should make each of the responses that are suggested, but don’t pay attention to the fact that you are making them…

Second, devote all of your attention to the suggestions… Think of each suggestion as a little story that describes events that are happening to you.”

“No specific physiological markers of the hypothesized hypnotic states have been found.”

(Wagstaff, G. F., David, D., Kirsch, I., & Lynn, S. J. (2010). The Cognitive-Behavioral Model of Hypnotherapy. In S. J. Lynn, J. W. Rhue, & I. Kirsch (Eds.), Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis (pp. 179-208). American Psychological Association.)

Despite this - they can detect if someone is responding to a suggestion… they can distinguish between what suggestions they are acting upon. “An induction on itself it provides very very little.” Technically, it provides a slight increase in suggestibility. However, coaching EXERCISE also works just as well if not better than an induction.

Paraphrased heavily - if your induction fails, you’re fucked. They recommend EXERCISE. Avoiding an induction does help avoid unnecessary risks. Consider how much more impressive it could be to just tell someone they can’t remember their name, verses going through a whole induction and then doing that.

Starting

So - how do you start? Scale up with these suggestions…

  1. Ideomotor effects, e.g., arm levitation
  2. Motor challenge effects, e.g., hand stick
  3. Cognitive challenge effects, e.g., amnesia
  4. Imaginative effects, e.g., positive hallucinations
  5. Perception effects, e.g., negative hallucinations

“If there’s nothing to induce, there’s certainly nothing to deepen.”

Suggestions if things aren’t working:

  • Ask them to close their eyes
  • Intensify that imagination, the image that they’re seeing

If you fail at this point… time to start troubleshooting. “Think back through what you said.”

They consider themselves the designated driver in a room full of drunk people. Approach people as you would a drunk friend or acquaintance. Be friendly… but authoritative as well. Superior and humble. Like a shepherd. “I’m giving off the vibes that ‘this is only ending one way.‘”