The Proper Use of Suggestions
Posted on 11. Nov, 2010 by Jason Gold in Hypnosis
What’s important is not the title we give these utterances but the way in which we use them. Before we go on I’d like to clarify the difference between a Stage Hypnotist and a Hypnotherapist, in terms of suggestion.
Hypnotherapists use suggestions exactly as the word suggests. Think of the statement – “Don’t THINK of a pink elephant”. To not think of a pink elephant, one has to go inside and first think of a pink elephant, in order for the sentence to make sense. This is useful as the client can be guided towards relaxation without being challenged due to the clever use of words, vague and ambiguous language, and suggesting what the client might or might not want to do next. It gives them a choice.
Stage hypnotists on the other hand, present their statements like commands. It is important that the volunteer believes what you are saying so you have to be in control from the start, and making gentle suggestions is not necessarily the way to do that.
Through time and experience of hypnotising volunteers, you will learn many things about how you word your phrases and commands. Many times people speak without thinking first. As a stage hypnotist, you have to think on your feet and make sure to think through all of your sentences before you say them, otherwise you could have a disaster.
One time in a large auditorium I was presenting a show. I had my volunteers hypnotized and ready to play. I told the line of volunteers that they were all desperate for the toilet and were close to wetting themselves, but that it would not actually happen. I was forcing this issue as the crowd roared with laughter at the squirming volunteers. And then, one of the men ran to the back of the stage, revealing his manhood, and urinated on the curtains. The stage manager stood at the back of the room looking horrified but as the crowd were loving every minute of it, I couldn’t help but laugh as well.
So I gave him the suggestion/command, “You can hold it, now go to the bathroom”, expecting him to put it away and referring to his need to urinate. The man took this very literally and with his hand around his manhood, he ran up the middle of the room towards the bathroom, revealing himself to everyone in the room. As much as this had been hilariously funny, these things can also work against you on stage, so it’s wise to choose your words carefully. (The man at the show found this hilarious afterwards and was completely unphased by it).
At another show, I told the volunteers from a group of women at a hen night to imagine they were schoolchildren and I was their teacher and that when I turned my back they would do as schoolchildren would. Having performed this routine many times I gathered they would pull faces and make signs behind me. The crowd’s faces were a mixture of shock and excitement a moment later and I hadn’t actually said anything to make it so, so I figured something must be going on behind me. I turned around in the nick of time to see one of them women swinging to punch me, running at me, spitting and swearing. I put her to sleep on the spot whilst standing up, and looked back at my crowd who were in knots at this hilarious sight. It turned out that this woman was a bit of a well-known local ‘hard case’ and had been expelled from school from beating up her worst teacher. After this happening, I decided that funny as it was I would tell the future ‘pupils’ that they could not leave their chairs.
In this chapter, we’ve covered the bases of levels and depths of trance, what hypnosis is and examples of how it works. We’ve covered the power of suggestion, time distortion and the post hypnotic state. Already, you’ve been learning many of the things that you need to know to be an effective Stage Hypnotist. You now know more about how hypnosis really works than many of the stage hypnotists out there. In the following chapter we’ll move to the next level, going into detail on your hypnotic power, how to use your voice, language, and your body to become a masterful communicator in the process of hypnotising. We’ll discuss the many moving parts of the hypnotic process and most importantly, we’ll discover the key secrets to stage hypnosis, before going on to chapter four which will give you precise recipes for inducing the state we have been discussing throughout this book.
