“Okay, this is it. We’re about to begin the process of learning about hypnosis itself!
Now, the history of hypnosis is ancient, but it’s only in recent, modern times, in the 1880s, that hypnosis walked out of the ‘Dark Ages’ of mysticism, and webegan to look at it in a more scientific way. A man called James Braid took the old style of ‘Animal Magnetism’ and ‘Mesmerism’ and studied it. And he found out that it wasn’t some magnetic magical fluid that was doing all the work; it was actually language and suggestion, and certain thoughts and ideas. Now he’s the one who first came up with the term ‘hypnosis’ and, because when people were in a hypnotic state, he noticed that they were sort of sleepy and drowsy, and it looked very much like they were in a sleep-like state.
The thing is, however, this is an inaccurate view of hypnosis. As we’ll come onto in a moment, hypnosis can happen ‘wide-eyed’ – whilst people are thinking they
are wide awake – and still be hypnotic. And, for this purpose, James Braid actually changed his mind. He tried to change the word ‘hypnosis’ to what he called ‘monoideaism’. Now, the word ‘monoideaism’ never caught on, but it’s meaning is actually very interesting. ‘Monoideaism’ means ‘mono’ = a single, ‘ideaism’ (for ‘idea’) = thought or idea. So, in hypnosis, you’re making people focus on a single thought or an idea to such an extent that it becomes real for them.You’re focusing people so intensely that you create a freedom for the unconscious mind to act beyond the normal constraints of what the conscious mind thinks is permissible or real or proper. And this is the power of hypnosis.
Since that day we’ve come a long, long way. And this is where the 4-stage formula becomes very important.”
Stage 1: Absorb Attention
Stage 1, just as in the old classical system, is about capturing people’s focus. I like to call it ‘absorbing attention’. When you absorb people’s attention, you’re really drawing them into you and making sure that all their thoughts are following along the lines that you’re setting out for them. And this is going to be very, very important.
Excerpt from: The Power of Conversational Hypnosis
