Dr. Dylan Morgan M.A.(Oxon.), D.Phil.(Oxon.), MNCP, MNCH

LEEDS Complementary Therapy Centre, 249a Otley Rd. LS16 5LQ. map

Photo of Dylan

Library
Consultant
Hypnotherapist
Life Coach
Website all my own work. It has some 500,000 words and many links to check. If you find mistakes I would be pleased to know.
Image of Book Cover

Hypnotism Simply Explained

Sidney Lawrence

Disclaimer by Dylan Morgan

I have reproduced this booklet as being of historical interest, having probably been produced in the 1950s, in the UK. It may also be of value of someone who wants to read a typical simple introduction to hypnosis. Its reproduction does not imply any warranty of approval, or any guarantee that its contents are accurate.

Introduction

YOU are about to learn the secret of Hypnotism; please use this art with discretion. Do not go about putting your friends to sleep just to show how clever you are, remember people you have hypnotised have no will or mind of their own; their mind becomes yours, to carry out your suggestions, so please use discretion when giving suggestions or post-hypnotics. Use this power to help rather than to just get a laugh out of it. There are many who can be helped under Hypnosis such as people suffering from bad habits, sleepless nights, etc., or mental disorders.

When you have read this book go forth, my friend, and help the suffering.

DO not condemn this book because you can only feel or see a few pages. All that you require to know about hypnosis is written within these pages, bringing this so-called mysterious power right into the open so that even you will be able to hypnotise. Many books have been written on this subject, containing hundreds of pages, and when the reader has gone right through it, he knows just about as much as when he started and is still in the dark as to what it is all about.

I guarantee that if you have studied these few pages you will be just as good as the best hypnotist in the World. You will at least know what it is all about. I have written no rubbish, only actual facts, with no long words that to you would mean nothing - you will understand every word; so that you, too, will be able to hypnotise someone you have never met before. It will give you more confidence in yourself, more power to influence other powers; you will be able to see the inner facts more clearly; you will learn how to relax and enjoy better health yourself, sleeping and eating better, it certainly will MAKE YOU THINK.

Read these pages through, study them a few times, and you will learn more about hypnosis than if you read a dozen books. Go forth my friend and conquer fear knowing that you know as much as the next man.

top

Power

HYPNOTISM has been a mystery to many, because it has not been practised and also many people did not think it was possible. Some thought that to hypnotise, you had to have some special power in your eyes or magnetic influence in your hands; this, of course, is all imagination.

I will admit that you do require a certain power, but nothing out of the ordinary, just common-sense and the will to achieve what you are aiming for. In other words, a person suffering from an inferiority complex, frightened of people, thinking of others as being superior to themselves or who gets an inferiority complex when speaking in a crowd, will find it difficult at first to gain the confidence of their subject, thus finding difficulty influencing them. You must be able to conquer these fears so that you can gain the full co-operative confidence of your subject. If the person you are going to hypnotise has no confidence in your abilities, you may as well give up trying. That is why it is very difficult to hypnotise one of your relations: simply because they have not got the confidence in you from the start. They would simply laugh at you and take it all as a joke. Now a stranger whom you tell you can hypnotise, will not know whether or not to believe it until you gain his confidence. There are some golden rules you must remember to be successful, not only in hypnotism but in other walks of life. You must remember that no one is born superior or cleverer than another. We are all born into this world in the same way. Admittedly, some people grow to be stronger than others, but remember brawn never conquered brain. It is the clever and not the strong that win in the end. So what power you lose in your physical body, you must make up for mentally. Remember also, that you are not born with a clever brain, you have to accumulate this wisdom yourself, by learning what has happened to others and then teaching yourself - either by their folly or by their wisdom. Educate your mind, and you have the strongest power on earth. Next, you must turn to confidence - without confidence you are lost. How can you expect someone to have confidence in you when you have no confidence in yourself. You must realise that, no matter what you undertake, unless you have the knowledge that you have confidence in your own abilities you will not succeed.

Once you have gained this confidence in yourself you will then have the power to CONVINCE, in other words your subject will have confidence in you because you have convinced him so. When speaking to anyone, on no account look away from him, keep your eyes fixed on him intently, looking at one point only: the top of the nose between the eyes. This is called the pineal gland. Stare as if you are trying to see what is happening behind this gland; this is called the gaze. When you have done this for a few moments, you will find it will break down his resistance. He will also then believe that you have something stronger than he has. You will find that he cannot look you back in the face, but will just glance and then look away with a stare in his eyes; you will then know that you have gained his confidence, and believe whatever you tell him to believe.

Now to understand hypnotism we must also understand the minds of man. You will notice that I said minds not mind; for man has more than one mind: actually three.

They are the conscious, subconscious and superconscious. The mind we are most interested in is the subconscious. The conscious mind is the mind we use every day. The subconscious (which has no reasoning) is the mind which keeps our bodily organs working; for example, when we are asleep the subconscious keeps the heart beating, etc., which keeps us alive, while the conscious mind sleeps; in other words when we go to sleep, we close the conscious mind and open the subconscious. This is exactly what happens when you hypnotise anyone : you close their conscious mind and open their subconscious by artificial means (auto suggestion). If you have never studied this work before you will think it is very difficult to do this, but rest your mind at ease, I can assure you that it is very simple. You very often hear people say they do not believe in hypnotism - yet everyone can do it for themselves - they do it every night when they go to sleep. A mother sings a song to her child which puts it to sleep. This again is another form of hypnosis although she does not realise it, she is hypnotising her baby to sleep.

We are still not ready yet to deal with the method of how to hypnotise. You must understand the whys and wherefores first. Next we must consider the brain and nerves. Nearly all parts of the human body are penetrated by nerves, delicate whitish threads varying in thickness which for the most part divide like the branches of a tree and at length terminate in very fine ends that are sensitive to impressions from without. The nerves are divided into three groups - NERVES OF THE SENSES: those which receive impressions and convey impressions of light, sound, smell and taste to the brain; NERVES OF SENSATION: those which receive and convey impressions of feeling originating from without or within the body to the brain; MOTOR NERVES: these all proceed from the brain and transmit the commands of the will to the muscles of all parts causing them to move. Motor nerves and nerves of sensation often run side by side and are so much alike that it is impossible to distinguish between them. The brain is the great nerve centre to which all sensory impressions are transmitted and from which the commands to the muscles proceed.

You will see, therefore, that we have to get our impressions to the subject's mind through his brain, so that he can transmit these thoughts once again to various parts of his body. When this happens he will become completely relaxed. As mentioned before we are only really interested in the subconscious mind which has no reasoning. What do we actually mean by no reasoning? Simply that if you told the subconscious a lie it would have to accept it as the truth. When you are in contact only with the subconscious, tell the subject that he is now in China surrounded by beautiful Chinese women, he would believe it, but if you told him in his conscious state (normal) he naturally would not believe you and would think that you were crazy, simply because the conscious mind can reason it out. Under hypnosis all the suggestions you give he will believe to be true; if you told him that you are going to tell a funny story when in actual fact you only counted one, two, three, four, you would see him laugh; then when you said the joke was over and that the house was on fire he would immediately change and have an expression of fear. Now I think, we have a rough outline of how the mind works ; at least sufficient to practice hypnotism.

Next we should study the various forms of hypnosis. I will first of all give you the various stages, their names, and their meaning. I could explain it technically as follows credulous state, first lethargic state, cataleptic state, second lethargic state; followed by the deep states constituting magnetic somnambulism, as follows : state of relation, fourth lethargic state, state of sympathy at distance, seventh lethargic state, etc., I could carry on like this but it would not interest you and would only make things more difficult, so I will only deal with the stages necessary for us to carry out our experiments.

Credulous state, otherwise known as the suggestive state, when the hypnotised subject's mind is ready to receive any suggestions that you may give and in this stage the subject also loses all sense of who he is, what he is, or where he is (this stage is used for curing people of mental disorders, bad habits, inferiority complexes, and fears which we shall deal with at a later stage). Next we come to the cataleptic state, this is a state of the nervous system where the muscles in question become stiff and at the same time the strength becomes greatly increased. This similar state can be caused by the person himself. We shall say for example that a lady was in her bedroom and a burglar got through the window in 99 cases out of 100 she would be immobile, in other words she would lose the use of her limbs and also most probably of her vocal chords; she has brought the cataleptic state on herself by fear. Now under hypnosis we do not use fear to bring this about but we use suggestion instead. As I mentioned before when the subject is in the credulous state he is ready to receive any suggestions that you make, so by lifting one of his arms and rubbing at the joints and suggesting that his arm is getting stiffer and stiffer, so that he will not be able to move it or even put it down in a few seconds, it will be so, and as much as anyone tries to push it down it will stay rigid. It can only be moved again when you give the suggestion that his arm is becoming soft again that he can now move it as much as he wants to. The arm will then drop down to his side. Then there is the deeper stage when the subject goes into a deeper sleep and will not take any notice of what you are saying so it is best for the time being to leave this stage alone as we shall mostly deal with the first one mentioned, the lethargic stage.

We should now have a clear outline of what hypnotism is all about, knowing that you have the confidence and the faith in yourself to carry it out, and remember not to panic if you think something has gone wrong. Actually there is no danger in the practice of hypnotism except in the cataleptic state which we should not undertake until we are fully confident. I must once again stress this point that hypnotising a subject seems so easy you would not think it was possible. I should therefore like to go back many years when I first started to study hypnotism. I had studied psychology and had taken my degree, so you can see I was not to be fooled. I bought as many books as I could on hypnotism and studied the lessons very carefully and although I thought at the time it was very complicated for the ordinary layman to understand, I got through it, and when I had this knowledge tucked away in my brain box I began to wonder if it was possible. The book said so but could I do it? I tell you frankly I was afraid to take the plunge in case I made a fool of myself. One day I visited a friend of mine, in whose office there were about five employees, including the typist who complained that she had a terrible headache and would give anything to get rid of. My friend then remarked "well he is a hypnotist; he will get rid of it for you." She replied that she would try anything once but would not believe that she could be hypnotized. Now remember I had never tried before on anyone but I took the plunge, I sat her comfortably in a chair and in 30 seconds she was asleep; I can assure you I was shaking like a leaf. It is a strange feeling to know that you have put a human body temporarily out of action as if their life was in your hands. However, I pulled myself together, and started giving suggestions that her headache had gone, etc., then when I woke her up she told me that her headache had gone and she really felt marvellous but did not think she had been to sleep. She did say, however, that it was a glorious feeling as if all her cares had vanished. Now that first experience gave me confidence; I went about as if I was king of the universe, that every one was in my power - I was full of confidence in myself.

Having settled down once more, I began to wonder, why should I hypnotise for amusement. Here I have cured a terrible headache, why cannot I cure other ailments; and so I began more study of the human mind and its psychological complaints. I saw how many people were walking about suffering from nerves and imagination. Believe me a patient suffering from a nervous disorder has a lot of things to contend with, as he has no physical ailment, no one believes that he is really ill and frequently think that he is "putting it on." He gets rebuffs from the family, friends will not tolerate him; only he knows how he suffers. So you can see how much good you can do by helping these sufferers, most of whose troubles lie in the subconscious mind.

Next I must explain the various methods of hypnotising.

One again I will not use long words or phrases that you will not understand, but will explain step by step. We now know sufficient about hypnotism to try it out on our first subject. Do not lose heart if you fail with your first few subjects, all the time you will be gaining more confidence - always keep in your mind that you can and will hypnotise, do not be frightened or nervous otherwise everything will fail. You must have full confidence in yourself, if the reader at any time is in difficulty or needs information, I shall gladly help if you care to ring me at Maida Vale 6461.

The next point we come to is how do I know who can be hypnotised? I might just pick someone out who is very difficult. Well that difficulty is soon got over; you are in a room, shall we say, with a dozen people. Make it well known to them that you are a hypnotist and have put many people to sleep before and you wish to try out a few experiments. This, of course, must all be done with a serious attitude, no joking or laughing. Next have the lights dimmed, and the people sitting in front of you as if you are on a stage, then have complete silence for about a minute during which space you look at every one as if you are looking through them instead of at them. Try not to blink your eyes (this can easily be achieved by practicing every day, looking at an article one day for 5 minutes, next day for 7 minutes, and so on). When all is quiet, ask them to clasp their hands together, fingers interlocked, and to place their clasped hands (backs downwards) on their heads.

When they have all done this start making your suggestions as follows : "Concentrate on what I am telling you; do not let your minds wander and the more you concentrate the more willpower you have, the more these things will happen. Now concentrate, and all the time you will feel your hands getting tighter and tighter, tighter and tighter, and the more willpower you have the tighter they will get; tighter and tighter." While you are giving these suggestions hold your arms straight out in front of you, keep giving the above suggestions for about one minute then continue with : "Now your hands are so tight that you cannot take them apart, try, try, you cannot, they are getting tighter and tighter, try to put your hands down, you cannot, they are locked until I give the command that you can release them." Now watch them closely all the time. Some will be able to put their hands down, others will not be able to move them at all, some will be able to put them down after a hard struggle. Now those who keep them up the longest are the easiest subjects for you.

We shall now go a step further. Assume that three people seem likely subjects and ask them to come forward. Take the first one and explain that you want to show them magnetic attraction. (By the way if you find some of the subjects cannot take their hands down at all give them suggestions that they can.) Place the subject in front of you, feet together, hand down at sides. Now stand at the back of him and place your hands on the side of his neck. Ask him now to raise his head and concentrate on falling backwards, at the same time draw your hand away slowly suggesting "you now feel yourself falling back, falling back, as if some power is pulling you back, a power that you cannot resist; now you are beginning to come back, let yourself go, further and further, you will not fall I am right behind you." He will then fall back into your arms, this very seldom fails. Now do the same thing with the others, then reverse the action making them fall forwards; if they are difficult, let them close their eyes, but I have never found this necessary, and I must mention that I have never had a failure in these experiments.

Next ask them all to sit down on chairs near you, taking the first one. It would be better for you to try out on one only to start with - unless you have full confidence in yourself. When he is sitting comfortably, stand one side of him and hold two fingers of your right hand about six inches above his eyes; tell him to raise his eyes and look at your fingers, but not to raise his head. Then start making suggestions as follows: "As you watch my fingers you will find your eyelids getting heavier and heavier, so heavy that you will not be able to keep your eyes open, they are getting heavier and heavier, and at the same time you feel yourself getting more sleepy, more tired, as if you want to sleep, as if you are going to sleep, your eyelids are getting heavier and heavier. When I count three you will not be able to keep your eyes open, you will have lost the muscular control over your eyes so that you cannot open them. One, now your eyes are very heavy; two, so heavy; three, now your eyes are closed and you cannot open them. Try, try, try you cannot, they are stuck fast; now you are going to sleep, sleeping, sleeping, and you cannot wake until I tell you." When this has taken place, say : "I am now going to raise your right arm, but you will stay asleep" (raise the right arm and let it drop, if it drops as if there is no life in it he is now in the credulous state ready to receive your instructions). Now repeat this with the other two subjects until all three are asleep. When you are full of confidence, you will be able to work on the three at the same time, but it is best to start off with one at a time. Now as they are in this credulous stage you are ready to make your suggestions. Remember, that your subjects will now believe anything you say. For experiment you might try out the following to the first, ask : "Who is your favourite film star?" He might say Betty Grable; then tell him that Betty Grable is in the room, would he like to meet her? He will answer yes, then give him a coat to hold telling him that this is Betty Grable, he can kiss her if he wants to. He really will believe that the coat is Betty Grable and continue to make love to her. To the next say : "You are a child again, four years old and I want you to cry for your mummy." To the next suggest that you will tell him a joke and when you have finished he will laugh and laugh. Count one, two, three, and you will find he will take the counting for the joke and will laugh. Then tell him the joke is over and he will stop.

We next come to POST-HYPNOTICS, which means that you can give your subject suggestions that will happen later, whenever you want them to, say five minutes, the next day, -or a month later. I have known post-hypnotics to go for many years. To try out your post-hypnotics try the following. To the first say : "When you wake up you will find your shoes getting hotter and hotter, so hot that you will not be able to keep them on." To the next, give something to hold in his hand and suggest that all the time he holds it it is getting tighter and tighter so that when you wake him up he will not be able to let go. To the third, tell him to hold the chair with his hands and that when you wake him up he will not be able to let go of the chair and that he will not be able to stand up until you tell him. Next stage is that you will want to wake them up. Speak to them all at the same time suggesting as follows : "Now when I count four, you will wake up, you will all wake up when I count four. One, you will feel happy; two, you will carry out my suggestions but you will not know that I gave them to you; three, you will have no pains but will feel in the best of health, and four, you will now wake up, wide awake, wide awake." Then just walk away and see how your post-hypnotics have turned out. If you have had them in the credulous state they will not fail. Then go back to them suggesting to the first that he can now put his shoes on, they are quite all right, and so with the others telling them everything is now quite all right.

Perhaps you will wish at some other time to give a demonstration of your hypnotic power. Here is a very good suggestion : before bringing your subjects back to consciousness, suggest to them that on the next occasion when you look into their eyes and say "sleep," they will immediately fall asleep. Repeat this two or three times and ask them if they understand, even get them to repeat it, and you will find that next time you try to hypnotise them they will fall to sleep immediately you suggest sleep.

Now what you have read so far may sound very difficult to you and you will be thinking something like this : "Oh, it does not seem possible, I do not think it will happen, just by me suggesting to someone to go to sleep, that they will go to sleep." I can assure you that the above is quite correct and the things I have told you will happen; once you have hypnotised your first subject you will have more confidence and will be able to carry out more experiments.

top

The Art of Healing

NOW that you understand what hypnotism is about and it is no longer a mystery to you, let us turn to the more serious side, the art of healing. Personally I do not carry out experiments with hypnosis just to show people that I can hypnotise, but use it for a more useful purpose, that of curing people of their psychological disorders. I can assure you that there are many people walking about today with some obsession in their mind. You often read of people committing suicide whilst of unsound mind, or, as the coroner would say, while the balance of their mind was disturbed. Now just think, if you could have seen these people you might, most probably, have saved their lives, by giving them back self-confidence.

Let me give you an example. I had a patient at the clinic one day, saying that she had lost the use of her arm and could not raise it up, just as if it was dead. She had been to various doctors who told her that there was nothing wrong with her arm and that she should "pull herself together," she could use it if she wanted to. This made the girl worse as she knew she could not use her arm. I put her under hypnosis, found out the cause of the disturbance, then took all these thoughts out of her mind and told her that when she awoke she would be able to use her arm again; this was completely successful. The suggestion that she could not use her arm was in her subconscious mind similar to a post-hypnotic suggestion and naturally as the thoughts were severed from her mind that she could not use her arm it was just lifeless until I put the thoughts back again.

You will see how much good you can do by helping people suffering from psychological disorders. Whilst we are on this subject I would like to give you a word of warning. You may have some one come to- you and say, for example, 'that they have a terrible pain in their chest, can you take it away? You might think nothing of it and put them under hypnosis, giving suggestions that when they wake their pain will be gone, and true enough they will not feel the pain, but the trouble will still be there and perhaps getting worse. So a word of warning, never treat a subject for pain unless you know exactly what is wrong with them. The information should be attained from their doctor. Always make sure that those you treat are suffering from psychological disorders and not physical disorders. People suffering from the former ,can be treated with hypnosis without fear or danger.

top

Questions and Answers

1.- How do I know when I have hypnotised someone?

Answer. - Lift up an arm about twelve inches then let it drop. If there seems no life in it and heavy, the person is in a hypnotic sleep.

2.- But how can I be very sure that they are under my control?

Answer.- Raise their right arm and rub with your hand at the elbow joint suggesting that their arm is getting stiffer and stiffer, stiff just like a bar of iron, so that they will not be able to let it down, then let go. If the arm remains stiff then you can be positive that they are asleep.

3.- But they might only be shamming just kidding me that they are asleep.

Answer.- Repeat the last suggestions about their hand and arm getting stiff then suggest they will lose all feeling in their arm, that they will feel nothing at all, then while the arm is raised out stiff still suggesting no feeling, place a lighted match under the hand and if they are completely under your control they will feel nothing at all. It is in this state that operations are carried out.

4.- Suppose I get them so deep I cannot wake them is there any danger?

Answer.- No. Blow on their face suggesting that now they will take notice of you, there is no need to sleep any more. If they do not wake then leave them and say "Now I am going to let you sleep, if you want to, for thirty minutes, but by then you must wake up on your own accord."

top

Suggestion

BY now you will realise how suggestion plays such an important part in our lives and how people can be influenced by suggestion. When a person is ill and sends for the doctor, it is often that it is the doctor's presence there and his words and moral influence that cures as much or more than the medicine. Remember that an idea accepted by the brain is transformed into action. A man can be perfectly healthy, but if several people tell him that he does not look well he will begin to imagine that something is wrong and he will go to bed feeling ill; once again only from suggestion.

Never have negative thoughts, that is if you have a pain do not dwell on it or concentrate on the pain, occupy your mind with something else, otherwise you will find the pain will get worse. Have you ever noticed that when you have a toothache the pain continues until you get to the dentist and when you sit in the chair the pain practically stops, simply because your mind has passed to something more important -what is the dentist going to do, etc., and what is going to happen next. You see you have taken your mind away from your toothache you are not concentrating on it, your thoughts are elsewhere. You can be made a physical wreck, you can be made happy, all by simple suggestions; that is why it is better to have positive thoughts, do not let your thoughts wander to evil for they will transform themselves to the sub-conscious mind and remain there perhaps for years, coming out when you do not want them to.

top

Nervous Tension

AS nervous tension can create wars between countries so can nervous tension do the same within your own mind and body. Nervous tension commences in the brain and is caused through negative thinking; this can even be caused subconsciously.

We must remember that our thoughts control our whole body, in other words, we have to think of an action before we transmit the thought to our nerves and muscles. If you have suffered mental agony you will know the havoc it plays within ourselves, which unfortunately, no medicines, operations, etc., can cure. The characteristics of nerve tension can form into the following, indigestion, loss of appetite, insomnia, lack of concentration, headaches, loss of confidence. Always you ask yourself the same questions : How long am I going to be like this? Every day I think I will get better and yet every day I seem to be the same or a bit worse. I cannot go on much more like this ! You see when you ask yourself these questions, it is only natural, for where there is this nervous tension there is always anxiety and impatience. Please rest your mind at ease, there is a definite cure, but like most things it takes a little time and patience, which in the course of treatment you will procure. In the first few weeks of treatment there seems little change or perhaps a slight change, but then remember you did not procure this nervousness in a hurry, you took your time, perhaps many years, to build yourself up into this nervous tension. You may well ask, but what was the cause, I am sure I do not know myself, I really have no worries. That is the trouble: if you knew what caused you to have this nervous breakdown, the trouble would not have started in the first place. Very seldom do these things happen consciously, it is in the subconscious mind that the little troubles which perhaps you do not at first notice, build themselves up in the subconscious mind until all of them rolled into one stirs up the nerves and you cannot take the nervous strain that is going on inside your mind; in other words, your thoughts cannot be controlled, you have lost the power over your own body, you cannot think for yourself - except how much you are suffering; and believe me no one really knows how you do suffer mentally.

The only relief we get from our friends is to tell us to "snap out of it, there is nothing wrong with you, go out and forget everything, have a good time." This, of course, will only make you worse as you know that you just cannot do it. Instead you would prefer to sit down and have a good cry to yourself. You may be saying to yourself now, "yes, I know all this, so what; what am I to do, doctors cannot help me, every one tells me there is nothing wrong with me, and only I know the torture that I am going through."

Believe me when I say that you can and will be cured through relaxation. You might say, but I do relax, I take things easy, I do not do any work. Maybe that is so and to you you seem to take things easy, but the way you are doing it only tenses the body more and plays more on your nerves, simply because you cannot sit down and do absolutely nothing. You are impatient, which is only natural. You might be wondering now what is relaxation and how do I do it. I must admit that on your own it is not very simple to acquire but with practice it can be done. Many nervous ailments are caused through tension so you will see how important it is

to relax. An hour of good relaxation is as good as twenty-four hours ordinary or light sleep and can do much more -good, for when you are relaxed not one muscle is being used' in your body and therefore when in this state the mind is also relaxed and gives everything a chance to build up again. If you run a car at a very fast pace for a long time it will' naturally get overheated and will then seize up, but if you had switched the engine off and given it a chance to cool down nothing would have happened and so it is the same with your -body, treat it as an engine, give it a chance to cool down,. in other words, keep the tension down by relaxation.

top

Relaxation

OUR next chapter deals with how to relax. Any time of the day will do especially when you feel that tenseness upon you. Sit in a comfortable chair, then tense every muscle in the body for a few minutes, then let go as if you have no strength to even lift an arm, even let the muscles of the face drop as if you have no strength to keep your mouth closed.

You will feel the difference when you are relaxed, also relax the mind, imagine you are very tired and keep thinking of sleep, also that your body is very heavy as if the chair cannot hold you. Practice this daily and I can assure you that you will benefit by the results. You will not only take the nervous tension off but you will also feel more alert and able to concentrate better. Always speak slowly, and softly, on no account ever raise your voice to show that you have more power than the other man, it really does not convince anyone. If you speak slowly and quietly you will be thought more of and generally can save a lot of arguments. Always wait until the other man has finished speaking and concentrate on what he is saying. Many people often have a conversation with someone and while the other person is talking their mind is concentrating on what they are going to say in reply. If you keep to these simple rules I can assure you that you will create a much bigger impression with people. Listen to their sorrows, sympathise with them, and sometimes even give them right when they are wrong. Also never argue when you will gain nothing by it, it is a waste of time and temper and will play on your mind and will also hinder relaxation when you try.

One more word on hypnosis, do not stagger your words, come to the point. Never say: "I am going to try and hypnotise you." If you speak like this your subject will have already lost confidence in you. Remember you must convince and say : "I am going to hypnotise you, I can, and I will." There is a lot of difference in twisting a few words such as will you, and you will, we know it is polite to say "will you do so and so," but so much more convincing when you say "you will do so and so," as if they must carry out your command.

top

Psychological disorders of the Mind

I WOULD like in this chapter to deal with the psychological disorders of the mind and how these happen. Many people suffer in their mind from things which perhaps happened many years ago, they cannot reason these disturbances out for themselves as usually they do not know they exist.

As mentioned before, we have two minds, the subconscious and the conscious, the conscious mind is the one we use every day and the troubles contained therein, we usually get over, as we can reason things out for ourselves; but in the sub-conscious it is a different matter entirely. When a disturbance happens there we do not know anything about it but the thoughts are transmitted to the nerves just the same, so you will see that it is only things or thoughts that are in our subconscious mind that we are interested in. You might be wondering now how do these bad thoughts get in our sub-conscious mind, is there no way in which we can keep them out? Frankly I do not think there is any way, for the sub-conscious mind rules the body and to kill this mind we shall destroy ourselves, hence you often read in the papers about so and so threw himself under a train whilst the balance of his mind was disturbed, in other words, his conscious mind had been closed perhaps for only a fraction of a second.

Nevertheless if that person could have reasoned things out it would not have happened, or if they could have been put under hypnosis and the thoughts removed they could have easily have been saved. Many people go to doctors today with mental disorders, and what is the result? A bottle of medicine to soothe the nerves and "come back and see me next week." But does the patient ever recover? I can assure you never by medicines, as no liquid can reach the mind, only the talk that the doctor can give psychologically-usually he has neither the time nor knowledge of hypnosis.

There is only one way to help these sufferers and that is to get right into the subconscious mind and see what is happening there. How do we get there? Simply by hypnosis. We have to find out what is actually worrying the person. If they knew themselves naturally they could tell you, but unfortunately they consciously do not know or even remember as the trouble is in the subconscious. Now when we put someone under hypnosis the conscious mind is closed and the subconscious open, and when in this state we speak to the subject saying "what is worrying you?" nine cases out of ten they will tell you. If the answer is not forthcoming, they must be prompted. We must then go back a few years and trace over their troubles. We will take for example a man who has lost the use of his legs. When after he has been examined and X-rayed, they cannot find any organic reason for him being in this state we then know it is a form of neurosis, in other words he has actually hypnotised himself or given himself auto-suggestion that he cannot use his legs, and in this state he has lost the thoughts that control his legs.

We transmit thoughts to our nerves which in turn control the muscles and give us the movements we require. These thoughts are actually transmitted to the motor nerves. These all proceed from the brain and transmit the commands of the will. The greater number of nerves pass the cavity of the -occipital bone and down the tubular cavity formed by the spinal column and all running together as the spinal cord; every portion of the body has its own system of nerves.

I do not want to get to the medical side here, but I just want to point out why the subject cannot use his legs. Just as with a telephone wire that has been cut you cannot get your message through, so it is with the subject; he also cannot get the message through to his legs. Under hypnosis we can either take these thoughts away or give them back. Try this experiment for yourself : place someone under hypnosis and tell them that when they wake up they will lose all senses to their legs, they will not be able to move them one inch. At the same time give them a post-hypnotic suggestion that when you clap your hands they will fall asleep again; in this manner you can then suggest that they can now use their legs once more, that they will have more strength in them than they had before, and that when they wake up everything will be just the same as it was before. Now getting back to the subject who lost the use of his legs, I think you will now understand that medicine could not cure him and the only cure could be hypnosis that put the thoughts back

There are many people suffering from various complaints, but before treating, always be sure that they have consulted a medical man and that you have made sure that the trouble is purely a psychological disorder. You can then proceed without any danger to the subject. It would be impossible for me in such a small book to cover all the nervous complaints that a person can suffer from, but if you care to study various books on these subjects, many hints can be derived from them. Nevertheless all troubles seem to come from the same centre, the mind. Another point to remember is that these troubles, caused in the subconscious can date back many years, for instance, something can happen to frighten a child, of say six years of age, and these thoughts would then be registered in the subconscious, perhaps would not be transmitted for 10, 15 or 20 years. So you see that in some cases you will have to go back quite a number of years to find out the cause of any trouble. The best way to start is, before you give hypnosis, get the subject in a comfortable and relaxed position, in the semi-dark, and get them to relate their life history, starting from the time they can remember, asking them if they have any idea what could have caused the trouble. In this way you can be doubly sure when checking under hypnosis.

top

Conclusion

IN this chapter, I bring to a close my little booklet, hoping that it has been very clear to you, and that by what you have learnt you will be able to derive some benefit, not only to yourself, but to others whom you will (in the course of time) be able to help with their troubles in their mind.

Once again I should like to state that it seems hard to believe that all you have to do to put someone to sleep is to tell them to sleep, you must learn the correct approach. First, believe in yourself; if you start off by saying "I don't think it is possible, I cannot do it, I do not think it will work," then you are wasting your time trying, for if you cannot convince yourself, if you have no confidence in yourself, you cannot expect any one else to have confidence in you.

Always keep these positive thoughts in your mind : "I can hypnotise, I will hypnotise, I have the power to convince." Try to cultivate a strong, quite voice (shouting does not mean that you can influence better), know what you are talking about; do not stumble over your words but make every one a command, as if it must be obeyed. Impress upon your subject that you have hypnotised many people before. Never say "I will try to hypnotise," in that one word "TRY" you have already failed to convince, and with these words, I must leave you, my friend.

Go forth into the struggle of life, this knowledge will carry you to victory, to health and wealth, and with it, try to help others.

Printed by W. J. Fowler & Son, Ltd., 245/7, Cricklewood Broadway, London, N.W.2; published by S. Lawrence, 44, Buckley Road, N.W.6.

top

Contents

Introduction
Power
The Art of Healing
Questions and Answers
Suggestion
Nervous Tension
Psychological disorders of the Mind
Conclusion