Learn To Hypnotize Someone Through The 4 Stage Hypnosis Protocol

Daryl V. Glenn

It seems that everybody nowadays wants to learn to hypnotize someone - or so the morass of advertisements trumpeting the benefits of hypnotism programs lead you to believe. There's nothing wrong with wanting to learn this (assuming your motives are not unscrupulous), but the best way to learn it is to experience hypnosis first hand. You'll be in a much better position to determine whether or not hypnosis is really working on your subject.

First, a brief bit of hypnosis history, so you'll know exactly what you're setting out to do.

In the 1880s, a Scottish neurosurgeon named James Braid came up with the term hypnotism. Braid, who is now known as the Father of Hypnosis, started his journey to hypnosis by studying the popular theories of his day, which were animal magnetis m and mesmerism. He quickly concluded that mesmerism and mesmeric trances had nothing at all to do with “magetism.” He affirmed that hypnosis -- that is, what he would later call hynosis -- was not a result of magnetic fluids coursing through our bodies.

Braid conducted experiements and came to believe that hypnosis could be induced by following a few simple rules. He coined the term hypnosis – Hypnos is the Greek god of sleep – because subjects appeared to be sleeping. Later he discovered that an individual could be hypnotized and still be fully conscious, fully awake.

These are Braid’s rules – still practiced today and known as the 4-Stage Formula:

• Absorb attention – this is the stage when the hypnotist captures the subject’s focus. It requires of the hypnotist the ability to draw the subject in and lead the subject with language based on suggestions

• Bypass the critical factor – the critical factor is that part of the mind that says, “this isn’t possible.” Resistance to the hypnotic trance results from the critic factor (or doubt, or disbelief) standing between the desired hypnotic state and the subject. The subject resists because she or he doesn’t think it’s really possible to be hypnotized, and has disbelief or doubt – or is cricitcal of the process on some level. This resistance has to be circumvented if the hypnosis is to be effective and the suggestions are to sink into the unconscious mind/subconcious.

• Activate an unconscious response – perhaps the best example of this would be the hypnotist who suceeds in eliciting an emotional response from the subject

• Leading the unconscious to the desired outcome -- through careful suggestions, of course

Once you have your subject in a hypnotic state and have accomplished the four stages, you lead your subject through the territory of the unconscious by way of planting suggestions in order to obtain the desired outcome. It’s actually not as technical as it sounds.

The best way to get an idea of the process is to experience the hypnotic trance state yourself. There’s nothing mystical or weird about it. An easy way to experience this is to download an mp3 or get a CD with a script based on an area of improvement you'd like to explore. Listening to a professionally designed audio hypnosis script is the fastest way to expose you to the process. Just pick a goal you’d like to achieve – for example, losing weight, sleeping better, building confidence, conquering procrastication – download the appropriate hypnosis mp3, relax and listen. Afterward, you'll be much better prepared when you begin to learn to hypnotize someone else.




Visit out blog, How To Use Hypnosis for more information on using hypnosis to change your life.