When I learned hypnosis, I learned it in an NLP center in Ericksonian style. It wasn’t until much later that I was exposed to non-Ericksonian hypnosis.

I can’t say that I liked it very much. Especially the rapid inductions.

Grabbing someone’s head, shaking it, and yelling “Sleep!” would scare the bejeebers out of anyone.

And then I heard the story of a hypnotist who tried this in his office with an elderly client and hurt her neck.

Whoops.

There’s a fabulous movie Marjoe about a young boy who is born as a preacher. From the ages of 4-14 he saves people all across the United States. As a teen, he gets disgusted and walks away from the business.

In his twenties, he returns to the road with some video cameras to record his preaching and performance in church.

The cameras are rolling as Marjoe gets people to faint – sometimes a whole line of people at one time – just be pointing at them.

And that’s when you need to understand the concept of the trained baboon and hypnosis.

The training baboon is conditioned how to behave by watching others.

You know what they say, “Money See. Monkey Do.”

So it doesn’t really matter if the goal of the money is to get people to faint at a religious revival meeting or go into a deep trance.

I suggest to you that if you go up to a total stranger on the street, grab their head, shake it and yell “sleep!” you’re going to find yourself punched in the head.

Get my point?

PS. The movie Marjoe won an Oscar for best documentary in 1968. It is available on Ebay from time to time and well worth the investment.