many people have this huge misunderstanding about what hypnosis is, the
books, articles all these things have really created this misconception of ‘power’ in hypnosis of complete control, of domination of another human being.
Personally, I think it’s a good thing that that is not possible.
You see, in hypnosis you are negotiating with someone’s unconscious mind. And the unconscious mind is the place where people’s ethics and moral code is really stored.
So in hypnosis you’ll never get someone to break their ethical code. But “hold on”
you’ll say, “I saw a stage show and all these people were running around, acting like chickens, and doing all kinds of crazy things. Surely the hypnotist, on that show, had complete control?”
Well, yes and no. Let me explain what I mean by that. An analogy I’d like to draw is imagine a magician doing his show. Now, in this show he causes a woman to levitate up off the ground, and fly around the audience, before coming right back to the front stage. The question is this: “Did the woman fly?”
Sure, she was 6-foot up in the air. Sure, she made a tour around the entire
audience, and she was genuinely up in the air in that position. But was it really levitation? Was it really flying?
No. Everyone knows that some kind of trickery, some kind of machine, wires,
whatever you want, was actually involved in creating the illusion of flight.
Well, a stage hypnotist’s job is to create the illusion of control.