One could imagine the headline for such a picture to be “Police Brutality!”

But what if the picture instead bore the caption “Brave off-duty policeman snatches club from dangerous thug.”

This video posted by a friend of mine on Facebook recently interests me because it plays on all our inherent prejudices and preconceptions.

What do you see?
An heroic white, old man standing up to the young dark skinned bully?

In this longer version of the video, we see the beginning of the exchange. The older man asking the younger man how much it would cost to spitshine his shoes.

Watch again and notice the “young” guy tells us his age. He’s 50.

I’m not saying either man is justified in his actions, I just wonder if reactions would be different were the title of the video different.
How about “Innocent man on bus stands up to racist and gets viciously beaten for it.”

This post shows an old newspaper advertisement for the book from 1902 as well as the cover and a couple of pages from the book.

Here is a biography of the author from The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Canterbury Provincial District] 1903. With thanks to the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre http://www.nzetc.org/

Kline, Charles Bertram
Metaphysician, 135 Montreal Street, Christchurch. Mr. Kline was born at Hokitika in 1866, and is a younger son of the late Mr J. P. Kline, journalist, formerly proprietor of the “West Coast Times” and “Evening Star.” He was educated at Hokitaka State School, and also at several private schools, including Mrs Alabaster’s, in Christchurch, the Bishop’s School, in Nelson, and Nelson College. Mr. Kline was brought up in his father’s offices, and subsequently owned and managed, the “Evening Star.” Early in 1884 Mr. Kline made a trip of a year’s duration to Europe, and some years after his return to the colony he took up the study of thought in its relation to health. Books treating of hypnotism, suggestion, and mental science were earnestly studied, and in 1897 Mr. Kline went to Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne, to ascertain the methods there employed in what was known as mental healing, and also to procure books which were not obtainable in New Zealand. The visit with its accompanying enquiries resulted in his taking up in 1899 the work of healing professionally, and his results have convinced him of the wonderful powder of mind, properly guided and controlled, to conquer diseases which have successfully resisted all other methods of cure. He contends that, by properly directed thought and habits of life, the causes of disease are reached, and with the removal of the cause the effect ceases. A booklet, by Mr. Kline, on “The Power of Thought in the Cause and Cure of Disease,” has run into a second edition, and he intends to publish a much larger work on the subject. His main argument is that the study of mental science shows that bad emotions, such as envy, jealousy, fear, ill-will, pessimism, hate, are injurious to the brain that feels them; that they poison their very source and express their influence physically on the body; and that, on the other hand, good emotions, such as the feelings of love, joy, good nature, kindness, courage, and a proper use of mind, unmistakably promote mental power, health, happiness, and success. Mr. Kline is hopeful that the great importance of this subject may impress the Legislature with the desirableness of giving facilities to mental practitioners of metaphysicians to pass an examination on mental science and physiclogy, and to thus secure legal recognition for themselves, and a scientific and honourable status for their profession.

I’ll conclude by saying: Once you start looking, you’ll find representations of Hypnosis everywhere!

Unfortunately, negative or inaccurate imagery of Hypnosis in Popular Culture isn’t only limited to cartoons like these. Some might say some of the worst offenders historically and in the present day are the Hypnotists themselves.

If you look at the publicity material Hypnotists used historically (and some recently) most play on having impossible or special powers, often without a hint of irony!

No doubt, some might have something to say about my own publicity or the images used on my DVD set!

I like to think people are intelligent enough to seperate fact from fiction and see most of this imagery as humorous or just plain silly.

So. That said. Have fun watching the following videos.

I know I did!

Woodpecker – Hypnotic Hick

http://revver.com/video/1482238/woody-woodpecker-hypnotic-hick/

Donald Duck – The Eyes Have It

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXSKbpeLYKQ

Popeye – Popeye’s Hypnotic Glance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5I5eqbegV8

Babbitt and Catstello – The Mouse-merized Cat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7kNYViTGsE

Road Runner – Zipping Along

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bse5iere8no

Sylvester and Tweety – Dog Pounded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e94RBtsCaYg

Enjoy The Hypnotist from The Flintstones!

I firmly believe there’s an anthropologically based, deeply held subconscious ability to trance, meditate or engage in prayer prevalent in every human culture, but that’s a post for another day with many more big words!

However, what I’m talking about here are the images conjured up by the words Hypnotist, Hypnosis or Hypnotized when you mention them to anyone over the age of about 7 years old.

In popular culture, when you start to look, you’ll find we are bombarded by images of Hypnosis, both negative and positive (mostly negative) in cartoons, comic books, TV programmes and films from a very early age.

I’m not interested in entering into a debate on whether these inaccurate portrayals damage the reputation of my chosen profession.
I just think it’s helpful to know what’s lurking in the minds of our volunteers, clients and subjects when we discuss Hypnosis in our “pre-talk” or in any forum.
Plus, it’s a great excuse for a bit of light relief which I hope you’ll enjoy as much as I do.

So I bring you the first in this series of blog posts:

From 1942, it’s Bugs Bunny – The Hare Brained Hypnotist!

This series of videos answers all the usual questions I’m asked about Hypnosis. The videos are aimed at those who might be interested in a Hypnosis show or Hypnotherapy or are just curious.

For those interested in learning Hypnosis or with a deeper curiosity, I recommend watching these first, but also look out for the next series: The Hypnosis IMHO which covers a few of the trickier questions I’m sometimes asked.

Needless to say, the answers I give are all given “In My Humble Opinion!”

If something I say in either series ignites your interest in learning Hypnosis from me, then you might be interested in my DVD “Hypnosis Happens” which covers all these topics and a lot more in much greater depth.

Now, let’s get one thing clear. They are not, as the name suggests, a little bit burnt.

However, maybe their unfortunate name is one of the reasons I can’t bring myself to like them.

Maybe it’s because it brings to mind the smell of a cotton shirt which has had the iron passed over it rather too slowly.

Or maybe it’s because it recalls the distant memory of a holiday camp strong-man act I once saw as a young child, who jokingly promised the audience he wouldn’t be performing his once famous finale: “Jumping over an upright welding torch in just a loin cloth singing ‘Goodness gracious, great balls of fire.’”

No. Slightly burnt nuts they are not.
They are in fact almonds, each individually coated in a generous layer of chocolate.

I remember mum, who is a big fan of chocolate box assortments, always used to see any nut coated in chocolate as a manufacturer’s excuse not to give us the extra chocolate. Luckily for mum, your average box of chocolates would only have one or two of these brazen little devils.

Whenever she found one, in disgust, she would always nibble the chocolate from around the nut and return the offending sucked kernel to its tray compartment.

So maybe that’s it. A box of Scorched Almonds is, to me, a box consisting entirely of mum’s least favourite chocolates!

The reason I’ve chosen to write about them now, is that they are more evident than ever at this time of year.

The supermarket shelves have scores of the little, rectangular boxes because, in households other than mine, they’re really quite popular.

This affordable box of unsucked nuts seems to be an incredibly versatile item too.

Not only are they the perfect Christmas gift for grandparents or people you don’t know that well, they also often provide an answer to that age old question: “What do you buy someone who has everything?”

Invited to a friend’s house for dinner and looking for the perfect accompaniment to that bottle of Merlot? Scorched Almonds.

Need to say “Thank you” to a school teacher for spending more time with your little darling than you did this year? Scorched Almonds.

OK. So I don’t like them myself, but would never be rude enough to mention this when on the receiving end of this traditional, seasonal New Zealand offering.

However, imagine my disgust when my partner, upon receiving my beautifully giftwrapped but similarly sized box of expensive and delicate Swiss chocolates for her birthday, shook the still-wrapped parcel vigorously and said “Oh goody. Scorched Almonds.”

I almost snatched them right back!

So there you have it. Scorched Almonds, the Owen Wilson of the confectionery world: Not particularly attractive to look at and nutty, yet inexplicably popular and not that welcome in my house.

On the other hand, a red carpet awaits the first Christmas visitor bearing a Terry’s Chocolate Orange.

The truth is nobody can tell you exactly what will work for you and your subject at any given time.
Hypnosis happens, quite simply, when your intent converges with the subject’s expectancy.

For the scientifically minded amongst you, it might help to think of the experiments you did in high school physics with a ripple tank.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_tank

You and your subject can be seen as adjacent point sources, each producing concentric waves or ripples.

Under the right circumstances (when the ripples are in phase with each other) when the peaks of those ripples collide, they combine to give what is known as constructive interference, making those peaks twice as strong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interference_(wave_propagation)

Of course, the converse can happen. Where the ripples are out of phase, we get destructive interference and therefore, nothing.

Think of your ripples as ripples of Hypnotic intent, built on (amongst other things) your own belief and confidence that the methods you have learned will work.

The subject’s ripples of expectancy are a little more complex.

In my opinion they are built on their belief and confidence in your abilities to deliver a successful suggestion, but there are also many other things that can cause those same ripples and help you to simply “get lucky” as is the case with many unexpected, shock, covert or informal Hypnotic phenomena.

Whatever you choose to call it, it all comes down to suggestion. I have gone on record several times as saying that the whole closed eyes/sleep/deepener elements of Hypnosis are all about management: Setting a frame complete with appropriate cues for the Hypnotic session.

It just so happens that this frame is in keeping with most people’s deeply held beliefs or perceptions about Hypnosis and so it really happens for them. Ask anybody over the age of about seven what they think Hypnosis is and you’ll see I’m right. (In a later post to this blog, I’ll be speculating about where these beliefs come from.)

Now, an English Hypnotist named James Rolph seems to be making this whole “Hypnosis without Trance” his “thing” and I have to say he’s doing a good job of it. He has a blog, a newsletter and now, it seems, a live workshop.

Well, I don’t know whether James and his followers are aware, but another guy known as The Amazing Kreskin already made it HIS thing in the mid 70s. In the 90s, Kreskin offered $50,000 to anyone who could prove the existence of a trance state and even defended this in court in Burlington County 1996. But in spite of this, Kreskin still does a form of Hypnosis too.

See James in action in this video here:

Now see Kreskin in action in this video (especially from about 3 minutes onwards:)

Suggestion. No formal induction, no deepeners, no trance state.

There is however, one big difference between the approaches they each use:

 James’ approach is the more permissive of the two. He requires some kind of buy-in on the part of the subject and this, in my opinion, is where his set-up, the clever language and techniques become important. James, I believe is from an NLP background, so no real surprises there. But the subject has to believe that phenomena without formal induction is plausible (to use James’ expression.)

Kreskin’s approach, on the other hand is authoritative and domineering and so he gets the job done much quicker. He doesn’t appear to give a damn about the deeply held beliefs of the subject or whether they find it plausible. He even uses an argumentative approach at one point to better bombard the subject with suggestions.

Overall, an extreme example of Indirect versus Direct approaches.

Kreskin is very vocal about his own beliefs about suggestion and Hypnosis but ironically, what James doesn’t seem to be factoring in here is his OWN belief. He firmly believes he can achieve all kinds of phenomena without trance. He even has a documented approach and the analysis of all kinds of experiments to support this belief (sounds like an anatomy of belief to me) so when he does his set-up and delivers his suggestions, he subconsciously communicates this (sometimes directly) to the subjects and it’s partly BECAUSE of this, his suggestions work. This is almost exactly the same “plausibility” he discusses in relation to the subject’s belief in one of his videos.

If it’s plausible to the Hypnotist, it stands to reason it has more chance of working.

So in conclusion, do I believe there can be Hypnosis Without Trance? Absolutely yes.

However, James Rolph’s approach isn’t the only way of achieving this. I have shown the polar opposite of his approach which means there must be plenty of room for approaches in between.

There’s more than one way to Kreskin a cat!

Personally, the whole eyes closed/sleep/deepener approach is what works best and what is easiest for me in the context I usually perform. But that’s only because it doesn’t require changing/influencing the majority of people’s beliefs like James’ approach does and while it is as simple and as quick as Kreskin’s approach, it doesn’t require an overly authoritarian/domineering approach like that displayed by the truly amazing Kreskin.

Coincidentally last week, when my mother was visiting from England,
I took her to see this:

Nowhere near as grand as Ben’s Boulevard, Blackwood Lane is in the popular Lichfield Lanes district of Christchurch, New Zealand. Home to The Vespa Room, The Twisted Hop, Goodbye Blue Monday and some other very trendy eating and drinking establishments.

However, I have no idea why this lane in Christchurch, which appears on no map, is so named. If anyone can tell me, that would be great!

I know Blackwood is a Scottish name and I share it with a fine array of people including comedian and presenter Richard, actor Vas and even a whole Gospel Quartet!

Finally, if you’re wondering, like I once did, why there appear to be a lot of people of Jamaican descent around the world all with the Scottish name Blackwood, or in fact any other Scottish name, then you’ll find the answer here.

Some of my friends back in England also used to take great pleasure in pointing out that “black wood” has an amusing double meaning in patois but I’ll leave that one to your own imagination and research! 

So does Blackwood Lane in Christchurch have a Scottish/Caribbean origin?

Come to think of it, it did use to be home to a hair studio called The Dread Shed.

The plot thickens!