Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.

Some one mentioned hypnosis a while ago and seemed a little apprehensive. That’s not a good idea to do around a hypnotist so today I’ll talk a little bit about hypnosis.

Hypnosis is self hypnosis. It’s a relaxation state. You’re not forced, you don’t spill you guts and give out private information and you can’t be programmed to rob a bank. Unless you already do that. It’s also the power of suggestion working on the subconscious.

Stage hypnosis is different. People volunteer and they do what they’d do normally anyway.
I became interested in the 80‘s I had some pretty good tapes. Around that time NLP neuro linguistic programming was introduced. Developed by Bandler and Grinder it modeled the syntax of hypnosis methods of 3 hypnotherapists (Milton Erickson, Virginia Satir and Fritz Perls).

Milton Erickson could hypnotize someone with 2 words. “That’s right”. “That’s right”. He could also use hand gestures and body language to get someone under.

He didn’t necessarily use hypnosis. He sent one alcoholic to a nursery and told him to look at cactus plants for 3 hours. After 2 hours he got the message, went home and never drank again. A cactus plant can survive for days without water.

Hypnosis was first called mesmerism. And it was because of my interest in ancient history that I never watched the DVD the SECRET. Too hokey. But I did buy the book . The authors in the appendix intrigued me because I like to know the originator of something.

Of the 5 from the early 1900’s 3 were in it for the money. One Charles Hannel sold a course for $1500, that’s a first class ticket on the Titanic. Wallace Wattles may not have ever made any money. But two were legit. And they were part of the then self help movement called New Thought, Mental science or Mental Healing.

The father of that movement was Phineas P. Quimby . Inventor, clockmaker, daguerreotypist (the daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process) and mesmerist.

In 1840 he saw a demonstration and decided to try it. It took 10 minutes to succeed , then he didn’t know to do next so he shook his friend out of it and bought a book. After that he found a 15 year old assistant who was a great subject and they toured New England doing demonstrations for 10 years.

From his work in mesmerism Quimby discovered the power of the mind, the power of suggestion and the power of one’ s belief system and the ego. This was all around 50 years before Freud.

Quimby had a great line , he said the “The more outrageous the notion the mind will go to extremes to prove it”.

He lived until 1865 healing 16000 people by changing their beliefs.

Thomas Troward warned of the misuse of power of suggestion in 1907, shop keepers were trained to prey on unsuspecting customers to sell what they didn’t really want and there were dubious ads with wild claims running in the newspapers.

Today we can ad the internet and infomercials to the list.

Quimby’s outrageous notion is still applicable today. The are groups that believe there’s a planetary alignment and the Mayan calendar running out in 2012 so the world will end. NASA hasn’t confirmed any alignment and the Mayan calendar starts a new cycle in 2012, the same as it does every 395 years.

Egypt has similar wild claims.

Power of Suggestion may also apply to theReconnection as the eyes flutter there in a similar manner to hypnosis. As Quimby said “The More Outrageous the notion the mind will go to extremes to prove it”.


One famous hoax was perpetuated before the American Spanish war by a newspaper man in Chicago. People still believe it today. Penn and Teller staged it years ago. Although a retraction was printed it went unnoticed and the legend still survives.

Quimby said there was nothing or no one that could affect you unless you let it.

Your own beliefs use the power of suggestion on you and no one else. You alone.

Your own beliefs, operating on your subconscious.

As Byron Katie has said: “Our concepts are based on a life time of uninvestigated beliefs”.

So change your mind and you change your life.

Be yourself.

Everyone else is taken.
From a speech I gave July 7th 2011