Hello everyone.

Over the last couple of months, I've been studying hard to develop my skills as a stage hypnotist, thanks to Anthony 'The God' Jacquine's Manchurian Approach, thanks Anthony!

I was out with the lads last Friday and got talking to this guy, who I introduced myself as the magician and hypnotist. The guy was instantly interested and I thought that was a good reaction, lets put the hypnosis to the test for the very first time.

I first of all did the magnetic fingers set piece and that worked reasonably well, though it took a bit longer than I antisipated. He was following all my instructions every step of the way, but one thing I picked up on was that I could see his index fingers getting closer, but he was tying to force himself to keep them apart, but eventually, after my suggestions and telling to him to relax even more, his fingers finally came into contact and off he dropped into hypnosis. Has anyone else ever had this response, where people are trying too hard to keep their fingers apart?

From the magnetic fingers, I was keen to try out the amnesia (forgetting his name) and sadly this never worked. I look back at the situation and I think the amnesia didn't work because I 'jumped the gun', going from a mild hypnotic routine, to a more powerful one. For some un-known reason, I never did the arm levitation with the helium balloons nor the heavy card routine and I think that because the show wasn't structured as good as it should've been, the amnesia never worked.

My confidence and the way I delivered the suggestions was spot on, I felt very confident and strongly believed in myself what I was doing.

On the plus side though, after the 5 minute hypno show, the guy was utterly impressed. I could tell the guys reactions was genuine because of his intonation and his gratitude.

Overall, I was very excited to try it out for the very first time. I thoroughly enjoyed it and greatly look forward to trying it out again very soon.

Neil.

I believe the way Anthony Jacquin proscribes it for phenomena and layering of suggestions is: catalepsy, emotional change (laughter), and then cognitive stuff like the amnesia you tried.
In this way everything (along with deepening) sort of builds on each other.

Good call, handy advise.

Thanks.

Neil.

For some people, being told what to do, including being told, "relax," is intimidating and they fight it. With magnetic fingers, I prefer to say something like "Just allow your fingers to go. Don't help them and don't fight it." It sounds like I'm neither encouraging nor discouraging them and leaving it open, allowing them to relax.

I agree with the others. The level of hypnosis induced from just a simple induction is not one that is conducive to amnesia. First, use deepeners and/or fractionation.

They can either get amnesia or they can't. How you build to that and how you test for that and how you perform with the phenonema is more important. Entertain with what they can do not you want to do.

HK

Yea you have to do the show in front of you not the show in your head.

In general the word allow or imagine works better than orders for me. It suits my style.

See you have to sort of deceide how you are going to go about things and sort of stick to it.

I wholeheartedly agree with these two.
Now, multiply that by the number of volunteers you have on stage and we're still only getting a little bit closer to what you really need for a good show.

It's something you won't learn from watching your DVDs.

Great to hear about your first experience Neil. For me the first time I did this for fun, I could not speak much after the induction as the rush going through my system when they slumped in a chair was rather overwhelming, so well done.

One step missing from Remagicon's list that I usually aim for when taking the traditional approach is to take the physical or emotional stuff into a 'challenge' or black an white situation before progressing into the cognitive stuff. I really want to test a hand stick rather than arm levitation or specific styles of laughter rather than just feeling good, then I move onto amnesia on the back of that.

That said I no longer rank the phenomena in such a rigid fashion. With the approach we call Automatic Imagination I will often start with hallucinations. In the past I felt I needed to build toward them, but it was Kev who I work with, who pointed out that one is not harder than another to the person who can do it. It is more a case of rare and common than hard or difficult.

His three essays will make this clearer here http://www.whatsonmybrain.com/head-hacki......ypnosis/
Links to the second and all important third can be found at the end of each essay.

Stay in touch with any questions.

Anthony

Thanks to everyones' responses, I greatly appreciate your feedback, especially from Anthony.

I think the best way forward on this is to take a course, to get a clearer idea on this powerful phenomena.

Kind regards.

Neil.