VOMIT ON PAPER
Comply With Me: Trump’s Hypnosis Toolkit Exposed – Lisa Morgan
We have a rule in our house, that if a book is so absolutely, annoyingly, upsettingly terrible – whether due to subject, content, or author – we eject it. But, unlike others that have just outstayed their welcome, or failed to live up to our expectations (which we give to charity), books that fall into this horrendous category are banished to the bin. We don’t want to cause someone else to accidentally read such drivel, just because it’s cheap at a charity bookshop.
This is one of those. Some people have asked us why we don’t review modern, laypeople’s books on hypnosis – eg, ones written since the 90s. Well, here we are; I picked this one up because it claimed to reveal ‘Trump’s Hypnosis Toolkit’ and so was recent, current, and would potentially act as an example for all of this category.
And it is just so unbelievably bad. Let’s start with the premise: that the author literally knows, with absolute clarity, how the former president of the United States is not only employing hypnotic techniques, but precisely how he uses them. This is one of the most arrogant claims I’ve ever seen made (outside of politics, that is), but also has absolutely zero chance of being correct. But, not only do I think the author believes her own bullshit, I think she also must be on drugs (cocaine, specifically, to explain the arrogance and stupid ideas).
While we’re discussing the author, let’s look at Morgan’s bio. The back of the book states, proudly, that she’s the chair of the UK Guild of Hypnosis Practitioners; fancy title, that. You’d be forgiven for thinking that she’s pretty important on the UK hypnosis scene, and that, by inference, her knowledge of hypnosis should be pretty expert, if not right at the top of the hypnotherapy practiced in the UK. But, actually, a quick check shows that the UK Guild represents just 22 hypnotherapists, Morgan included. So she’s pretty much the chair of nothing.
But nonsense is what she writes, albeit in a pretty readable and chatty style. Apparently Trump has been taught the mythical (and ridiculous, given what we know about the science of suggestion) ‘handshake induction’, and uses it on world leaders. The one thing we definitely know about a successful handshake induction is what happens as a result. If you’re unsure, go and check YouTube and you’ll see. In most cases, people slump (following a command to ‘sleep’) into ‘hypnosis’; in others, particularly the Erickson version, people end up with a cataleptic hand and arm. Did either of those things ever occur with Trump’s handshakes? No, of course not.
While talking about referring to YouTube for reference points, it should be noted that this is one of Morgan’s chosen means of finding facts and evidence. Not scientific books; not academic papers; not interviews with experts: YouTube. I had to wonder why she even bothered to add references (marked out as superscript numbers attached to about one percent of claims), when the actual references are so lacklustre and poorly defined. Lisa: if you’re going to refer to some academic literature, please give the actual title, publisher and year, so we can go and look. But mainly, if your reference amounts to a claim that someone somewhere once published a journalistic piece that somehow related to the point you’ve just made, maybe just don’t bother with that little superscript. Unless, of course, you need them to try to find some pseudo-credibility by badly mimicking a genuine piece of research.
And so onto chapter two, where Morgan tells us what ‘trance’ is. And no, dear reader, she doesn’t just write, “It’s a load of bollocks believed by poorly educated hypnotherapists”. All the normal tropes are here – it’s like day-dreaming, it’s like hypnogogia, it’s like driving, it’s like reading a book; there are light, medium and deep trances; trances, trances, trances; trance is essential to hypnosis; hypnosis and trance are one and the same; trances are required to give suggestions.
Hilariously, Morgan has actually heard that there was a debate in academia over whether a hypnotic state actually exists or not, but rather than read any of the easily available academic books on the topic, she simply claims that scientists don’t all agree and that, ironically, maybe they can learn from lay hypnotists.
Same goes for hypnotic scales. Apparently hundreds, if not thousand, of studies using hypnotic scales – including comparisons of results over 25 years (Piccione, Hilgard et al, 1989, for example) using a variety of different inductions, all pretty much showing the same results, with high correlations between them – isn’t enough for Morgan to accept that academic hypnotists not only know how to hypnotise, but also that whichever induction is used, the same people get hypnotised and their responsiveness to suggestion does not change. It simply is not true that different inductions get different results; but you wouldn’t expect someone who rejects science so freely to accept that.
Of course, what is actually meant by hypnosis, and whether people were actually ‘hypnotised’ by Morgan and her cronies, is up for debate. If drearily droning on in some Ericksonian manner allows one to claim to have hypnotised people, then everyone throwing out NLP-derived ‘patterns’ will claim to have been successful. But, of course, how many stage hypnotists – those who have to succeed with suggestions in order to have a show – actually use these techniques or would agree with these amateurs? Zero.
I won’t even make the obvious attacks on Morgan’s celebration of the rubbish that is NLP. I’ll just point her and our readers at Google Scholar and suggest you search for yourselves. Surely if NLP is fantastic there will be studies to support it. (Spoiler: there are numerous studies showing it is largely ineffective.)
To say this book is terrible is too generous; it should never have existed. I’ll be speaking at the UK Hypnosis Convention if anyone fancies debating it, however. Bring your A Game.
UPDATE! Since writing this blog post, Morgan made it into newspaper articles. Not for anything related to hypnosis, however, but instead for happily quoting from Mein Kampf –yes, that Mein Kampf – in public, while being thoroughly unpleasant about trans people. Obviously, we don’t endorse her book; and we certainly don’t endorse her abhorrent views. Lisa Morgan, Get In The Sea.
