PICTURE THIS
How To Use Hypnosis – Dr David F Tracy
Kev bought this 1954 book because it’s absolutely packed with spectacular retro-hypno-photos of our author, Dr David F Tracy, working his magic on an attractive lady model.
I mean, just take a look at the photo adjacent to the frontispiece (right)! “The art and science of hypnosis is not so mysterious once you understand it”, reads the caption.
It looks more like a threat than a technique! And if you’re familiar with my musings on traditional gender/power dynamics and whether hypnosis/mesmerism is perhaps just a socially acceptable form of male mental illness, then you won’t be surprised that I also wonder in which direction the threat is travelling.
Dr David F Tracy is billed as a psychologist and, in the opening pages, informs us he’s the Director of the New York School of Modern Hypnotism.
It’s a confident, clear, engaging start. Newspaper writers, cartoonists, vaudeville artists, radio and television performers have, Tracy laments, made a mess of public perceptions of hypnotism, and his purpose in penning this book is to “correct all this misinformation by substituting fact for fancy.”
Tracy also presents an applaudably coherent and concise history and theory of hypnosis. The history is standard stuff; it skips neatly from ancient civilisations to Mesmer and then Braid. He believes hypnosis exposes a normally hidden part of the mind, and that it’s simply a matter of controlling the subconscious.
There’s also beauty and poetry in his writing – he describes the subconscious as becoming “a treasury of ideas, principles and modes of behaviour” from babyhood to adulthood, from which we develop personally, and which we censor and draw upon as we learn and grow.
This is the second book I’ve reflected upon that slates Emile Coué. The French psychologist created the mantra-like conscious autosuggestion, which Tracy quotes as: “Day by day in every way I am getting better and better.” (American newspapers quoted it differently – it is best known as: “Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better.”)
Tracy states that Coué “did not understand autosuggestion thoroughly enough”, and segues into Christian Science and cults as further instances of witless, warped use of autosuggestion.
Ignoring the photos, some noteworthy gender and power memes pop up. Tracy is clearly a power hypnotist; he repeatedly stresses that novices must never confess to being such, and must at all times appear confident and firm, and present as an expert.
He goes on to explain that there are two types of hypnotism for two types of subject: mother hypnotism, using a soothing voice to lull the subject into a relaxed state in which they’ll accept suggestions; and father hypnotism, employing a commanding tone of voice, and which demands the subject place themselves under the hypnotist’s control.
He advises to begin with ‘mother’, to avoid resistance from more dominant subjects, but then to escalate to ‘father’ if/when dominance is needed.
He also advises that a chaperone must be present when hypnotising the opposite sex – as we get into Tracy’s group demonstrations and the weirder of the photos, that does indeed seem advisable!
Tracy actually uses male pronouns to describe subjects – right up until chapter seven, on testing your subjects, when he abruptly switches to female!
From this point on, rather than the expected romp through the practicalities of hypnosis, the book descends into quasi-entertainment and Tracy’s showmanship. An induction prescribes the use of a “gold-plated fountain pen”, and a recipe for post-hypnotic suggestion involves buying Tracy a glass of Scotch.
The chapter on group demonstrations is basically a script for a stage show, including an imaginary airplane ride and a (fake) money skit, all designed to get big laughs and reactions.
There are stunts and gags too numerous to mention; hypnotising a man to believe he’s a mother and that a “small man you pick from the audience is [his/her] baby” in need of a nappy change shows just how much thought Tracy has put into his entertainment value!
His penultimate chapter is on climax acts – his preferred finale being ‘The Bridge’*. It seems Tracy was an early pioneer of the hypnotherapist-turned-trainer who mostly just pines to be big in showbiz!
The book also includes sections on mass hypnosis in terms of politics, leaders, dictators and religion, as well as hypnosis in advertising, sales and sports.
On the latter, Tracy was team psychologist to the St Louis Browns, a Major League Baseball team. The book is peppered with sports psychology titbits and I’ll hand over to a fellow niche blog I found for a more detailed account of Tracy’s work with the team.
*Do not attempt to recreate The Bridge yourself.
Kev subsequently bought a duplicate copy of this book, so here it is for your viewing pleasure!
And I always like to include inscriptions in case someone someday can shed light on such notes.
