YOU NEED TO READ THIS BOOK
Hypnotism, Imagination, and Human Potentialities – Theodore X Barber, Nicholas P Spanos and John F Chaves
If ever there was a book that I’d recommend to every single person interested in hypnotism, it would be this one. On the one hand, it’s short and very readable – Barber et al understood that it was possible to engage the reader while also presenting facts and figures – and on the other, it’s just so accurate, clear and concise. Compared with the often wordy arguments of the statists (Ernest Hilgard, for example), these cognitive-behavioural theorists make punchy statements that express their perspectives and evidence very clearly.
So what’s it all about? Well, given the perspectives of the writers (and the fact that I’m recommending it), it is probably obvious that it takes the viewpoint that ‘hypnotic states’ and ‘hypnotic trances’ simply do not exist. But beyond that viewpoint, it justifies every statement with a citation (which you don’t need to look up, incidentally, and can just brush past if you don’t mind trusting them on these things). It makes a very strong case, and should leave you in no doubt that hypnotic states are dubious at best, and certainly unnecessary for people to respond to suggestions.
To put this book into context, it was published in 1974, almost 50 years ago. That’s a year before Bandler and Grinder’s Patterns 1 – you know that book that goes literally on-and-on about trance, so much so that you just want to close your eyes and SLEEP. Now, in fairness, Erickson was an out-and-out statist, so documenting his approach would necessitate talking about trance as-if-it-were-a-real-thing, but really? When a book like Hypnotism has just been released, I would think any normal person writing a hypnosis book would read it and maybe, you know, take it into account?
It’s not that the central argument is subtle or could easily be missed. Barber et al are bold, assertive, and damning. And this is the reason I think everyone interested in hypnotism should read it. The prevailing view in the non-academic world of hypnosis, from therapists to performers, is that a hypnotic induction causes a trance, which heightens responsiveness to suggestion, and which is a real and measurable thing. But this book upends all that.
Almost everyone involved in hypnotism knows about waking suggestions – ie, suggestions given without having performed an induction. And I think everyone knows that these are not limited to the hand lock, but actually cover the whole range of suggestions, including amnesia and hallucinations. What I think most don’t know or don’t wish to believe, is that people are just as responsive to suggestion without an induction as they are with one.
Now whether people slip into a trance when they respond to suggestions is debatable (and not one that this book covers), but what it does implicitly suggest is that whether they do or don’t, it should have no bearing on how you give suggestions – it just doesn’t seem to matter at all.
Some will complain that this book takes away the magic of hypnotism but I think it does something different. I think it highlights where the magic actually is, and that’s in the suggestions themselves. You can still use inductions if you want – to show off, to make a spectacle, to convince people that you’re actually a hypnotist – but you should know that it’s just another suggestion. And that’s what this book will help you understand.
