GET ON WITH IT!
The Theory and Practice of Hypnotism – William J Ousby
I don’t know about you, but early in my hypnosis investigations I became frustrated with ‘quantity over quality’ content from modern hypnosis players.
That hypnotists love the sound of their of voices comes as no surprise. (Kev has a theory that many hypnotists today are just failed wannabe radio DJs.)
Myths about how to become a YouTube or podcast star are responsible for a lot of the quantity-content churn. Worse are ‘marketing funnels of doom’, where you find yourself on a free hour-long webinar that promised value only to deliver waffle and upselling.
I long ago lost patience with 60- or 90-minute content drops. I often wonder if this era of hypnosis practice and philosophy will be mostly lost to the sands of time because so few players have (credibly) committed their work and ideas to paper…
With this in mind, here’s a slim and nifty book from 1967 to consider.
We picked up The Theory and Practice of Hypnotism by William J Ousby because of its kitsch, retro-futurism cover – precisely the sort of vibe we’re into here at Cosmic Pancakes!
The sleeve of the dust jacket states there’s little theory and much more practice. I was suspicious it would be a spurious ‘how-to’ as a result. But this is a refreshingly efficient and simple read, if a little outdated in places.
Ousby refers to the book as a ‘Course’ – with a capital ‘C’ – and periodically cautions that students must not put anything into practice until they’ve completed said Course.
He states that the book is based on a written Course of his in private circulation, which gives it a frisson of exclusivity and danger.
And there are indeed some nuggets that are sorely lacking from today’s courses (with a lowercase ‘c’): an armchair test with superbly nuanced suggestions; sage advice on failure and timing; great guidance on ethics; and scripting for describing the hypnotic state to a subject that is well worth pinching even today (albeit metaphorically).
The Course also covers sexy, dangerous stuff – from the ‘instant hypnosis’ feats of stage hypnotists, to post-hypnotic suggestions, and sleep-to-hypnosis methods. I’m not sure Ousby is familiar with the power of negative suggestion, however, as cautioning students never to try such things only makes them more alluring.
I subscribe to the view that hypnosis is a social construct and cultural phenomenon – not A Thing. So I was interested in his section on how stage hypnotism and public demonstrations in the 40s and 50s convinced, he states, many people that hypnosis was a fact.
He includes a fab quote in this section by J B S Haldane: “Anyone who has seen even a single example of the power of hypnotism and suggestion must realise that the face of the world and the possibilities of existence will be totally altered when we can control their effects and standardise their application as has been possible, for example, with drugs which were once regarded as equally magical.”
The writing is so efficient you don’t get much of a sense of Ousby til he discusses his adventures in hypnosis in Africa, India and beyond in the latter part of the book.
The internet tells me that Ousby was born in Liverpool, UK, and worked as a journalist and then an industrial psychological consultant. He conducted field studies on yoga and African witchcraft, trained in hatha yoga, fire-walking and trance in India, and taught self-hypnosis in the UK, Australia and New Zealand.
He’s penned a couple more books on hypnosis, but I wish there was more known about his life as he sounds like a fascinating person.
