A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis by Melvin Powers (1961)

Hey gang, I recently picked this one up on kindle because amazon is offering for free. It's been pretty interesting and useful for me so I thought I'd bring it up here.

The basic idea is that he gives you a series of tests to experiment with in order to induce yourself into a relaxed, hypnotic state. You start off by relaxing for 5 minutes or so and then proceed to give yourself a suggestion to swallow. You count down, and then you're supposed to swallow automatically without conscious effort. There's a continuing series of tests and suggestions in order to get yourself into a moderate and then a deep state of hypnosis, all the while you remain fully conscious and self-aware.

Once you get into the hypnotic state you can give yourself suggestions by visualizing the activity you want to do or the effect you want to have. For example, I have trouble getting to the gym and working on my novel, so I picture myself doing these things in as much detail as I can muster. So far, so good, I've been going to the gym more and working on my novel frequently.

I've gotten into the 'moderate' state of hypnosis according to his guidelines or tests and I'm taking it pretty slow since I'm having good results doing what I'm doing. Entirely possible it's all placebo, but if it works it works. Since it was free I thought I'd mention it here and more generally to see if folks have experience with self-hypnosis beyond EE.

Interesting. I read a book on hypnosis recently called "Keys to the Mind" by Richard K. Nongard and Nathan Thomas. Although it was focused more on training one to become a hypnotherapist rather than self-hypnotize, all the theoretical basis for self-hypnosis and self-suggestion is there.

Entirely possible it's all placebo, but if it works it works.

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I think the two phenomena are very difficult to distinguish at times. Mind you, it's only the Arch-Materialists in control of science these days that say placebos are useless. ;)

I've gotten into the 'moderate' state of hypnosis according to his guidelines or tests and I'm taking it pretty slow since I'm having good results doing what I'm doing. Entirely possible it's all placebo, but if it works it works. Since it was free I thought I'd mention it here and more generally to see if folks have experience with self-hypnosis beyond EE.

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My father was a firm believer in the Coué method which he practiced all his life from his mid-teens onward.

The application of his mantra-like conscious autosuggestion, "Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better" (French: Tous les jours à tous points de vue je vais de mieux en mieux) is called Couéism or the Coué method.[3] Some American newspapers quoted it differently, "Day by day, in every way, I'm getting better and better." The Coué method centered on a routine repetition of this particular expression according to a specified ritual -- preferably as much as twenty times a day, and especially at the beginning and at the end of each day. [4] When asked whether or not he thought of himself as healer, Coué often stated that "I have never cured anyone in my life. All I do is show people how they can cure themselves." [5] Unlike a commonly held belief that a strong conscious will constitutes the best path to success, Coué maintained that curing some of our troubles requires a change in our unconscious thought, which can be achieved only by using our imagination. Although stressing that he was not primarily a healer but one who taught others to heal themselves, Coué claimed to have effected organic changes through autosuggestion.[3]

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[bold, mine]

I don't know whether we have to ascribe it to this method, but my father was never ill, always in good spirits and lived to be 92½ when he died -- after only a very short period being hospitalized for a real disease (broken hip, but old age mainly; i.e. worn out).

Thanks for sharing this, Palinurus.

Here is my half cent on the topic.

I had been trained in self hypnosis more than 20 years back and still had audio tapes of the day in my mother tongue. They do work well to relieve the pain , over the time makes one easy suggestible. Tapes I was exposed are more or less same for self hypnosis or actual hypnosis. One step ahead for that is Nuero linguistic programming, if one is already suggestible. I personally prefer to consider the Richard Sutphen’s recording , Louis Hay audio books are more of combination of zoning ( either through hypnosis or meditation or one’s own easy suggestibility) and suggestions and useful.

Though they are good in relieving the symptoms and useful when one is in grid lock situation with no hope in sight, in the context of WORK they may create buffers( when one thinks everything is good but when it is not) thus avoiding e-motion . After exposed to WORK, I dropped the idea of using with a hope to get to the bottom of the issue and not to suppress the emotion. It made matters worse for some years until I had read enough of information about childhood issues( to make a difference), how our mind works in good and bad ways to make it painful and myriad stress relieving stuff. Though I won’t think I am out of woods, at the end it looks Knowledge ( Information gathered applied in right way) protects. On the context of suggestibility one of the C’s caution comes to mind “ If you don’t use your mind , somebody else will”

Bottom line is it all depends the intention and how one wants to use.

I believe I have read that for self hypnosis, we are to use positive phrases. If I am trying to stop a bad habit, what is the best way to phrase things? For example, if I wanted to stop eating 100 candy bars per day (not really!), how could I phrase it?

SevenFeathers said:

I believe I have read that for self hypnosis, we are to use positive phrases. If I am trying to stop a bad habit, what is the best way to phrase things? For example, if I wanted to stop eating 100 candy bars per day (not really!), how could I phrase it?

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Maybe something like : "From now, I eat healthily".

But I agree with seek10. It will certainly works a lot better if you have addressed the inconscious issues behind the behavior.