hypnotherapy, had no qualms about deceiving his
patients into a trance. He clearly declared:
There are some patients to whom . . . we must tell
part of the truth; and there are some to whom, as
a matter of strict moral obligation, we must lie.1
These startling words call us to take a closer look at
hypnosis and how it is being used today. Let’s start at
the beginning. What happens when a hypnotist begins
hypnotizing someone?
Hypnosis begins with creative manipulation. A
hypnotist leads an individual into a state of hypnosis
through a process called induction. The hypnotherapist
uses techniques such as repetition, deception, stimulation
of the imagination, and emotionally overtoned
suggestions to effectively influence the will and condition
the behavior of the subject.2
Few people realize that hypnotic induction often
involves subtle forms of deception. Even if a hypnotist
attempts to make only true and honest statements,
deception may enter in through the distortion of reality
which begins during induction and continues
throughout the hypnotic trance.
Dr. Keith Harary says: “The ambiguity surrounding
what it means to be under the influence of hypnosis
starts right at the beginning, with no standard for
hypnotic induction.”3
In her book Creative Scripts for Hypnotherapy, Dr.
Marlene Hunter says:
There are surely as many induction techniques in
hypnosis as there are people who practice hypnosis—indeed,
many times that number, for almost
everyone has several—and it would obviously be
impossible even to describe all the main categories.4
Hunter gives examples of only three types of
induction techniques—Basic Techniques, Visual Imagery,
and Eye-Fixation. In each of these techniques
Hunter gives both the words to say and the timing to
use. The following is only a part of the “Basic Induction
Techniques” she uses:
By and by you may find your eyes getting just a
little heavier and it seems as if it would be nice to
let them close for a little while. Find out how it
feels to let them close for a few seconds and then
open them again—then close open one more time
and close—that’s right. You may notice that there
is a gentle flickering in your eyelids. That can be
a cue for you, that you are entering some delightful
space in your mind where time loses its usual
46 Hypnosis
meaning and you are able to perceive so many
things in a different way.5
Next to these words to be spoken to the subject about
closing the eyes, Hunter adds this note: “less intimidating
than the suggestion to close them—period—
especially in an inexperienced subject.” Next to the
words about flickering eyelids, she adds the note: “if
you watch carefully, you will see the eyes glaze just
before they flicker—a good time to mention it!”6
Later
in the words to be spoken to the subject, Hunter provides
the following:
And while you are doing that, your inner mind
will be taking you to your own best level of comfortable
hypnosis, whatever is just right for you,
to achieve what you are going to achieve today.7
The idea she says she wants to communicate to the
subject is that whatever YOU (the subject) do, is right.8
At the end of her section on the “Eye Fixation Technique”
Hunter provides the following script for the
hypnotherapist to speak to the subject:
Later on, when you learn to do your own hypnosis,
you can use it as a signal to yourself—that
you are just ready to go into that very pleasant
state. Some people find that it will persist; for
others, it eases away quite quickly; for many, it
seems to come and go, probably depending on
changing levels in hypnosis, but it’s almost always
there to begin with. So you can think of it as a
nice clue, that you are just entering that very
pleasant state.9
Induction/Seduction 47
Hunter’s notes next to the above script are: “this is
your tool” and “whatever happens is the right thing to
happen.” These notes, including the ones about flickering
eyelids, are examples of the way hypnotists
anticipate and manipulate responses and motivate the
subject to go into a trance.
Hunter advises the hypnotist to: “State and restate
several times that whatever happens is the right thing
to happen at any hypnotic experience.”10 The plan is to
tailor what is said to each individual to increase
confidence in the hypnotist and the process, to lower
the individual’s resistance, and to encourage the subject
into a trance state. It is a deceptive and dishonest use
of words in order to overcome resistance and to ease
the subject into a trance state.
At the very beginning of the session Hunter advises:
The preamble is also a good time to implant positive
suggestions such as “I can see that you are
well motivated, and that is the most important
quality for a successful hypnotic experience.”11
This is a lie used to lower the subject’s resistance and
increase his motivation to cooperate.
If resistance occurs on the part of the subject, Hunter
advises the hypnotist:
The first opportunity to defuse resistance comes
when you are explaining to inexperienced subjects
about hypnosis in general, remarking that resistance
is normal and even to be desired. It is a
signal that their wise, deep, inner mind is taking
care of them.12
48 Hypnosis
This is another example of hypnotists’ dishonest use
of words to lower resistance through the use of an
unsubstantiated compliment.
Hunter gives a number of suggestions to overcome
resistance and to obtain cooperation. Notice the
manipulation of words in the following two examples:
Many people will state, rather belligerently, “I
can NEVER relax.” The response to that is to say,
quickly, “Oh, please DO NOT relax! Simply enjoy
listening to my voice. You are one of those people
who will do their best work when they are listening
closely, and focusing on what I am saying.” We
know that the subconscious mind tends to disregard
the negatives and “please DO NOT . . .” will
be interpreted as “please DO. . . .”
For those subjects who keep their eyes open the
happy comment, “Oh, you are one of those people
who like to go into hypnosis with your eyes open,”
will usually result in an immediate closing of the
eyes.13
The Concise Textbook also gives advice for trance
induction:
The therapist can use a number of specific procedures
to help the patient be hypnotized and
respond to suggestion. Those procedures involve
capitalizing on some naturally occurring
hypnosislike phenomena that have probably
occurred in the life experiences of most patients.
However, those experiences are rarely talked
about; consequently, patients find them fascinating.
For example, when discussing what hypnosis
Induction/Seduction 49
is like with a patient, the therapist may say: “Have
you ever had the experience of driving home while
thinking about an issue that preoccupies you and
suddenly realize that, although you have arrived
safe and sound, you can’t recall having driven past
familiar landmarks? It’s as if you had been asleep,
and yet you stopped at all the red lights, and you
avoided collisions. You were somehow traveling on
automatic pilot.” Most people resonate to that
experience and are usually happy to describe similar
personal experiences.14
The authors admit that this episode is not necessarily
an hypnotic state but it is used so that the subject
might correlate it to hypnotizability. Obviously this is
a deception to gain an advantage, which might make
the subject feel that hypnosis is as safe as what he has
already experienced and thereby open him up to a
trance state. The authors of the Concise Textbook are
aware that many experts would not regard the above
episode as a trance state.
One form of deception employed by hypnotists is
double-bind suggestions. Medical doctor William
Kroger and psychologist William Fezler, two wellknown
authorities on hypnosis, describe induction by
saying that it “consists of a sequential series of doublebind
suggestions.”15 Double-bind suggestions are
comments made to the subject to indicate that his
response (no matter what it is) is an appropriate one
for moving into the state of hypnosis. The suggestions
are arranged to elicit the subject’s confidence and
cooperation so that he may relax. Kroger and Fezler
suggest such things as:
50 Hypnosis
If the patient’s eyes blink or the individual
swallows one can say, “See, you just blinked,” or
swallowed, as the case may be. These act as reinforcers
to suggest that the patient is doing fine.16
Other such reinforcements are used by Kroger and
Fezler to lead the person more quickly into the trance.
Milton Erickson, known as the “grand master of clinical
hypnosis,” used the double-bind to give his patients
a pseudochoice. The patient could choose a light trance
or a deep trance but, either way, the patient ended up
in a trance.17 Hypnotherapist Peter Francuch says, “It
is very important to utilize every reaction of the client
to deepen his trance.”18
Kroger and Fezler discuss a number of other “factors
influencing hypnotic induction,” including the prestige
of the therapist. They say:
A therapist who is in a “one up” position commands
respect from the supplicant who is in a “one down”
position. If the latter regards the therapist with
awe and respect, particularly if he is an authority,
the prestige increases success of the hypnotic
induction.19
Pierre Janet speaks even more dramatically of the
domination of the subject by the hypnotist. He says:
The relationship of a hypnotizable patient to the
hypnotist does not differ in any essential way from
the relationship of a lunatic to the superintendent
of an asylum.20
Induction/Seduction 51
After induction, deception may continue, depending
upon the purposes of the trance. During experimental
hypnosis, subjects are sometimes told that they will
be temporarily deaf. And they indeed will not hear
anything even though there are noises and voices in
the room.21 Is this merely suggestion or is it deception?
Another experiment consists of telling the subjects
that they will see a clock with a missing hour
hand. When the clock is shown to them, they hallucinate
and see what they are told to see: a clock without
an hour hand, even though the clock is intact. Professor
Ernest Hilgard says, “With critical abilities reduced,
imagination readily becomes hallucination.”22 Thus,
through deception subjects hallucinate according
to suggestion.
Janet admitted that hypnosis rests upon deception.
Responding to the moral objection of a hypnotist deceiving
his patient, he said:
I am sorry that I cannot share these exalted and
beautiful scruples. . . . My belief is that the patient
wants a doctor who will cure; that the doctor’s
professional duty is to give any remedy that will
be useful, and to prescribe it in the way in which
it will do most good.23
Hypnotic induction, therefore, consists of a system
of verbal and nonverbal manipulation to lead a person
into a heightened state of suggestibility—more simply,
a condition in which one will believe almost anything.
52 Hypnosis
Hypnosis and Deception:
From Suggestion to Placebo
Professor of psychiatry Thomas Szasz emphasizes
that hypnosis is the power of suggestion.24 Research
psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey asks and then answers a
question which supports this point of view:
How can witchdoctors, relying primarily on such
techniques as suggestion and hypnosis, achieve
as good results as Western therapists who use
techniques so much more sophisticated?25
Torrey first replies that Western techniques are not
actually more sophisticated at all and that “we consistently
underestimate the power of techniques like
suggestion and hypnosis.”26
Kroger declares, “The power of hypnosis is the power
of belief!” and identifies hypnosis as a form of faith
healing. He says:
The question as to whether religious or hypnotic
faith healing is more effective obviously relates to
previous conditioning of the subject.27
In examining hypnotism, we have found it referred
to as a form of suggestion, as faith, and finally as the
placebo effect. The placebo effect takes place when one
has faith in a certain person, or a prescribed pill, or a
procedure; it is this faith that brings about the healing.
The person, pill, or procedure may be fake, but the
result may be real. Janet saw the relationship between
hypnosis and the fake pill. To defend the value of
deception in hypnosis, he cited his belief in the placebo
and stressed that he was fulfilling his “professional
Induction/Seduction 53
duty” when he prescribed a fake pill with faithproducing
statements.28
Kroger and others also confess that hypnosis involves
the placebo effect. Kroger and Fezler say that
“faith in a specific cure leads to the success of that
cure!”29 Kroger also says, “Every psychotherapist owes
it to his patients to utilize his unquestioned placebo
effect at the highest level—hypnosis.” Just as the
placebo is not effective with all patients, Kroger admits
that hypnosis is not successful with all individuals.30
He concludes, “Our thesis is that if the placebo is effective,
then hypnosis employed prudently by a competent
physician for a valid indication will serve the
patient’s best interest.”31
The placebo effect is not limited to hypnosis. It also
works in acupuncture, biofeedback, and generally in
psychotherapy. A number of studies support the idea
that some mental, emotional, and even physical change
is in the mind. A study of the use of acupuncture at
one university indicates that the patient’s expectation
of relief can influence the results. The researchers
found that acupuncture works best on those people who
exhibit faith in the procedure. Positive remarks that
the experimenters made to the patients encouraged
higher expectations. Their conclusion: for acupuncture
to reduce pain it had to be accompanied by words and
actions which would help the patient to believe that
the treatment would be successful.32
Other studies have shown that a variety of anxiety
and stress symptoms can be reduced by giving false
information to subjects. To illustrate the power of faith
and the placebo effect, one researcher showed how false
feedback can reduce symptoms of cardiovascular
disease. In this experiment the subjects were told that
54 Hypnosis
their test results were improving, even though they
were not. Through the use of false feedback with
biofeedback devices, patients received a sense of selfcontrol.
As the false feedback communicated increasing
levels of success, the patients believed that they
had greater self-control. Over a period of weeks the
subjects reported a decrease in stress symptoms.33 One
reason for such improvements is a person’s faith in his
own natural powers. Thus, “biofeedback training may
be . . . an ‘ultimate placebo.’”34
Another study reported that false information about
room temperature can influence body comfort. The
study showed that “misinforming people about room
temperature can lead them to feel warmer or cooler
than they might if they knew the actual temperature.”35
Psychiatrist Arthur Shapiro states that “psychoanalysis—and
its dozens of psychotherapy offshoots—
is the most used placebo of our time.”36 One form of
psychotherapy, Social Influence Therapy, purposely
uses false feedback in order to achieve success. One
practitioner of this brand of therapy says:
Humanitarian fervor aside, it’s the therapist’s job
to take power over the patient, push ahead with
solving the problem, then convince the patient he
or she is better, even if it means being devious.37
This therapist claims, “Successful therapy can
almost be reduced to a formula.” The main part of the
formula is to convince the “client that the therapy is
definitely working apart from any objective evidence
of change.”38 In this form of therapy, flattery, distortion,
lies, and all forms of what is euphemistically called
“false feedback” are used successfully. Ethics aside, this
Induction/Seduction 55
form of therapy is solid testimony to the power of the
mind for self transformation.
Any technique or method which depends on deception
should be regarded with great suspicion. Hypnosis,
along with other questionable “medical” procedures,
relies heavily on faith-building devices, including both
direct and indirect deception. Can a hypnotist, who uses
subtle forms of deception as a means of hypnotizing
an individual, be trusted during the trance or even in
his assurances of the safety of hypnosis?
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