MODERN HYPNOSIS TECHNIQUES. Advanced Hypnosis and Self Hypnosis. Tony Gaschler
and monotonously, for example: “eight o’clock – eight o'clock …” and so on. Remain seated for about three to five minutes and then stop the exercise. You will find that you really do wake up at the time that you visualized and that you repeated to yourself as the pendulum swung.
Dynamic ideas take effect on schedule
From this exercise you will see that dynamic ideas can also take effect on schedule, that is, the desired ideomotor action can be triggered at a given time (which in this instance is demonstrated by waking up at the scheduled time).
This effect is the basis of the so-called post-hypnotic suggestion (post-hypnosis). The third basic law is as follows:D y n a m i ci d e a sc a nb es t o r e di nt h ei d e o m o t o rs y s t e m .T h e s ew i l lt h e nt r i g g e ri d e o m o t o ra c t i o n sa tt h er i g h tt i m e .
Tips on successful self-study
Self-study is not simply a matter of reading through the lessons. Self-study involves much more. First of all, read all six lessons in each section all the way through, so that you get the total picture and overview. Then go back to the first lesson and go through it slowly, studying it carefully. Mark everything that you think is particularly important with a red pen. Only start practicing the individual exercises when you have studied all six lessons. You should proceed in the same way with all eight parts (booklets) of the “Modern Hypnosis Techniques”.
Before you start an exercise, think carefully about every specific detail. Only start the exercise itself when you are completely clear on all the details. This applies to all the exercises in this book.
You can prepare yourself to carry out the suggestion exercises using the imagination exercises. These consist, first of all, of carrying out the entire exercise in your head with an imaginary test person. Form a vivid mental picture in your head of a test person standing in front of you. Act and talk to this person, and do everything that you need to do to carry out the exercise. This will help you to become familiar with the specific details and, when you have a real test person in front of you, it will then seem completely normal and will not be new to you. For exercises that appear difficult to you, repeat the exercise with your imaginary person as often as necessary until you feel more confident.
Lesson 2
The Carpenter effect
As early as 1874, the English doctor, W.B. Carpenter, had already identified the “ideomotor principle”. This principle states that simply the mental image alone of a movement will cause the movement to happen to a lesser extent. This phenomenon, which we can see in the pendulum exercises, is also known as the “Carpenter effect”. When awake, and when the entire consciousness of SELF is alert, the mental picture of a movement causes only a slight, often scarcely discernible, duplicate of this movement. In a hypnotic state, when the SELF-conscious state has been entirely or partly deactivated, a mental picture which is created by suggestion (emotional influence) can trigger the corresponding movement in its entirety.
It is important for us to know that the mental picture of a movement can be enough to trigger it. Mental pictures therefore have a tendency to become reality.
What are “ideomotor actions”?
Ideomotor actions are those actions (activities, undertakings, movements, effects etc.) that are triggered by ideas. At this point I would like to emphasize that these ideas must be vivid and dynamically (vitally) animated. In no way should they be considered to be simply thoughts or imaginary words. The more vivid and animated (dynamic) an idea is, the clearer and more perceptible the action. You must bear this in mind in all the following suggestion and hypnosis experiments. The distinction between thoughts and dynamic ideas will be made clear to you by the fourth basic exercise, which now follows. Repeat the exercise until the difference is clear to you.
The fourth basic exercise
Sit at a table with the pendulum and the pendulum board (ill. 2) and bring the pendulum to a standstill. Then, as in the first basic exercise, picture in your mind very vividly how the pendulum starts to move in a circle in a clockwise direction. You must make sure that you make it very, very vivid. You can also use your eyes in this exercise by following the pendulum’s imagined movement to the right with your eyes. Let your eyes follow the circle around. This will strengthen the mental picture and make it more animated. At the same time, you should start to repeat the following phrase in your head: “The pendulum circles to the left in an anticlockwise direction!” --- The pendulum …” etc.
This creates a conflict between visualization and thought. That is to say, it creates an internal conflict between dynamic ideas and thoughts. You will see that visualization triumphs over thoughts and the pendulum really does turn to the right, exactly as you pictured it.
The difference between thoughts and visualization
This fourth basic exercise shows us that:
1.both mental pictures (dynamic ideas) and thoughts can be at the center of our consciousness at the same time.
2.both can be contradictory at the same time.
3.in a contest or conflict between thoughts and visualization, visualization will always win.
4.there is a clear difference between thoughts and visualization.
The subconscious or “ideomotor system”
In all the literature on hypnosis, and even more so in all the psychology literature, you can read a lot about a so-called “subconscious”. In the subconscious, suggestions and autosuggestions are supposed to materialize. Well then, just who can picture this dubious subconscious? In this self-study method, I use the term “ideomotor system” for this subconscious. This allows you to picture something beyond this term, and this is important if you want to achieve success and not just accumulate factual knowledge.
The word “ideomotor” is made up of “idea” and “motor”. In this combination it means: “cause movement to happen through ideas”. “System” is understood to mean that part of our entire nervous system that makes it possible for ideomotor actions to take place. You can picture the human ideomotor system as the part of the nervous system that plays a role in the perception of vivid ideas and in triggering ideomotor actions. You have to admit that this description is much clearer than the word “subconscious”, for which it is much more difficult to picture the meaning in practice.
Additional basic exercises
When mastering suggestion and hypnosis, a lot depends upon your own experience. This is why I would advise you to carry out more exercises with the pendulum yourself. Here are some suggestions:
1.Lengthen the pendulum and try the exercises when standing up.
2.Use the pendulum when you are in different moods. If you are agitated, concentrating actively on a mental picture will calm and distract you.
3.Try to devise other pendulum exercises yourself.
The pendulum, as it is used here, is a material, scientific instrument.
Please