Also, I look at the pre-talk as “stacking the deck” in favor of a successful session. The more things you can remove as potential distractions, the more likely the session will be a success.

For example, letting the subject know that they will hear everything going on, no matter how deeply they are relaxed. Their ears do not turn off. Stating just this alone, to a first time subject, before a session, increases the success rate enormously. Otherwise, hearing the slightest sound outside the hypnotist’s voice can become a distraction, and affect the depth of trance.

Great Info and I completely agree that a pre-talk is always present even if they don’t know that is what it is or its reframed as something else. The entire purpose of this article is to explain how important the pre-talk is. The pre-talk is the difference between success or failure.

Even good friends like Sean Michael Andrew use pre-talks before his videos, but as John and I said earlier they cut that scene out as to make the video more entertaining. Even though I enjoy a good pre-talk myself. As I mentioned earlier you can get permission and hypnotize someone without a pre-talk, but its very rare and if so the experience will be less than great. Your success rate will be awful, trust me as I learned from experience. 9 times out of 10 nothing will happen. Build up, expectation and removing fear are so important. Great Info John and happy to have you hear.

A well-known hypnotist actually put this to the test and video taped himself trying instant inductions for about 6 hours. I think he got one person out of hundreds.

Usually, the faster the induction, the longer the talk. The talk may have happened before the show, or it may have happened at a previous time – a previous show, etc. but the person needs to know what is expected. If you’ve previousl hypnotized someone and then re-induced them using and instant induction… you can literally walk up to them off the street and do a handshake induction and they’ll go right into trance.

Remember, with a show and ESPECIALLY a video what you THINK you are seeing is rarely the ENTIRE picture. If you watch a 5 or 10 minute YouTube video, you could see someone walk up any instant induct 10 people… what you might not see if the 10 minute pre-talk he gave to them before he “walked up”.

If a hypnotist is being honest, they’ll tell you that the better your pre-talk, the better your induction will be…. and honestly… the more volunteers you will get.

It’s nice to have you on the site. I’m a member of Hypnothoughts as well. Yeah, I think the biggest mistake beginners make is not using a pre-talk. Technically a good pre-talk can drop someone into trance

I have always wanted to meet Justin Tranz. I get a kick out of some of his stage shows. If you have a website you would like me to list drop me a line.

Thanks,
Joshua Houghton, CH

I agree with you, with poor pretalk you work your tail off to hypnotized any one, people are scared about hypnosis because the lack of righ info.
I learned strage hypnosi form Tom Silver, Marshall Sylver, Justin Tranz and Tomme Vee, all of them talked about the prower of pretalked. for my own experience the pretalk is the 50% of my induction.

You posed a very good question and something I may address in the future. I only know a little bit about Peter Powers from what I have also seen on Youtube. Some of his videos are funny, but they can give people the wrong idea about hypnosis.

When Peter ask someone if they want to be hypnotized and they say yes they have just given Peter Permission to hypnotize them. This is called a hypnotic contract and it is basically just getting permission from the person to allow you to help them enter hypnosis. Technically speaking all you have to do is ask a person if they want too experience hypnosis. If they reply yes, then they may be ready to go. I do recommend a person have a working knowledge of hypnosis before attempting it of course.

The reason I and many other hypnotist give a pre-talk is so that we can educate the public even if it’s only one person at a time. Plus, you just never know if someone has a fear which could keep them from entering a deep state of hypnosis. Fear of hypnosis or fear of something they may learn during hypnosis can keep a person from entering trance. Street Hypnosis is very similar to stage hypnosis in the fact that people want to have fun and a excuse to act up or act a little crazy. In reality many different elements work together to create a deep level of trance within the person during a stage show or even street hypnosis show. The truth is that no one person will ever act the same in hypnosis. It is a very personal experience and different for each person. So you may get some people who really act a fool and some who are very timid.

My field of work is clinical hypnosis or in other words working with people to help manage different situations in their lives such as Smoking Cessation, Stress Management, Weight Loss and etc. In a clinical or office setting, the client is more uneasy then during a stage show. They are not coming to see me because they want to have fun. They are coming to see me because in their eyes I may be the last hope. They have been to many people before us and many of them come to us as a last resort. Many of our clients are scared at first because hypnosis is new to them. They only know that hypnosis may be helpful, but are also blinded by the myths and lies of the entertainment world. So its important to educate them and tell them the truth. This also helps to build rapport between you and the client.

So as far as just getting simple permission you will find it works some of the time and not all the time. As you get better and learn more your success rate with increase. I’m now able to hypnotize anyone as long as they give permission within a couple of seconds, but in the beginning it wasn’t as easy. I have seen the videos where Peter appears to just snap his fingers and then the person enters a deep state of hypnosis. Personally I believe that the majority of the people on his street hypnosis show and youtube clips have been pre-hypnotized. All this means is that he has worked with them before the show and has conditioned them to enter a deep state of hypnosis very quickly. Many times just the snap of a finger will send them back into trance. It may look like everyone is hypnotized on the stop, but that’s the magic of TV editing sometimes. I’m not saying all of the people have been hypnotized before hand, but a good majority have. It just makes good TV

Other Hypnotists such as Paul Mckenna and Tom Silver have had TV shows or specials dealing with hypnosis where they worked with people before hand. I like the fact that Tom tells his audience he has hypnotized them ahead of time. As we know the
producers have to edit the show to fit within the time frame they have. Editing also makes it appear as if every single person who is hypnotized actually reaches trance. The truth of the matter is editing plays a big part in this as well. Understand I am refering to a success rate just doing nothing more then asking permission. A well trained hypnotist can have a very high success rate, but beginners and middle skilled hypnotists will not be as successful. A well trained hypnotist understands the principals of hypnosis, inductions, suggestion formation and ethics. These skills combined can give you a very high success rate when combined with confidence, which is a skill that all hypnotists should have in my opinion.

So technically when doing street hypnosis you can just walk up to someone ask for permission and go from there, but I highly recommend you always do a pre-talk even if it’s just a quick 60 second one. I promise you that your success rate will be much higher and it also screams credibility. We also now have one more person in the world that understands what we do is a science and not magic. Even though it’s fun for some people to think we are mystical

I hope this answered your question and if not, let me know and i’m more then willing to help. Anytime you have a question just shoot me a comment or a e-mail at josh at southernhypnosis dot com (spelled out to reduce spam)

Have a good one Anthony