One really great way to show people just how powerful hypnosis can be is to have a demonstration in which you hypnotize a trance partner so that they are unable to perform a very simple act . . . no matter how much they “try” they continue to fail.

A classic gag is to take something normally light and suggest to the hypnotized person that they cannot lift it no matter how hard they TRY (the use of the word “try” here is important as the linguistic assumption is that when we try something we fail . . . the suggestion is not that you “do” but that you “try” with the assumption of failure . . . Yoda got is so very right when he told Luke Skywalker that “there is no try, there is only do and do not”).

In the video here, the hypnotist has told his trance partner volunteer that a playing card – a very light object normally – is stuck to the floor and that she cannot pick it up.

This can be a lot of fun and I have done hundreds of variations of the same sort of thing with folks in a wide variety of contexts from therapy sessions (yes, I do playful gags like this with hypnotherapy clients as a means of establishing that they really are hypnotized and can expect amazing therapeutic results because of it) to stage or recreational contexts.

Want to learn how to do this and other forms of hypnotic work? Go to my main webpages at http://www.briandavidphillips.com and check out the online shop for numerous hypnosis training programs that may suit your level or skill sets.

All the best,
Brian
http://www.briandavidphillips.com