Book Report: 25 Lessons in Hypnotism by L.E. Young -- How-to, c.1935

25 Lessons in Hypnotism by L.E. Young -- How-to (c) 1935

How can you not want this little pamphlet? even before we open it, the cover is giving us everything a hypnotist could want! Lightning bolts from the eyes, sinister hand gestures, dominion over beautiful women! 

From what I've found on the internet, this booklet was sold for years, probably from the backs of comic books, for decades, and it went through various publishers, including the Johnson Smith Company, which was famous for novelties of every sort. 

The author, L.E. Young (Lou Ella Young), is also the author of the much more voluminous "The Science of Hypnotism". That book was first published in 1899, but has been reprinted for nearly a century by various publishers. I think much of this material is taken form that book, but some of it seems to be different, perhaps newer. I have not been able to find any biographical information for the author.

In a series of brief lessons, the author will give you direction for experiments in hypnotic induction, mesmerism, increasing trance depth, post hypnotic suggestions to cure problems, psychic influence, and how to protect from it, self-hypnosis, and more! That's a lot of stuff for a little book!

 For a beginner, the instruction isn't very thorough, but it's clear enough that if someone really found enough volunteers to work with, might become a competent hypnotist. It's fun to look at the techniques offered, which include both Mesmerism and James Braid-style hypnosis. and even offers suggestions form putting on a stage show and finding other ways to make money with hypnosis. It's a very earnestly written little booklet that offered it's buyers a lit for the money, and you may find some pearls of inspiration in it as well.

 

Book Report: Hypnotism by Walter Gibson -- How-to c.1970

Hypnotism (c) 1970 by Walter Gibson

Background Information: Before we get into the book, it's worth taking a minute to get to know the author. He is most well known for writing hundreds of stories for the immensely popular crime-fighting character The Shadow in the 1930s and 40s, under the pen-name Maxwell Grant. (The Shadow was a mysterious figure with the power to cloud men's minds! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow). He was also a stage magician credited with creating and popularizing several very famous tricks ("effects," as magicians prefer to call them), and he and his wife wrote a number of books on divination. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_B._Gibson 

Gibson's Book on Hypnotism is very much a solid and traditional kind introduction to the art of hypnosis. He opens the book with a discussion of what he calls "mass hypnosis" such as the Islamic whiling dervishes, Native American ghost dancers, and even the Woodstock festival. (Whether or not these examples of ritualistic trance behavior are exactly hypnosis is a matter of interpretation). 

The next few chapters describe the history of hypnosis from Paracelsus to Mesmer to the modern day. He includes a discussion of Emil Coue's Autosuggestion (what we call affirmations these days) and talks about how Houdini and others used autosuggestion to enable them to do superhuman feats, like holding their breath for incredibly long times when doing escape tricks. 

From here on, he presents the usual stock and trade of formal hypnosis. There's a chapter on convincers, then a series of different inductions, and then depth tests, and of course how to formulate post hypnotic suggestions and what undesirable suggestions to avoid. 

His Three Rules for Hypnotists are excellent:
1) Never hypnotize someone without formal consent
2) Always have a third person present
3) Always give suggestions for the client's best interests

As a standard text book for beginners, it's pretty good. I personally think some of his inductions are a bit complicated, but every practitioner has his own style.