This past weekend I completed my Master Practitioner certification in Ericksonian Hypnosis with Mike Mandel. It was a great experience to be back in Mike’s class, learning amazing new skills and meeting a bunch of really cool people.
Yesterday, on the last day of the 2nd weekend, we were taught how to get subjects into the Esdaile state. This is a state of hypnosis so deep, there is thought to be no deeper level. Mike taught us that this state was originally discovered by James Esdaile, who used hypnosis to perform surgery in India, back when no anaesthetics were available, and there were no methods to render surgical patients unconscious. But it was Dave Elman who re-discovered the state, and named it after James Esdaile.
Working together, one student worked with another to induce trance. We first took our training partner into a somnambulistic trance using the Elman induction. From there, it takes only a few minutes to go to the “basement” of hypnosis, aka, the Esdaile state.
Personally, I found this experience to be incredibly powerful, as did my training partner. She went into the Esdaile state perfectly, and the first test I used was a very hard pinch of the skin on the back of her hand. She didn’t budge, nor did she recall feeling anything when she later emerged from trance.
Often people say to me, “Isn’t hypnosis fake?” When you experience no pain from a *very* hard pinch on your skin, and the painlessness has never been suggested to you in advance, you are quickly convinced how powerful hypnosis really is.
In short, I had an amazing time developing my hypnosis skills over the last two weekends. I encourage everyone to learn this amazing tool. Feel free to check out our page on how to learn hypnosis.
Students – if you are interested in sending in your own thoughts and impressions from the class, please do. I’ll happily post them on this blog.
A huge thanks to Mike Mandel for providing everyone with an incredible two weekends of hypnosis training.
Remember to have a look at Mandel’s self hypnosis CDs.
