I Create As I Speak (abracadabra) By Lewis Lé Val 1s4n3q

I CREATE AS I SPEAK * LEWIS LE VAL

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author. I Create As I Speak (Abracadabra) – Intellectual property of Lewis Le Val Copyright © Lewis Le Val, All Rights Reserved.

“Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.” – Patrick Rothfuss.

Contents 1. Introduction & What is Suggestion? 2. Paradigm Shift – Your Frame of Mind

3. Finding a Good Subject

4. The Methods

5. Stepping Beyond 6. What if it Doesn’t Work?

7. FAQ from Audience

8. Final Thoughts

9. Acknowledgements

1. Introduction.

Dear reader, please take a moment to try this for me. Take a deep breath in, and then close your eyes and count to five in your head as you exhale. Then open your eyes and continue reading. Do that now! **********

Why did you do that? Because I told you to? Exactly. That, in its most basic and simplest form imaginable, was suggestion. In psychology the definition of suggestion is the action of influencing a person to accept an idea or belief uncritically. So if, at its core, suggestion is as simple as that, then how much more difficult can it be to use it as a form of entertainment or part of a performance? In these pages I will show you exactly how to do just that. Using a collection of my favourite techniques, along with elements from other proven techniques, I will help you to develop and strengthen your suggestion skills and show you how you can make suggestion based effects work whilst feeling comfortable and confident performing them.

What follows is the way I, personally, use suggestion while performing. This is how I do it, and with enough practice and understanding, you will be doing it too!

There are many different names for suggestion. Subliminal suggestion, waking hypnosis etc. I wish to keep your read as simple and as clear as possible, so throughout the book we will be referring to suggestion and hypnotic phenomena simply as ‘suggestion’. Put simply, suggestion works through words spoken, words unspoken and your actions. It needs all three to work effectively. I will be giving you as much detail as I can on how you can use suggestion in your performances or even as performance pieces alone. There is a wide variety of things you can do. For now though, let’s start from the beginning. Many different people have many different theories and explanations as to how and why they believe suggestion works. What follows is one

of

the

most

popular

theories.

There

are

few

hypnotists/hypnotherapists etc who will disagree with this theory, but it is still one that I believe every of suggestion should be aware of and think about when attempting this sort of performing. It is said that there is a part of your brain known as the Critical Faculty, or Critical Factor (not anatomical). This is the part of your brain that es judgement. It evaluates input from the five senses and es judgment on whether that input is valid or not. It acts as a

guard between the conscious and the subconscious parts of the mind. Any and all thoughts and suggestions directed toward the individual are analysed by the critical factor. Its job is to accept or reject suggestions from entering the subconscious mind based on what it thinks is normal or right. So if you were to just randomly tell someone that their hand is stuck to the table and they cannot lift it, their critical factor will reject your statement because it knows the hand is not stuck. But what if you were somehow able to by the critical factor, and cause your suggestions to slip past it? If their brain is unable to judge if the hand is stuck or not after being told that it is stuck, it will simply believe what it has been told as the critical factor wasn’t there to judge the truth. The suggestion slips right past the guard and into the subconscious mind. The hand now becomes stuck to the table because the mind believes that it is. This is what creates the magical feeling for the person. Consciously they cannot lift their hand from the table and it feels weird, because subconsciously they believe that their hand is stuck. So how do you by the critical factor? Well throughout this book I will be showing you various techniques which, when combined, will help you to by this part of their brain and achieve the results you want. Before you read any further I will tell you that it is not easy to do this kind of thing, and you will have to be a little bit bold, but do not let that put you off. The best way to learn is to just go out and do this over and over again with different people until you get it down and you’re comfortable with it. There will be times when it doesn’t

work, so later I will show you some methods that you can use to remove the appearance of failure. I say appearance because in our line of work that is all failure is, an appearance. Before we go any further I would just like to point out my use of the word hypnosis and hypnotists in this book. When a person is hypnotised they are given suggestions, very similar to what I will be showing you but they are delivered in a different way. Although some may argue that using suggestion alone is technically a form of hypnosis, I do not wish to over complicate things. So please that I will not be teaching hypnosis or how to hypnotise people in this book. I am teaching suggestion methods, ways to use words and actions to create these effects. I only mention hypnotists as they too use suggestion in their performances and/or therapies.

2. Paradigm Shift – Your Frame of Mind

Words unspoken. By this I am talking about something known as ‘subtext’ (the psychological definition). Subtext is simply what you are thinking during an interaction or conversation. Now maybe you don’t believe that this makes a difference, but I promise you it does. If you and

are

about in

to your

attempt mind

a

suggestion you

are

based

effect, thinking,

“This might not work, I hope it does, what if I fail?” Then without a doubt, you will fail. We can sense what people are thinking, and we do it naturally every day. If your subject or audience can sense any doubt in you then your suggestion will not work. You need to appear confident, experienced and professional. You need to appear as if you know exactly what you are doing, and that you’ve done this a million times. If you went to see a doctor and they seemed nervous or unsure of what they were doing, would you trust them? Would you take medication they gave to you? Probably not. It is the same with suggestion. Never let anybody know that you are learning to use suggestion. Even if you are an absolute beginner, from this point onwards, consider yourself an expert. If you want to get the best results, you need this. I would also recommend not trying or practicing suggestion on close friends or family. They know you too well and could potentially see right through your new found expertise.

It will work best with strangers or people who do not know you too well. So before you begin, keep positive thoughts in your mind. Tell yourself that it is going to work, you do it all the time, it’s going to be great, you’re an expert. If you go in to this with 100% belief in yourself and your abilities, it will work. Subtext has such a big impact on how you are perceived by other people. Use it to your advantage. Next I would like to talk to you about authority. Authority is the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience. You will need the same sort of authority over your subject or audience that a school teacher has with their pupils or students. Think back to when you were at school. If your teacher told you to stand at the front of the class, even if you didn’t want to, you still had to do it. This is important because you will need your subjects to comply with you. Things will go a lot smoother if they follow your instructions as and when you give them. There are many subtle techniques you can use to establish your authority. The simplest technique is to just use larger hand gestures while talking. This is a technique used by public speakers. It is the body language equivalent of speaking louder with more emphasis on what you are saying. If you were to observe a group of people from a distance, and you see a person speaking and using large hand gestures, it is very clear that they are the ones holding the conversation and the attention of others. Think back to the

last time you had an argument with someone and I bet you were using larger hand gestures than usual, even if the argument took place over the phone. It is something we do naturally to deliver our message with a bit more force. Obviously don’t overdo this, don’t wave your hands around like a lunatic! Just make your natural gestures slightly larger. Another good technique is to act like you ‘own the place’. By that I mean pretending, without saying, that the venue or location that you are in belongs to you. When we go to the house of somebody we do not know too well, we are always on our best behaviour out of respect for the person, their house and their belongings. We wouldn’t just kick off our shoes, lie down on the sofa and start flicking through their TV channels, but they can certainly do that because it is their home, their space and their zone or territory. In your mind, the place you are in should belong to you. Bartenders do this with their bar, DJs do this with their club, dancers do this with their stage and so on. If you control or ‘own’ the environment, you control what happens in it. Just to be welcoming to the people in your zone, don’t treat them like unwanted guests. An obvious but useful technique to use is to stand and speak while your spectators are seated. Another is to have a good, firm handshake with eye as you introduce yourself to everyone in the group you are about to perform for. Try your best to people’s names. If you are one of these people with a weird fingertip handshake or a limp handshake, please, stop doing that. It’s creepy.

During a handshake I tend to place my left hand on top of the shake as it is a bit more dominant. Don’t confuse this with the corporate ‘double shake’ were you place your left hand on the other side of the shake, sandwiching their hand between yours.

3. Finding a Good Subject So now that you are in the right state of mind to use suggestion, what do you actually say? Well, one of the simplest and best suggestion ice breakers is to ask you spectators if any of them have ever been hypnotised before. This question usually generates mixed reactions. The most common answers are; “Yes” “No” “I don’t believe in hypnosis” “Can you hypnotise me?” “Please don’t hypnotise me!” Now, it doesn’t matter what they say, but you have now shifted the conversation to hypnosis and hypnotic phenomena. You’ve also got it into their minds that you’re about to perform something of a hypnotic nature. If any of your spectators say they have been hypnotised before, ask them about their experience and what happened. If they tell you it wasn’t very good and they didn’t go under, it’s probably not a good idea to try suggestion with them. If they tell you they went right under and were doing crazy things, then you should try your suggestion with them as they will be a good subject. The same goes for if they have ever had hypnotherapy. NEVER ask them what the therapy was for unless they tell you, but still ask them how it was and if it was effective or not.

Normally after you ask your spectators if any of them have ever been hypnotised before, you will get asked a lot of questions. If you already are a hypnotist and you know what you’re talking about then please feel free to answer their questions. If not then I recommend you Simply

do

not say

try

to

something

answer along

their the

questions. lines

of,

“Now I am not going to hypnotise anyone, we are going to try something similar to hypnosis, but nobody will be going to sleep.” It is now time to select your subject. If any of your spectators have told you they have been hypnotised before and it worked well, then you should choose them. If not, look around the group for somebody who clearly wants you to choose them. Maybe they’re making direct eye with you, sitting forwards and slightly leaning towards you or appear to be a bit excited after you mentioned hypnosis. Their eyes will usually be open wider with pupils dilated and less blinking. Make sure you have their full attention. The Personality Changer This can be used before performing to alter the personality of your subject for the duration of your time with them. If you assume that someone has a positive personality trait, they will almost always agree to having it. So if I said to you, “Hey, you seem fun and interesting!” You’re not going to reply with, “Actually I’m terribly boring!” Are you? If I asked you, “Are you interesting?” There is an opportunity there for you to say no. But if I already assume that

you are interesting, it is much easier for you to agree with me. So anything you need your spectator to be, just assume that they are and tell them! Even if they’re not, they will agree with you. , don’t ask them if they have these traits, just assume that they have them. For example: “You seem fun and interesting.” “You look like you have a really good imagination.” “I get a strong feeling that you’re the type of person who is always up for new experiences.” “You seem like the type of person who is very interested in this sort of thing.” There are thousands of things you could say. The best part about this, whatever they agree to, they have to remain like that for their entire interaction with you, otherwise they will look like they are lying! For example if you said, “You seem like quite an intelligent person” and they agree to it, they want to appear intelligent now because they have just agreed that they are intelligent! See how a few simple words can alter a person’s behaviour so quickly? It is like when a ‘psychic’ says to someone, “Has anyone ever told you/do you know that you have a psychic ability too?” They always say yes regardless of what they thought previously! Because they want to have these traits or abilities, or at least they want people to think that they have these traits or abilities. People will agree to just about anything if it makes them sound good. The Personality Changer can be used in many creative ways to mentally prepare your subject and to make sure that

you have their full attention, which is always important when using suggestion. If you are interested in learning more about how this technique can be used, I recommend looking into the work of the very talented and very clever dating coach, Adam Lyons, and his work on ‘qualification’. You don’t have to mention hypnosis if it doesn’t fit with your style or performance, you can just go right in with the suggestion. However I believe it will help if you can lead the conversation towards hypnosis, hypnotic phenomena or anything of that nature. I prefer not to mention suggestion to them as I don’t want them to know that I am about to try it with them, even if they are unaware of what suggestion is. If you don’t want to mention hypnosis, you could swap it for imagination, and tell them you’re going to test their imagination and how strong it is. Once you have selected your subject it is time for the fun and slightly bold part! Words in bold are spoken by the performer. “I will do this with you. What is your name?” Wait for response. “Nice to meet you, are you ok to do this?” Wait for response. “Fantastic!” *Performer reaches for a handshake*.

The above should be said in a friendly tone. Now, although it is only 3 lines, there is a lot going on here. I will attempt to break down the psychology of what just happened. “I will do this with you.” The word ‘do’ being a key word here. It implies that something is about to happen. If you were to say, “I will try this with you” the word ‘try’ says that there is a possibility of failure and could put doubt in your subject’s mind. A doctor would never

say

they

will

Also,

this

line

is

You’re

not

giving

try a

a

direct them

procedure.

It

statement, a

chance

is not to

always a

do.

question. say

no.

“I will do this with you. What is your name?” If the person responds immediately with their name, it means they’re quite happy to take part. It is a bit like a confirmation from them that they’re happy to continue. So now it is highly unlikely that they will say no when you ask, “are you ok to do this?” Getting you two yeses from only one question! Finally, finishing with “fantastic!” or “great” or “that’s good!” is a nice cue for a handshake when you reach for one.

4. The Methods Your right hand is extended, your subject’s hand is on its way to yours as they’re expecting a handshake. Instead of completing the shake, you’re going to take their hand as you would with a handshake, bring your left hand to their forearm and use both hands to raise their arm up slightly. Their arm should be no higher than chest height and try to keep their hand almost palm down. Maintain a light grip on their arm and hand while you do this, this action should not be forceful. Practice this a few times on a friend until you can do it smoothly whilst maintaining eye with them as you raise their arm up. Here’s the important part. If you feel their arm start to pull away from you at all, you should stop. There is a big possibility that it will not work if they start to pull their arm away. However, if you have done all of the previous steps correctly and chosen the right subject, it is rare that they will pull away from you at this point. What you are aiming for here is for their arm to its own weight, so if you were to let go of them their arm would remain in the air. You can do this by slowly letting go of them to feel if their arm will stay where it is. If it feels like you are still ing their arm, keep hold of them a little bit longer until you feel the weight lift and you can let go. A great tip given to me when I was just 13 years old was from mentalist and violinist Marc Carney of the Liverpool Magic Circle. He said that

during the process of waiting for their arm to its own weight, you should gently tap the palm of their hand with the thumb, index finger and middle finger of your right hand in a random sequence. This will slightly confuse your subject, as they will be wondering what you are doing! Confusion is a great element to add to any suggestion or hypnosis work. Put simply, when the human mind is confused, it is a bit like it is drowning, and it will take the next available piece of information that it can make sense of and hold onto it like a float, in order to escape from the confusion state. Meaning if your subject is in a state of confusion when you deliver your first suggestion, there is an even greater chance of them accepting it and acting upon it. Confusion can also help to by the critical factor. We will talk more ing confusion in the ‘What if it doesn’t Work?’ chapter.

Keep in mind you do not need to do this tapping, as you’ve already created a lot of confusion with a classic pattern interrupt with the handshake and then the holding of their arm. However it can help so it’s up to you if you decide to use it or not. The whole handshake process usually takes no longer than 5 seconds.

A word on the use of handshakes for hypnotic phenomena. Through history there have been many people who have used and developed handshake techniques to induce hypnosis, hypnotic trance, suggestion etc. Most notably are Dave Elman, Milton Erickson and Richard Bandler. I would strongly recommend taking a look at their work if you’re interested in developing your skills even further. The technique above was originally inspired by Erickson’s legendary ‘Ericksonian Handshake’. While most handshake techniques may appear similar, they have all their differences and are used to achieve different results. The above technique is something I have used for many years and developed over time, and it has proven over and over again to work exactly as needed for this type of performance.

So now you’ve done the handshake and their arm is ing its own weight. We are going to begin by making their hand, and then their arm become completely stiff, as if it’s been frozen in time. Words in bold are spoken by the performer. “focus on the back of your hand, you will notice it becoming stiffer and stiffer, like every muscle and bone in your hand is completely locked in to place.” *Gently touching the back of their right hand* *Begin to snap (click) your fingers frequently* “You’ll notice the more I snap my fingers, the stiffer your hand will get. It locks in to place tighter and tighter and harder and

harder and when, and only when you know your hand is completely stuck, I want you to TRY and move your fingers, and you will find that you can’t. The more you try to move your fingers, the less you’re able to.” At this point you will know if it has worked because they will react! Most people begin to laugh as they try to move their fingers! You will be able to see them physically struggling. Now you do not need to say the above script exactly as written, please feel free to play with the words slightly. I just want you maintain the same structure. Some direct commands followed by “…when, and only when you know your hand is completely stuck, I want you to TRY and move your fingers, and you will find that you can’t.” I love this line! You’ve just told them not to try and move their fingers until they know that they’re stuck! So even if it takes 5 minutes (it never will) for their fingers to stick, during this time, they won’t move because you’ve told them not to. So for anybody watching, it already looks like they’re stuck! Then when they feel they are stuck and they try to move them, they won’t be able to. Then we have the next line, using another of my favourite techniques, “The more you try to move your fingers, the less you’re able to.” So now they’re stuck in a loop. They will keep trying to move their fingers, so if your suggestion for them to become stuck has worked, then this will also work! Keeping their hand locked.

Ok! Now I think we should recap before we go any further! 1. Frame of mind. (A particular mood that influences one's attitude or behaviour) Subtext / positive thoughts / instant expert / authority 2. Ask a question that will shift the conversation to hypnosis or hypnotic phenomena e.g. “Have any of you ever been hypnotised before?” 3. Select a subject (Person to perform your suggestion with) Somebody who has been hypnotised in the past with good results, or somebody who appears to be paying good attention to you, making eye with you, leaning slightly forwards etc. 4. Begin your opening script to begin the effect. “I will do this with you. What is your name?” Wait for response. “Nice to meet you, are you ok to do this?” Wait for response. “Fantastic!” *Performer reaches for a handshake*. 5. Take their hand. Instead of completing the handshake, bring your left hand to their forearm and use both of your hands to gently lift their arm up slightly, again, no higher than chest height. Maintain eye with them as you slowly begin to let go of their arm, seeing if the arm will

its own weight. You can also do the three finger tapping as mentioned earlier here if you wish. If their arm starts to pull away from you, use an out. (See ‘What if it doesn’t work?’ chapter). 6. If their arm stays, begin your first suggestion script. You don’t have to memorise the scripts in this book, just use them as a guide to create your own scripts. It should be natural and in your own words.

7. Turn them into a statue! Make their hand freeze in time! At this point, it is good to use your first suggestion on making their hand become completely stiff and locked into place. “focus on the back of your hand, you will notice it becoming stiff, like every muscle and bone in your hand is completely locked in to place.” *Gently touching the back of their right hand* *Begin to snap (click) your fingers frequently* “You’ll notice the more I snap my fingers, the stiffer your hand will get. It locks in to place tighter and tighter and harder and harder and when, and only when you know your hand is completely stuck, I want you to TRY and move your fingers, and you will find that you can’t. The more you try to move your fingers, the less you’re able to.” Don’t worry about repeating yourself. You can repeat yourself as many times as you need until you get the results you want. If it

doesn’t look like its working right away, just repeat yourself with a bit more force! Tell them that the more you snap your fingers, the stiffer their hand will get. If you need to, tell them when you clap your hands, their hand will get ten times (10x) stiffer until it completely locks into place! If your subject starts to panic or looks a bit scared, just tell them that it won’t scare them and it won’t hurt or be uncomfortable in any way.

8. Step back and look at your work! When they’re completely stuck, stop talking and let them experience what is happening! It can be quite amusing, even for the performer, to watch your subject as they struggle to move their fingers or their hand! Usually they will begin to laugh as they try to move. You can ask them what it feels like and tell them to describe the feeling to their friends. *Performance tip* Every time I perform this, at some point, I like to do this. Feel free to do this also as it adds to the ‘show’. “Now as your hand is completely stuck, you might think that if I left you like this, eventually you will become unstuck right? And your hand will go back to normal? Well it’s actually the opposite! You will see that the further away I get from you, the stiffer your hand will get and it locks in to place even more!”

Now slowly walk backwards, away from them and watch their reaction as their hand locks into place even more! You can throw this in at any point in your performance. You can do it here or save it for later, the choice is yours! You can now take this further. You see, if you have gotten this far with good results, there is no reason why you can’t do more! Your subject and any other spectators will now have a growing belief in you. You have now successfully demonstrated what you can do. They have witnessed you ‘create as you speak’, which is the definition of ‘Abracadabra’ (I

create as I speak).

You are literally creating as you

speak! The simplest way to begin taking this further once their hand is stuck; “Now your hand will remain stuck, but this feeling will also begin to spread up your arm to your elbow, then up to your shoulder, as your whole arm becomes completely stuck, completely frozen! Every muscle and every bone in your whole arm is now stuck, and the more you try to move it, the less you’re able to!” As you say the above, it is a good idea to place your hands on either side of their arm, without touching them, maybe keep your hands 4-5 inches from their arm and move your hands up their arm slowly, acting as if there is an invisible force going from your hands and into their arm. This creates a great visual and also creates an apparent process. The process of making their hand lock was the unusual handshake and the touching of the back of their hand. The process of

making their arm lock could be the above. You see, unless you’ve hypnotised the person, words alone won’t be enough to ‘sell’ the idea to them that you’re actually doing something. So to create more belief and more results, create a process for your subject to see, and they will believe that this is what you need to do to make these things happen to them. If an Artist stands before you with a blank canvas and within seconds a painting appears on it, you’d have a hard time believing that they have just painted it right in front of you. However if you see them take out a brush and paint and begin painting, you are seeing the process, after that there is no reason why you wouldn’t believe they have painted it. It is the same with suggestion, allow them to see you painting the picture. Allow them to see your process. After a few minutes of having a locked arm, you should probably break your ‘spell’ and make their arm go back to normal. To do this, you can do anything you want. I simply say, “In a moment I will touch the back of your hand, and when I do, your arm will return to the way it should be. Back to normal in every way with no stiffness or locking.” *Touch the back of their hand* “And your arm is back to normal now, you can move it, it’s not stuck anymore!” Some people will be able to move their arm again instantly, with others it looks like they’re slowly getting the movement back in their

arm. This is all in their head, but whatever they do, just go with it and allow it to happen. Congratulations! You have now successfully done your first suggestion effect! When I am performing, after I have done all of the above, I tend to just do only one or two more suggestion effects with the

person.

There

are

a

number

of

reasons

for

this.

1. Less is more. I like to keep it quite mysterious and just do a little bit. If you do a lot, your audience will think they have seen everything. If you only do a little, their imaginations will run wild as they think about what else you might be able to do and what you might be capable of. In their eyes this makes you an even greater performer, as they will believe you can do things that they’ve only thought of! 2. Time. As good as it may look, and it feels amazing to do these effects, don’t take up too much time with them. Keep them short and snappy. In this day and age, most modern audiences have such a short attention span. So keep it quick, don’t lose their attention, which will happen if you drag the performance on too long, no matter how good it is. 3. After you’ve done one or two suggestion effects it won’t be long at all before other spectators are asking you to do this with them. There’s nothing more annoying than being half way through something with someone, and another person interrupts you to ask

you to do it with them. It’s good to be finished with one person before you move on to another. I tend to just do this with one person in a group, but you can do it with others, especially now because they have seen what you can do, they believe in you now. If they appear to be open and willing to try, then by all means do something with them too.

5. Stepping Beyond So where can you go from here? You can do anything you want! Just to start small until you’re confident enough with suggestion to do bigger effects. Usually after I’ve done the arm lock, I will take their

hand,

place

it

on

the

table

with

my

hand

on

top of theirs, applying gentle pressure as I say, “STICK your hand on the table for me. Now with imagination anything is possible. If you wanted to, you could imagine an elephant is standing behind me. Can you do that? …Great! You have a strong imagination! Now I want you to imagine that you’ve just put your hand in some of the world’s strongest superglue and it’s drying as we speak! This is the strongest glue in the world and it’s beginning to stick your hand harder and harder to the table! In a moment when I lift my hand you find that your hand is stuck to the table and you’re unable to lift it! The stronger you can imagine that glue, the harder your hand will become stuck to the table! It just sticks more and more and NOW! Your hand is stuck to the table! TRY to lift it!” As I place their hand on the table I begin with saying “Stick your hand on the table for me.” This is a direct command and if your subject is suggestible enough, this first line will begin the process of their hand sticking to the table, even if to them it just sounds like you’re asking them to put their hand on the table. I keep my hand on top of theirs until I tell them what will happen when I take my hand

away. I then start to talk about imagination, this is the beginning of my process. “Anything is possible with imagination.” This line opens up the idea of something happening if they use their imagination. I then ask them to imagine an elephant standing behind me. I say this very casually, as I don’t really want it to look like it is part of the effect. The reason for the elephant is if they can imagine it well, it gets their imagination fired up and also, if they can imagine the elephant, they will have no problem imagining the next part, the world’s strongest glue! I also have them imagine the elephant standing behind me as it’s quite amusing to see them lean to the side to look behind you to see an elephant that’s not even there! This is an indicator that they have a good imagination. It is also a sign that you might be able to do even bigger suggestion effects with them later on! You will see in the script above that I said many times about their hand getting stuck, I do this because I want to be sure that when I lift my hand off theirs, their hand is stuck. Again, don’t worry about repeating yourself, repetition can help you a lot. If, on the off chance that their hand does begin to slowly lift from the table, I act like I meant for that to happen. I just continue with, “That’s great, and as I snap my fingers you hand will just get heavier and heavier until it sticks back down to the table. The next time your hand touches the table it will be completely stuck and you will be unable to lift it.” If I really have to, I will push their hand back down to the table and say,

“As I push your hand down that glue just gets ten times stronger and your hand sticks even harder to the table now!” When their hand is stuck to the table, again step back and let them experience it, ask them how it feels. If you wanted to, you could do the walking away idea here, and leave them sticking more and more to the table as you get further away from them.

*Performance Tip* Through the years of performing this particular effect, I’ve seen people misunderstand the reason why the subject’s hand is stuck to the table, and they’ve reached over and pulled the hand up from the table to try and prove that it isn’t really stuck. Idiots. So to avoid this, early on in the effect when the subject’s hand first becomes stuck, say to the other spectators or the rest of your audience, “Now obviously if we try to lift his/her hand from the table, we could because it’s not really stuck, however, the mind controls the body, so in his/her mind that hand is stuck, so it’s his/her mind stopping him/her from being able to lift it.” Again, to release their hand from the table, you can do anything you want. I just use the touch on the back of the hand as explained above.

You could use the imaginary glue presentation for this effect or make

up your own, it is up to you. If you decide to make your own, just make sure it has a visible process to get the hand to stick. I would recommend trying the handshake with the arm lock as your first suggestion effect, as this is very good for ‘opening the gate’. It is a good way to start your suggestion smoothly and quickly. Then if it works well and you’ve got a suggestible subject, you can create almost any effect you want. Physical effects are easy, such as the arm lock, sticking their hand to the table, sticking their hands together in a prayer position, making their arm float up by its self then they’re unable to bring their arm down. You could have your subject get stuck to the chair they’re sitting in so they cannot stand, or if they are standing you can cause their feet to stick to the ground so they cannot move! Some bolder effects could be making them unable to speak, or unable to say their own name, forget numbers or letters etc. The possibilities are endless, it just depends on how suggestible your subject is, how confident you are at doing this and delivering your lines or scripts well. The best way to get good at this is to just do it! Throw yourself in at the deep end! If you’re already a performer of some sort, then do a bit of what you normally do first until you feel comfortable with the people you’re performing for, then after you’ve gained some rapport with your spectators you could try some suggestion. I promise it will not look out of place. You don’t need to be a mentalist or a hypnotist to do this after performing your usual material. You can do suggestion effects after card routines if you wish. I did for three years.

Try creating a process, or presentation for the above effects. I purposely didn’t include presentations for them in this book as I want to encourage you to create your own in your own style! When you’re creating your scripts, just make sure they have a similar pattern to those in this book. Say them with a bit of force and meaning. Believe in what you’re saying because if you don’t, nobody else will. When creating your presentations it is always good to try and include some participation of other spectators. So for example, you could have your subject’s arm float up in to the air by itself and they can’t pull it down no matter how hard they try. Then have them imagine a piece of string tied to their wrist and when someone slowly pulls the string down, their arm will go down with it, then when the string is released the arm will float back up. As long as you tell your subject that this is what will happen, it will work. So now you can have a spectator control your subject’s arm! There is a recent video of me performing the handshake, arm lock, hand stuck to table etc on YouTube, so you can see the whole process here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JkJJF2Td6Q This was filmed at a café I was performing at. There were two guys sitting at the table and I had been there for a few minutes doing normal routines before I decided to do some suggestion. I opened with my normal question, “Have either of you ever been hypnotised before?” They both said no and one of them asked me if hypnosis only works on weak minded people. I have a great answer for this

which we will talk about later. They both seemed quite sceptical about hypnosis so I changed my approach to this. I turned to one of the guys and said, “Do you believe you have a strong imagination? Ok, let’s do a little experiment involving your imagination. Do you mind if we film this?” I then handed my phone to his friend to start recording. You will notice low audio in the video until around 3:35, as the guy filming had his finger over the microphone. Listen with headphones if possible so you can hear what is being said. You will find that a lot of what I say has been covered in this book. Also my performance in the video is a little rushed, you can take your time with what you are doing, I was in a loud venue with a lot of tables to get around and I was full of energy, hence the fast talking. I saw the opportunity to get a quick video and took it. My handshake in the video appears fast and a bit forceful. Keep in mind you can do it as slow or as fast as you want. In the performance you will also be able to see how easy it is to transition from one effect to another. Once I knew his hand was stuck I knew my other suggestions would work too. You will also see my use of large hand gestures and exaggerated body language. This was not for the table I was performing at, but for any other table or group watching me. This goes back to what we were talking about earlier with authority etc.

6. What if it Doesn’t Work? There will be some times when you get right up to delivering suggestions for their hand to lock in to place, and then you tell them that they cannot move their fingers, but suddenly they start to move their fingers with no locking. Now don’t let this put you off, it happens to all of us. After you’ve had some practice and you get used to suggestion and dealing with people in this way, you will start to be able to make better judgements on each situation you find yourself in, and this alone will get you positive results more frequently. But for those times that it doesn’t quite work, here is a little toolkit you can use to reframe the situation.

1. I.P (Insist and Persist) This is a bit of a bold move, but repeat yourself. This time with a more forceful tone of voice. Do not raise your voice or get angry, just insist that it will begin to lock more and more (or whatever effect you are doing). Your persistence will make the spectator start to believe that it is their fault that their hand isn’t locking. They feel slightly more awkward and uncomfortable, and you might start to get results from there.

2. Concentration Ploy. You could say, “Now I want you to close your eyes, it will help you to concentrate. As I snap my fingers your hand will begin to lock in to place even more. When you feel your hand start to lock in to

place and you cannot move it, you can open your eyes and have a look. Until then, just keep them closed and concentrate.” This can help for obvious reasons, but there is also something sneaky at work. With the above sentence, you have basically told them to close their eyes and not open them until their hand is locked! I’ve been using this since I was 17 years old and I have used it many times to get the results that I want. If your spectator is in an uncomfortable position with their arm in front of them or their hands up or something else, and you ask them to close their eyes and they’re not allowed to open them until something happens, you can bet that it won’t be long before you start to get results. People don’t want to be sat in public places with their eyes closed for too long, so whether consciously or unconsciously, they will make your suggestion work. If you choose to do this, that your subject might be faking the effect just to get it over with so they can open their eyes again. If this happens you should just thank them for taking part and compliment them on how well they did. This keeps them happy to continue pretending that the suggestion worked. My aim is to never make people fake suggestion, if it isn’t working on them I would rather know, but don’t forget what is important, the appearance. If you have an audience watching, it is better that they see that something happened rather than something not working.

3. Confusion As mentioned earlier, confusion is a great tool that can be used when doing effects based on suggestion. When someone who we have even an ounce of respect for is talking to us, and they have our full attention, we listen to and understand what they are saying. The moment they say something that doesn’t quite make sense, our brain scrambles to try and make sense of it. The moment they say something that makes sense again, psychologically we relax, our train is back on the track. So if you have your subject’s full attention and you deliver quite a confusing sentence or question, give them some time to think about what you said, as this is when the confusion builds, but don’t leave them with enough time to answer you, so after a few seconds you should continue talking. Usually one or two sentences is enough, when you can clearly see that they are confused you can start giving suggestions and instructions that make sense, as this is what they will hold on to. It is their life vest while they’re drowning in the sea of confusion. A good confusing sentence or question doesn’t have to be a mind blowing piece of language, just something that sounds like a genuine question but doesn’t quite makes sense and takes some thought to try an understand. It could even be some instructions that you give them that aren’t quite clear enough to understand right away. If they cannot make sense of the instructions they will be waiting for you to deliver them again with a bit more clarity, they will force themselves to pay closer attention.

Their mind is open at this point. Here is a good place to drop your suggestions.

4. Compliance tests Once you have chosen your subject, before you start your suggestion you could do some compliance tests with them. This will get them used to following directions so it will be a bit easier for them to accept suggestions later, and will also give you a chance to see how well they can do what you ask/tell them to do. Compliance tests can

m

be as simple as asking them to sit up straight, place their hands on

co

their lap, look at you etc. If you can do a few of these before you start

co

s.

you will be conditioning them to follow your instructions, so you will

tru

increase your chances of the suggestion working when you apply it.

ic

Try not to use the same tests every time. Change them up a bit

m

ag

depending on the situation you are in.

5. Belief Make them believe in you! You don’t have to convince them that you have special powers or abilities, but you do have to convince them that you are an expert in what you are doing, you’ve done it many times before and that what you are doing really happens. You can say and do anything you need to make them believe. Using the techniques at the beginning of this book you will be able to do this.

6. Dead! This is my go to out. I used to use it as a standalone piece, but now I only ever use it as an out if my suggestion isn’t really working. This is a suggestion based pulse stop, however the suggestion is used in a clever way. Imagine you have done your handshake and given your suggestions for the hand to lock in to place, and you get nothing. No stiffness whatsoever and they can move their hand just fine. Step back and say, “Ah ok, that is interesting. You felt nothing at all? That’s strange.” Then select another person in the group, subject number 2. You should select someone who also fits the criteria of a good, suggestible subject. Don’t put too much thought into your choice as this, for me, works 99% of the time regardless of who I choose. Ask them to take the wrist of subject number 1 and feel their pulse. Ask them to tap their fingers on the table in time to the pulse and say, “You are tapping in time to the pulse just so that we can all see what happens. If the pulse speeds up, you speed up and if it slows down, I want you to slow down.” Hold your hand above subject 1’s wrist in a slightly theatrical manner and say to subject 2, “Ok, don’t skip a beat, but you will feel the pulse begin to slow down now! Each beat will get softer and slower, and in a moment you won’t be able to feel any pulse at all. The pulse will stop, now!” Moments later, the pulse stops. After leaving a short space for reactions, you then say, “When I wave my hand over your wrist, the pulse will come back again.”

So what is happening here? The suggestion is being used on subject 2, but you are acting as though what you are doing is being used on subject 1. After doing your handshake and putting so much emphasis on your subject’s hand, if your suggestion doesn’t work it is good to at least do something with this person’s hand. If it suits your style you could go in to a palm reading demonstration at this point, but I urge you to try this pulse stop as it feels like you’re doing real magic! Subject 2 doesn’t know that you are doing anything to them, they believe that everything you are doing is for subject 1. This means that their guard will be down. They are not making any judgements as they think that they’re only there to take the pulse. They are not aware that something is happening to them. Some would call this a form of ‘covert hypnosis’. Subject 2 has three things they have to deal with, and as you talk you are giving them more things they have to keep track of. Sooner or later their mind kind of overloads, and to deal with the situation their mind just picks the key instruction to follow, which is that the pulse will stop, and forgets the rest. Of course the pulse never actually stops but subject 2 just stops feeling it. So let’s take a look at what they are dealing with. Firstly, they are touching someone and feeling their pulse. This is weird enough for them, especially if they do not know the person. Secondly, they have to tap the fingers of their other hand on the table in time to the pulse, one tap for every beat they feel. Thirdly they are trying to pay attention to what you are saying. Now you’re about to throw a psychological spanner in the works.

“…If the pulse speeds up, you speed up and if it slows down, I want you to slow down.” When you say the words ‘I want you to slow down’, try and say it as if wasn’t the original end of your sentence. Almost as if they were going too fast and you’ve had to stop what you were saying to tell them to slow down. Then there is your hand gesture. Just hold it up as if you are doing something. This is your process. In the eyes of the spectators, this is what you need to do to make the pulse stop. “…Don’t skip a beat…” Or you could say don’t ‘miss’ a beat. This works in the same way that old trick ‘don’t think of a black cat’ works. Before we go further, I’d just like to clarify how that actually works. When you hear the words ‘don’t think of a black cat’ what do you do? You think of a black cat. This is not because the words ‘think of a black cat’ are there in the sentence, your brain isn’t hearing a secret command to think of a black cat, it is just verbal imagery. Descriptive words that naturally create a picture in our minds. Your brain conjures up the image and shows it to you to try and help you better understand what is being said. So by saying ‘skip a beat’ or ‘miss a beat’ you’re putting the idea in their head whilst disguising it as a normal sentence. You are then telling them what is going to happen. After that you are telling them that each beat will get slower and softer. There you have another two things they’re trying to notice or be aware of. Sometimes they stop almost instantly and say they cannot feel the pulse, others take a little while longer. If they are taking

longer,

just

keep

going

with

your

script!

“It will just get slower and slower, each beat will get softer and it will stop!” Once again the pulse won’t actually stop, they will just stop being able to feel it. When the pulse stops, tell them to keep hold of their wrist because you need to bring the pulse back. A beautiful presentational point that I use at every opportunity is if you can cast a shadow over the arm of subject 1 with your hand, do it! Then bring the shadow of your hand slowly down their arm, as you say, “Watch my hand and you will feel the pulse come back now!” Time your wording so that as you say the word ‘now’ the shadow of your hand es over the person’s wrist. It will look like your shadow brought the pulse back.

If you like this pulse stop, and you like the idea of stopping a spectator’s pulse, I recommend that you also check out Luke Jermay’s amazing pulse stop called For Andruzzi, which can be found on his DVD Skullduggery.

7. Bail out! If you absolutely have to, you can just say, “Ok great! That is interesting, this tells me a lot about how your mind works. I think this will be perfect for you. You have the right mind for this.” Then just go right in to any other effect that you perform. Don’t worry about saying this, just keep it short and sweet. Don’t turn it into a big long cold reading and don’t add too much justification as to why it didn’t

work. If you make the above script any longer you will make it memorable. You don’t want them to the time you weirdly shook their hand and nothing happened. Just move on quickly. Also never it that it didn’t work. If you say something didn’t work, you are telling them you failed. Just leave them to think that it’s something you had to do in order for your next effect to work with them.

8. FAQ from Audience Some questions you will often get asked when doing this kind of thing and some answers you can give.

Can you hypnotise me? Unless you actually can, you could mysteriously answer with: “You’re already hypnotised.” Or: “Everyone hypnotises themselves every single day. Daydreaming is a form of hypnosis, and I want to show you something based on that.” Then use them for your suggestion if they look like they’re genuinely interested.

Can anyone be hypnotised? “Everyone can to a certain extent. It depends if you’re using it for therapy , entertainment or anything else.”

Does it only work on weak minded people? I hate this question. You can answer with: “There’s no such thing as strong or weak minded and Hypnosis has nothing to do with intellect.” Or you could say this. I love this line. I first heard it from my friend and psychic entertainer Jon Scotland. I do not know who the line originates from, so if anyone reading this does happen to know, please let me know so I can give proper credit. The line is:

“If you are of average or above intelligence, you can be hypnotised.” Take a look at what you are saying with this line! You are saying that if they are unable to be hypnotised, they’re stupid! Of course they are not actually stupid, but nobody wants to appear unintelligent. So after saying this you will find that suddenly you have an audience full of intelligent people who, of course, can be hypnotised! I don’t believe in hypnosis. Not really a question but it can still be answered. Now there are hundreds of responses to this. Enough to write a book on. Maybe I will some day. Anyway I don’t want you to get into too much of a conversation about hypnosis when you’re about to use suggestion, so you could answer with: “Most people have only ever seen hypnosis in movies or cartoons, and in those movies or cartoons the hypnosis is exaggerated or changed drastically into something that it is not. So when you say you don’t believe in hypnosis, really you’re saying you don’t believe in what you think hypnosis is. So tell me, what do you think hypnosis is?” Wait for their answer, and then whatever they say, respond with, “Exactly! I wouldn’t believe that either!” Unless they’ve studied hypnosis, no layperson will ever give you an accurate description of hypnosis. If they then turn around and ask you what is hypnosis? You can briefly say “Hypnosis is a state of mind. I won’t bore you with the details so let me give you an example.” Then proceed with your suggestion.

Don’t allow your spectators to corner you in to a question and answer session, you’re not there for that. It has happened to me many times in the past and it is very annoying. Don’t talk for too long with your answers or you will be there forever. Be ready like a machine gun to deliver short and rapid answers to their questions, then when you find a gap, quickly jump in and carry on with your performance. I can’t count how many times I’ve been stuck answering questions. I understand that people are intrigued about hypnosis and want to know more, but you’re not an educator, you’re an entertainer, a performer, an artist.

9. Final Thoughts It is bold, it is scary but if you go out armed with the information from this book you will be fine. Know what you are going to do before you do it. Practice in your head, practice out loud when you’re alone and believe in yourself. Don’t worry too much about finding the perfect subject. People want to see performers and they want you to succeed. If you have a mysterious talent or ability, people want to see it and experience it. If in their eyes you are a professional, you capture 100% of their attention and you direct them properly, you won’t have anything to worry about! It does seem like there is a lot to learn in this book, but once you’ve read through it and you understand it, and you’ve had a bit of practice, it becomes second nature. A lot of the techniques in this book can be used with other things and I’m sure while you were reading you found something that would work well in other aspects of your performing or even your life! Once you start doing suggestion, you get hooked! It is addictive, it feels like real magic. If you want to learn hypnosis this is a great starting point. The problem with hypnosis is, there are so many misconceptions and different beliefs that it can all get in the way of your subjects actually allowing it to happen. Suggestion is like a little hypnosis baby and it cuts past all of the baggage that comes with hypnosis and allows you to perform more with more people. So learn this first, then move on to learning hypnosis! Earlier on we mentioned bying the critical

factor. Well anything that your critical factor does not reject, goes in to your subconscious mind and essentially, becomes a part of your belief system. So if your subjects believe in you, then that is you, the performer, past their critical factor. Then all that is left is for you to present them with these ideas and suggestions, and if they’ve not seen them before then they cannot judge them. It might not seem logical to them, but the subconscious mind works off of emotion, not logic, so if you can give their conscious mind enough reason for what you say and do to be true, then in their subconscious mind it will become true. The subconscious doesn’t know the difference between real and imaginary, that is why dreams feel real. Neither does it understand past and future. It lives in the present. So if you can tell someone’s subconscious mind that their hand is NOW STUCK, you will find that their hand becomes stuck. And so, by definition, you are creating as you speak. Abracadabra.

Lewis Le Val.

10.

Acknowledgements

Due to the psychological nature of what is taught in this book, there is only a certain amount of ways it can be taught, with the main differences

coming

from

opinion,

belief,

interpretation,

understanding, technique and experience. This book contains a variety of techniques, some of which may not be original. I have discovered these techniques through my own studies and experience, and development of public domain knowledge. In my professional, working performances I use all of the techniques in this book and more, which may be released in a follow up publication. I have taught some of these techniques to enough performers who have made great progress with them, to have confidence that you will also make great progress. If you need any advice or have any questions, or need to me for any reason, please do not hesitate to email me at [email protected]

or



me

through

my

website

www.lewisleval.com If you’re interested in learning impromptu hypnosis, I recommend you take a look at Anthony Jacquin’s work. He has many products in different formats, all dedicated to teaching you hypnosis.

James Tripp also has some brilliant material out there you should take a look at. Notably ‘Hypnosis Without Trance’.

Dee Christopher has many effects, techniques and subtleties through his work using genuine suggestion. He also has some pseudo suggestion methods, to create the illusion of suggestion and hypnotic phenomena. All of which would go hand in hand with the techniques from this book.

If you are interested in learning more suggestion routines you should take a look at Luke Jermay’s work. He has many incredible effects involving suggestion that feel like real magic to perform. Fraser Parker has an amazing DVD/book combo called ‘True Mysteries’ available from www.the1914.com. Fraser teaches many effects that look like hypnosis and suggestion without the need of hypnosis or suggestion. I highly recommend it.

Thank you; Marc Carney Dave Elman Milton Erickson Richard Bandler Dee Christopher Daniel Madison Gianni Vox Peter Turner Steven Palmer Ben Seward Marc Spelmann Anthony Jacquin Luke Jermay Fraser Parker The 52 Cassandra & Thank you reader.

WWW.LEWISLEVAL.COM