Would you go to a doctor who earned his degree on the Internet?

How about a hair stylist who trained with DVD’s?

Would you hire an electrical contractor, who studied his Time-Life books, to work on your home?

No?

Well, what if they all had some kind of impressive certification that showed you they were “qualified”?

Still no?

Why not? I mean, they have a certificate, right? That makes everything on the level, doesn’t it?

Then why do people want to learn hypnotism from some home-study course from the Internet that promises a “real certification” in hypnotism?

You can find them all over the place. I have an acquaintance that sells his course on eBay and after an open-book test, you send him your test answers and you get a certification. Of course, this certification is from his hypnosis “organization”. (How convenient… he has his own hypnosis organization from which he can certify you.) Then, you can take this ridiculous certificate that you receive and send a copy to the National Guild of Hypnotists (with a small fee) and receive a real certification from the NGH.

Isn’t that unbelievable?!

What if you had a dentist who did an end-run like that around the system?

I called him up and we “had words” about this practice. He tried to justify it, but he’s doing it for the money, not to improve the quality of hypnotists in the world. I am all for capitalism, but not at the expense of my soul. All he is doing is creating more people who can say, “Yeah, I’m a hypnotist! I took a course….” What a waste.

Now, that said, some of these home-study courses are good for learning hypnotism and you can learn hypnotism from them. But, if you do, please don’t get certified from these “organizations”. All that makes you is a charlatan.

char·la·tan
n.

A person who makes elaborate, fraudulent, and often voluble claims to skill or knowledge; a quack or fraud.

Want to learn some hypnosis for yourself? Learn from one of these courses.

Want to do hypnosis for a living? To make money? To work with real people? If you do this with a certification you got from performing an end-run… you would be a charlatan. A fake. A fraud. And, it could land you in trouble… or worse.

When I teach hypnotism to my students, they learn from a real curriculum, they practice on real people (other students), they have graded homework and case studies. Then, they intern in my office for a total of 200 hours of classroom study and internship. Then, they take a real certification test.

So, if you needed a hypnotist, who would you want to go to… the Internet guy or one of my students?

Who would you want to be? A “hypnotist” who learned from a DVD and took an open-book test… or one of my students?

Quack or the real deal. It’s your choice.

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Several years ago, when I was starting out in hypnotism, I began my career doing stage hypnosis.

One of my first shows was a college show nearby. I hired a videographer (in the days before everyone had a video camera!) and it wasn’t cheap. Unfortunately, this was during midterms and most of the students weren’t so interested in watching a hypnosis show.

I had 17 students in the audience, the event director was tapping her watch and the clock was running on the video guy.

What a way to start a show.

After convincing the director that we needed a larger audience (I mean, if some volunteer to be hypnotized, then who will be watching the show, right?) we started the program with just 19 students watching.

Even with just a small audience, it was a blast. I have it on video and it’s a real hoot.

Now, a funny thing happened immediately after the show. Two of the girls who were hypnotic volunteers onstage said that they couldn’t remember a thing about the show. Nothing.

They were experiencing some sort of temporary hypnotic amnesia. This, by the way, would have worn off soon anyway, but I decided to experiment with this.

I said to one of the girls, “When you shake my hand, you will remember everything about the show.” We shook hands and…

… she reeled back and gasped, “Oh my goodness!! I did that? Are you kidding me?!? No way!!”

Now, realize, all she did was talk into her shoe, forget the number “eight” and a few other funny things. But, to her it was embarrassing at that moment.

So, to fix this I said, “Now when you shake my hand again you will no longer be embarrassed at all.” We shook hands and everything was back to normal.

I did the same with her friend but now I knew better. I said, “When you shake my hand, you’ll remember everything about the show and you won’t be embarrassed at all.” We shook hands and she smiled and said, “That’s so cool! I remember it now!!” Smiles all around.

When the first girl reeled back in astonishment, that was the exact moment I knew that hypnosis was real.

I have a very good security system in my office. It’s not just a burglar alarm; it also is a closed-circuit camera system (recording all the rooms in my office — except the bathroom, of course). I keep the tapes indefinitely.

All you need are good black and white cameras with no sound. You’ll need a recorder that does time-lapse. VCRs are more inexpensive than the DVD-R version. Be sure, however, if you get a DVD-R that you can burn a hard copy onto a DVD disk for your protection.

Don’t get cheap with this stuff. It is expensive and you do need it. Get a qualified security professional to install it and you’ll be happy.

I am very blatant about my security system. There’s a sign on the door and I mention it when they come into my office. I believe that the more blatant you are about the cameras, the less trouble you will get.

And, women love the fact that you are taking precautions. Some laugh. I only had one person refuse to be taped — it was a man. (Maybe he was in the Witness Protection Program — who knows?)

I see it all the time: Advertisments saying:

“Quit Smoking In One Hour — Guaranteed!”
“Lose 10 pounds in 10 days!”
“One-Session Smoking Cessation!”

Etc., etc., etc.

Or, hypnotists saying things like:

“I guarantee you’ll lose weight!”
“You’ll quit smoking in the first session.”
“You can lose that weight fast — probably within three months!”

You get the idea.

Remember: You cannot guarantee how fast or how much! It’s against the law and may get you in trouble with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

You cannot say that someone will quit smoking in one hour or in one session.

You can say that most of your clients do quit smoking in the first session. However, by law you cannot promise that since you “cannot guarantee human behavior”.

You cannot say that they will lose a certain amount of weight in a certain amount of time.

You can say that you start to “hear certain comments by the third week”, like their clothes are “getting looser”, etc. However, you explain, you cannot promise that since you “cannot guarantee human behavior”.

Get it?

This isn’t hard to do. Just don’t over-promise and you’ll be safe.

Just don’t disseminate false or exaggerated claims regarding hypnotism. And only make specific claims for the effectiveness of hypnotism as can be justified by outcomes data. This goes for information given out in your office, web site and/or advertisements.

Note:
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires you to use a disclaimer in your ads.

Use phrases like:

• Individual Results May Vary
• Results May Vary
• Results Not Typical

These should be places in smaller type somewhere in your advertisements and spoken in radio ads.