Patterns of a Predatory Hypnotist
Let’s talk about how predatory hypnotists work. First, what is a predatory hypnotist. You may initially think of people who send spirals and triggers. Or maybe you’ve had that person you tranced with that gave you really weird vibes and you left immediately or didn’t trance with them again. These people are certainly problems and predators, but they’re not what I’ll be talking about. What I wish to address are the predators who are very slow and methodical about how they do things. These people are extremely dangerous, frequently are quite charismatic, and many times position themselves as prominent members of the community. Knowing how exactly they get to you can help immensely in seeing their patterns and avoiding them.
Before I talk about this, remember one important thing: Information is extremely important in protecting yourself. The more you know about hypnosis before ever doing it, the safer you’ll be. Knowing that hypnosis is all mind trickery. Knowing you can say no or stop a session no matter what they’ve said. Knowing you can pull yourself out of trance. Etc., etc. Predators rely on your lack of knowledge and use it to groom you. Educate yourself! Listen to your gut when it says something is wrong!
You may or may not find a predatory hypnotist through their files. They’re an effective tool, but not all predators use them.
Are you familiar with how phishing mail works? You’ve probably seen it in your e-mail. “Hi <email>! You wun the lttry! Send your bank account number to [email protected] to receive your money!” This is obviously fake, and yet it’s designed to autofilter victims. The people likely to fall for the scam are the ones who will respond. They’ve already suppressed those red flags or not noticed them, and so they’ll probably continue to do so. It’s an incredibly effective technique.
Hypnosis files can have a similar effect. Someone who knows what they’re looking for and has a baseline of information might listen once, hear the warning signs, and say “Nope, not for me.” But someone new to the kink, someone without a baseline of information, might not. This lack of a baseline of information is also what leaves them vulnerable to being groomed.
Files Establish Baseline Suggestions
A typical predator’s file is likely to have suggestions to contact them. Not necessarily, but it’s not uncommon. This tends to be part of the autofiltering process and helps ensure there’s a baseline of suggestions and triggers by the time you contact them. Maybe the first time you listen, you think “I’d never do that” or “I don’t like that.” But you like the file, so you listen and ignore the contact suggestion. Over time, all those other lovely suggestions about obedience and arousal start getting to you, and you decide to take the plunge. This ensures that by the time you contact them, you’re already at least a little bit affected by them. (Which is why contacting hypnotists via these suggestions frequently leads to dubious consent.)
Phase 1 - Grooming, Trust, and Baseline Suggestions
Things Begin as Fun, Exciting, and “Safe”
Initial sessions with the hypnotist will be fun and exciting. They’ll take you under their wing, start teaching you about hypnotism, trance you and play with triggers and suggestions. They’ll probably be very friendly and personable. There might be a few things that give you pause, but they’ll play them off as normal.
One goal of this first phase is to gain your trust. To present as a friend and confidant. At this point, you’re being groomed, and the initial layer of suggestions that’ll be used later is being built. Much of the information they’ll give you has a core of truth to sound right, but it’ll also be tainted with information they want you to believe.
Usually the best thing to do at this point is ask these questions:
Do they ensure I always have control over the triggers and suggestions I’m being given?
You should always feel in control. Even in CNC situations, you should have a release valve to shut everything down, and your safeties should be able to activate easily.
Suggestions should be couched in “if you want this” or similar speech.
If you don’t feel like you’re in control at any time, stop.
Do they listen to me when I say no?
If the answer to this is ever no, it’s time to stop.
Can I stop doing the things I’m doing?
Are you trying to stop listening to files but seem to circle back into them? Maybe it feels really hot when that happens. Maybe you’re feeling suggestions hit you while you’re trying to work or do other things, and you can’t stop them. This can be a good sign that something bad is going on.
Baseline Suggestions and Triggers are Established
Another goal of the first phase is to set up the suggestions and triggers that will gently push you in the directions they want to take you. These could take many forms, but generally you’ll likely see some of the following:
Obedience / Automatic Obedience Suggestions
These’re pretty obvious, encouraging obedience and submission to the hypnotist.
“It feels good to obey”, “You obey without question”, “the thought of obeying makes you aroused”, “my voice makes you so submissive”, “hypnosis makes you obedient”, “you were made to obey”, etc.
These are where they can gently nudge you in their directions. Maybe at first you didn’t like the idea of being a slave but one suggestion at a time, step by step, they made that idea so arousing that of course you want it.
“CNC is so hot”, “being corrupted is such an arousing thought”, “you love when I control your mind”, etc.
These are intended to maintain their suggestions while they’re not around and deepen their control over you. They’ll probably come off as fun. Who doesn’t want to be programmed to circle back into files and edge their minds away? It won’t be fun later, however.
“You want to listen to my files”, “When you’re aroused, you want to listen”, “When you resist, you want to listen”, “listening to my files turns you on”, etc.
Much like kink-based suggestions, these help nudge you directions. They help you think “If I get aroused thinking of this / doing this, I must like it!” This is not the case! That arousal came from suggestions they set up to assist in furthering their goals.
“You get aroused when you think of being my slave.” “The thought of listening to my files turns you on so much.”
These can be fairly insidious. The most common is probably “good girl/boy”. Tied to pleasure, this can set you up for conditioning over time. For instance, if I ask you something with a definite “yes” answer and then immediately reward it with “good girl/boy” and you receive a rush of pleasure from it, I can use that time after time after time to condition the response into you. “Answering yes = pleasure”. This applies similarly if I were to tell you to do something and reward it with “good girl/boy”. Over time, I’d be conditioning you to “obedience = pleasure.”
There’re a variety of behaviors you might see during this time, particularly as hypnosis is only one tool in a predator’s toolbox. @JukeboxEMCSA has a great post on this subject talking about techniques that Nimja used. The one I’ll talk about here is pulling away. Inevitably what’s likely to happen is something will be a red flag to you. Maybe they want something you don’t. Maybe they tried to push a limit. Something. You say no. When you do, instead of reacting how a dom(me) should, they pull away or get pouty, which has the effect of making you feel bad or feel like you should do it to get their attention back. This is especially strong when they’re a prominent member of the community, and it’s an easy way to get you to do things you otherwise wouldn’t wish to.
Stick to your limits. If they don’t respect them, they’re abusive, not a dom.
As Jukebox quite nicely said: “No play is better than bad play.”
Phase 2 - Breaking Down Your Resistance
The goal of phase 2 is to slowly, methodically break down your resistance until you have trouble saying no. Once this has been achieved, it can allow them to establish more control over you.
This phase will still be presented as play, and it’ll likely have heavy elements of grooming. You might experience adverse reactions and be told they’re normal and fine, or you might hear things like “this can be dangerous, but I know how to do it right.”
Subversion of Safeties as Play
During phase 1 they’ll probably have set up safeties for you. It checks the box of “safe hypnotist” and makes you feel safer. Depending on your level of knowledge going in, they might feed you misinformation about safeties as part of the grooming process.
However, once you get to phase 2, they’ll likely start presenting safety subversion as a fun game. You like CNC or they’ve tweaked your CNC urges, and so it’s fun. It’s really hot to think of someone being able to subvert your safeties and take control. They might even give you suggestions along those lines.
What’s happening here is that you’re learning your safeties don’t apply to them. They’ll still work for everyone else, but for this person, your safeties have been subverted. This is extremely dangerous.
Subverting your safeties is never OK, even in a CNC scene. In a consensual CNC scene, all your safeties will still be active. The hypnotist may give you suggestions that your subconscious runs them so consciously it feels like CNC, but they will always be there and should never be touched. (Personally I wouldn’t do safety play at all. Safeties are there for a reason. Reinforce them. Don’t subvert them.)
This is another thing that will be presented as a fun CNC game. And it certainly can be in consensual contexts. But in the context of a predator, much like with safety subversion, it’s intended to break down your resistance and teach you you can’t resist their suggestions.
Heavy resistance play takes the form of finding ways to resist their suggestions and then having those ways subverted. Perhaps you’ll make a button to stop it, and then they’ll rewire the button to drop you into trance. Perhaps you’ll do lots of different inductions and be told to resist during them. What exactly goes on in the play is likely to be specific to you and them, but the key form is you coming up with ways to resist and them subverting them.
Separating Out Parts of You
Frequently this will take the form of separating out your free will, your agency, or whatever concept the hypnotist chooses to. Sometimes it could be your submission or other concepts.
As with everything else, at first this will be fun play. Maybe they separate out your agency and then you play games around it, subverting it to their will each time. Maybe they pull out your submission and make that all you feel. It really depends on their technique and goals.
Especially of note, depending on what they’re doing, this play can be dangerous, particularly if it involves creating new personalities, such as a “slave” personality.
The other core part of this phase. Once they can hide memories, you’re starting into their endgame. This can give innumerable edges to a predator. At the base, they can use it to hide suggestions from you, making you think they’re normal feelings and reactions, or not realizing the depth of what they’re putting in your mind. But on a more sinister level they can use it for things like having you do something and forget you did it or for testing suggestions and erasing your memory of it if it’s something you didn’t like.
This’s where things begin to ramp up. It’s likely adverse reactions will happen at this point or you’ll start getting those feelings of wanting to say no but not being able to say no. By this point you’ve had all your resistances worn down. They’re still there. The hypnotist has just bit by bit convinced you that you can’t engage them.
This is also where things switch from fun and games to truly nasty suggestions and triggers designed to bind you to them and to protect them and their suggestions. It might still feel like fun and games, but the suggestions they’ll be adding at this point (or may even have added up to this point) definitely won’t be.
What exactly goes on at this point is really going to depend on the hypnotist, but there’re a few things that’re likely to be part of it.
An important note here is that you will be fighting at this point and you will be able to, no matter what they’ve said or done. Some part of you will likely be screaming that none of this is what you want. Listen to that voice and every red flag that comes up. Ignore the parts of you that’re saying “but it’s so hot.” Those are suggestions and conditioning, not you. If you wanted this, those red flags wouldn’t exist. If you wanted this, those adverse reactions wouldn’t happen. If you wanted this, you wouldn’t be fighting against it. If you wanted this, you wouldn’t want to say no. None of that is normal. All of that indicates something is very wrong.
Disabling Your Safeties / Agency / Will
This’s probably the point they’ll begin disabling your protections that’ve already been weakened and subverted. Maybe they’ll say “Oh, we’ve played with your agency too much. It’s broken now. We need to turn it off.” This is a lie. Maybe they attribute adverse reactions to safeties or agency. This is also a lie. Any disabling of safeties, will, or agency should be a massive red flag.
Now that they’ve worn down your safeties and convinced you they can hide suggestions in your mind, they’ll begin adding truly vile suggestions. These take quite a few forms, but none of them are good. Example include…
“Did I make this up?” “This isn’t real.”
Anxiety, Pain, Discomfort, Fear, or Other Negative Feelings
Trying to take out suggestions causes anxiety. Trying to resist causes pain, etc.
Suggestions to Protect Suggestions
“My suggestions are permanent”, “you find your suggestions so arousing; you don’t want to remove them”, “you feel pain/discomfort when you try to remove your suggestions.”
Suggestions to Protect the Hypnotist
“You don’t want people to think poorly of me.” “they’re doing this to me because they love me”. “I’m afraid of them”, etc.
“When I try to resist, I edge and go mindless”
These can be particularly effective when you can’t remember the suggestions or triggers that’re affecting you.
“This is how you’ve always been.”
“You’ll unblock me.” “You’ll check my blog.” “You want to talk to me.” Etc. They’ll always want to ensure that they’ll be able to get back to you if you try to get away.
Creating Alternate Personalities
This is extremely dangerous and can have very negative effects on you. Alternate personalities are largely used to both ensure they’ll have access to you and to push or subvert your limits. What personalities are created can vary, but usually they’ll work toward creating at least a slave personality that’s completely subservient to them.
If you read this and notice similar patterns in someone you’re working with, especially if your gut has even once told you to get out or even once there’ve been red flags, it might be time to consider getting out.
Remember that you are always in control of your own mind. The more you can center yourself, the more you can educate yourself to fix the misinformation they’ve fed you, the more you can think around the things they’ve told you, the more you can resist a little bit and build on knowing you resisted and reinforce that resistance, the better.
Once they hit their endgame, you’re likely to fight the most. It’ll be worn down, but that’s when all the red flags will come out, when those gut feelings will really start, and when you’re desperately wanting to say no but feeling like you can’t. Hold on to those feelings that tell you this isn’t what you want. Even the smallest bits of resistance can help along the way.
You may read this and think I’m overreaching, but let me assure you these people do exist, and these things do happen.
Play safe. Educate yourself. Vet your play partners. Listen to your gut. Don’t ignore red flags.
