My introductory sessions are made in such a way that they exist on their own without anything that will get their hooks into someone. So many inductions I've listened to try and thread this addiction or irresistance to bring people back. Why don't I do that? Because its safer. I want people to know that they can have an experience with me and be safe.
After an introductory session, the first thing I do is talk to the client about safety, and what I'm going to do to help them become resilient and practice hypnosis safely. If they come back after a while, I reinforce those safeties again. Why? Because there are people out there who are hoping to use hypnosis for their own gains and prey on people.
I was subject to one of those people yesterday.
I had someone try and covertly hypnotise me in the comments of my own post. I spotted them. I knew exactly what he was doing. His language, his cadence, his pattern. He tried to turn my own words against me initially, trying to turn the tables on me. I rebuffed him, but then his 'apology' was written in the same attempt to persuade, to soften, and to influence.
I changed my tack, no longer talking about the content of my writing, but targeting why he felt the need to apologise. He persisted in his character, acting like some Dickensian villain using long words and run-on sentences to confuse his prey. Then it hit.
I was too polite. I should've been more clear and blunt. But I thought this person might have been reasonable. I realised that, no matter what I said, he already had his sights set on me.
No matter what I said, he would continue.
I am so lucky that I have friends in this community that came in and called him out and shot him down. He instantly broke character, and called his advances 'an invitation'. Called them paranoid for 'believing someone could be tranced like that'.
They trawled his blog. He believes that if being hypnotised is consent, that no other kind of consent needs to be sought because if someone didn’t want to be hypnotised, they couldn’t be hypnotised.
I was playing games with friends while all this was happening. I was masking what was happening because I was trying to have fun. But now I have time to think today, I realise that I'm not ok. I keep thinking about that moment I realised that he knew what he was doing and could not be pushed from the track his mind was set on.
Then it occured to me. What if it wasn't me, someone who has been practicing for so long and has become a resilient subject as well as 'tist? What if someone was just looking for a little bit of fun found themselves in his trap?
It is because of people like him, why I practice the safety measures I do with my subjects, and my darlings. Why I reinforce that they stop any time they want, regardless of reason. Why I tell them that they have the first and last say, even while under in trance.
Because there are predators and they do not listen.
