"Put a What, Where?"

In celebration of passing a professional landmark, I decided to redo my office about five months ago. 

I wanted something more upscale, and I wanted everything to be environmentally correct. I wanted all metals to be at least half recycled, wood to be from sustainable growth forests, finishes to contain no volatile organic chemicals, and fabrics to be natural.

The problem was where to get stuff that met those specifications. Most of the really neat products are not available on the retail market. They are sold only to architects and designers.

Therefore, I needed to let a design professional create my next office for me. I'd never done anything like that.

I looked around and found a company (Enviornetx in Itasca) that sold environmentally-friendly office furniture on a business-to-business basis, and they recommended a designer....

...who walked into my self-designed office of black steel and glass and screamed. 

Well, she didn't actually scream. She just announced that it looked like the office of Darth Vader. "Who was your last decorator? Skeletor?" she asked.

"Well...you know...black goes with everything and one can usually find glass and metal furniture at the local office supply store, and..." At that point I gave up trying to justify myself. I told her to go to work.

She did. I've just completed my first week of working in the new office.

Actually, she really did hear me. Everything I told her about my work style and preferences is reflected in the finished design. There is a lot of wood--all from sustainable growth trees. The media cabinet had to be shipped from Ontario, but it is perfect. It's made of recycled steel finished with a textured paint that almost glows. The cockpit-like desk of rock maple from Izzydesign holds all my equipment perfectly, with the wires invisibly concealed in raceways suspended under the desk surface.

There's new art too. A "Tree of LIfe" sculpture hangs on the wall above my desk made from concrete by a local artist. Edmund Blair Leighton's 1901 painting "Accolade" hangs on another wall printed onto canvass. Two diplomas and one award were removed, and the other awards and diplomas were rearranged on the walls. 

It does look good. In fact better than good. There were some rough moments, as when she announced she intended to put a carved mahogany throne in the office. "You're going to put a what, where?" I said. "I don't think a throne is quite the style point I'm trying to capture in my office." She smiled and promptly ordered a museum reproduction celtic throne from somewhere in Great Britain. Here is a photo of what it looks like:

I've got to admit the throne works. It's not my working chair (she gave my aging back an Aeron Ergonometric Chair by Herman Miller) but the throne ties together the different woods in the office, adds a touch of whimsy as well as a curved line that breaks up the otherwise linear effect of the room. It also provides a place for a third person in the room to sit in case my hypnotic client wants to bring someone along.

Mostly the designer threw stuff out. The office is much more open. The closet was fitted for a Metro storage unit and electrified so that my shredder and other small electronics fit there. There is a gorgeous new rug from Europe, a lamp from Italy and even a new set of low-profile Bose stereo speakers.

So I'm glad I did this horrendously expensive thing. The office is stylish and uncluttered. It's a neat effect with just a few well-chosen pieces and I couldn't have done it myself.

Now if I can just remember where my stapler is kept I'll be in good shape.

If you want to get a sense of what the end result of all this looks like, I've updated the photo gallery to show the new console.

The Heart of the House Award

Over the years I've acquired quite a collection of awards. My wife refers to one corner of my office as the "People Love Me" corner, as that's where I display all the plaques and framed awards I've managed to acquire.

Last night I received a very special award, and it's one that has touched me deeply. It will have a place of honor in my office. At its annual meeting, Wellness House of Hinsdale gave me its highest award. It's called the "Heart of the House Award." The photo above was taken last night along with Jeannie Cella, the Executive Director of Wellness House.

Wellness House is one of the premier centers for the emotional support of people who live with cancer in the Midwest. It is known throughout the mainstream cancer care community and this award has been given to a number of truly outstanding people in the field.

The award, given in conjunction with Harris Bank, takes the form of an engraved and framed tribute. Two copies are made. One is given to the person receiving the award, the other is displayed at Wellness House itself. Below is the text of the the 2006 award.

---
The Heart of the House Award

Wellness House has been blessed to have made some wonderful friends throughout its nearly 16 years of existence--friends who appear at just the right time, to perform just the right task, responding to just the right need. These are volunteers who step up to make a significant difference in the life of the organization, the ones who provide a lasting impact on the quality of the programs that people dealing with cancer depend on while navigating their journey through treatment and beyond.

With so much of the difference between despair and hope dependent on being proactive and armed with empowering tools, Wellness House has been incredibly fortunate to count as a long-time friend the Reverend Dr. C. Scot Giles. From almost day one, this positive and powerful specialist in the hypnotic arts and sciences has been a constant at Wellness House, teaching people living with cancer to harness the power of their minds and get in touch with their own healing power.

In his private practice of teaching people the skill of self-hypnosis, Scot became frustrated with the inability to reach more patients. There has been a waiting list to get into his program for several years. His was a creative frustration which led him, in the mid-nineties, to propose a monthly self-hypnosis group at Wellness House to take place on Saturday mornings. From its inception, this group has been a huge success, allowing more people to benefit from learning the skill of self-hypnosis while responding to a cancer diagnosis.

In addition, Scot has been an abiding friend to the organization as it has moved through many stages of organizational growth and development. Filling the role of “advisor,” Scot has readily responded to invitations to help dig into issues and challenges, strengthening Wellness House in fulfilling its mission.

It is because of Scot’s knowledge, expertise, selfless willingness to share it and abiding presence in the life of Wellness House that Wellness House and Harris Hinsdale present the 2006 Heart of the House Award to Scot Giles.

Major Office Redecoration: July 3-July 8, 2006

Dear Clients:

During the week of July 2-July 8th, my office will close to permit a comprehensive redecoration. I realize this change may be disconcerting for longer term clients, and I want you to know I welcome your feedback as I adjust and tweak the new design.

The most obvious change will be a slight repositioning of the client’s recliner and the addition of a new desk system from Izzydesign of Michigan. Several pieces of furniture will be removed. While the new desk will be in the same location as the old one, the office will feel simpler and less cluttered.

The high-tech Izzydesign desk contains integral power and wire organization yet has a very simple, table-like appearance. As Lindsay and I live our values, it was important that the new equipment be from a company that is ISO9000 certified as “green.” This means that metals are at least 50% recycled, wood is from sustainable growth forests, all construction materials are environmentally friendly and all finishes used are water-based. Izzydesign meets all of these requirements.

I suspect this will be the last office design I ever have to do, and I wanted to do it right so that I can work the next two decades in comfort and efficiency.

Please bear with me through any chaos that may result from this sort of complete redecoration. My consultants tell me they expect the change to go smoothly.

The Fountains of Bellagio

Today I am back from the best vacation I've ever had. Clergy have weird schedules under the best of circumstances because we work evenings, weekends and most holidays. As our services are often committed months in advance for client sessions, workshops or ceremonies, getting vacation time is difficult and requires a lot of planning.

This year Lindsay and I decided we would take a February vacation to somewhere warm. February is a month that needs all the help it can get, and we decided to spend a week in a luxury hotel in Las Vegas. Neither of us opposes gambling but neither of us much enjoys it either. The attraction was the fine dining and entertainment.

We'd been to Las Vegas before on business, but we wanted to pamper ourselves this time. We took upscale accommodations at the Bellagio Hotel and Casino. The Bellagio is an Italian themed hotel, famous for its luxury (the bathroom we had was larger than my office, featuring a deep tub and separate glass steam shower).

In front of the Bellagio there is an artificial lake. In the lake are circles and rows of lights and high-pressure nozzles. Throughout the day the lights and nozzles emerge from under the water and a glorious dancing water show is performed, set to music. It is truly astounding to see. Our room overlooked the Fountains of Bellagio, and we could see the show until the finale at midnight. Here is a photo taken from the window in our room:

I even enjoyed the irony of returning to our hotel one evening to watch the Fountain show set to the old Shaker Hymn "Simple Gifts." The irony was seeing thousands of pounds of water, blasted stories high in the sky by tons of hydraulic pressure from an artificial lake in the middle of a desert, while the music played "When true Simplicity is gained,..." There is nothing "simple" about the Fountains of Bellagio.

It was a wonderful time. We saw several Cirque du Soleil performances from terrific seats and toured an exhibition of landscape paintings at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art that included several by Corot, Monet and Renoir, and a magnificent van Gogh (his "Houses at Auvers") that I'd never seen before.

I experienced some of the best dining of my life. I'm a former chef and my standards are high. Five Star restaurants are nothing new to me. We dined at the Eiffel Tower, Le Cirque, Picasso, Jasmine and Shintaro.

I expected the experience at the two world-famous restaurants, Le Cirque and Picasso, to be wonderful and they were. Chef Julian Serrano did an artful job for us at Picasso. Yet I found myself really impressed with Le Cirque and Chef Sirio Maccioni who presented us with what I can only say was the finest French meal of my life. I can not even imagine better.

Very pleasant surprises awaited us at Jasmine and Shintaro as well. I know Chinese and Japanese cuisine although I do not prepare that style of food myself. Our meal at Jasmine was a magical time as the restaurant overlooked the main circle of the Fountains of Bellagio and is gorgeous. Imperial Peking Duck is a favorite and this one was outstanding, as was the Sharkfin Soup and the Green Tea and Pistachio Creme Brule. I am a sushi fan, but I never had better sushi than I had at Shintaro.

We plan to do this again next year in combination with a tour of the Grand Canyon. We will return to Le Cirque, Jasmine and Shintaro and to try some of the other restaurants we didn't have time to get to this year. But we are home now, very pleased with our trip (and also pleased to be home).

Backups

Most computer users quickly learn the importance of backing up data, but you'd be surprised...

I recall an episode of "Sex and the City" where Carrie has a hard disk crash on her Macintosh Powerbook and discovers that no one ever told her to back up her data.

A friend of mine had a similar experience some years back. He called to ask what a "Drive C unusable" error message was, as that's what appeared on his screen when he tried to boot up his computer.

What it meant was that his hard disk had crashed. He asked if I'd install a new one for him and I agreed.

I asked if his data was backed up, and he said not to worry because he had good backup software. So off I went to pay him a visit, stopping at the store to pick up a new drive for him.

I got to his house and installed the drive. Then I said, "Give me your backups and we'll get your data restored to the drive."

He handed me an unopened copy of a Windows backup program. "Here you go" he said. "The salesman said we'd need this eventually."

He thought that simply owning backup software somehow protected his data. No one had every explained to him that he had to install the program on his computer and run it.

I'm almost paranoid when it comes to backing up my data. I do a daily backup to a removable hard disk and to my iMac disc on the Apple Internet Server. Even if my house burns down, I can still recover my data from my iMac account as it's sitting on a secure site on the Internet.

I've even started backing up my recording of client sessions. These days most people record audio onto a computer hard disk and then burn a copy of the recording to CD using a process audio professionals call "bouncing."

This works great for most purposes (I use it to create my master recordings), but as it can take 15 minutes to "bounce" a recording of a 30 minute hypnotic session, a hypnotist can't record that way if you want to do a real-time recording of a session that you give to a client.

Real-time CD burners exist but judging by my conversations with Tech Support, a lot of people are having trouble. It seems that some of the companies that make the CD-R blank disc media have lowered the standards and the media contain more defects. If a real-time CD burner hits a bad CD it stops, and you've lost the recording you were trying to make.

My solution is to back up all my recording. Everything sent to the CD burner for recording is also automatically sent to a solid-state recorder (a Marantz PMD 570) where it is recorded onto a reusable flash memory card. If anything goes wrong with the CD burn, I've still got a copy of the recording that I can bring into my computer and burn from there.

Backups are a good thing in other areas of life as well. It's good to have a backup business plan, a backup workout routine (for when the usual one hurts too much), backup clothing (for when you spill coffee all over your best suit), etc. It seems to me that a little paranoia can be a helpful thing.

One of the Problems

This morning I am feeling cross.

I'm the Legislative and Governmental Concerns Liaison for the hypnotist union, the legislative arm of the National Guild of Hypnotists. It's my (volunteer) job to stay informed of hypnotism laws around the country, to engage in political activity to influence and shape those laws, and to advocate within the Guild leadership for strict adherence to ethics and recommended standards.

I'm also the person who has to fly around the country to help put out a public relations fire when a hypnotist catches the negative attention of the press.

This morning I'm looking at an ad by a hypnotist that makes me mad.

Hypnotists and Hypnotherapists (the words are synonyms) are self-regulated professionals, like Certified Public Accountants, Financial Planners and many other occupations.

Before a state government will license a profession there has to be evidence that the unlicensed practice of it can harm the public. There is no evidence that hypnotism can harm anyone, even if poorly done. All the research shows that a hypnotized person will reject any suggestion that does not fit with his or her values, beliefs or self-image. Therefore, we practice under a system of voluntary self-regulation.

The oldest and largest hypnotism organization in the world is the National Guild of Hypnotists. It sets explicit training standards, uses a standardized curriculum, sets a rigorous code of ethics, and recommends standards of practice and terminology to keep from infringing on the protected scope of practice of psychologists and physicians. I'm very proud of my Guild affiliation and standing.

The ad in front of me is from someone who is ignoring all of that. It's full of claims that are overstated and sensationalistic. She uses a professional title that is probably illegal for someone who isn't licensed to practice medicine, and she engages in all manner of "self-puffery," as one comedian calls it. None of it would stand up to serious examination.

I know her. Her practice is a tiny, part-time thing. It's more of a hobby than a livelihood. But that's always the way it is with such matters. It's usually the small-fry that cause all the problems and create suspicion about the rest of us.

Serious hypnotists with large busy practices run those practices squeaky clean. They are strict about following the code of ethics and the standards of practice. They do this for a simple reason--they have large busy practices to protect. They've got a lot of lose if they are ever caught bending the rules.

A serious practitioner takes a heavy hit if he or she gets a Cease and Desist Order for making an improper claim. Worse, he or she would face peer rejection that would mean no more invitations to present at national conventions, no more students to attend their classes and no one who will buy their books or read their articles.

All this is more than enough motivation so that the vast majority of practitioners make very sure that they follow the rules in both the letter and the spirit. They are good role models for new practitioners who want to do likewise and earn their living by becoming real professionals.

Not so the few practitioners who care only about a fast buck. Such persons have absolutely nothing to lose by playing fast and loose. They don't have a good reputation to protect, so there is no worry about peer rejection. There are only a few clients so there isn't a serious income source to protect. Therefore, they'll say almost anything in order to have a chance to make a few dollars on the side.

This sort of thing is probably the most serious obstacle to wider acceptance of hypnotism by the general public. It gives the rest of us an undeserved black-eye.

The Twelfth Night

We leave our Christmas Tree and Yule Wreath up at my home until the end of the Yuletide.

The Yuletide is the period that begins on the first Sunday in Advent and lasts until the Twelfth Day of Christmas, which is also called Epiphany (January 6th). Epiphany celebrates the legendary arrival of the Magi in Bethlehem.

In our day and age we do not do much with the Twelve Days of Christmas but in Medieval times they were a very big deal. The Twelfth Night Court was the most important social festival in the year.

On the Twelfth Night the King and Queen would appear in Court dressed in finery that had been kept secret. Their clothing would set the fashion tone for the rest of the year and tailors and seamstresses would become very busy over the next several weeks as the nobility changed their wardrobes to match.

On the Twelfth Night squires received the "accolade" and were made knights, young men were "priested" by undergoing ordination. Initial and final vows were taken by nuns and monks. Even apprentices who had completed their time of service were raised to journeyman rank in their chosen trade, and journeymen might be acclaimed masters. It was a time of beginnings.

I've always enjoyed this tradition and so we keep it in a small way at the Bates/Giles household. It is when I do my practice evaluation and set my goals for the new year. I spend hours with my personal journal evaluating how my life is unfolding and decide about any changes I want to make to keep my life focused on what I believe is important. I also make a special effort with my cooking and put festive meals on the table accompanied with hot cider and wines I've been saving for the season.

On January 6th, the Yuletide ends and we enter what the church calls "Ordinary Time" which extends until Ash Wednesday. Here in Chicago this time tends to be a cold, dark and wet time and getting through it has its own special challenges.

But we've not there yet. As I write this it is still within the Twelve Days of Christmas and I intend to enjoy them fully.

Unplugging the Christmas Machine

Early in our marriage Lindsay and I decided we would "unplug the Christmas Machine," which is clergy-speak for keeping Christmas as a religious celebration rather than a commercial holiday.

Like many people of faith I don't much like the commercialization of Christmas. I actively dislike the trend to "expand" the holiday shopping season by putting up Christmas decorations in stores before Halloween or Thanksgiving. Merchants call this "season treason" and say it makes them money. I don't care. I don't like it at all. One year I sent out Christmas cards that wished everyone a "Merry Peak Judeo-Christian Retail Season" to make it clear how far from the spirit of Christmas I thought things had gotten.

Everyone really loved the cards, but I didn't like being that much of a curmudgeon.

For my wife and me, Christmas is a simple, deeply-felt affair. Charles Dickens was a member of my denomination and his "A Christmas Carol" where Scrooge learns to "keep" Christmas by finding its meaning in his heart is something we believe. We try to "keep" Christmas at our household by making it a time for charity and affection.

We send carefully-selected Christmas cards to family members and a few intimate friends. We give gifts, but only to family or those like family, and the gifts are low key. Usually the gifts we give come from the bookstore or gourmet shop. We give generously to select holiday charities.

We do have a Christmas tree, but it's small. It's actually an artificial half-tree that hangs on the wall out of the reach of cats. We decorate it with handmade ornaments we've collected over the years. We can tell you the story behind each one.

Mostly, our holiday centers around the Advent Wreath that is on top of our Dining Room table. As the Sundays in Advent count down to Christmas, we light one of the candles until all four are ablaze. I make the wreath myself, and add fresh-baked cookies to the center as the season advances. I follow an old Norse recipe for the cookies, and make them in traditional shapes: rooster, boar, horseman, hunter, a spinning wheel, a tree and a man and woman.

On Christmas Eve we both get home late from our church services. I serve up mugs of hot mulled cider, we open any gifts, put on Christmas music and let the holiday lights shine into the night. Christmas Day will feature a late breakfast with fresh baked pastry and for dinner I roast a traditional goose and serve it up with a flaming fruit sauce. I don't miss the commercial things because God has blessed us, and knowing that is what really matters in the "keeping" of Christmas.

Changing the Name

From several e-mails I've received it's obvious that some of my colleagues have noticed that over the past month my practice has undergone a name change. It's true. I didn't make a big deal about it because I really thought few would even notice.

But some have noticed. I'm now working as a nonprofit Limited Liability Company that has been built around my name.

For the past 16 years I've run my practice as part of an association of practices called Counseling Ministries, Incorporated. It's been a good association and I've benefited from my years with the company. So this is a happy parting and I wish my former associates nothing but good.

When one is starting out in the profession there is a benefit to being part of a company or organization. It helps others take you seriously and the moral support you get from your associates is important. However, as time passes there comes a point when you need to ask yourself if continuing to be part of someone else's organization remains a good idea. After a while your name, not a company name, needs to become the "trademark" of your work.

I had some help in getting to this decision. I've always valued consultation. After ten years of practice I became a client of a wonderful and insightful practice consultant, Lynn Grodzki (www.privatepracticesuccess.com) and the help she gave me was invaluable. This time around I did an internal consultation using resources from the National Guild of Hypnotists and I want to thank Dr. Damon for his support in my taking a hard look at where my practice was and where it needed to go. Also, colleagues who have not taken a look at the work of the Guild's marketing expert, Elsom Eldridge, are missing out on a good thing. I can't recommend his book The Obvious Expert highly enough (www.obvious-expert.com).

So, with a little help from friends I've repositioned my practice, changing the sort of corporation I use in the process. The option to form a Limited Liability Company in the United States only became available in 1997, and it's a far better format for me than the corporate structure I had been using.

So, from now on my practice name is Rev. C. Scot Giles, D.Min., LLC (I'll use "CSGilesLLC" for short) and my new domain name is www.csgiles.org. If you get a minute, change your Address Book listing for me as I'm not planning on keeping the old domain name forever.

Everything else remains the same in my practice. I'm not even going to re-arrange my desk. But I do plan on adding some new services and products as we enter the New Year.

Back from Convention

I’m just back from the 54th convention of the National Guild of Hypnotists. This is the largest hypnotism gathering in the world with more than 2000 persons in attendance. The convention was in a new location this year at a Trade Show and Convention Center in Massachusetts. The Guild long ago outgrew the hotels in its home state of New Hampshire. Even in the new large facility, the hallways were crowded and the hotel, and two others close by, sold out.

It’s an energizing time for me. I’m on the Advisory Board of the Guild and so my time at the convention is often taken up with meetings. As I oversee the legislative and governmental concerns program of the Guild, I’m connected virtually to Guild members all over the nation. At the convention I have the chance to meet the people I’ve been working with over the year and to see what they actually look like.

I was especially proud this year at the Awards Banquet when two of my students, Mike Redell and Lynsi Eastburn both received awards. Mike got the award for political work and Lynsi got the Research Award for her work in using hypnotism to increase fertility. Both have gone on to become solid professionals and Lynsi now has her own state-licensed hypnotism school in Colorado.

So I felt proud, and sort of...well, old.

Over the years I’ve somehow managed to win most of the awards bestowed by the Guild, including the two highest—the President's Award and the Rexford North Award for Lifetime Achievement. As one can basically only receive an award once, a number of long-time members have gotten so many awards we are no longer in the running. Therefore, I was surprised when I heard my name called at the Banquet. I was elevated into the Order of Braid along with a short list of others.

The Order is named after James Braid, the Scottish physician who gave hypnotism its name in the nineteenth century, arguing in an authoritative book that the old name “Mesmerism” should be abandoned.

Guild members who have completed four decades of service to professional hypnotism, or who have won the major awards, are eligible for appointment to the Order of Braid. The Order is an honor society within professional hypnotism and it nominates the people who receive Guild awards.

Shortly after receiving the blue collar and medallion given to members of the Order of Braid I was greeted by one of the venerable older members who welcomed me into “the old fa*ts club.” I was pretty happy about it. It made me feel proud, and sort of....well, old.

Rounding out the convention was another opportunity to teach the curriculum for complementary medical hypnotism in the post-convention institute. I’m really inspired by the high quality of people who are in training today to be hypnotists. Some of the students this year were the best I have ever taught.

I also had the chance to sneak off for a fine dinner at Longfellow’s Wayside Inn in Sudbury. This is the establishment on the old Boston Post Road made famous by the widely read book of poems published in 1863 by Henry Longfellow called TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN. If you ever have the chance to dine there do so. The Lobster Pot Pie was a delight, and the Blueberry Pie was amazing.

Cancer Survivors Day Reflections

I am just back from the Triumph Over Cancer Cancer Survivors Day celebration held by the Medical Center of the University of Chicago.

This was the fifteenth year I have been invited to host a table in the exhibition hall to let participants know about my work. There is a lot of competition to get invitations among medical practices, drug companies and community agencies, and I’m always pleased when the invitation arrives each year.

More than a thousand cancer patients and their significant others attend this event held at the Westin Hotel in the “Magnificent Mile” of downtown Chicago. It’s an upscale event. This year one of the speakers was United States Senator Barack Obama, the rising star of the Democratic Party. The host was CBS News anchor Jon Duncanson and the keynote address was given by actress (and cancer survivor) Meredith Baxter from the hit show “Family Ties.” The food is not bad either.

One of the most moving moments of the event is the calling of the Role of Survivors. In a room that seats more than a thousand people, the Master of Ceremonies asks people who have survived cancer one year to stand, then two years, then three. The role goes all the way up to twenty year survivors of cancer. At the end of the role call there are hundreds and hundreds of people standing who have been victorious over cancer. As someone who works with the cancer community a lot, this is inspiring.

This year I decided my table in the exhibition hall needed a facelift and so I retired the display originally made for me by the Marketing Department of La Grange Memorial Hospital a decade ago and created a new one (there is a photo in the Teaching and Events section of this web site). This year I also had the results of my 10-year outcomes study to show off, where people with cancer in my hospital program did better medically if they saw a hypnotist as well as a physician. That study has been well received, and at this point enough people have looked at it critically that I’m really confident of the results.

However, what I was proudest of was the fact that after all these years my practice is still here, and that it’s important enough that one of the greatest medical centers in the world wants to include it in their celebration. That’s a real high for me. When I began there were not too many people who thought I could make a success of it. After all, I’m a clergyman not a physician and that raised a lot of eyebrows.

The very first year the University of Chicago asked me to play a role in the Triumph Over Cancer celebration there were many other professionals there who were offering mental health services to the cancer community. They are all gone now. Their practices have closed.

Mostly, these folks were psychologists or counselors who thought they would apply the techniques of conventional psychotherapy to cancer patients. The idea was to diagnose the patients as having depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder and bill the insurance company to get paid.

The only problem with this elegant scheme is that as far as I know it’s never worked anywhere it’s been tried.

Cancer patients are not mentally ill. Being upset or worried are normal, not abnormal, reactions to having cancer. Not only does “uncovering” psychotherapy not help, it can actually make the mood (and I suspect the physical health) of the person living with cancer worse by dredging up things from the past that are best left to another time. In my experience, people who have cancer quickly figure this out.

What helps is motivational coaching combined with very precise hypnotic interventions to enhance resilience, and that’s what professional hypnotists do. The work has less to do with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association, and more to do with scripture and the books written by Napoleon Hill, the Rev. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale and Emile Coue’.

But years ago this wasn’t believed. In fact, at the very first Triumph Over Cancer event I was taken aside by a psychologist who was part a hypnosis organization that limits its membership to psychologists and physicians (and looks down its nose at the National Guild of Hypnotists). He said, “Little minister, you don’t belong here. You don’t know what you’re doing. But if you want to learn, just watch my dust.”

Well, his “dust” is all there is to see, as his practice has long since dried up and blown away. I try not to cackle about that as such emotions are not good for my spiritual health. However, I’ll be honest enough to acknowledge that the memory now makes me smile.

One of the organizers of the Triumph Over Cancer event and I were chatting over a cup of coffee before the doors opened. She commented on the fact that of all the practices who were interested in “psychosocial oncology,” years ago only the big nonprofit wellness centers and I remain. I laughed at this, and said that perhaps I should put a quote from Melville’s Moby Dick on my table. It would be the passage where Ishmael says “and I alone have survived to tell the tale.”

But I truly hope it doesn’t stay that way.

My dream is that more professional hypnotists will get involved in cancer care, and I do what I can to train them. Unfortunately, there are not many hypnotists in the world when compared to the vast number of other helping professions. However, someday I believe that will change. In the years I’ve practiced I’ve seen hypnotism go from being a “suspect” practice in medical circles to one that is widely recognized as helpful. Now all we have to do is convince enough people to train as practitioners so that the supply of professional hypnotists catches up to the demand.

Entrapment

This is a nasty scheme making the rounds of the hypnotism community.

It goes like this. Let’s call the company working the con “Beastcorp.”

Beastcorp approaches hypnotists and pitches itself as a service organization. “You just do the hypnotism you trained to do and are good at” they say. “We’ll do all your marketing and advertising. We’ll book the clients, handle the insurance or credit card charges and send the client to you after depositing your fee in your business account by electronic wire transfer.”

Isn’t this a great deal? As a practitioner you never have to do another workshop or public talk. You never had to deal with an insurance company or a credit card merchant. You just show up at your office to do the work you love and you find your appointment book filled and you bank account flush.

Now, as you weren’t born yesterday you ask a few questions. You ask if all of this checks out legally. The reply is reassuring. “Don’t worry,” they say. “We never sanction illegal activity and all our ads are legal.” Cool. It’s almost too good to be true.

Unfortunately, it is too good to be true. At first it seems to work. The clients materialize and the cash shows up in the bank account. Then you actually begin to see the clients.

Hold the phone! These clients are expecting you to do forms of hypnotism that violate the medical or psychological laws where you practice. They expect you to treat drug addictions without a referral. They ask you to “cure” medical problems without a sign-off by their physician. You practice in a state where hypnotism is regulated and you can’t do this without landing in a pot of hot water. So you decline and offer the client his or her money back. The client replies, “I paid a lot more than that!”

That’s when you figure out what’s going on. You see, Beastcorp has been advertising all sorts of services that are illegal for you to do in your home state, but are legal in the Cayman Islands where Beastcorp is incorporated. The people who called in response to the ads were calling a Call Center owned and operated by Beastcorp. They paid with a credit card before they got your name, and they paid a lot. You got only a small percentage of what Beastcorp collected.

So now what do you do? You can obey the law and refuse the client, but the client is going to want a refund and you can’t afford to give them everything they paid out to Beastcorp. For its part Beastcorp refuses to refund the money it collected, because after all, the services advertised are perfectly legal in the Cayman Islands. In fact, a lawyer representing Beastcorp calls to tell you in no uncertain terms that you have a contract with Beastcorp to hypnotize the people Beastcorp sends and that if you refuse Beastcorp can take you to court.

At this point, if you’re smart, you call your lawyer who will tell you that you are legally required to obey the law in your state regardless of what Beastcorp has promised, and that no judge is going to find you at fault for obeying the law. However, Beastcorp is hoping you don’t do that. They figure that you will be intimidated and will do the hypnotism. If you do, they send you a lot more clients on the same basis while they rake in the cash.

Eventually, someone reports you. You show up for work and find a Sheriff there with a Cease and Desist Order. You call Beastcorp and they tell you they never authorized you to break the law. They just were holding you to a contact that is legal in the nation where Beastcorp is incorporated. Then, because Beastcorp “never sanctions illegal activity” and an officer of the law has stated a belief that you have broken the law, they promptly fire you and walk away. You stand there holding the bag. They sign up another sucker.

Now, this isn’t to say that every marketing company or service organization is like Beastcorp, in fact most are not. Some provide good and useful services and are a good option for hypnotists who do not enjoy the challenges and rewards of running a fully independent practice.

However, you need to be careful. My advice to hypnotists who are considering a business relationship like this is to reference widely and deeply to find out what your colleagues think about the company or organization. Call the National Guild of Hypnotists and see if they know anything. Read the fine print in any affiliation agreement and have your lawyer read it too. Always remember that if the deal seems too good to be true it probably is.

In his famous poem “Desiderata,” Max Ehrmann wrote these words, “Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is.” I think that’s really fine advice.

How to Choose a Hypnotist

An article on “How to Find a Hypnotist” is almost a ritual formality on the web site of today’s hypnotic practitioner. I’ve read literally hundreds of them.

In my experience they tend to fall into two camps. In the first camp we have those who simply take a list of whatever training they happen to have and list it as it if were some sort of an international standard that clients should look for. In one extreme case I encountered someone who had added up his own training hours to obtain some oddball figure like 1,863 hours of training. He then stated on his web site that this was the standard number of hours of training a client should demand of any practitioner he or she consults.

The second camp consists of persons who have undergone some sort of standard training program from one or more of the many hypnotism organizations in America or the United Kingdom. This sounds more authoritative than it is.

I was President of the Council of Professional Hypnotism Organizations years ago and at that time I estimated that there were more than 140 organizations that claimed to “certify” hypnotists in the United States alone. I doubt the situation has gotten any better in the years since.

However, most of these “hypnosis organizations” are tiny little affairs, run by one or two people from a cardboard box stashed in a den. They have no assets or support staff and exist to make a few dollars for the owners. Mostly organizations of this type are simply selling certifications in the way that many unaccredited “universities” sell fake degrees or on-line “churches” sell ordinations as clergy.

Typically, when we see bad publicity about a hypnotic practitioner it is someone from one of these tiny organizations. As the organization has no assets it has nothing to lose by making far-fetched and often illegal claims about what hypnotism can do. They often award elaborate sounding titles even though these titles may violate regulatory legislation in a state, and their members can be shockingly under-trained.

Therefore, be aware that all “hypnosis organizations” are not created equal. Some are real and hold members to high standards of training while others are little more than scams.

In my professional life I’ve given my loyalty to the National Guild of Hypnotists and am now a member of its Advisory Board. This is the oldest hypnosis organization in the world with the largest active membership. It maintains a standardized curriculum, a serious Code of Ethics and rigorous Standards of Practice enforced by an aggressive Ethics Committee. There are Chapter organizations in most states and an active on-line community where practitioners share information and research in the privacy of a restricted Member’s Forum. In the Download section of this website you can find a copy of the tribute to the National Guild of Hypnotists from the United States Congress. However, there are other good organizations.

So what should you look for when seeking a hypnotic practitioner?

First, be sure the person you are considering actually has a hypnotism practice with an office, a business telephone and the other accouterments of actual work.

Weird though it may sound, many people who claim to be hypnotists are not. Because most state governments do not regulate hypnotism there are many people who hang out a shingle who have not, and never will, worked with a single paying client. They make their living doing something else and “practice” as a “hypnotist” in their imaginations. A lot of such folks can be found in the “chat” rooms on the Internet which form a support group for such people as they play what amounts to an anonymous, on-line, role playing game. They will be happy to give you all sorts of advice and I recommend you ignore it.

Second, I suggest you ignore Titles of Practice. Often the marginal organizations award the most impressive sounding titles. Sometimes the titles a practitioner can use are set by state law, sometimes not. In states where the title isn’t regulated there is no real difference between someone who calls him or herself a “hypnotist,” a “hypnotherapist,” or a “clinical hypnotherapist.” In most cases a hypnotic practitioner can call him or herself anything he or she wants when holding services out to the public. Therefore, the exact title doesn’t matter a great deal.

Third, I suggest you regard all college degrees mentioned by a practitioner with a degree of suspicion. Hypnotism is a profession one trains for by attending an approved hypnotism school and passing a certification examination. It is not a profession one trains for by attending graduate school.

As I hold an earned and accredited doctoral degree I obviously believe that education is a fine thing and that a highly educated person brings special skills to the professional encounter. However, education is meaningful only if it is in a field that is relevant to a helping profession. A degree in psychology, medicine, chiropractic, counseling, education, ministry, social work, and so on has relevance to what a hypnotist does. A degree in astrophysics will have very little relevance.

To the best of my knowledge there are currently no recognized academically accredited colleges or universities that offer a degree in hypnotism or hypnotherapy in the United States. While there are people who claim to hold such degrees, the degrees lack accreditation recognized by the Department of Education of the United States, and some are completely fake degrees that are simply sold. While one Institute in California did hold state approval to grant an unaccredited Doctor of Clinical Hypnotherapy degree years ago (and I have some sympathy for persons who hold this degree from that time), it no longer has that approval. Similarly one college in Vermont did offer an accredited Master’s Degree in Counseling and Hypnotherapy years ago, but it no longer offers that degree.

Therefore, if a practitioner tells you he or she has a graduate degree, always inquire what the degree is in and whether or not it is an academically accredited degree. If the practitioner is a member of the National Guild of Hypnotists he or she will give you a copy of a “Client Bill of Rights” that will list all degrees held and will tell you if the degree is an academic degree or not.

Fourth, look for a good reputation. If a practitioner has been in practice for a while he or she should have a pretty good reputation in his or her community. Many senior practitioners do no advertising and fill their practices solely through word-of-mouth from past clients. Type the practitioner’s name into Google or another Internet search engine and see what you find. Ask around. If there is a state-licensed hypnotism school in the state (inquire of the Department of Postsecondary Education in your state) is the practitioner a graduate or do they speak well of the practitioner? Because of privacy laws most practitioners can’t actually give you a list of past clients, but there should be something you can check.

Fifth, find out if the practitioner belongs to a serious hypnosis organization. If the practitioner is certified, check out what the certification means. Visit the web site of the certifying organization and discover whether it is easy or hard to become a certified member of that organization.

Finally, ask if the practitioner is a graduate of a state-licensed, approved or accredited hypnotism school (the exact terminology varies by state). While not all states regulate hypnotism schools, if your state does it makes good sense to insist that someone you are paying for help be a graduate of one. This guarantees that the training of the practitioner has met minimum standards, that the practitioner has been educated about the lawful limits of practice and that the practitioner has passed an examination to show that he or she learned what was taught.

Hypnotism is a fantastic tool to use to increase one’s self-control and abilities. The vast majority of hypnotists are good people who take their craft seriously. But as in most things “let the buyer beware.” A legitimate practitioner will not mind your questions and most will welcome them because they tell the practitioner you are serious about changing your life.

Why is there a candle in your candy dish?

If you were to visit of church of my denomination you would probably encounter a symbol you might find puzzling. The symbol is of a chalice, surmounted by a flame. Here is an example:

Through years of use, the Flaming Chalice has become an informal symbol of the Unitarian Universalist form of Protestantism. As we are a tradition that does not do a lot with symbols, we make the most of the few we have. Therefore, you will often see a Flaming Chalice displayed in our congregations. Some congregations begin worship by symbolically lighting the chalice, and many members wear the symbol as jewelry or display it in their homes.

Lindsay and I do this too. Whenever either of us leads worship we wear Flaming Chalice jewelry, We have a light gatherer of stained glass hanging in our front window that displays this symbol, and we have a sculpture of a Flaming Chalice made of cobalt blue glass on our dining room table most of the time. Both of our churches have Flaming Chalices in the sanctuary. At Countryside Church in Palatine we have a bronze sculpture, while at the Geneva Church my wife’s congregation uses one made of olive wood from Jerusalem set on a glass base that contains a copy of the church’s historic membership book.

The big problem with this symbol is that you sort of have to be a member of the club to know what it is. No matter how the artist tried to make it look majestic, a flaming chalice sculpture does look a bit strange. Those of us who keep one around get used to answering the question, “Why is there a candle in your candy dish?”

For anyone interested, here’s the tale:

In the late 1300s a man named Jon Hus was ordained as a Catholic priest in what is now called Hungary but was then called Transylvania. In 1401 he was appointed as the Rector of his school. However, with time he came to believe that reform was needed in the church. Anticipating the Protestant Reformation by more than a century he began to hold services in common language instead of Latin, and when he offered his congregation communion he offered not only the bread, but gave the chalice of wine too.

Not surprisingly, he came to a bad end. He was tried for heresy and burned at the stake by civil and church authorities. However his followers kept his memory going by devising a symbol—the chalice of communion crowned by the flame of his martyrdom. To this day the Flaming Chalice is a symbol you can find in Eastern Europe.

Eventually, in 1517, Martin Luther nailed the Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church and the Protestant Reformation began. Christianity would never be the same. For the intellectual grounding of his thought Luther appealed to the work of Jon Hus, and the Flaming Chalice became a small part of Protestant Christianity.

Centuries pass. In 1941 a group of our church people formed themselves into the Unitarian Service Committee. They tried to help Eastern Europeans, among them both Unitarians and Jews, seeking to escape Nazi persecution. The Rev. Charles Joy, Executive Director of the Service Committee, ran a secret network of couriers and agents to do this from his office in Lisbon. He realized he needed a symbol that would let his operatives recognize each other. He asked an Austrian artist, Hans Deutsch, to help him design something.

Taking a page from Protestant history, Deutsch designed a cross-like chalice crowned by a flame. In his official explanation of the symbol, Joy wrote "the holy oil burning in the chalice is a symbol of helpfulness and sacrifice…The fact that it remotely suggests a cross was not in his [Deutsch’s] mind, but to me this also has merit. We do not limit our work to Christians. Indeed, at the present moment, our work is nine-tenths for the Jews, yet we do stem from the Christian tradition, and the cross does symbolize Christianity and its central theme of sacrificial love."

From that point it caught on among us.

I enjoy the symbol, although I sometimes think my fellow Unitarian Universalists get a bit carried away with it. It is not, after all, a sacred symbol. It’s more like a corporate logo. While I feel it has a role, some people regard it with a reverence that troubles me. Yet for all that it does have a place in my home, and that’s why there is a candle in my candy dish.

Using Copyrighted Hypnotic Scripts in Professional Practice

[This article was originally published by Dr. Giles in 2003 in The Journal of Hypnotism]

You’ve just purchased a wonderful new book of hypnotic scripts. It cost a lot. It’s bound with a spiral and was printed on a photocopier, yet you paid $80 for it. Or it cost more than that, and came in a three-ring binder of the sort that cost only a few dollars at the local office supply store.

But the scripts are good. They deal with the topics your clients want to cover. You look forward to using them, especially as one or two of the scripts use techniques you had not thought of.

But then you open the book up and on the copyright page you find something like this: “All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.”

Say what? You mean I paid almost a hundred bucks for a book of scripts that cost the author about a $2 to print and now the author is telling me that I can’t make any use of the scripts in my practice? I can’t “reproduce” the script using my voice with my clients, and my clients can’t make a recording of my use of the script without violating the author’s copyright? What gives?

Perhaps you call a friend with some legal knowledge who, thinking about the legal rights laws surrounding plays or music may tell you that, in fact, you can’t use the scripts professionally. After all, buying a copy of a script for a play doesn’t mean that you can stage the play for a profit without paying royalties to the playwright. Purchasing a piece of sheet music does not mean that you can perform the piece in concert without a royalty payment to the composer.

Do not fear. While, to the best of my knowledge and research, this issue has never been addressed in any court, complaints about copyright abuse are one of the most frequent complaints that the Ethics Committee of the National Guild of Hypnotists has to deal with. Therefore, I want to share with you what our thinking is on this subject. True, a court could rule on this and take a position that is different than the one articulated here, however such a ruling is unlikely, in part, because any court that did rule on this matter would have to take into consideration the findings and policies of the largest and most influential hypnosis organization in the world, the National Guild of Hypnotists.

The issue at hand is a common-law doctrine called the “warranty of merchantability.” This is a legal philosophy that says that if someone sells something, the thing sold must be fit for the purpose it is sold for. You cannot sell spoiled food because spoiled food is not edible. You cannot sell a waterproof case that does not keep out water. If you do these things you have made an error, and quite likely committed fraud.

So for what purpose is a hypnotic script sold for? It is not at all clear to us that a hypnotic script is sold for the same purposes that a play or musical composition might be sold. A person may buy a copy of a play simply for the pleasure of reading it. People frequently purchase sheet music for the pleasure of playing it in the privacy of their own homes for personal amusement.

To the very best of my knowledge no one purchases books of hypnotic scripts in the belief that they are buying fine literature. No one reads hypnotic scripts about “Shrinking Your Prostate” or “Stopping Nail Biting” for personal amusement and enjoyment. Hypnotic scripts are not “fit” for the same purpose as the script of a play or a musical score. Any claim otherwise would almost certainly be held as unreasonable.

The purpose hypnotic scripts are created to serve is the purpose of allowing hypnotists to help clients. That is the purpose they are “fit” for. Therefore, if you purchase a book of scripts you may use them for that purpose. The author has received compensation in the form of the payment you made for the book; you have every right to expect to receive something of value in return. The author cannot escape the implied warranty of merchantability on the book of scripts by adding objections in the copyright notice.

But there are things you may not do with a book of purchased scripts. Most importantly, you may never claim or imply that the script is your own work. Unless the author sells you a special license that allows you to do so, you may not record the script and sell the recording. Nor may you relabel, rebrand or republish the script in any way, except to quote brief sections in an academic or scientific article with the quotations properly attributed.

If you use a purchased script with a client and make a recording of the hypnotic experience for the client’s home use, it is important that the recording be somehow identified as for the unique use of that client and not any sort of commercial product. It should not be something that the client could easily copy and distribute. Nor should you charge the client an extra fee for the recording, which would amount to republishing the copyrighted script.

The usual way to achieve this is to give the client the recording as a gift, and to be sure that the recording contains the client’s name along with some sort of disclaimer that the recording is for the exclusive use of the client only. While you cannot control what other people do, you can protect yourself by insuring that you do all possible to protect the rights of the holder of the copyrighted script. Doing so will provide you with an affirmative defense against any charge of copyright violation.

By taking these few reasonable precautions, you are able to make use of the contents of a book of hypnotic scripts you have purchased.

Want to Buy a Degree?

[Originally published by Dr. Giles in 2004 in The Journal of Hypnotism]

The pitch was simple and clear. “Take this piece of paper,” the pitchman said. “Now write your name with ‘Dr.’ in front of it.”

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” said the pitchman. He then went on to tell me that for about $4000 I could become a “Doctor of Clinical Hypnotherapy” in return for writing ten book reports. “It’s easy,” he said. “You can write them on just about anything you want.”

Later in this conversation he went on to flash a roll of $100 bills under my nose, assuming, I guess, that the smell would excite me. “You’ll make more money if you can call yourself a doctor” he opined. “Besides,” he said, leaning forward to hold his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart “We’re this close to getting the degree accredited.”

This incident really happened to me about thirteen years ago when I was just getting involved with the national hypnosis organizations. The degree the man was pitching still is not accredited and the pitchman himself has retired, selling his school to someone else who has since moved it to Hawaii where he now offers “Ph.D.” degrees in hypnotherapy and “hermetic science,” whatever that is.

I’ll always remember this incident as it was my introduction to the world of unaccredited and diploma mill degrees. As I hold an accredited doctoral degree that took me eight years of full time university study to earn, I was not very impressed by the offer to get a doctoral degree for ten book reports and a fee. Although I must say that the degree this fellow was pitching is not the worst of the lot by any means. While this is no longer true, at the time he was pitching it the degree did hold approval from his state’s government. Believe it or not, there is someplace in India that will sell you the degree of “Medical Doctor (alternative medicine)” for doing even less work and paying about $800.

Every year people ask the National Guild of Hypnotists what it thinks of these degrees. The official position of the Guild is that it is neutral with regard to them. We neither endorse nor oppose these degrees provided they are used lawfully. However, if you get into trouble because you have used such a degree as part of your professional title, the Guild will not intervene to help you. You did not obtain the degree from us as the Guild is not a degree-granting institution. Therefore, if you need assistance, you must seek it from whatever school awarded you the degree.

The reason we say that such degrees must be used lawfully is that there are states that do not allow you to mention such degrees when holding services out to the public. Further, there are some unaccredited degrees that are illegal (for example calling yourself a “Doctor of Medicine” or using the degree abbreviation “M.D.” is regulated in every state and you cannot escape that regulation by adding a disclaimer in parenthesis). The National Guild of Hypnotists states its belief that you should always obey the law.

The Recommended Standards of Practice of the Guild state that if you possess such an alternative or unaccredited degree and use it while holding services out to the public you should disclose its alternative nature to your clients by using specific wording in your Client Bill of Rights. There is a model for how to do this included with the Sample Client Bill of Rights contained in the Recommended Standards. You can download the Standards from the Guild’s website at http://www.ngh.net. If you hold such a degree and use it in your by-line for an article you write that the Guild publishes, or if you use it after your name in our convention catalogue, you will find that there is a asterisk added by the Guild staff that refers to a footnote saying “denotes alternative, nonacademic degree.” The Guild believes that “truth in labeling” is always a good idea.

If you are contemplating obtaining such a degree, the Guild suggests some points for you to consider in your decision making.

First, be aware that these degrees are increasingly problematic. Because of the popularity of the Internet most people have gotten more than one spam email solicitation offering to sell a doctoral degree in return for little or no work. Even if the degree you are considering is not one of these, you will be placed in a defensive position with your clients when they ask if your degree is accredited. Increasingly, they ask.

Second, beware of schools that try to lure you into paying them with spurious claims. For example, some will tell you that they are “internationally accredited.” This is something of a ruse. There is no international government that has created an accreditation agency. Any such “accreditation” is unofficial and is not recognized by the Department of Education in the United States. Similarly, there are other schools who will tell you that they are “fully accredited” but not tell you the agency bestowing the accreditation is affiliated with the school and is without any official academic recognition. You probably don’t want to be linked to a “school” that pulls something like this.

Third, understand that the laws are changing. There is discussion among consumer protection groups and regulatory boards about further regulation of unaccredited degrees. The Federal Government has begun investigations into its employees who have negotiated pay raises based on such degree and other organizations are sure to follow that lead. One popular proposal will require anyone using such a degree title to add the disclaimer that “my degree does not qualify me to practice any profession” to all advertising. Would this sort of degree really make your advertising look more effective?

Finally, think about your colleagues. When the Guild goes before a state legislature to oppose a law that would restrict your right to practice hypnotism we routinely get questions about people who are advertising services using such diplomas. Whether or not you think such degrees are valid, I can assure you that the lawmakers in your state government regard them with suspicion. Are you helping our profession, or hurting it, when you list such a degree after your name?

The National Guild of Hypnotists believes that a person trains to becoming a hypnotist by attending an approved training program taught by a Guild Certified Instructor, or the exact equivalent. We believe that the credential to use when holding services out to the public should be a powerful private certification from an influential hypnosis organization. There is no organization more powerful than the Guild.

The Importance of Hypnotic Research

[Originally Published by Dr. Giles in 2002 in The Journal of Hypnotism]

Recently I’ve had two rounds of written exchange of ideas concerning research. The first concerned the new Recommended Standards of Practice of the Guild, which state that claims made for hypnotism should be backed by objective outcomes research. The input I received, almost entirely from Guild members, was uniformly positive. Many expressed relief that the Guild was taking this stand, for they have found that unless they have such research data they cannot get a hearing in the places where they attempt to market their services.

The second exchange of ideas was through a dialogue in a hypnosis email group I subscribe to. I had raised the issue of research, noting that some standardization of techniques was necessary if meaningful research was to be done to demonstrate to the scientific community that what hypnotists do, works.

Well, you’d think I’d suggested committing a crime. While many, probably most, of the participants agreed that having reliable research data would be a good thing, several vocal participants denounced any effort to scientifically validate our results. I found this amazing. Assuming that one is a competent hypnotist, one already knows that what one does works. You see the results of that, day after day, in your office. Clients improve, send their friends, and often send letters of thanks to keep you updated. Why in the world would there be an objection to accurately documenting this, confirming the results with others who choose to adopt similar techniques, and publishing the results in a respected academic journal? The result would be greater acceptance of hypnotism and that would produce a greater demand for hypnotic services from the public. Yet the objections were strident from a few. I wondered why

The first possibility was one that I quickly disregarded. My first thought had been that the folks who objected were frightened of objective research because they did NOT see results in their work and didn’t want the failure to be documented. Every profession has its ineffective practitioners, and I’d first thought that it was those people who objected. However, while this may have been true for some of the voices, a little research of my own showed me that some of the people objecting had good reputations, and this made it likely that they did know what they were doing.

The second possibility was more plausible. In order to be a hypnotist you have to be a person with a good “sense of self” and confidence in what you do. This mindset may lead some people into thinking that what is helping the clients is not so much the professional application of the hypnotic arts and sciences, as the application of the practitioner’s wonderful personality. People who think this way often make it sound as though no one else could get the results they get (even using the same techniques), and therefore see research as anathema. If research showed that the hypnotic arts and sciences were what got the results instead of the practitioner’s wonderful personality, it would seem like a devaluation of that personality. Apparently, some hypnotists care very, very much about how well their wonderful personalities are viewed by others.

A third option also presented itself. Some people objected to any effort at research because in order for research to be done you have to have a degree of standardization regarding techniques. If one practitioner gets his or her results using Guided Imagery and another practitioner gets his or her results using Regression to Cause techniques, it isn’t clear that the results can be compared. In order to compare results, you have to have similar techniques used in the cases you are comparing. This is basic to the scientific method. For many of the voices this was the reason for the anger. They do not want there to be any standardization of techniques. In other discussions these same people were often the ones who objected to professional certification of hypnotists, or to legislation (even if the intent was to protect our right to practice) and who appear to hate national hypnosis organizations such as the Guild with a deep and abiding passion. Several also denounced psychology, medicine and other established professions as worthless.

I found this exchange remarkable. On one hand there were many practitioners who thought the idea of research was wonderful, but on the other there were a determined few who made it clear that such was unwelcome—either because they felt it was a challenge to their self-image or because they feared that someone else might tell them what to do or how to do it. I think it illustrates a deep divide among hypnosis practitioners that will get deeper as time goes on.

On one side are the people like myself who see the hypnotic arts and sciences as wonderful, learnable skills that anyone can acquire through good training. People on this side feel that if you have good techniques and skills, combined with ethical and responsible practice, you get regular, provable, reproducible results—just as you do in medicine, psychology, physical therapy or chiropractic. True, some people will do it better than others, but the expectation is of professional performance in a professional craft that any bright person can learn to do. The orientation is essentially scientific.

On the other side are folks who see hypnotism as akin to an occult art, only practicable by some people who have a hidden gift, who obtain unique results through mysterious methods that cannot be easily communicated. There is an objection to regulation, standardization or certification as such things detract from the glamour of unique power in which they like to be cloaked. This orientation seems to me essentially romantic, in the sense that it appeals to the darker side of the mind where things dwell in shadows, and intuition rather than logic holds sway. It is certainly an attractive position as we all have a bit of the romantic in our makeup, and I’m as fond as the next person of being admired by others. However, it seems to me that this orientation belongs to an era of hypnotism that is passing away, and will soon be as quaint as the gaslight and signet ring.

As the body of scientific research into the value of hypnosis grows and as more conventional medical settings recognize the value of hypnotic procedures, it seems to me that most people will favor the scientific side of this issue. Simply, if hypnotism is seen as a power belonging to a few, there is not much opportunity for the many to break into it. However, if hypnotism is understood as learnable skill that makes a great career, there will be opportunity for people to get involved and to earn a good living from it. If hypnotism is to take its rightful place as a valuable service to the public, science must replace romance as we move forward together.

Hall of the Mountain King

A Self-Hypnotic Script You Can Use
Copyright © 2004, Charles Scot Giles
All rights reserved.

This is a favorite script of mine. It is used to teach that beauty comes from within and it is no shame to have an illness. There are several implied sexual images (the phallic tower and the womb-like cave) that I have found intensify the experience for most adults. The shattered mirror image is historical—a dome in Iran was decorated with shattered glass fragments when the original mirror intended for it was broken by accident. There are also several Biblical allusions in this script. I created it using the Mind Mapping Technique that I sometimes teach at National Guild of Hypnotists meetings. It involves using a Chevruel Pendulum to cull a list of free association ideas to create the material for the induction.

Now, as you relax and as you drift, be comfortable and safe, and know that all shall be well. Everything shall be well.

As you do this self-hypnotic exercise, it is inevitable that you will hear sounds from within, or beyond, this room. Allow these sounds to remind you that you are safe. You and you alone will decide what to pay attention to and what to ignore. You and you alone will decide what is important and what is not, and you will focus your attention on what is important and ignore what is not important. Therefore, you are in control. Both your safety and success are certain—because you are the expert on you.

Allow one part of your mind to observe carefully on what is about to happen, and allow another part of your mind to experience as fully and as completely as you feel appropriate and safe, what is about to happen. Allow another part of your mind to travel through time and space with the voice, traveling and drifting, allowing the voice to be one with your own interior voice. And hear that voice as it says, “I feel calm. I feel relaxed. I feel in control. I am calm. I am relaxed. I am in control. I feel safe. I feel secure. I can let go. As I let go all negative thoughts and feelings leave my body. As I let go only positive thoughts and feelings remain. I feel calm. I feel relaxed. I feel in control.”

And now, you will count from ten to one, and as you count from ten to one allow the numbers to relax away until about the time you reach the count of one, when you are invited to be as comfortably and as deeply relaxed as you feel appropriate. And so you say…10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

And now, imagine going into a movie theater. Not one of the modern theaters, rather one of the kind we used to have years ago when movie theaters were palaces for the common people. Many beautiful lights that seemed to move and dance lighted the outside of the theater. The marquee would have the name of the show that you would see, and the colorful lights would make moving patterns on the ground.

As you enter the theater you notice that the red carpet is soft. The theater is large, and there are marble staircases leading to the balcony. Even the stairs are covered with the soft, rich carpet. There is the smell of popcorn, and the sound of laughter and animated chatter.

As you enter the auditorium you notice that the room is very large. Overhead you see that the ceiling is a barrel vault, and that it has been painted the color of the evening sky. Inset in the ceiling are small lights that twinkle like stars. In fact, they are arranged in constellations and you may recognize some of the constellations like Orion, the Pleiades, and Ursa Major. Most of the light comes from a chandelier of polished brass and crystal. As you look at it you can sometimes catch a beam of light just right as it is diffracted by an edge of one of the crystals, and then you see light in one of the bright, primary colors.

The walls are decorated with murals. Perhaps patriotic scenes; perhaps the scenes from classical antiquity such as the ancient physician Hypocrites teaching his students. The aisle slopes down before you, flanked on either side with a light at the end of each row of seats. At the front of the theater there is the silver screen, now covered by a red velvet curtain. On either side you can see illuminated EXIT signs, and you know that if you need to leave the theater quickly you will be able to do so, safely and easily. So your safety is assured.

You walk down the aisle until you find the seat that is just right for you. The seats are large and comfortable. You take your seat, sinking into the comfortable padding. You settle your arms on the armrests, and the lights in the theater dim, as the curtain rises and the screen comes to life.

On the screen, the show has begun. You can see a beautiful mountain scene with music and color. Somehow you find yourself floating in the air above your seat and you can look down and see yourself still watching the movie. Then, imagine that you move through the silver screen and enter into the mountain scene.

You are now standing in a mountain meadow. It is a beautiful day. Up ahead there is an ancient stone bridge that leads from the meadow to a grotto carved into the living rock of the mountain. People who lived before history was made cunningly made the bridge, and the stones fit together without mortar or cement. The bridge is spacious and safe to walk upon. You step onto the bridge and walk. You hear your footsteps, and high, high overhead an eagle cries.

You come off the bridge into the grotto. It is large, and a faire is in progress. Everywhere you look there are booths selling crafts, drink, and savory foods. There is the sound of voices, the happy sounds of children. It is a good faire.

You walk through the grotto and at the back you notice that there is a vertical split in the living rock of the mountain. It is a tight fit but you can pass through the split in the rock and discover on the other side a large dark cavern. It is warm, humid and safe here. Somehow light streams in from above, and while the cavern is shadowy, you can see to move around.

There in the center of the cavern there is an erect stone tower. It is the Tower of the Mountain King. It juts up high and rigid. A path leads from where you are now to the tower, and you follow the path. It is important to always follow your path.
When you come to the tower you notice that there is a door at the base, and as if sensing your approach the door opens and you enter the tower. Inside is a room, like the Common Room of an inn. A fire burns safely, and cheerfully, behind a protective screen, and the room is full of tables and chairs where people sit and feast. Serving wenches and lads move around the room with trays of food and beverage. It is a happy time. You move through the room to a spiral staircase you notice at the back of the room.
The staircase winds up, in a double helix, leading to an upper room above the common room at the inn. You ascend while remaining relaxed. You can hear the soft “booming” sound of your footsteps on the stairs as you ascend. At the top, you enter into the Throne Room of the Mountain King.

The King is not here, but his throne is. It is beautiful and shimmers in the light like a diamond. As you look at the throne you realize that it is made of thousands of pieces of broken mirror, which have been put together with mortar and polished so that not a single sharp edge remains. The throne is smooth, and glistens in the lights. As light touches the throne the mirrors reflect the light so that the chair glows with rainbows of light.
You have been granted permission, and so you sit on the rainbow throne of the Mountain King. And the colorful light wraps you like a coat of many colors, like Jacob’s coat. As you sit you learn of the wisdom of the Mountain King. Long ago the King declared that his throne should be made of mirrors. But as the mirrors were carried over the bridge and toward the tower, the workmen stumbled, and the mirrors shattered. Yet the King was wise beyond his years, and gave orders that the broken fragments should be gathered together and fit so cunningly together that they would decorate the surfaces of the throne like a mosaic of smooth, polished glass. And so it came to be, and the throne was made.
When the throne was brought into the sunlight for the first time, people realized that it was more beautiful in its brokenness than it ever would have been if it had been left unbroken.

There is a beauty in brokenness that unbroken things never attain. It is true of us too, for people are stronger at the broken places. If a bone is broken, and heals, the area of the break is stronger than the surrounding bone, and will not easily break again. We are stronger at the broken places; there is a beauty in brokenness. When we rise above adversity, we rise in quiet triumph, even if no one notices but ourselves.
This is your throne now. Your unconscious mind can return here whenever it wishes and know the secret of the wisdom of the Mountain King. You are more wonderful because you have suffered and survived. There is nobility within you.

Now you rise from the throne, and journey back. You depart the Throne Room, and move through the inn below. Yet this time the people there take note of you, and acknowledge you with a smile and a kind nod of the head. You leave the tower, and move through the cavern. You press yourself through the split in the rock and walk through the faire. The bridge awaits, and you cross it home.

Now imagine yourself back in the theater, and the show has ended. The curtain descends and the lights come back on. You rise from your seat and find the aisle. You move up the aisle. As you move up the aisle you will count from 1 to 10. As you count from one to ten you allow your trance to gently lighten, until at about the time when you reach the count of 10. Then your eyes can open if they have not already, your mind can move back to ordinary awareness, and all of the parts of yourself can merge.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

What Does That Symbol Mean?

The square symbol you see in places on this website and on the printed materials for my practice is one form of a design called a “Celtic Knot.” It’s an ancient symbol among the Celtic peoples who primarily come from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. This is my own ethnic heritage and so it’s a symbol I adopted as my practice logo decades ago. Here it is again so you can get a good look at it.

The original meaning of the Celtic Knot, a looping design that has neither beginning nor end, probably was the interconnection of all life into a great living system of people, animals, plants and environment. Later, when Christianity came to Celtic lands the church adopted the symbol to mean eternal life and you will often see different forms of it in stained glass windows. I like both meanings.

I’m a liberal Protestant clergyman (Unitarian Universalist) from a small denomination that goes back to American Revolutionary times. Many of the founding patriots of Revolutionary America were associated with it: Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Clara Barton and more. However, this tradition doesn’t do much with symbols. Mostly, we use images from nature to express spiritual feelings. This became even more common among us after the 1838 “Divinity School Address” by one of our ministers, Ralph Waldo Emerson where he spoke of an American model for spirituality. He said:

“In this refulgent summer, it has been a luxury to draw the breath of life. The grass grows, the buds burst, the meadow is spotted with fire and gold in the tint of flowers. The air is full of birds, and sweet with the breath of the pine, the balm-of-Gilead, and the new hay. Night brings no gloom to the heart with its welcome shade. Through the transparent darkness the stars pour their almost spiritual rays.”

I follow this tradition and use symbols sparingly. About the only symbols you see in my work are the Celtic Knot as a practice logo, the cross and stylized images of a flaming chalice, which is the logo of my denomination. Beyond that, the beauty of nature does it for me, and that’s why this web site is full of images of rainbows, sunshine, starry nights and forests.