Popular belief still ascribes significance to illogical devices and rituals such as “making passes” or stroking the body, the use of “hypnotic crystals,” the “eagle eye” and the “hypnotic command,” all of which belong to the charlatan´s stock in trade. Actually, the important consideration in inducing [tag-tec]hypnosis[/tag-tec] with the right [tag-tec]hypnotic technique[/tag-tec] is that the subject be willing, co-operative and interested in learning a new experience. To such a subject a trusted operator can, progressively, persuasively, and repetitiously, suggest tiredness, relaxation, eye closure, loss of interest in externalities, and an increasingly absorbing interest in inner experiential processes, until the subject can function with increasing adequacy at the level of unconscious awareness.

The length of time required to induce a trance differs greatly with subjects and with trance situations, and the time spent should be in reasonable accord with both the importance and the specific character of the hypnotic work to be done. The charlatan boasts of his speed; the scientist considers time an important variable. “Thus, the dentist might need only a few minutes to induce the trance state requisite to permit a tooth extraction; the psychologist might need an hour to effect those psycho-neuro-physiological responses needed for a long involved laboratory experiment; and the hypnotherapist, because of his patient´s needs, might distribute over a period of months the development of a trance state otherwise possible in a short period of time.

Another essential element in hypnotic technique, for either investigative or therapeutic work, is the utilization of the subject´s own patterns of learning and response, rather than an attempt to force upon him by suggestion the hypnotist´s limited comprehension of what constitutes experiential validity for the subject. Failures in hypnotic experimentation and therapy often derive from treating the subject is all automaton, expected to execute commands in accord with the hypnotist´s understanding, rather than as a personality with individual patterns of response and behavior.