but you didn’t hear them yell out? Were you so absorbed in your
reading that nothing else mattered?
Face it. You were hypnotized.
Even Shakespeare used Hypnotic Writing, though of course he
would never have called it that. According to Peter Brown, in his
book,The Hypnotic Brain, Shakespeare’s The Tempestuses hyp-
notic induction to get readers captivated. The play begins with a
shipwreck, causing people to sit up and take notice. That’s a key el-
ement in hypnosis: Get attention. Shakespeare did it. The play then
moves into a dialogue where the audience is told to sit still and lis-
ten. That’s a hypnotic command. Brown adds, “The story is as ab-
sorbing and moving today as it was nearly four hundred years ago.”
One of the readers of my books wrote me one day to tell me a
book he had read hypnotized him to stop smoking. He said Allen
Carr’s book,The Easy Way to Stop Smoking, actually awakens people
from their trance of addiction. By the time they finish reading the
book, they are nonsmokers. Apparently Carr’s Hypnotic Writing
works, as he has now helped millions of people stop smoking. Many
people said just readingthe book will help you stop smoking.
Friends told me the same thing happened when they read Heal-
ing Back Painby John Sarno. Again, apparently just reading the
book helped them awaken from the “pain trance” and actually alle-
viated and in many cases cured their back pain. I had a similar ex-
perience while reading Sarno’s latest book,The Divided Mind.It
seemed to take me from one trance—believing in the power of tra-
ditional medicine—and to put me in another trance—believing in
the power of the unconscious mind. This is the power of Hypnotic
Writing. (I explore this trance state in my next book,Buying
Trances.)
In fact, in a few pages I prove how one of the greatest mystery
writers of all time actually used hypnotic techniques in her books
to make her readers buy more of them. In short, she made readers
addicted to her novels.
I love Hypnotic Writing. I long to read books that capture my
attention and won’t let go. Actually, I don’t see enough writing of
that caliber. Do you?HYPNOTIC WRITING