Hypnotism is definitely something you have to see done and do it yourself. I didn’t do any in person trainings, but since I cut my teeth with text hypnosis and found someone a couple years ahead of me to function as a mentor/peer, I was still had the opportunity to see what it looks like when it works, try doing it myself, and then get detailed feedback after the fact. I don’t necessarily think you have to have anyone in the “instructor” role if you’ve read enough, but you can’t really expect books to be enough in the same way you wouldn’t expect books to be able to teach you to ride a bike without falling every time for the first dozen times.
I’ll echo what Christian said below about emotional control and add to it a bit. I think it’s really hard to emphasize how big a deal that part is. When you’re telling people stuff that are normally outside the window of what is accepted as possible (any hypnotic phenomena, for example), they have to be able to rest on the fact that you know it’s possible, because if it were just them they’d rule it out immediately. If you’re showing self doubt, they’ll jump to the conclusion “he doesn’t really believe it but he’s ‘trying’ to see what happens if he says it” and since you don’t really seem to believe it they’re going to have a hard time seeing it as something that can be real. If you actually know it’s something they can do (because you’ve done it yourself and you’ve helped others do it too) and you can accurately model what has been stopping them, then it’s easy to have that “unshakable confidence” and to know what needs to be said.
That’s why the simple scripts and beginner stuff contained in Reality Is Plastic is going to have limited applications. “Just doing the basics” requires that you have the background abilities to congruently perform the actions described, but I have read it, the content does work when done right in the right context(s), and it seems to be exactly what you’re looking for.
Hypnotism is definitely something you have to see done and do it yourself. I didn’t do any in person trainings, but since I cut my teeth with text hypnosis and found someone a couple years ahead of me to function as a mentor/peer, I was still had the opportunity to see what it looks like when it works, try doing it myself, and then get detailed feedback after the fact. I don’t necessarily think you have to have anyone in the “instructor” role if you’ve read enough, but you can’t really expect books to be enough in the same way you wouldn’t expect books to be able to teach you to ride a bike without falling every time for the first dozen times.
I’ll echo what Christian said below about emotional control and add to it a bit. I think it’s really hard to emphasize how big a deal that part is. When you’re telling people stuff that are normally outside the window of what is accepted as possible (any hypnotic phenomena, for example), they have to be able to rest on the fact that you know it’s possible, because if it were just them they’d rule it out immediately. If you’re showing self doubt, they’ll jump to the conclusion “he doesn’t really believe it but he’s ‘trying’ to see what happens if he says it” and since you don’t really seem to believe it they’re going to have a hard time seeing it as something that can be real. If you actually know it’s something they can do (because you’ve done it yourself and you’ve helped others do it too) and you can accurately model what has been stopping them, then it’s easy to have that “unshakable confidence” and to know what needs to be said.
That’s why the simple scripts and beginner stuff contained in Reality Is Plastic is going to have limited applications. “Just doing the basics” requires that you have the background abilities to congruently perform the actions described, but I have read it, the content does work when done right in the right context(s), and it seems to be exactly what you’re looking for.