Book Reviews - Review 102

This review is bound to be provisional, until I pluck up the courage to actually try out the techniques outlined in the book.

What I will say is that its humorous and friendly style encourages positive expectations of self-hypnosis. For all Adam Eason's limitations as a writer (of which more in a moment), he does have the gift of seeming to address the reader personally and of really wanting the best for him or her.

This is an extremely thorough book, but it isn't all that well organised. Eason presents a step-by-step procedure for performing self-hypnosis, but goes on to offer many variations on the basic format, without always being clear which step he's discussing. Even the distinction between the main text and the scripts isn't always apparent. One comes away - rightly or wrongly - assuming that the detail of the procedure doesn't matter all that much, and that it's more a question of getting a feel for how to recognise and use the hypnotic state; but still, more clarity would be desirable.

A more jarring flaw is the appalling standard of the prose. It's not that Eason doesn't have a sense of how to make words flow - that is part of the hypnotist's trade, after all. But his regard for grammatical sense and correct punctuation is zero. The result is that many sentences must be read twice in order to be correctly parsed. I don't know anything about Network 3000 Publishing, but I can't believe that even their presumably small budget couldn't stretch to getting a proofreader on board.

Still, the book must ultimately be judged by its effectiveness. There are different scripts and techniques to suit different temperaments, and Eason definitely gives a good sense of what hypnosis is about, and what it can do. I shall report more fully when (or if) I've dabbled more in the practice.