Unusual jobs – the Hypnotist

Группа Learning English. Продолжение текста: [bad word] /downloads.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/people_and_places/pdfs/people_hypnotist_070726.pdf

Andrea: Welcome to "People and Places" – where we meet interesting people and find
out about more about them – right here on [bad word]  Hello, I'm
Andrea Rose.
Paul McKenna
‘For everybody it’s different. But usually it’s deep relaxation. People find that instead of
being aware of lots of things we tend to focus on one idea at a time.’
Andrea: Can you guess what Paul McKenna does for a living? He has a rather unusual
job. Yes, he’s a hypnotist. He hypnotises people. In fact, he’s one of Britain’s
best known hypnotists. He mesmerises people into doing extraordinary things.
So what’s it like to be hypnotised?
Paul McKenna
‘For everybody it’s different. But usually it’s deep relaxation. People find that instead of
being aware of lots of things we tend to focus on one idea at a time. You can probably
compare it to meditation or in business people do a thing called strategic planning where they
relax and imagine what their company will be doing, what product or service they will be
offering in the future, what their competitors will be doing. That seems for me to be the same
as hypnosis. All the great creatives throughout history – Einstein, Mozart, Tessler, Goethe,
Walt Disney – lots of great creatives have referred to that reverie, that creative state where
they get their ideas from, in similar terms when they describe it, as hypnotists would to
hypnotic trance.’
Andrea: Paul compares hypnosis to deep relaxation. You feel very relaxed when you’re
hypnotised and you can focus on one thing rather than lots of thoughts. Paul also compares it to meditation or even strategic planning – like in business
when plan how you want to run things. He says that lots of famous thinkers or
creative people – ‘creatives’ – talk about their great thoughts or creativity
coming from a dream-like state – ‘reverie’. He says hypnosis is just like that.
Another word for hypnosis is a trance. When you’re hypnotised it’s like you’re
in a trance. But is being a hypnotist quite what we imagine?
Paul McKenna
‘The archetypal Hollywood image – you know the man with swinging watch, black suit,
goatee beard, and malevolent intentions has played a part in creating an image in the psyche
of lots of people. But I'm hoping to dismantle that. I want to avoid all the psycho-babble.
ooger-booger esoteric associations because really hypnosis is just another word for thinking
and when we use hypnosis we can get extraordinary outcomes, but it’s really just another way
of thinking.’
Andrea: Look into my eyes and relax……yes, that’s the image we associate with
hypnotists. But Paul says they’re not quite like that! We imagine a hypnotist
to be someone swinging a watch in front of someone until they fall asleep,
or wearing a black suit and having a goatee beard. This is the archetype of a
hypnotist. This is the archetypal Hollywood image. We also think of
hypnotists as people who are dangerous and who have bad intentions. The
word Paul uses is malevolent. In fact, according to Paul, hypnotists can do
wonderful, extraordinary things. It really is an intriguing and interesting
profession, so how did it all begin for Paul McKenna?
Paul McKenna
‘My first experience of it was that I was a radio broadcaster and I was interested in yoga and
meditation. I went one day to interview the local hypnotist and I had a particularly bad day –
I’d split up from my girlfriend, the people in the apartment where I was living were making a
noise and I had a row with my boss at work – and so I arrived at this interview fairly stressed. And I said ‘do your weirdy, mindy thing on me’, and I sat back. I was sceptical, benevolently
so and said ‘let the process begin’. And I borrowed a book from this guy and I went home and read it. 
...