Sorry for the delay in getting this newsletter out. I was traveling a lot in June and my schedule kind of got away from me. Ironically, this month’s newsletter is on the Law of Delayed Action, and is the continuance of the Laws Governing Hypnotic Suggestions series that I started a few months ago.

From my book:

“The Law of Delayed Action states that a suggestion may not take effect immediately, when delivered in an indirect manner. In fact, it may not take effect until the situation that the suggestion is meant to overcome presents itself again to the client. For example suggestions of increased confidence when speaking in front of an audience may not appear to be in effect until the client actually gets in front of an audience, at which time the suggestion kicks in and the client begins to feel confident.”

Notice the first sentence that states “…when delivered in an indirect manner.” which means that if you want a suggestion to occur immediately, then it should be stated as a direct suggestion. However, this is not guaranteed. For example, you may give a direct suggestion to feel relaxed and calm when riding in an elevator, however, unless you are giving the suggestion in the elevator, or just outside of the elevator, in order to test the suggestion, the effect of the suggestion may not be realized until the next time the subject is actually in an elevator.

The statement also implies that when using conversational, or covert, hypnosis, which is often delivered in an indirect, or inferred, manner that it may take time for suggestions to actually take effect. Something to keep in mind if timing is of importance.

You can often test your suggestions by “future pacing” your subject into imagining being in the desired triggering situation and then having them describe their feelings and experience while there. This is one way to force the delayed action to occur sooner than it may have normally.

I hope you found this information useful.

That’s all I have for now.

Michael C. White, C.Ht.