Bandler · Erickson · labeled formulas · fill the slots
Every formulaic move, named. How they formulated hypnotic trance — copyable skeletons. Fill their Tuesday. Download the trance book, or the full craft book.
Bandler
Nested loops. Commands every two to eight words, analog-marked hard. Stacked quotes. DHE 2000: construction, not excavation. Name the machine. Refuse the biography. Close out of order. Leave one thread running.
Erickson
Two named contributions: confusion (destabilize) and interspersal (associate). Permission, waiting, binds, teaching tales. Commands at the clause seam. The story is the induction. No moral at the end.
How they formulated trance — as copyable skeletons. Erickson/Rossi five stages. Bandler’s Trance-formations spine. Fix attention, depotentiate, search, ratify, deepen, return. Copy a skeleton. Fill their Tuesday. Keep the cadence.
60 formulas
Erickson · Master map
THE formula for formulating an Ericksonian trance. Every other Erickson move is a way of doing one of these five stages.
1 Fixation of attention → 2 Depotentiating conscious sets → 3 Unconscious search → 4 Unconscious process → 5 Hypnotic response.
Skeleton — copy, fill the brackets
[FIXATE] You can [see/hear/feel] [present thing]. [DEPOTENTIATE] And you don't have to [know / try / make it happen]. [SEARCH] I wonder [inner question they will answer by going in]. [PROCESS] [silence, keep describing the scene] [RESPONSE] That's right. [name what just happened]. You didn't have to make that happen.
If you skip a stage the trance is thin. If you only do stage 1 you have attention, not trance. If you skip ratification they will later say nothing happened.
Bandler and Grinder, Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, Volume I. Put the payload in the part of the sentence that is not up for debate.
| Class | Does | Formula | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Existence | Names a thing, so it is. | The X… That Y… | The part of you that already knows. The trance you are already in. |
| Awareness | Notice / realize / know / aware presuppose the thing noticed. | You may notice X. Are you aware that Y. | You may notice the breath has already slowed. |
| Time | Before / after / during / when / while / as / until. | Before you X, Y. When you X, Y. | Before you go all the way down, take a breath. |
| Ordinal | First, another, last, next — presuppose a series. | Another breath. The first time you… | Another breath can take you further. The remaining tension. |
| Exclusive or | This or that, not both — both do the work. | Will you X now or in a minute. | Do you want to go down quickly or take your time going down. |
| Inclusive or | This or that or both. | X or Y or both. | You may close the eyes or keep them open or one then the other. |
| Adverb / adjective | Deeply, easily, already, naturally — the modifier is not the debate. | You can easily X. You have already Y. | You can easily settle. You have already begun. |
| Change-of-time verbs | Begin, continue, proceed, stop, start, still — presuppose a process in motion. | Continue to X. Stop Y. Begin to Z. | Continue to go down. Stop trying. Begin to notice. |
| Commentary adjectives | Fortunately, luckily, happily — a value as weather. | Fortunately, X. | Fortunately, you don't have to know how. |
| Possibility / necessity | Can / must baked in. | You can X. You have to Y. | You can let it work. You have to be available, not eager. |