The Author, Hypnotist John-Ivan Palmer, suggests these readings:

“General Semantics and the Chicken Suit Murders—the Hypnotic Realities of Dr. Ronald Dante and Dr. Michael Dean,” by John-Ivan Palmer, Nth Position online magazine, 2005. A comparative study of the personalities of two famous stage hypnotists, one of whom tried to murder the other.

“Hostile Break-up, Sinister Reunion: Mesmerism & The Boob,” by John-Ivan Palmer, Nth Position online magazine, March, 2004. A radical proposal of how Anton Mesmer simultaneously invented hypnotism and television in 1778.

Hidden Histories of Science, edited by Robert B. Silvers (1995). Chapter 1, “Going Unconscious.” A look at hypnosis as a history of the expectation of what hypnosis should be.

“Magnetic Mockeries,” in Social Research, Vol. 68, Fall, 2001. An unusual look at how hypnotism came into existence.

Divided Consciousness: Multiple Controls in Human Thought and Action, by Ernest R. Hilgard (1977). One of the classic works on hypnosis and an explanation of hypnotic consciousness. Especially interesting is (p. 194 and following) Hilgard’s concept of the “hidden observer” in the mind of a hypnotic subject.

Hypnotic Realities, by Milton Erickson (1976). A classic work on the power of “indirect suggestion,” which led to the pseudoscience of “neurolinguistic programming.”

“Who Believes in Hypnosis?” by Theodore X. Barber, in Psychology Today, July 19, 1970. A critique by a famous experimental psychologist, who claimed that there was “almost no scientific support” for the existence of hypnosis.

“Hypnosis Subdues the Visual Brain,” in Science News, July 16, 2005. A summary of the famous recent study by Dr. Amir Raz, who showed that hypnotic suggestion of color could be measured by brain scans. The original research appeared in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, July, 2005, p. 9978 and following.

“Data on the Nature of the Hypnotist,” in The Nature of Hypnosis, edited by Ronald Shor and Martin Orne (1965). A psychological study of why someone would want to be a hypnotist in the first place.

“The Trance Pushers: A Century of Hypnotism How-To Books,” in Book Happy, Issue #7, 2002. Of special interest to those who have bought how-to-hypnotize books and say “it didn’t work.” Here’s why.