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How does Hypnotism even work?
As Peterdjones said, a lot of it is metasuggestion. However, that is not the whole story, and there are ways to get the same effects without using the word "hypnosis".
On top of that, most of the interesting stuff just got buried under the label of "suggestion".
"Hypnosis" is a horribly vague word, but its basically all about learning how to talk to the different parts of the brain and engineering what you say as to get the different parts to respond the way you want. "Engineered placebo", perhaps.
What kind of answer are you looking for? I can't explain the whole lot in a short comment, but I'd consider writing a post on what researching hypnosis has taught me, if there's interest.
interested hand is raised
a) it has been suggested to people. by culture in general that there is such a thing as hypnosis, which works in such-and-such way.
b) This existing suggestion can be used to suggest to people that they become more suggestible than they are already.
In short;
c) it's suggestion all the way down.
Suppose I cast a magic spell to make magic start working for everyone in the universe, including myself retroactively so that I can cast the spell.
I would not expect magic to start working.
Conclusion: there's something real happening in the vicinity of the referent of "suggestion".
I'm not saying suggestion is nothing. I am saying the level of suggestibility is never zero.
Its hard to fake too, the reason it works so well is the people that wont be hypnotized are removed early in the process. The only way ive ever seen someone successfully mess with a good hypnotist is when my friend hypnotized himself first, so that he would be able to break the hypnotism in the middle of the hypnotists act with help from a separate trigger. Then you can really mess with the guy successfully making everyone suggestible.
This is way more hilarious than it has any right to be.