First up are the therapeutic hypnosis techniques. Approved as a method treatment by the American medical establishment since the 1950's hypnosis is well at home with these types of tasks. These kind of sessions aim to improve your personal confidence, build self esteem, lose weight or stop smoking.

Here are some suggestions to get you started. The popular FreshStart Weight Loss resource guarantees help with your weight loss challenges. Jeff Staniforth focuses on the Wealth, Health & Relationships route with his impressive seven part HypnosisEzy Self-Hypnosis series. Steve G Jones has a smorgasboard of downloadable mp3 audios to help with everything from self-esteem to your golf swing. Colin Smith has a neat collection of NLP techniques that could be of help to you get rid of allergies, phobias, and compulsions. Finally, if you're keen to kick the habit for good, Matt Godson's bold FreshStart Stop Smoking program promises to help you quit in one hour.

Of course there's a lot of competition and approaches around these markets and it should be simple to find an approach to suit you. Always check for experience and testimonials, and an approach that resonates with you. Feeling an affinity for the method is one of the best predictors of your own success. Most offer money back guarantees, so don't be shy in putting them to the test!

While it's true that much hypnosis deals with the "conversations" you have with yourself internally, this next batch of techniques focuses more properly on influencing others for business and personal success. We'll deal with the purely seduction techniques later, but for now these are the ones less sexual in nature.

As a rule these programs are more technical than Dale Carnegie's advice on how to make friends and influence people, and frankly, with less emphasis on genuine concern for others. Clifford Mee's Conversational Hypnosis is geared exactly to this type of loaded speech patterns type program, and there's always something of the svengali to the tone of the copy. Nathan Blaszak's Secretly Hypnotize Anyone program takes the 'ordinary-guy-doing-extraordinary-things' route but also is heavy on the "how to hypnotize anyone without getting caught" vibe.

Hey, on a good day, tell yourself you're improving your communication skills, but you'll mostly be sold on how to manipulate others to do your will. At least they're up front about it, and if that's what you're after, give them a whirl.

While you could obviously apply your hypnosis skills in business the acknowledged dean of this particular business application of hypnosis is Dr Joe Vitale. After an absence from the scene for a little over a year, Dr. Vitale's vital partnership with the dynamic Nitro Marketing has recently produced the definitive flagship Hypnotic Marketing book and the comprehensive Hypnotic Library of all the hypnotic business tricks you can wave a stick at! Those alone will keep your mind reeling for days with all the profitable possibilities for your business and sales career.

Yes, hypnosis and sex are a potent combination. The link between improved social skills and dating success should hardly be surprising, although the ferocity of the "divide and conquer mentality" prevalent in the seduction arena of hypnosis is sometimes a little unsettling. But if seduction is what you want from your awesome hypnosis techniques, these are your two guys...

Since the publication of the book "The Game" by Neil Strauss there has been a surge of interest in the famous pick-up artist guru Mystery. A media darling, his Mystery Method has been an internet favourite and his urban bootcamps a phenomenon. It's interesting stuff, involving demanding training not for the faint hearted - and regardless of what they might say, The Mystery Method is not exactly driven primarily to help you find the love of your life. Make no doubt about it, the seduction methods are there to get multiple sex partners. There are even niche approaches to so-called 'hired guns' like strippers and hostesses.

However, if you're looking for the self-proclaimed grand pumba of the seduction business though, that would be none other than the creator of the Speed Seduction method, Ross Jeffries. Rumoured to be the real-life basis upon which the Tom Cruise character in the film Magnolia was based, Ross Jeffries developed the original 'ordinary-guy-gets-the-hottest-girl' approach which has won him a legion of loyal and grateful fans. Whether the ladies left in his students' wake are so enthralled by his methods is another matter altogether!

And then it's time to go further out beyond the moral frame... The so-called "Underground" techniques. Covert hypnosis where the goal is to figure out how to do radical affecting human behaviour without much concern for the morality of the outcome.

On the tamer side (a relative term in this arena of hypnosis) a good and fairly inexpensive place to start would be with Kevin Hogan's Covert Hypnosis. More on the businessy side of the track, Hogan pitches for the type of hidden techniques that might give you the edge over more conventional hypnosis techniques.

But if it's the darker arts you're after, you don't get much further out beyond the edge of the ocean than the Underground Hypnosis man himself, Taylor Starr. With a non-stop emphasis on covert, secret methods and promises to reveal new techniques long clouded in mystery, his "underground" site is the place to test for hypnosis stuff that goes off the reservation. With blatant talk of dangerous consequences and black-ops methodology it's probably worth cautioning that old moral compass again, but if it's the controversial stuff you're after, have at it.

Well that should give you more than enough of a start into finding out more about awesome hypnosis techniques and the people who practice them. Whether you want to help yourself or others, use them for business or pleasure, there's enough here to keep you entranced for ages!

Happy hypnotizing!
-- The Clever Bunny.