Why You Should Buy This Book Now, or You Have to Know Why Things Work on a Starship In the middle of a battle with Khan (Ricardo Montalban, not Benedict Cumberbatch), Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock start fooling around with the command console on the Enterprise. Lt. Saavik does not understand why, and Kirk replies, "You have to learn why things work on a starship." Kirk has a cool plan to outperform Khan because he knows more about how things work than Khan does (Meyer, 1982). In 1995 the National Institutes of Health issued a report strongly recommending hypnosis to treat chronic pain and insomnia. The report noted that the mechanism for the relief of pain and insomnia was not well understood. Much has changed since 1995. Advances in neurology and neuroimaging brain scans now reveal exactly how suggestive processes and hypnosis function. The brain physiology of hypnosis is well understood. In 1784, French king Louis XVI appointed a royal commission headed by Benjamin Franklin to investigate amazing cures by the flamboyant Franz Anton Mesmer, a man with plenty of style and a frightening, misunderstood power. The commission found that there was no science to what Mesmer was doing, only suggestion. If only Franklin's commission had access to functional magnetic imagery brain scans-they could have seen how the power of suggestion changes not just the mind, but also the brain. The reality is that emotion changes behavior. Stories frame and create our emotions. These changes are not just "mental" or ephemeral; they cause profound physical changes in the brain and profound metaphysical changes in the very meaning of our lives. This book is extensively documented with peer-reviewed empirical studies (just flip back to the References on page 92 and check it out). It provides you with instruction not only on how to perform hypnosis, but on how hypnosis works: This is the scientific data, the "why" that you need to know. Most of our models of change are cognitive. They are about learning new information, and then trying (and often failing) to implement it. Emotional change is different from cognitive approaches, and powerful. You want to be a great hypnotist. You want to know more than just how to perform tricks. You need to know why things work on a Starship. Buy this book, read, learn, enjoy."