Last Saturday was one of those days you remember for a very long time, even though I then forgot everything. Leaving Milan Friday evening heading for Lake Maggiore we got to the enchanting, snow-filled village of Stresa. We have the whole troop onboard: besides me and Fulvia, there are our own three children, and two others, slightly more grown-up, following us in a Smart car. Snow and lights shine in everyone’s eyes, making the atmosphere really Christmassy. After losing ourselves along with the GPS through the narrow little streets of the village, we find the perfect B&B for us: “The Squirrel and the Nut”.

The owner gives us a warm welcome (though, like us, he must have been half frozen)and he leads us in the dark to the flat that overlooks the garden. We leave our stuff and go and meet Daniele at the huge Conference Centre: 11 halls, one of which is massive and looks like a real theatre. Darkness, snow and silence all around, and an empty theatre to the delight of the children who are running to and fro, playing hide-and-seek, popping up all over the place.

The lights go out and all together in the front row we watch some evocative videos Max is downloading from YouTube. It’s great fun. 9 o’clock is long gone and we’re feeling a bit hungry. We call a nearby  Runner Pizza delivery which, they say is 20 km away, and negotiate for a large number of pizzas to be delivered right to the door. They beg us to go and get them ourselves and not play these stupid tricks of giving false addresses, like a cinema, a theatre or a conference hall.

We are adamant and an hour later a half frozen guy arrives on a scooter. Under a melting layer of frost, his face is getting back some expression. He looks at me and says: “It’s my first day, you know, but I’m not sure it’s the thing for me.” I answer with absolute certainty: “Yes it is. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here now.” Confused he looks at me. As well as the usual tip, I feel like giving him something more and say: “Would you like a different job?” His eyes tell me that yes, he would. “Well, the best way to stop doing what you’re doing is to do it well. If you do it well, someone will soon ask you to do something else.” This time the boy looks at me disconcerted, quickly gathers up the change and escapes slowly without running from this weird group of fanatics.

We have no knives and the pizzas aren’t cut up: a job done without care, that pizza maker will continue to do just that for a long time and with no great success. We start rolling up the pizzas and biting into them animal style. Mozzarella cheese is everywhere. The children are swimming in olive oil up to their elbows, their faces covered with a strange tomato-flavored suntan cream. Fulvia arrives with a pair of scissors and cuts through the red tomato tape, making it easier for us. There’s nothing to drink. We are tempted to call back the boy who will have got back to base by now, but we have pity on him and all go to the toilets, to drink water from the tap, as we used to at school.

Fulvia and the girls are preparing the book stall for tomorrow and the children are helping (to make it a much more challenging task). We are ready! We go back to the flat, PJ’s, teeth, and everyone to bed.

It’s seven o’clock in the morning and we are all awake and out of bed for the seminar. The children are excited because there’s a special event in another part of the conference centre, for them to develop their talents (and best of all to play with other children!).

I go out into the garden and there’s that clear sharp cold that cleans the energies. It’s the right day for transformations. I look at the lake and I see the sunlight making its way down from the mountains as far as the darkness of the water. The sky is clear, giving me the feeling I can do everything without having to do anything.

We have our breakfast in the midst of chocolate, cornflakes and funny toy squirrels the children talk to. In a flash we are at the event. Hundreds of people are arriving and I am lost in the flow of greetings and ideas. Every now and then one of the children pops up, laughing and all sweaty.:-) There’s Daniele on the stage talking fast and furious. His determination is tangible.

It’s my turn and as usual I’m curious to hear what I am going to say. Behind me there’s a slide saying that I am number one in conversational hypnosis in the whole of the solar system, and even beyond, the responsibility is weighty. So as not to get anything wrong, I talk about everything except hypnosis. Particularly, it seems to me I’m speaking about money and its bizarre connection with the divine. One or two rightly get up and go, believing me mad. Most people stay and from their faces I sense I’m saying something grand. As this happens I feel like laughing and I continue to let myself be traversed by these strange ideas coming from I don’t know where. A part of me listens astounded at what I’m saying. The final applause is sincere and excited.

As I take the first step down from the stage it all disappears. I’ve no idea of what I’ve just spoken about. Fulvia comes towards me and says to me: ”Jolly gosh,  what happened to you? It’s one of the most beautiful speeches I’ve ever heard.”

After a while Riccardo, my son, comes over and says to me: “Daddy, at the end I was there too and I heard you. If you want to meet God you have to spend all your money and always keep the window open, even in winter, that’s right isn’t it?”. Well, more or less…

Three intense days, those just spent with Anthony Jacquin and his Team.
Games and impromptu hypnosis started the very first evening, as we were having dinner in Corso Como. Halfway between English and Italian, with some makeshift interpreters, who would then unfailingly become the subjects of the hypnotic demonstration.

It was an enjoyable evening, the prelude to the next two days filled with fun, innovative hypnotic techniques, performances, magic and mentalism that we have shared with 100 other people.

At the rate of one person every five minutes, somewhere in the hall somebody would plummet to the floor, hand over all their belongings or change their identity. Others remained stuck somewhere, others forgot their own names or home address for hours. All this was done by Anthony and his colleagues with lightness and a profound respect for everyone: a shared game between the hypnotist and the subjects who agreed to be part of this parallel reality.

Stage hypnosis, when done cleverly, teaches you just how much the perception of reality is “plastic” and easily modifiable. It shows you how quickly a person’s convictions can be changed and how the things we consider impossible are just a well-structured belief we constantly repeat to ourselves.

The next step will see hundreds of old and new hypnotists wandering the streets of Milan with Anthony, hypnotizing whoever will have the “misfortune” to get tangled in the Street Hypnosis’ net.

June seems so far away, but there are more than 70 people enrolled for the incredible next course: Street Hypnosis! After bringing chaos to London and Las Vegas, now it’s time for Milan!

This is the moment of mentalism and stage hypnosis.

This weekend Anthony Jacquin will be in Italy for a two day course on stage hypnosis suitable for mentalism.

Anthony is one of the best in the world among those who teach this skill.

Perhaps you may know Derren Brown, the English mentalist whose abilities keep astonishing the world.

I can assure you Anthony is just as good and, unlike Derren, still willing to teach us the secrets of this incredible subject.
Not for much longer I believe, as he’s already a TV star and he’s getting ready for the next big step.

There are already 93 people enrolled on the course, but I believe this is an opportunity for many others.
Just consider this: Anthony was also picked out by Igor Ledochowski to teach this kind of hypnosis during his courses. And Igor is a connoisseur.

I will be there.
I hope to see you in Milan.

PS.

Listen directly to Anthony’s voice as he presents his book: Reality is plastic

Gratitude is the only word that can hold all that has happened this weekend.
Just one word that tries to condense into a graphic sign the hundreds of emotions, ideas and energies mixed together in these two really special days.

Memories of fragments of a continual unpredictable flux, unscripted, in a total aware improvisation of an extraordinary energetic flux. The event begins and 300 curious people light up with emotion, manifest in their huge applause to welcome us.

Daniele unexpectedly gets down from the stage, leaving his place to an unknown participant who now sits on my right.

My mind travels fast and connects impossible dimensions, leaving to the words the task of letting everything out at once. The person beside me is completely immobile with our book in his hands and only barely breathing, listening. In that moment is the materialised synthesis of the special attention created in the huge room.

Daniele sits in the audience in front of me participating in the conversation with silent, intensely profound attention. Then the music and the affection of the people I know and the compliments of those I am meeting for the first time.

Then on the stage again with techniques, ideas and experiments absolutely improvised and perfect for the here and now of this moment. The energy is tangible and in the afternoon we make it even more present and stronger. In the huge circular room, Daniele is on the stage and in an instant and I find myself on the podium behind everyone and opposite him. Our conversation becomes continuous and more and more fascinating.

Fifteen people get up and get behind Daniele: they are his unconscious. Just as many more get behind me. The two powerful multifaceted unconsciouses speak to each other, listen to each other, provoke each other, clash with each other and make peace with each other and get to know each other much more deeply.

In the centre of the huge room, under the enormous crystal chandelier I go about recuperating Elisa who is at the centre of a circular vortexing energy alimented by the focalised attention of 300 people who love her, hate her, reject her and embrace her.

Another space-time leap and we find ourselves in an hypnotic induction initiated by me in which Daniele sleeps and awakes with awareness in the very dream guided by the dreamer himself, in a voyage back in time that throws us into the present. The awakening is a true awakening for each one of us.

It’s already tomorrow and I hear the voice of Daniele in the corridor, I hear the joy in his words. I come down in an hour and we are ready to start a fantastic day, so light and entertaining where learning takes place in just barely touching the surface and producing profound changes

The force of gravity disappears now and then: thoughts, objects and persons shift easily in space.

An immediate hypnosis creating a sensitive and powerful sea in a person who wasn’t there before and arrives in an instant on stage. The waves reach every single unconscious present and the collective unconscious of all.
And then the moment of choice: 60 people remain in the room, those with the strongest intent in the here and now. Welcome to the Monster Club. We will meet again, as you know, with at least 48 hours notice. ))

This journey through the USA has been one of the most exciting I’ve had in the last year and it’s been as if the Milton’s spirit has accompanied me in every action and in every place I’ve explored, outside me and inside me.

I’ve been thinking back to Dave and to the dozens of stories he told me and allowed me to relive. I would have wanted to be able to find a way to hold them all, but I am sure my unconscious has already done that for me.

I have also felt the affection of the many people that have followed me long-distance along this journey. I‘ve been thinking how wonderful it would have been if each one of you could have shared the same journey, or rather your own journey, before your own unconscious.

I’ve been thinking that it was only a momentary dream, an idea impossible to achieve: a place far away and difficult to reach for many.

Then I looked at it from a new perspective: does the place really constitute the dream or do stories give that place meaning and pass through people?

This magic belongs to the people and in this case to the great Milton Erickson and to those who, like Dave, have been able to look in his eyes and keep alive that small flame of hope and wonder lit in the soul of those who met him.

So I asked myself: who might it be, keeping that light Milton that transferred to so many people alive with the greatest intensity?
First I thought of his students, who spent some months with him, some even a few years. Then of his patients, who in a few sessions have been healed or have learned to look at their condition with new eyes. And then I thought of the most obvious thing, the one which is almost invisible. I thought of that little girl sitting in an armchair, behind Milton as he speaks to a patient, in an old photograph. I thought of Betty Alice, his daughter: the person who was raised by Milton and who went on to develop an intense passion for hypnosis and a great love for people.

I thought of just the person who knew him deeply and is still expressing his message and just at that moment I got Betty Alice Erickson’s answer, saying that she will hold a one-day seminar for us in Italy.

Betty Alice Erickson not only had the privilege of growing up in a remarkable family with an extraordinary man as her father and mentor, she also worked side by side with him for many years, continuing his immense legacy. A renowned family therapist herself, and a teacher and trainer at numerous workshops and seminars held around the world, she herself says in the book we are translating into Italian, Milton H. Erickson, M.D. An American Healer: “I am still learning from Dad, from the memories I have of him, from the knowledge he gave me and the wisdom he taught.” No one is more able to offer a multifaceted portrait and a profound insight into the life and work of a great therapist, a remarkable man and a true healer.

It will be a great honor to welcome her for an extraordinary day in Milan, on 14 May 2011.

I’ll be sitting in the front row at the event, what about you?