Fortunately, there are people like Kevin Stone out there to assist us.  For over
twelve years now, Stone has balanced two careers - one as a "stage hypnotist"
for entertainment, and the other as a "hypnotherapist" for clinical purposes.

     Stone is best known for his ability as an entertainer, having worked events
and parties all across the board - from University invites to major Hollywood
studio parties.  His creatively comic performances always involve audience
participation, leading many to dub him "The Master of Suggestion" as well as
the "Hypnotist to the Stars."  Actors and celebrities - including Jessica Hahn
and singer Rick James - have sought the hypnotist's help for a variety of reasons.
"They have issues like anybody else," says Stone.

     What aids Stone in these endeavors is education.  He studied at the Hypnosis
Motivation Institute, where a young skeptic learned the skills to become a master
of the subconscious.

     "I stumbled into it," Stone says.  "I took the basic 101 to get the three units.  I
was hooked after that."  After two years, he had learned hypnosis and hypno-
therapy, and soon after ventured into his current private practice in Sherman
Oaks.

     Stone learned that there are three portions of the mind:  the conscious mind
(our alert and awake cognizance);  the subconscious mind (the stuff dreams are
made of);  and what Stone calls a "critical filter" separating them both.

     At the end of the average day, the mind takes all the information it has
absorbed and filters it into the subconscious.  The conscious often conditions the
subconscious to assume habits or duties through repetition.  To be exact, Stone
says it takes our brains twenty-one repetitions for a habit to become automatic.

     Remember when you learned to drive?  You might not remember properly,
but it actually took your subconscious mind twenty-one full-fledged experiences
behind the wheel before it became a conditioned habit.  But the subconscious
also captures lingering fears, phobias, and negative habits - fears of flying,
smoking habits, to name a couple.  These are all things Stone learned to assist
his patients in overcoming.  A hypnotherapist like Stone helps the patient into a
trance whereby he or she can alleviate the fears and bad habits of the patient
through suggestions and commands to the subconscious.

     "Let's take a person who smokes," says Stone.  "What happens is this process:
I find where the problem is.  Most smokers become addicted to ... the nicotine?
They think it relaxes them.  In actuality it's the breathing they do that relaxes
them.  So, as hypnotists, we find the cause, we take out that cause and we
replace it with a positive."

     For this example, a hypnotist like Stone removes the nicotine factor.  "Then we
teach the actual person," Stone explains, "a self-hypnotic process where they
can breathe properly.  But a lot of it is already going to become automatic
because the mind is already programmed.  So there are reasons for picking up a
cigarette ... that are now gone."

     But what Stone practices is a far cry from the illusion of film and television.  "All
the crazy stuff you see in old movies and TV shows," says Stone, "... is not reality.
It's all sensationalism."  Particularly, Stone means to make a distinction from the
old notion that hypnotists seek to erase memories and steal secrets from victims'
minds.  "If I really had those powers, do you think I'd be working for a living?"

     In fact, during his schooling in hypnotherapy, Stone quickly abandoned all the
nonsense.  And what he did learn through practice

     Hypnosis, traditionally one of the more supernatural sciences in public opinion,
is actually, then one of the most natural processes.

     Take the above notion that we as human beings wander into hypnotic trances
a thousand times a day.  "I'll call it freeway hypnosis, truckers call it white line
fever.  They get hypnotized by the white lines on the road and after a while they
feel themselves getting very sleepy and sedated."

     The same thing happens to each of us - especially when we do not realize it.

     "Watching a good movie, reading a good book," are some of the scenarios
that allow people to fall into a trance-like state.  "Reading a good story ..." and
Stone adds, "hopefully when people read this story, they'll be hypnotized
because they'll be so absorbed by the verbiage in the sentence structure of the
article that it will actually hypnotize them ..."

     Stone likens the mind to a common household appliance.  "I sit behind a
computer all day long," says Stone, "and I couldn't tell you how to program that
thing.  If it went down, if it crashed, I wouldn't know what to do.  I'd have to
call a specialist in.  That's pretty much what I do as a hypnotherapist.  I help
people program their hard drives to take out the negatives or place in the
positive.  I'm a computer programmer."

     As much as he adores performing and hypnotizing groups of people at shows,
helping people program their biological hard drives in the clinical sense is a task
Stone enjoys immensely.  "I love the capability of actually helping people help
themselves," Stone says, "and empowering people to overcome any challenges
they have."