The first step in learning hypnosis is to seek out some information on the subject, just a you are doing right now. Many people who think "It's cool to be able to hypnotize" would like to learn it, because they think it will enable them to gain control over others or manipulate with them. Since hypnosis won't allow you to do any of those things, you shouldn't waste money on any books or course material about hypnosis, if that's your motivation to learn. There are people who learn hypnosis to gain greater insights about the mind, to help others in relation to their current work and some learn hypnosis to make a living of it, but with the intention to help every client the best way they can. If one or a combination of these are your motivation to learn hypnosis, you can proceed learning more about hypnosis.

One issue about learning hypnosis is how you do it. There are a great number of books about hypnosis, and there also exists a lot of "home study" courses consisting of CDs and DVDs where you can learn hypnotic techniques in your home. While these may be great when you already have attended live training, they are not the best way to learn the fundamental principles of hypnosis. When I started out I was a bit skeptical about hypnosis, and if it really worked, so I bought a book about it and by using the techniques in this book I succesfully hypnotized a family member. Since that conviced me that hypnosis really existed, I wanted to get some certificate. I found a place on the internet where you could be a home study course about hypnosis and achieve international certification. I bought the course, but looking back the material was great, but not for someone who had never had any live training. So much of conducting hypnosis consists of your confidence in the techniques you apply, and you will only gain this confidence from experience. That was the reason that I decided to attend a NGH approved live course. All the books I read and the DVDs I had seen was very valueable to my knowledge about hypnosis, but you will not find the experimental environment and the nice colleagues in your own home. If you are serious about hypnosis, then attend a NGH approved certification course!

A great place to start when you are looking for a training course is hypnosis.org, on this page is also a lot of other hypnosis-related material that you can order before or along with the course.