Yeah, amazingly enough it's not all that difficult, there's no special look into my eyes magicy kind of thing, all you're doing is persuading them that you have the power to hypnotise them through a series of little tricks, as the little tricks start to work they get more and more convinced that you can hypnotise them so you can in fact hypnotise them.

With a big trick like the elephant it's quite hard to tell exactly what's going on inside their head so you can't show them the elephant doesn't exist because you don't really know anything about it.

If you look at a simpler trick, one of the first things you do that could be called hypnosis is telling them that there is no number 7, so If you get them to count up to 10 they go 1,2,3,4,5,6,8,9,10

then hold up 10 fingers, ask them how many fingers you're holding up, they'll say 10, get them to count them
1,2,3,4,5,6,8,9,10,11

dispite this, try to convince them that there is a number 7, they're not having any of it

as them what's 4 + 4

8

what's 4 + 3

err, 8

so why are the 2 numbers the same

they just are, that's how maths works, don't you know anything

but if 4 + 4 = 8 = 4 + 3 then 4 + 4 - 4 = 4 + 3 - 4
so 4 = 3

no it doesn't that's just one of those tricks you can do with numbers

give them a maths book they'll claim it's wrong, give them a calculator they'll claim it's broken

The Human mind is very very open to suggestions, it has to be, when you are little things like food goes in your mouth, if you make a face and the wind changes you'll be stuck like that, etc. go straight into the brain, it's the way parents can teach their children easily, because they're very gullible. The rest of your life goes into building upo your defences against bad suggestions, when you get older you have a good solid wall of reasoning which checks new Ideas do see if they're worth taking on board rather than going straight in, it's why older people find learning more difficult.

Next time you finish a can of coke or something give someone the empty can and say "hold that" then walk off, you've suggested they hold the can before their defences can react, they're left holding the can thinking "why did I take this, I don't want it"

If when someone is young you can implant the Idea that there is a god and jesus was his son and the bible is great etc it goes straight into the brain, then the defences are built up around it, it's like our freind mr no 7 wake up, defences back on 7 what a stupid Idea, there's no number 7.