A lot of people want to learn how to do covert hypnosis, however often don't know where to start. The best advice I can give is to learn regular forms of hypnosis first, and then once these are mastered, move on to covert hypnosis.

The reason for this is because you must be aware how to hypnotise people voluntarily, before you learn how to hypnotise them discreetly, outside of their conscious awareness. Understanding the theory of mind, such as the way the mind responds to suggestions, is imperative. Once you've learned these basic principles of hypnosis, the next step is to learn concepts behind how covert hypnosis works. Covert hypnosis works by discreetly planting suggestions within a person's subconscious, outside of their conscious awareness. This is achieved by constructing sentences that contain a hidden meaning that the person won't be able to consciously pick up, but which they should subconsciously.  An example would be saying to a person “You know I was walking through the forest the other day, looking at all the plants”. This would subconsciously bring up the suggestion of the word 'green'. Whilst this wouldn't be much in itself, you can use this basic technique to anchor certain suggestions through an action of some form, and trigger the anchors together in order to activate a covert suggestion.  For example, let's say you were speaking to someone and you said “You know that feeling you get when you know you really like someone?” and whilst doing so, you could tap the person's shoulder slightly, in order to place an anchor. You could then misdirect the person by changing the topic of conversation on to someone else, such as by saying “That's quite a deep feeling, have you ever felt like that with someone the first time you've met them?”, you're then forcing the person to think into their past.  What you're basically doing is you're associating whatever positive feelings the person had for a person they really liked in the past, to your anchor (you tapping their shoulder). You could then trigger this anchor at a later time in the conversation in order to bring back an emotional state of attraction.  This is essentially how to do covert hypnosis. You plant subtle suggestions within a conversation, create an anchor to those suggestions, and then trigger the anchor later on in order to bring back that suggestion or emotional state within the person. With practice, these techniques will become second nature.  

Steven Peliari is a Master Hypnotist and Chairman of the International Hypnosis Association. He has recently released his famed best selling course The Art Of Covert Hypnosis, which teaches even complete novices how to do covert hypnosis.