Ive dabbled a bit in it, never professionally though.
My main sources were Derren Brown's Trick of the Mind podcast style audiobook things, theres one on magic, memory and hypnosis. The hypnosis one isnt so much aimed to get you started doing hypnosis performances, but it does provide you with a very nice and adequately detailed description of just a quite basic relaxation style sequence, without typical stage or performance styled suggestions, but just imaginative stuff that is a great gateway to get you going; then he goes through and explains some of the phrasing and what makes certain things work and a few standard hypnosis concepts that go together generally to make most hypnosis work. After listening to it a few times, and properly studying what he says you will be able to hypnotise a person, but you wont turn it into an entertaining show, nor do it very fast without additional sources.
He also approaches it very sensibly and with a manner that I've tried to reflect in my own hypnosis, being very respectful of the practise, style and technique. Which as a result, I now much prefer over stereotypical 'comedy' hypnotism routines that tend to be very crude and potentially dangerous, I hope more people can start hypnosis like that, and help steer the whole perception away from that kind of performance.
Aside from mentioning taste in performance and technique, he also clears up common misconceptions and safety concerns very well; with a few included anecdotes including an experience that he had that almost potentially ended his career.
Finally, there is a brief section on his thoughts and ideas about what it is and what it means, which is also quite helpful and very interesting. So you get get quite a bit packed into the 30-40 minutes it takes to get through the whole thing.
So it gets 10/10 from me as a starting point, with that being said I'm not sure about how you would go about getting it any more, as I c ant really remember. It may have been some kind of podcast from his site, but I'm not sure; nor can I remember how much it cost. But if you can get it, its very highly recommended from me.
Aside from that I've spent a lot of time studying the book Reality is Plastic, which is fairly short, and written by Anthony Jacquin, who has released the Trilby Connection, and The Manchurian Approach, which have good reviews just about everywhere. There is also a RIP DVD, which is said to accompany the book that I have, but I've never seen it. Its got very good content, and goes into detail some areas that Derren doesn't in his thing. Its marketed towards beginners, but I feel it still expands upon what I learned from Derren's teaching, and the vast majority of the book contains more advanced material than the other source I mentioned, as it has a lot of actual specific routining, with timing and given lines and performance suggestion ideas and things. It has has very detailed descriptions of some of the more powerful and totally impromptu routines that Anthony has done on the streets with step by step instructions on how he did them.
The whole thing focuses a lot on 'street' style hypnosis, so he has described most of everything in a style where you would eventually take only a second or two after meeting a stranger to have them hypnotised. Its all meant to be totally impromptu stuff, sometimes performed on unsuspecting people.
I've read it through a few times, and gone over specific areas many times, taking notes and summarising and all that stuff, and it was all very beneficial, also recommended.
Downfalls: After listening to Derren, I feel like it misses out on a few little things, but if you were to perform totally in Anthony's style, I feel you wouldn't really need those things anyway.
You are very much paying for the content of the book, if you can call it a book, its really just a spiral bound short story in comparison to some hypnosis books. Its printed on glossy and fairly unpleasant paper, with no covers or spine; its also only 99 pages long, so depending on how much you read, thats not really very much at all. I love to read and collect books, so this kind of stuff may be a little more important to me than to some, but considering the price you pay, what you physically get is not really worth it. Considering the many years of his experiences and knowledge, and the production of the actual book, it feels like he just released for the sake of releasing it or something, I don't know much about what his other stuff is like, as I don't have any of it.
After unloading that a little bit, it was given to me as a gift from someone I care about dearly, so you know, what can I say about the value.
Anyway, still very helpful.
So in summary, Derren's bit, very highly recommended (And all of his other stuff too, I might add, hypnosis or otherwise). Anthony's, also good, very helpful, but I could quite easily see the potential for a better hypnosis source.
If you made it through all that, I'd say both of the sources I mentioned would give you more than enough to complete a very successful career in performing hypnosis, as really, once you learn what you need, you should start developing your own styles and performances and things, and all of the hypnosis that you do will be the result of mostly your effort and practise, rather than the quality of the source; but don't just learn it for free from the internet either.
I hope that I've said something that you can draw something valuable from.
