A Skeptic's Guide to Hypnosis

by Brad Default (Pseudonym), Dan Olson

Created as part of a youtube video about the nature of multi-level-marketing scams, "A Skeptic's Guide to Hypnosis" is an attempt by Dan Olson to write a 25,000 word book in 30 days, similar to the stressful situation of some ghostwriting organizations. After filming his process and describing the emotional and other ups and downs of the situation, Olson released this book accompanying the video with the following words:

102 pages, ebook

First published September 27, 2022

About the author

Brad Default is the throwaway pseudonym of Dan Olson, a Canadian YouTuber and documentarian who runs the Folding Ideas YouTube channel. You can find him online under his other pseudonym FoldableHuman.

Reviews

[Charlotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't think you can really evaluate this book without knowledge of how it came about (see Folding Ideas: Contrepreneurs), which I expect everyone on this book page to already know.

As dictated by this process, it absolutely has structural weaknesses and needs an edit, but it is also an enjoyable and competent summary of its subject.
For fans of the video, I recommend this!
(And I am confident that it's much better than almost all of the slop that comes out of the nonfiction content mill, although, as Dan himself discusses in the video that this is not an entirely fair comparison.)

[Olly Harkness · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly, despite having no original interest in the topic, I actually found myself enjoying reading this book? I like Olson’s tone in his YouTube videos, and that tone is very present in this hastily-written book.

[Juushika · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this because I'm the person that watches the special features (and I made a GoodReads page for it because, uh ... got me there). You probably shouldn't, for obvious reasons: it's not good. But for what it is (a non-fiction book written in a month for the purposes of a YouTube video) neither is it bad. The IDGAF attitude makes for a breezy readability and gently inappropriate sense of humor. The content is competent, mostly because the history of hypnotism ties nicely to a metanarrative about the grift ecosystem. 2.5 stars?