David Quigley, Alchemical Hypnotherapy and Mark Johnson's Training

Why I Went Back for More Training

By 2014 I had already completed a 500 hour hypnotherapy program and received certification through the American Council of Hypnotist Examiners. I had worked with clients for years, and I had recently begun teaching.

But teaching has a way of showing you how much more there is to learn.

I wanted additional hypnosis training, not because I had stopped believing in what I already knew, but because I wanted more depth. I wanted new tools. I wanted to see how another experienced teacher approached the work.

That is what led me to David Quigley.

Somatic Healing in Denton

David came to Denton, Texas, to teach a Somatic Healing class. Denton was familiar ground for me. I had gone to school there and earned my master's degree in music there, so it felt meaningful to return for another kind of learning.

My wife and I attended the class together.

I had heard of David before. Years earlier he had taught at a hypnosis conference, but I had already booked my flight home and did not change it to take the class. Later I heard from a friend who had attended a Somatic Healing demonstration and described a powerful experience. That story stayed with me and made me want to learn more.

So when David came to Denton in 2014, I went.

The class gave me a fresh way to think about how the body, emotion, memory, and hypnosis can meet in one process. It also made me curious enough to go further.

Santa Rosa and Alchemical Hypnotherapy

Later that year I traveled to Santa Rosa, California, to study with David at the Alchemy Institute. I took modules in February and returned during the summer to complete the broader Alchemical Hypnotherapy training.

I flew into San Francisco, took the bus up to Santa Rosa, and spent time in a beautiful part of Northern California. But the real reason I was there was the class.

David's work is called Alchemical Hypnotherapy. His manual presents it as a practical system for working with the client's inner world, using hypnosis, imagery, emotional expression, inner family work, inner guides, past life regression, and related processes.

The method draws on several traditions, including Jungian ideas about archetypes, Gestalt oriented work, inner child practices, and transpersonal hypnosis. David's official description frames the approach as an inner guide based form of hypnotherapy rather than a one size fits all script.

What mattered most to me was not the label. It was the invitation to look at familiar processes in a new way.

The Line in the Book That Explains the Heart of It

Alchemical Hypnotherapy, A Manual of Practical Techniques by David Quigley.

David's book is not just theory. It lays out a series of hands on processes. Trance induction, etheric plane communication, changing emotional memories, inner child work, inner family work, inner and external guides, past life regression, and a conference room process.

One short passage captures the part of the approach that stayed with me.

“The primary purpose of Alchemical Hypnotherapy is to assist each of us in contacting our own True Guides.” David Quigley, Alchemical Hypnotherapy, p. 4.

That is a good way to understand why the work appealed to me.

The practitioner is not supposed to become the all knowing authority. The point is to help the client develop a more direct relationship with their own inner resources. David's system uses names such as inner mother, inner father, inner mate, inner healer, and other guides. Someone else might use different language, but the essential idea is familiar to me. A person often has more wisdom, strength, and capacity for self understanding than they realize.

A Teacher Open to Past Life Work

Not every hypnosis teacher is open to past life exploration. David was.

I took his past life class and picked up several things that I still use when I work with clients. I liked that the training did not treat past life work as something separate from the rest of a person's inner life. It could be explored alongside the same questions people bring to any meaningful session. Relationships, recurring patterns, emotional challenges, purpose, and the wish to understand themselves more fully.

The title of one chapter in David's book, Empowering the Client, also says something important about his overall orientation. The best work does not make people dependent on a practitioner. It gives them ways to participate in their own process with more awareness and responsibility.

That is a perspective I appreciated.

The Name That Made Me Look Twice

One part of David's material caught my attention right away. In his book I saw a process called etheric plane communication.

I remember thinking, “That sounds so cool. What is that? I have to learn this.”

Then I read more closely and realized that I was already familiar with something very similar. It was a process I knew through Gestalt therapy, presented through David's Alchemical Hypnotherapy framework.

That was a valuable lesson in itself.

Sometimes you are not learning a completely new technique. Sometimes you are seeing a familiar process through a different lens, and that new lens helps you understand it or use it in a more thoughtful way.

Getting to Know David

The training was more than coursework. I spent a good amount of time around David, including several lunches where it was just the two of us. That gave me a chance to know him beyond the formal classroom setting.

David is a character. He is also an interesting teacher who has spent many years developing and teaching his own approach. The Alchemy Institute identifies him as the founder of its training program and describes a long career in transpersonal hypnosis, inner guide work, and past life regression.

For me the personal conversations mattered. They reminded me that every teacher brings their own history, style, and way of making sense of this work.

The important thing is not to copy someone else's style. The important thing is to learn what is useful, test it in real life, and find what becomes true in your own practice.

What I Took Into My Work

The Alchemical Hypnotherapy training reinforced something I already believed. People have more inner resources than they usually realize.

A client may connect with an inner child, an inner parent, a guide, a healer, a remembered experience, or simply a wiser part of themselves. The names can vary. The imagery can vary. The important part is helping the person explore their own inner experience with curiosity and compassion.

I did not leave Santa Rosa trying to become David Quigley.

I left with additional tools, a broader point of view, and a renewed respect for how many different ways there are to help someone move toward understanding, creativity, connection, and change.

That is what good training does. It does not replace who you are. It gives you more ways to be useful.

David Quigley and Learning Hypnosis Through a Different Lens