Editor | Excellence In Hypnosis Award

2026 Sean Michael Andrews

by Editor | Aug 9, 2026 | History award

Sean Michael Andrews receives the Gerald F. Kein OMNI Award for Excellence in Hypnosis for a body of work that has visibly advanced our profession.

Classically trained, he serves as Supervising Instructor for the Dave Elman Hypnosis Institute, sharing responsibility for preserving the very tradition that Gerald Kein and OMNI continued to build on. As Director and Senior Instructor of the Atlantic Hypnosis Institute he trains therapists and healthcare professionals, from certification to medical pain management and age regression.

He has taught this worldwide, written multiple books and video courses, and made instant and rapid inductions genuinely teachable for a whole generation of hypnotists. His work did not stop in the classroom.

He brought hypnosis for pain management to anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists, contributes to hypnosis research. In 2025 he travelled to Lviv as part of the HypnoRelief mission. At the Unbroken rehabilitation hospital he helped train 32 Ukrainian doctors, psychologists and therapists, and then worked with severely wounded soldiers. Those colleagues use hypnosis in their daily practice to this day.

Recognition of his work is broad and comes from well beyond his own circle, winner of multiple awards. Furthermore, he built a brand as the “World’s Fastest Hypnotist,” and as a stage hypnotist.

It is our pleasure to present the Gerald F. Kein OMNI Award for Excellence in Hypnosis to a professional who shares his knowledge without reservation and represents our field with quality, ethics and warmth.

August 8^th, 2026

The Jury

Ina Oostrom Ralph Benko Hansruedi Wipf

2026 Lorenz Biggler

by Editor | Aug 9, 2026 | History award

Lorenz Bigler has been working with hypnosis since his school years, in his own practice since 2008 and as a trainer since 2012. For years he treated people with chronic pain and chronic illness in the surgical centres of Biel and Langenthal, and it is in that clinical reality that his work found its shape: fast, precise and directed at self-efficacy.

He co-developed HypnoWaving®, an integration of EMDR, NLP and hypnosis for fears, phobias and burdensome memories. The method is now taught as an international certification course, described in the book Angstfrei! which he wrote with Hansruedi Wipf, and used by colleagues far beyond his own practice. He teaches in German and in French, at his own institute ‘NLP Labor’ and at institutes belonging to others, and he passes on his craft on stage as well, showing side by side with a colleague of a very different style that there is more than one way to do this work well.

In 2025 he travelled to Lviv as part of the HypnoRelief mission. At the Unbroken rehabilitation hospital he helped train 32 Ukrainian doctors, psychologists and therapists, and then worked with severely wounded soldiers. Those colleagues use hypnosis in their daily practice to this day.

For the development of a method that colleagues have made their own, for a body of teaching that spans two language regions, and for the courage to bring this profession to the place where the need was greatest, the jury presents Lorenz Bigler with the Gerald F. Kein OMNI Award for Excellence .

August 8^th, 2026

The Jury

Ina Oostrom Ralph Benko Hansruedi Wipf

2024 Award HypnoScience Project participants

by Editor | Feb 15, 2025 | History award

Sometimes good things take time. Sometimes, great ideas meet up with resistance and even hostility. Sometimes only tenacity and conviction can accomplish what you believe is the right thing to do. And if the final results are so solid, so robust, so convincing that the opposition and resistance grow silent, chances are that you have achieved something out of the ordinary – something that has never been achieved before. Pioneering work.

And for the results of this pioneering work, we have gathered today, not only to celebrate, but to say thank you to all those who supported the project in any way possible, believing in the project and sharing the vision.

If it were easy, others would have done it before us. But with the competence and support of the scientists and the administration from the University of Zurich, the editors, the reviewers, the OMNI Hypnotherapists who spent hundreds of hours hypnotizing, and all the amazing volunteers who participated as test subjects, all this would not have been possible.

Three separate forms of measurement, fMRI, EEG, and MRS, were used to study two different states of hypnosis – Somnambulism and the Esdaile State. 50 individuals underwent each all three types of measurement.

The papers were published on Frontiers (fMRI) and on Cortex from ScienceDirect (EEG). The third paper, MRS, is in the process of final peer review.

fMRI: Investigating functional brain connectivity patterns associated with two hypnotic states

EEG: An interhemispheric frontoparietal network supports hypnotic states

MRS: Neurochemical Dynamics during Two Hypnotic States: Evidence from Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

The HypnoScience® project is not about you and I. it is about what is right. Right for the people who are in search of relief from all kinds of mental and physical illnesses and challenges.

Without the wonderful support of all those involved, the HypnoScience^® project would not have been possible.

The jurors have therefore selected this exclusive group of professionals who have spent countless hours, late evenings, early Saturday or Sunday mornings, as the recipients of the 2024 Gerald F. Kein Award.

Congratulations and thank you to all involved.

November 8^th, 2024

The Jury

Ina Oostrom Ralph Benko Hansruedi Wipf

2022 Award for Robert Brenner

by Editor | Mar 10, 2023 | History award

Robert Brenner was a student and long time colleague of Jerry Kein for over 20 years while he was co-instructor during the OMNI hypnosis trainings, known by the students as Bob.

Bob has been a member of the NGH for the past 19 years and an inductee into the National Guild of Hypnotists Prestigious Order of Braid. He has been awarded The Life Time Achievement Award from Omni Hypnosis.

He is the Owner and Head Hypnotist of Unlocking Minds Hypnosis Center, currently retired. He has taught in Canada and Ireland, trained members of the FBI, Members of the Canadian Mounties, and many Professional Athletes. Robert is is the author of the critically acclaimed Petrified Minds.

Bob was a co-host in an interesting and sometimes controversial series of podcasts that Jerry made together with him. We will always remember the immortal and funny phrasing of these podcasts where Bob answered Jerry dutifully: Jerry: “Well say hello Bob” Bob: “Hello Bob!”

The juror has selected this eminent hypnotist because of the excellence quality of his work and the importance of his contribution to his profession.

8 November 2022

The Jury

2022 Award for Katheryn Napier

by Editor | Mar 10, 2023 | History award

Katheryn studied hypnosis with Gerald Kein at the esteemed Omni Institute of Hypnosis in Deland, Florida. There she was was certified in basic and advanced hypnotherapy and then went on to become a Board Certified Clinical Hypnotist. She has over 1,500 combined hours training with Dr. George Von Hilsheimer, William Baldwin and the National Guild of Hypnotists.

Katheryn Napier is also the founder of Avalon Hypnosis in DeLand Florida and brings over 20 years experience in the field of healing and hypnotherapy. She is a graduate of the Omni Hypnosis Training Center, one of America’s most prestigious hypnosis training facilities.

In the December 2012 issue of The Journal of Hypnosis … Kein recounts the story of a 45-year old single mom (of a 9-year-old girl), like family to the Keins, diagnosed with severe fibromyalgia … and then lupus, living in a state of indescribable agony so extreme as to drive her to suicidal thoughts. Gerald referred her to Katheryn. After brief treatment the reported the pain gone and she felt better than she had in years.

The juror has selected this eminent hypnotist because of the excellence quality of her work and the importance of her contribution to her profession.

8 November 2022

The Jury