#hypnomedia

[parasex-jamboree]

What is the most memorable bit of hypnomedia you have seen?

This sent me down a rabbit hole of trying to remember this movie called 'Magic Magic' from 2013, a wholly unremarkable psychological thriller, but the scene stuck in my head because of Michel Cera loudly yelling "Dance like a whore!"

[hypnoticharlequin]

Dr. Dante: From 60s Hypnotist To Modern Criminal

I have quite the story for you all today, involving stage hypnosis, crime, and one very interesting man. 

For a little context, I’ve been reading a book on the history of Knotts Berry Farm, the berry stand that slowly morphed into a theme park that today is the 15th most visited in the world. 

In this book, there is mention of a performance space that held many different shows over the years. One of these was a hypnotist, going by the name of Dante. 

Now the second I heard that name I had to look into the guy, I was hoping I could find a poster of his to add to an upcoming hypnosis posters write up, just because Dante is a great name.

But the story of Dante is one that fully deserves its own post as it is quite the twisted little tale. 

But where to start, well normally with such things I would do the basic historian thing of giving you a person’s name and their date of birth. But with Dante, we actually don’t know. 

So, Dante’s real name is Ronald Pellar, however, for most of his career, he said his name was Ronald Dante. But he has used over 40 aliases over the years, for reasons that might become apparent later...

Dante also gave differing people totally different accounts of his life, in a 2006 interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune he said he was born in 1920, however, in a Chicago Tribune article from 1985 he is said to be 57 meaning he would have been born in 1927 or 1928. 

He told the interviewer in 2006 that he had grown up in  Kuala Lumpur, where an attack left him and his brother orphans. They were then sent to an orphanage in Chicago, only for young Dante to leave at age 11 to become a street kid, making money by selling counterfeit goods.

However, his ex-wife, Lana Turner (who we will get onto later) said that Dante had told her that he grew up in Singapour and had a doctorate in psychology from a university in that country. However, reporters who investigated the claim found this to be totally and utterly bogus.

Every part of Dante’s past is honestly debatable with so many alternative histories floating around, from both his own mouth and the mouths of others linked to him. 

The story of the Dante starts in the 1960s, where, using the full name Ronald Dante, he was making waves as a hypnotist in nightclubs and bars. His deep voice and piercing eyes made him quite the imposing figure on stage, something that translated into many good reviews for his act. 

I was actually lucky to find a full scan of Dante’s press kit from the time, a collection of articles and other things he would send to those who were curious about booking him (however even this isn’t safe from accusations of fakery as I’ll mention later). 

Now, this might look weird, but this is how press cuttings were sent in this era, with the banner at the top. This was to show that you had been mentioned in a major publication. 

This specific issue is from October 16th, 1962, showing that Dante is playing to decently sized clubs and is apparently getting good reviews, even if those reviews are rather generic for the era. 

Something that interests me is the genie’s lamp motif used for his logo. Because it doesn’t really work with the name “Dante” then again, nor does the very “oriental” font they decided to use. Though you could likely see this as an attempt to mix the Arabic and Asian trends that were decently popular in the US during the period. 

Also of note is that Dante often used the nickname/tagline “Mr. Hypnotism” during his career. Interestingly you often see him using Mr. Hypnotism as more of a stage name, with it getting top billing over the Dante name. 

A big part of the press pack is letters of recommendation from various companies and venus commending Dante on a great show and for selling the venue out. 

This is a good example of this, apparently, in 1965 Dante was breaking records at a supper club. 

There are also other letters from the period from organizations that hold a lot more clout to the modern observer. 

In 1967 and 1968 Dante did shows in front of the US Airforce and US Army, one in Vietnam and one in Bangcock. 

These glowing reviews would be great for a performer, as a recommendation from two large government agencies would pretty much guarantee you work in the future.

Of note, I actually have a scan from a review of one of Dante’s Hong Kong shows, very likely from the same series of shows that the airmen attended. 

It is quite an interesting review, making a point that locals don’t think that speaking acts ever sell, due to the audience only being fluent in Chinese (and that Chinese acts apparently don’t speak?). 

But of interest is the fact that the reviewer volunteered to be one of Dante’s subjects and actually gives a write up of the action from the subject’s perspective. 

To summarize: 

-The subjects are told to stand with their hands relaxed, heels together. 

-The subjects then stand and look up at the ceiling, taking a deep breath  

-The subjects close their eyes, start to breathe normally and then count. 

-Dante then says when he touches them on the shoulder he wants them to visualize themselves as steel, and himself as a magnet, pulling them towards him.

-If they feel it, the subjects are to fall forward where Dante will catch them. 

This does not work on the reporter who is sent back to his chair, he does mention that he considered falling anyway just to keep the show going and notes that during the suggestions, several other people ended up coming back to their chairs meaning they might have had the same idea he did.

Dante even comments to him later that a good subject has “an urge to show off”. 

The acts performed during this show included: 

-Their arms are made of steel and they are unable to drop them

-Watching a funny film 

-Cheering on a racehorse

-Hiding the winnings from said racehorse 

-Feeling themselves pricked with a pin so they jump 

-Thinking they are naked 

-Dancing 

Then the subjects are sent back to the chairs, acting like the Road Runner. 

Interestingly this set would pretty much work today, which really shows you how little stage hypnosis shows have changed since the mid-60s. 

Amusingly the reviewer is actually surprised the Road Runner bit worked, due to the character being “popular 15 years ago” and suggests Dante should try making his subjects James Bond instead! (Which is honestly a good suggestion Goldfinger had been a smash hit in 1964 and Thunderball would make a decent amount at the box office when it came out in 1965 despite being considered the weakest Bond film today).

I would like to quote one of the final paragraphs verbatim: 

I don’t pretend to know as much about hypnotism as this highly-rated American performer who has made a half-million people into his slaves on stage. But I was bothered when Dante failed to remove the suggestions he planted. 

If hypnotism has the power to break bad habits as Dante suggests, and if his subjects were really hypnotized, then these eight people should jump as though stuck with a pin everytime someone resembling Dante stamps his feet.

This is honestly weirdly switched on for a review from the 60s, it honestly had me surprised. 

Dante’s press pack does include a recommendation from the Cafe De Paris in Hong Kong 

This poster is pretty interesting as it doesn’t really explain what the act is, minus the fact that two women will be present. In fact, the girls get a much more detailed billing than Dante himself. 

Now, this could be the venue working on the idea that “speaking acts don’t sell” or it is proof that Dante already had quite a name for himself in Hong Kong. There is also the third option of bad cropping as the edge of the poster looks very badly cut, as if it was quickly done with scissors so there might have been more to it. 

These were not the only international shows Dante did and his press pack contains a poster for a show in Mexico along with a newspaper cutting about it.

This poster has an interesting collage look to it, and once again Dante is advertised with this strange oriental font. For those curious, the text under Dante explains how his voice is insured by Lloyds of London for one million dollars. This is actually pretty common as Lloyds of London does allow performers to take out insurance on their talents. They have insured, amongst other things, Michael Flatley's legs, the hands of the1932 world yo-yo champion Harvey Lowe, the body of Ric Flair, Bruce Springsteen’s vocal chords and Tina Turner’s legs. So Dante having a policy totally makes sense.

Interestingly the cutting says that Dante has been in “five motion pictures” something I can’t find anything about, I’ve checked IMBD and every other film database I know of and can find a single one.

One other cutting from the pack really stands out to me, apparently, Dante played an 80,000 seat venue with the band Cream. 

This is advertised as the first time a top rock group had performed with a hypnotist, but weirdly the article only mentions Dante and not Cream themselves. 

Dante’s show seems mostly the same as in Hong Kong with a few minor additions of people being attacked by movie monsters, a trip through Disneyland (Disneyland being a weird recurring theme with Dante) and “sleeping in each other's arms”.

The ending of this article is really something, mentioning one “attractively packaged young lady,” being made to think she was a stripper and that she: 

had discarded all but her undies before Dr. Dante tragically stopped her. Several sympathetic audience members, undoubtebly disliked by the remaining viewers, ran up to cover her

Now, I’m actually a big fan of Cream and yet I had never heard of this show. And I can’t seem to find any good record of it at all. Now Cream was not together long so we know this happened sometime between 1966 and 1968. 

I would further presume it is post-1967 as I don’t think Cream was selling out big venues like this before Disraeli Gears came out. This is also due to them being described as “one of the world’s heaviest rock groups” which fits their post-Disraeli Gears sound.

Now there is a photo of Dante and Cream.

But there are a lot of photos of Dante with people as Dante loved getting his picture taken and often used the celebrities he was “friends” with as a marketing point. 

My Eric Clapton based conundrums aside, however, the biggest moment for Dante’s career was in 1969 when Dante married the actress, Lana Turner.

 Lana Turner had quite the life and most of it was in the public eye. The famous (and totally fake) legend says that the girl was spotted at the lunch counter of  Schwab's Pharmacy in the 1930s. She was deemed so beautiful she was hired on the spot. 

By the 1940s Lana was seen as a sex symbol and was a common pin-up for the troops fighting in Europe, and her role in the 1946 film “The Postman Always Rings Twice” cemented her as a powerful dramatic actress. 

However, by the late 60s, she was on a downturn, her films were doing less well at the box office and MGM, her home studio, were having money issues due to having to divest from their theatres. 

When she met Dante in an LA nightclub, they started a whirlwind romance that ended up in Lana’s 7th marriage. 

Now, this is where some element of fakery appears. As part of the press kit, there is this cutting: 

Compare this release to the one I showed above (and one I found myself from a newspaper archive). Note how the former focuses totally on Turner and this second one focuses mostly on Dante. 

The source I got this from says it is fake and isn’t something the LA Times ever published and while I don’t have the resources to verify this myself, I actually believe them. 

While Dante might have been a decently big name, he was not up to the level of Turner, who was a grand star even at this point. Also, this says Dante’s first wife was movie star Brigette Bardot which is totally not true. 

Bardot's list of partners via marriage is: 

Now, Bardot did say she had over a hundred lovers both men and women and Dante could have maybe been one of them. But they were never legally married, really throwing this cutting into question. 

One other cutting from the pack is called into question by the compiler as well: 

Basically, it is a review from Variety (another source I, unfortunately, cannot verify for myself) and says that Dante is better than any of the other hypnotists the reviewer has seen over the past 20 years, going as far to say the last time the venue was that full was when Frank Sinatra still owned the place. 

Also, something to note is that both of these cuttings referred to him as Dr. Dante, despite him not actually holding the necessary qualifications. While there is a long tradition of hypnotists adding Dr. to their name, this is an interesting deviation from other, legit, cuttings of the time. 

However, it does note that Dante hypnotized 27 people and “took them to Disneyland” which sounds like a euphemism but does seem to be a running part of his act. 

With a famous marriage, Dante’s fame grew, netting him more and more bookings. However, the marriage only lasted six months. Turner says she wrote Dante a $35,000 check to help with an investment but Dante ran off with the money. 

Turner then accused Dante of stealing $100,000 of jewelry from her and ended up suing him. At the trial, Dante produced a document that said he got $200,000 if he and Turner broke up. Turner said she had never seen the document before and the court ruled in her favor, making Dante pay her $25,000 in damages. 

It really seemed like the divorce didn’t slow down Dante one bit, he continued to do shows and continued to get good reviews. However, in 1975 things took a sour turn.

Dante was arrested for trying to convince another man to help him in a plan to kill rival hypnotist Dr. Michael Dean. Unluckily for Dante, this man happened to be an undercover cop who arrested him.

Dean and Dante had known each other for 15 years, with Dante even saying that he and Dean had learned hypnosis together. Dean, however, said that Dante had copied his act and that Dante had wanted to move into the San Diego county area where Dean had a long-running show. 

Dante’s lawyer argued that Dante had an addiction to prescription barbituates and these impaired his decision making and Dante himself argued it was a set-up and that Dean had paid off the cop.  Despite this Dante was found guilty of attempted murder in the second degree and sentenced to 7-20 years in prison. Dante went into Arizona State Penitentiary from February 1976 to June 1978, when he was released on parole. 

Apparently being an ex-felon didn’t hurt his bookings, with him quickly getting a two-year stint at Knotts Berry Farm. 

In 1985 Dante set up a hypnosis education course and took out massive ads in newspapers in Houston, Portland, Atlanta and Chicago offering the chance to become a hypnotherapist. 

He was now calling himself Dr. Dante, saying that he got the qualification from the American Hypnotherapists Association or the AHA. The AHA was actually something Dante had set up himself for the sole purpose of giving himself the fake title. 

Luckily, two journalists went to the Chicago presentations, Jeffrey Zaslow of The Wall Street Journal and Eric Zorn of The Chicago Tribune. both of whom give wonderful write-ups of the day. 

Those who responded to the adverts in the Chicago Tribune offering “Free” hypnosis seminars would be greeted into the room by music which is described by Zorn as:

``The Official Album of Disneyland and Walt Disney World,`` a pastiche of buoyant Americana and a salute to ripe and immense fantasies, the very things that had drawn the crowd. 

Once again Disneyland playing a role. I’m a nerd who actually has a copy of that album and I can only presume the music was from The Main Street Electrical Parade mostly because I presume the music from “The Country Bear Jamboree” was a little too on the nose.

Zorn goes on to describe the advert from the Tribune a little, noting that it features many pictures of Dante with different famous people.

Down the right side of the page, in an attempt, one assumes, to lend credibility to his free seminar, were three snapshots of Dr. Dante, each one showing off a different hairdo of his. One photo was of Dr. Dante in brown, wavy locks ``with wife, movie star Lana Turner.`` Another was of Dr. Dante with short, white hair ``being interviewed by Johnny Carson.`` And the last was of Dr. Dante in short, black ringlets ``with first heart surgeon Dr. Christian (sic) Barnard.``

Zaslow also makes note that these pictures are on the wall of the room the talk is held in, really trying to make Dante seem prestigious. 

However, one of these photos would cause an issue. The photo of Johnny Carson actually led to Carson suing Dante for $51 million. Carson’s lawyer saying: 

the photo was taken with Carson's permission 'sixteen or seventeen years ago,' but Dante has no right to use it in advertising.

While I can’t be certain, I think this might be the picture in question. It is one of the pictures featured in Dante’s press pack. 

To note, while Johnny Carson was the host of The Tonight Show, this picture is not on the set of that show as Dante was never on it. When asked about it by Zorn, Dante said it was when Carson was doing something else, but he couldn’t confirm what exactly that other thing was. 

Once people have had time to enjoy the music and to soak in the various images of Dante hobnobbing with the rich and famous, Dante would come onto the stage and pitch the full course to those there, saying such things like: 

“An ex-cab driver and a former Western Union deliveryman "with a twitch" each earn $12,000 a week as hypnotherapists”

"hypnotherapists can be in every neighborhood, like 7-Elevens."

Dante also claimed that the Wall Street Journal called Hypnotherapy the boom career of the 1980s, something that the Wall Street Journal kindly denied by suggesting he got them mixed up with “another publication”.

Those who were swung by the pitch were asked to put down $395 dollars to do the full weekend course.

During these seminars, another man called Bob Gold would join Dante to talk about the Mind Science Church, a group that had formed in 1949 and one that Dante was on the board of directors for. 

Basically, the Mind Science Chruch was a breakaway group of Christians who disagreed that hypnotism was evil and formed the MSC as a non-denominational sect to promote the practice. 

To quote Zorn (who throws a lovely bit of shade): 

They professed that hypnosis and prayer were very similar activities and that ministers were analogous to coaches or teachers. They used the biblical passage wherein God puts Adam to sleep as the scriptural cornerstone of their faith. Gold can quote it for you, roughly. 

Now, I think the passage they mean would be Genesis 2:21 which in the King James Bible reads: 

And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

Their aim was to get as many of their congregation certified in hypnotherapy as possible, saying that: 

`We have no priests or ministers,` he says. `Except that everyone who learns hypnotherapy, in our eyes, is a minister of our faith, whether he belongs to another faith or not.`

 Which is very interesting as it makes me a minister for them, which is impressive considering I hadn’t heard of them until like a week ago.

Those who went to the full weekend course would be greeted on Saturday morning by Dante in a doctor’s coat and stethoscope who would work to teach them all about hypnosis.  

Dante started by explaining that all hypnosis is self-hypnosis and that the basics can be taught in an hour, but the real skill comes with practice. He then went on to give attendees a basic script to use and did a basic Q&A session. 

He then handed out spiral disks to use as a fixation object, along with pink and blue cards containing the “hypnotic script” and had attendees practice on one another for a while. 

On Sunday evening Dante handed out diplomas and offered to sell those present a $198 kit containing fixation objects and other things to help them be a hypnotherapist, before giving two final pieces of advice. 

The first was to decorate your office with books and diplomas and the second was not to try and hypnotize family and friends as they know you too well and wouldn’t take you seriously. 

While you might doubt these courses would sell, the ones held in 1986 netted Dante $3 million, putting him in the Guinness World Records book for “highest ever lecture fee”.

It should be noted, while obviously a scam this was before things like hypnosis and hypnotherapy were regulated and thus anyone could declare they had a diploma in hypnotherapy without fear of repercussion or legal trouble. 

Dante also set up a permanent make-up college called “Perma-Derm Academy”. This college offered to teach makeup artists how to do permanent make up using tattoos, something Dante insists he was one of the first people to do. However, the school was highly sub-par with several students saying they were taught how to apply the makeup by using ballpoint pens on cantaloupe melons. 

This got him into legal trouble as according to the Federal Trade Commission, he misrepresented his school as an accredited institution and misrepresented what the course offered. He was ordered to immediately stop and repay $143,750 of the almost 1.5 million dollars he had made running the school. As part of this settlement, he was made to agree to not run such institutions again. 

In the April of 1997, the FTC started “Project Scofflaw” aimed at enforcing FTC court orders and making sure those who had agreed to not run misleading programmes actually followed through. It turned out Dante had not and was still offering the misleading programme. 

In fact, he had just renamed his company to “Permanetics Inc” and he had also set up the “American Professional Institute” a paralegal training firm which advertised that its graduates could make lots of money, despite the school holding none of the required accreditations. 

Dante was arrested and was sentenced to 67 months in prison for contempt of court. However, before the last day of his trial in the November of 1997 Dante is said to have told his lawyer that they should flee “either north or south”.  Dante chose to flee to Mexico and was sentenced in absentia in 1998.

Dante lived on his yacht just outside the Mexican city of Ensenada for two years. However, in 2000 ABC featured him and his scams on their show 20/20. Apparently, Dante gave an interview from the deck of his yacht, this interview was said to be heavily mocking of those who had fallen for his scams, however, I can’t find footage from the show to confirm this. 

Soon after Dante was arrested re-entering the US and sent to prison for the crimes he committed in 1998. Dante insists that the Mexican federal police kidnapped him and dragged him back across the border but no record of such actions has ever been found.

In 2003, while serving his 1998 contempt charge, the FBI indited Dante once more for mail fraud. Since 1996 Dante had been running the “Columbia State University“ a correspondence school that alleged to be an accredited university but was, in fact, a diploma mill. 

The CSU ran adverts in major publications declaring: 

University Degree in 27 Days!

Bachelor's, Master's, Doctorate

Legal, legitimate, and fully accredited. School rings available.

Its pitch was that students could use their work history and partially completed courses to get a degree in record time provided they paid the fee and did the tiniest bit of work (which mostly amounted to filling out a form). 

To quote from the official FBI inditement: 

According to court documents, Pellar set up Columbia State University in 1996 at a business office in San Clemente. CSU falsely represented itself to be a government-approved university in Louisiana and it falsely claimed to have faculty and accreditation sufficient to confer bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees by correspondence in as little as one month. Pellar created promotional materials, including a university catalog, that falsely told prospective students that CSU had an administration composed of Ph.Ds and medical doctors and that it had received full accreditation from legitimate accreditation agencies. The catalog cover featured a photograph of a building that bore no relation to the fictitious CSU or its San Clemente office. The mailing address was in Metairie, Louisiana, but in reality that was only a mail forwarding service that simply resent all correspondence to CSU's addresses in Southern California. The indictment alleges that, in November 1997, Pellar fled the U.S. and continued to direct the activities of CSU from Mexico through subordinates.

The indictment alleges that CSU took in more than $10 million from students around the country in tuition fees during the scheme. The indictment alleges that students around the country were defrauded because CSU gave them the impression that it was a legitimate academic institution, but in reality, it was nothing more than a diploma mill.

The US Senate hearings into CSU had a former employee testify that while the CSU has a gross income of around $20 million it had no educational staff and no facilities and that the ten-person board of directors was nothing more than a list of made up names and titles. 

The school had even advertised that Joans Salk, the inventor of the Polio vaccine had an honorary Ph.D. from them. A claim that was only removed when Salk himself complained about the lie. 

Dante pleaded guilty to nine counts of mail fraud, he was ordered to pay back $45,835 and forfeit the $1.5 million yacht as well as serving 8 months in prison.

Upon his release, Dante mostly stayed out of the public eye, in 2006 it was said he was living in a trailer park. However, in 2010 he was thrust into the limelight once more as a film about his life, entitled “Mr. Hypnotism” was shown at SXSW.

To end, I would like to quote part of J. Harry Jones’ interview with Dante from his 2006 Chicago Union-Tribune Article:

He proudly produces a copy of “Marquis Who's Who” from 1993, which lists Ronald Pellar as holding a doctorate from Columbia State University and of having been a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Is the Marine Corps reference true?

Dante smiled slightly. “Of course not,” he said.

[deeperforme]

This product makes your thoughts go poof!

(credit to @jukeboxemcsa)

[binaural-histolog]

Interview with Wiseguy at Mindquake 2018

binaural-histolog: So how did all this get started?

WiseGuy: That's a big question.

BH: Okay, let me back up. So it used to be a very small scene. Brian David Phillips was doing things on Yahoo, and there was hypnovideo, the Maestro, etc. And then at some point it got too big to track. What happened?

WG: Well, the first thing I went to was probably 2007-2008, which was Hypnoticon. There was another conference, Hypnocon, that has been going on for like 15 years or so, but it's always been exclusive to the gay men's community so the rest of us didn't know about it.

At that time, I was a fiction writer. I posted on mcstories.com. And when I got there, it was a big surprise how many people read my stories, because if something is really popular, you'll get two, maybe three emails if you're lucky. There's no reddit or like button. There's no feedback. Simon keeps everything minimal and pure. He'll publish anything with very few exceptions, and he'll do no editing on it. It's his... what's the word? It's his aesthetic. And then suddenly you get all these people coming up and they know you and they like your stuff.

So Hypnoticon was a big success, and Mephki and Buddy [DrSlashBlight] got the idea of putting a convention together. Buddy was the face, and Mephki was the brains, the organizer. Buddy had this tremendous skill of being able to stand in the middle of the room and say "Guys, this is what we're going to do and it's going to be great and you're going to love it." And Mephki pulled everyone together and made it all happen. That was NEEHU, 2009. Mephki and Buddy had the New England Hypnosis Group, and there was a recreational hypnosis group next door, and they knew Lady Ru'etha, and she said come to this thing, and that was NEEHU 1. It was a single day. I sat in a couple of panels, talking about erotic hypnosis.

It was literally an unconference and a play party at night, in a not so great part of town. I was surprised that we didn't get in trouble with the police, and we realized later that the illegal police biker bar was next door, so the police weren't going to interfere with any disturbances around that area.

So NEEHU got bigger and bigger, and these groups all started to meet up, and so the people that were already into this found out about it. There were some things independent of NEEHU. Lee Allure and MrDream had their own thing that they run, DeepMindDarkwood. It's a camp, they keep it limited down to 45 people and that's it. But there were more people that wanted to join. Kansas City and Texas had a bunch of stuff happen. Black Rock City. And now there's five things happening yearly, and meetup groups throughout the country.

BH: Do you think there's a reason why everything started to come together in 2008?

Yes and no. All the elements were there, it could have happened earlier or later. But all the right things had to happen in the right order. NEEHU really needed Mephki and Buddy to kick it off, and there needed to be enough meetups and enough groups to keep it going. And there was a lot of learning in the community.

BH: What has the community learned?

WG: Oh, so much. In the beginning, informed consent was not a thing. If you were at a conference, it was assumed that you were consenting. You'd walk up to someone in the hallway, say "wanna see something cool?" and if they said yeah, you'd drop them. That's just... you can't do that now. It's not acceptable.

Safety and ethics was not a thing. There was a talk in NEEHU that was literally "Why do we need ethics?" And that's changed so much now. Safety and ethics are the first thing you learn, and every conference has a code of conduct.

BH: What do you think the community still has to learn?

WG: We still have to learn how to handle our shit properly.

We know how to handle the people who are clueless. We know how to handle the people who are obviously bad. We still have to figure out how to handle the people who are predators, the truly manipulative people. They'll pick their targets carefully, and it'll be someone who is new, and it happens alone in a room. There's no way to know what happened. It's one person's word against another. And it may not even be deception, they may believe their version of events completely. Belief is different from reality. These people will have friends, they have defenders, they'll say all the right things. So it's hard. There may not be a good answer.

BH: I remember reading a book on abuse called Why Does He Do That, and realizing I'd met abusers and seen them operate, and still hadn't put it all together. It is hard. On the other hand, I was encouraged by Divney's discussion about always believing the accuser by default.

WG: It's more complex than a single answer, though. I don't have a problem with BEHIVE's policy in their application, but my concern is that it doesn't scale well to larger events where the stakes are a lot higher than being banned from a local munch.

Mephki: This isn't a legal argument though. There's no standard beyond a reasonable doubt. It's a private party you can't go to, not going to jail or having your children taken away from you.

WG: Agreed, but it's still damage. It's something we haven't figured out yet.

[Much discussion ensues, in which everyone in the room weighs in. Everyone has cogent and nuanced arguments that I could not write notes on fast enough.]

BH: What's really impressed you lately? What's improved in the community that you didn't predict?

WG: Oh! Standards have evolved so much. There are so many bright young voices. Our representation has improved so much. There used to be a joke when you got out of a conference, you'd say "Remember me? I was the bearded white guy." Because that was everyone. Now you have non-binary people, femme representing people, bottom types. There are so many more points of view and inclusion in the community.

BH: One thing I've noticed is that there is an assumption that erotic hypnosis corresponds to kink and BDSM generally.

AmHypnotic, chiming in: Yes, and they're not the same thing. There's this tendency that the bigger and more intense something looks, the more impressive it is. But that's not what makes it work.

BH: I mention it because I really like the gentle femdom movement I've seen lately, where gently pulling on someone's hair is recognized and seen as dominant, and there's no pain or fear. It's not about turning everything up to 11.

WG: There's a lot of good things, but stuff like that is coming from the kink community in general. The EH community is barely 10 years old, and what we have been doing is copying what other conferences are doing, like scholarships for female presenters. And the internet and local groups getting together has been huge. There's so much better vetting of presenters and sharing of information now.

There's still a problem with sharing information. The TNG group had a presenter that had been vetted and it was a horror show. And then once it came out, there were presentations she'd given before that made it clear she had done this before, and so it's a question of getting all those people together. So there's a missing stair problem there.

Mephki: There is a discord server called the Watchtower which is all the conference and group leaders together, and there is a vetting service. There's work being done. There's hypnation. It is getting better. You have to be careful about ban lists, but they are private party events.

BH: What do you think the recreational and EH community can teach the clinical hypnosis community?

WG: [Laughter] There's no comparison. The EH community is leaps and bounds ahead of the professionals. There's no need for them to do it for money, so they have more freedom to experiment, and so it's all about the creativity. But there are professionals still reading off of scripts written in the 1950s.

[Much discussion ensues]

BH: I know there are talented individuals. Melissa Tiers, for example.

WG: No, there are absolutely some great people out there. Melissa Tiers is a rockstar. She's very good, no bullshit, always happy to show new things she's learned. Kaz Riley is another good example. But the field as a whole is still behind and playing it safe. There can be ten different tracks at a conference and not one presentation you want to go to.

Hypnomedia: Hypnothoughts Live is really good. They have a good mix of clinical and stage hypnotists.

WG: I've heard that, but I'm afraid that if I go, I'll get outed.

BH: So final question. Erotic hypnosis would seem to have a natural overlap with using hypnosis for sexual disorders. And yet, there's almost nothing about using hypnosis to treat sexual disorders. And there's sex research on BDSM and kink, but there's very little research into erotic hypnosis. Why do you think that is?

WG: I couldn't tell you. I know there's a Dr Will Horton who puts together a five day course on Erotic Hypnosis. The first three days are clinical, focusing on erectile dysfunction, anorgasmia, and things like that. The final two days, he hands out copies of Mind Play and talks about erotic hypnosis. The mixture of clinical treatment and erotic material in the same course is not something that anyone can do, but Dr Horton has a Psy D, so he can get away with doing it.

BH: But it does seem like so many techniques are essentially erotic hypnosis with the serial numbers filed off. Tantric Massage, Sensate Focus, and so on.

WG: There are many hypnosis things that do not show up in the field. But I don't know.

[love-is-four-legged-word]

From @hypnomedia

[clockwerksorcery-blog]

Dmyaymd, Goddess of the Imprint - The 73rd spirit is DMYAYMD. She appeareth as a two beaked owl with bat's wings, human breasts and two headed serpents as feet. She is the Empress of Media. She teacheth the Art of photography, image manipulation and hypnomedia perfectly. She can deliver familiars out of the custody of other magicians and reclaim symbols absolutely. She can carry and re-carry men very speedily from one kingdom to another at the will and pleasure of Her patron. She uttereth constantly from Her clacking beaks, nonsense and illogic from one, logic and reason from the other. Her serpents tell of things past, present, future and aetheric. Upon Her wings are the formulae for creating matter from vibration. Theatres of the film variety are Her Temples. Home Temples are 'televisual'. Prayers come to Her through the eye of the camera. She rules over those legions of spirits known as Imprints and all parts of spirits within images splintered from their initial experience, as well as the composite beings resulting from the alteration of captured reality, amalgam spirits of Art. She is the patroness of editors and filmmakers and Her seal is thus:

[misscammiedawn]

What's a passion you have that you don't get to talk about much? Tell us about it?

Hmm--

Thinking about this one hard because I wanna make sure I go for a passion rather than a focus or interest. Because I have a ton of things which are like MAKE CAMMIE HAPPY!

Rush for instance! I LOVE Rush! Like I used to go to Rush conventions, have a bootleg of every concert except for the 1975 one! I nearly proposed to my ex during a Rush concert and did spend my 2nd anniversary at a concert- I love Rush down to my core like more than you expect.

Like, to anyone I've met at hypnocons? I only went to my first one (Charmed 2020) because @ladyruetha and I bond over the band and Neil died right before the event and she insisted I come to grieve together. If I hadn't gone to that my first in-person event would have been Beguiled 2022 and that may have impacted my ability to fall in love with @daja-the-hypnokitten

Soooo... my love of Rush is kind of at the heart of my entire life.

Buuuuut I do talk about that a lot! The HypnoMedia server @soveryverytired and I run had a day dedicated to the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert specifically because I was excited to see the surviving members of Rush play one more time!

Soooo what is my other passion?

Actually earned in the same week... and that's my love of Photography.

(the week I learned to love photography and Rush is a STORY)

In the modern era you just don't have as many people nerd out about cameras because DSLRs are so expensive and modern phones are so god damned impressive these days.

But I totally geek out about Canon vs Nikon (I am on the wrong side of history) and my classics and my lenses and how much I wanna go natural conditions vs controlled settings.

I bloody LOVE photography. I was a pro from age 19-23, ran a mini-studio in college for the cosplay club I was vice president of and even got to volunteer for a charity event once.

Aaaa! Photography makes me so happy <3

(i have been reminded my love of stage magic is also applicable here)

[deeperforme]

Dudes! I stumbled on this by accident last night: a prestige HBO hypnotist drama full of swankily shot hypnofetish staples! You can find the whole first episode on youtube, with subtitles, and the oh-so-HBO opening credits are essential viewing.

Interestingly, I don’t think this would fly as a  theme in North America - in general hypnosis is pretty much dismissed as boring bullshit. Whereas in many other countries, such as Italy, it has a bit of dangerous mystique. Those countries have occasional news stories and urban legends about hypnotists committing dastardly robberies, which educated people in those countries dismiss. But maybe not entirely…

[hypnoticharlequin]

Do Not Open- Brainwashing Facts!

I have a lot of nostalgia for those “alternative” children’s educational books. You know the ones, they would often purport to contain only the “weirdest” or the “grossest” facts about a topic in the hope that it would spur you to learn about all the history and biology you refused to learn in school.  

The pinnacle of the genre has to be the “Horrible Histories” series which spawned several series of books, including a few covering other academic fields and even a full-fledged TV show. 

I still have a few of these books around the place, mostly because they tend to turn up spectacularly cheap in second-hand book shops and quite a few of them are pretty amusing to read through due to how quickly outdated they can become. 

Recently I picked up one entitled “Do Not Open: An Encyclopedia Of The World’s Best Kept Secrets.” When I spotted it I had a peek at the contents to see what secrets I could hope to find in this weighty tome. Most of the book was the usual stuff, the pyramids, what goes into making a plane, spies, and weird animals. But then I spotted one specific entry. 

Well, how could I turn that offer down? 

So join me as we find out just what we are teaching our kids about brainwashing. 

All the pages in this book work as double page spreads and they are all delightfully themed, so that really sets this book apart. Also, this book isn’t messing around going straight to Robert Jay Lifton. I can’t do his work justice in a succinct manner, so I fully suggest you go read his books, but he is pretty much the authority on thought manipulation. One slight issue I have to raise is that Lifton isn’t a fan of the term brainwashing and used the term “thought-reform”. 

But the guide they give is short but pretty correct and it doesn’t shy away from the darker realities of the process. 

The other half of the spread is a picture and a list of techniques for brainwashing. Now it’s debatable if you consider all of these brainwashing or merely persuasion techniques (and that is a really fuzzy boundary), but it does cover all of the major ones. 

Even hypnosis gets a mention! 

This is a slightly weird description of hypnosis honestly. It feels like it is talking about a specific scene or situation but here it is presented devoid of context. Also, it doesn’t explain how this could be used as part of the brainwashing, almost like it presumes the audience already know what you do with hypnosis.

Now, you may have spotted the cross-reference at the bottom of the page, and yes there is a section on the unconscious mind. However, it does not cover hypnosis instead it focuses on sleep paralysis, dreaming, nightmares, sleepwalking, and deja vu. 

The only other mention of hypnosis is this brief one in the section on reincarnation (which is one of the more unusual topics this book covers)

The highlight of this image for me is the wonderful color coordination between hypnotist’s hair, hypnotist’s outfit, hypnotist’s chair and subject. Maybe this hypnotist has a dress code for his subjects. Because nothing says “relaxing environment” more than a deep, heavy brown. 

Overall I’m actually really impressed by Do Not Open. Sure it is a bit silly and some parts of it are a little odd, but I would have loved this book when I was a kid and I give it credit for actually covering a topic I never see covered in these books. 

[clockwerksorcery-blog]

“When we speak of the movie gods...”

The 73rd spirit is DMYAYMD. She appeareth as a two beaked owl with bat's wings, human breasts and two headed serpents as feet. She is the Empress of Media. She teacheth the Art of photography, image manipulation and hypnomedia perfectly. She can deliver familiars out of the custody of other magicians and reclaim symbols absolutely. She can carry and re-carry men very speedily from one kingdom to another at the will and pleasure of Her patron. She uttereth constantly from Her clacking beaks, nonsense and illogic from one, logic and reason from the other. Her serpents tell of things past, present, future and aetheric. Upon Her wings are the formulae for creating matter from vibration. Theatres of the film variety are Her Temples. Home altars are 'televisual'. Prayers come to Her through the eye of the camera. She rules over those legions of spirits known as Imprints and all parts of spirits within images splintered from their initial experience, as well as the composite beings resulting from the alteration of captured reality, Amalgam Spirits of Art. She is the patroness of editors and filmmakers and her seal is thus: 

[hypnoticharlequin]

Hypnotists And Ladders.

Alternative Title: “The stupidest idea I have had within the space of this week”

A few days ago I was playing a board game with some friends and I noticed how we would always read out the text on the card we played, regardless of how often the card came up. By the end of the game, we all knew a few of the cards off by heart, including ones we had never played, just because of this repetition.

I’ve also been on a bit of a game design kick recently and have been reading a lot about board design for games. These two things combined in my head to create the question: “Can you make a board game that hypnotizes people as they play?”

Well, I had a think and I came up with an idea. I decided to share it because frankly an idea this stupid needs to be shared, so I quickly knocked up a crude but functional board for it. And yes, it is basically just snakes and ladders with a twist. I went for snakes and ladders, because it has very simple mechanics that don’t get too in the way, as well as forcing players to repeat certain parts of the board.

You Will Need:

-One counter per player

-D6 die

-Supervision

How To Play:

-Each player places their counter on the Start square. Everyone rolls and the person with the highest goes first.

-The player rolls the D6 and moves the number of spaces show on the die. When they land on a square, they read out the text on the space.

-If the space you land on has the start of a green line, you move to the space the green line is attached to (which will always be down the board). Reading both the space you land on and the space you end up on.

-If the space you land on has the start of a red line, you move the space the red line is attached to (which will always be up the board). Reading both the space you land on and the space you end up on.

-Repeat until one person gets to 0.

-Additional Rule: Enforce the exact finish rule. If a player ends up on space 0 but has not moved the full amount of their roll, they move backwards the remaining amount. A player only wins when they roll exactly enough to reach the final space.

Going to be honest, the hardest thing about making this was splitting an induction in to a lot of small phrases that could be read together in random orders. I’m still not a fan of some of the squares, but they mostly function alright.

With 3-4 players all reading the squares, it should form a crude induction that mixes in a few styles of suggestion to hopefully hit all the major bases. Of course I can’t guarantee this without play testing but with the correct priming you should at least get something from at least one player.

So yes. Hypnotic snakes and ladders. I do wonder if this concept could stretch to other games, but those would require more edits to both change the board and to change the rules to fit better.

[hypnoticharlequin]

The Hypnotic Eye

The Hypnotic Eye is a film released in 1960 and it can be briefly summarized as “terrible”. At the time of writing it has a 38% score on Rotten Tomatoes, so that should tell you something.

However, the film is an interesting glimpse into how hypnosis was depicted in the 1960s. Honestly, I’m always sad that MST3K or Rifftrax have never done this film as it really is a comedy goldmine, heck I’ve often considered doing it myself.

And I’m just going to leave this here as it might come in handy

This poster is pretty good. It really encapsulates an era. Now what might draw your eye is the mention of “HypnoMagic”. See, in 1959 a film called “The Tingler” had came out. And it had gotten really well known for what it called “Percepto!”. Percepto was said to help the audience feel the fear of the movie, especially during the fourth wall breaking scene where the titular Tingler breaks into the theater.

However, Percepto was basically just a joy buzzer on the bottom of the seat that delivered electric shocks to your butt during key scenes. Very few theaters had it installed due to the cost and effort required in setting it up. Despite both of those things however, the film was super popular, so a load of B-Movies trotted out similar gimmicks in an attempt to get more sales. Honestly, one day I want to write a book about them as it’s an interesting movement that could be seen as laying the foundation to a lot of today’s immersive theater.  

Other places added more gimmicks. Free medical supplies and lower entry for Doctors was pretty common for these films, some even gave you fake life insurance policies to sign!

It could be said that these films often shot themselves in the foot by hyping themselves to the point nothing could live up to what people went in expecting. Then again, these films couldn’t live up to any expectation as they were often made on a budget so low they could bankrupt themselves if someone sneezed at the wrong time.

They also put out this card. Which I have to admit is pretty damn clever. I have a sneaking suspicion that this might have been a local campaign as I’ve not seen or heard about it very much. It does strike me as ironic that of all the hype this movie pushed, this very simple optical illusion, based around a very simple art style is what sticks out as the most impressive part of the campaign.

You might have realized I am avoiding talking about the movie itself. Yeah, I am. Because as I said, it is not very good. As was traditional at the time, they released some cards with promo shots on them, so lets have a quick glance at those to give you some idea of the films visual style.

Obviously the pictures are exceedingly brightly colored to make things stand out as this film was in black and white. Also in the second picture they seem to be drinking the smallest glasses of beer ever.

Super duper fun fact. The Doctor is played by Ferdinand Demara, a very famous con artist, who was having a film about his life made at the time this film was released. This is his only film appearance and it seems the film makers put him in here to drum up some publicity.

Now onto the plot. After a series of pretty young girls mutilate themselves in comically over the top ways, Police Sargent Dave Kennedy starts to investigate. Dave takes his girlfriend Marcia, and her friend Dodi to a hypnosis show by possibly the worst named stage hypnotist of all time. The Great Desmond. Seriously, that sounds like the name you would give a parody of a washed up magician in a children’s story.

Desmond hypnotizes three guys and is then joined by his assistant, Justine, and he asks for three female volunteers.

Dodi goes up and gets hypnotized and then excuses herself. After she goes home she washes her face with acid (that she happened to have lying around) and gets horribly scarred from it. When Dave visits Dodi, she says she doesn’t remember her bathroom mishap or feel any pain from it.

Dave and Marcia argue, because Dave doesn’t believe in hypnosis. Also a very logical point is raised, that the hypnotist has utterly no motive to be doing this and this is actually counter-productive to his show being a success. So they go back and Marcia volunteers and pretends to be hypnotized and finds the hypnotist holds a glowing ball in his hand. This ball is a flashing eye, which Dr Hecht, a friend of Dave’s, says is totally a normal way of quickly inducing hypnosis. Marcia then adds that when waking her up, Desmond told her to come back to the theater later.

So Marcia goes back with Dave and Hecht following to see what happens. As Marcia goes into Desmond’s dressing room, he surprises her and hypnotizes her with the flashing eye. Desmond then takes Marcia to her apartment and leaves. However, Desmond’s assistant was with them and remains in Marcia’s apartment unbeknownst  to the other two and makes Marcia go into a burning hot shower. Dave returns and interrupts this, the assistant pretends to be a friend of Marcia’s before legging it out of a fire escape.

David goes and questions all the other victims and decided that Desmond must be involved. Hect suggests hypnotizing Marcia to have her relieve her night with Desmond, but when David goes to her apartment he finds she is not there. David realizes it is time for Desmond’s show and runs to the theater.

And now is the time for the HypnoMagic gimmick to come in. See while Dave is en route Desmond is leading his audience in a hypnosis demonstration. During this moment the theater is meant to put it’s houselights up and the audience can play along with the demo.

Part of this demo involves a balloon, which the audience had been given on their way into the theater. In the original theater run, the balloon had an eye on it, making it look like the hypnotic eye Desmond uses. 

They are shown how to blow it up.

And then are expected to manipulate it in the same way the audience in the film do. But what actually happens is much closer to hypnotic suggestibility tests than an actual induction, including doing the old “mouth waters when thinking about sucking on lemon,” trick.

However, the framing here is pretty good, doing a good job of making it hard to tell if Desmond is talking to the audience in the film or the one in the theater, without having him stare directly and awkwardly into the camera.

Now, while this is clever, there is one big issue with it. It is 2/3rds of the way through the movie and totally kills the pacing. We had all of this build up, the sudden realization from the Detective and him running to the theater, it is building to this crescendo and then the film just stops for 15 minutes for this slow paced hypnosis segment.

I have no idea why they did it so late, surly it would have made more sense to do this during the first hypnosis show in the film. It would have also meant Desmond got some time to grow on the audience, as up until this point he has been kind of dull. If I was being cynical I would guess they didn’t do it then because they thought people would walk out when the found out that this segment was pretty rubbish and all of the hype was just that. Hype.

Desmond pulls out the hypnotic eye and dares the audience to stare into it, but is interrupted by a scream from the back of the theater. Some theaters actually hired someone to sit at the back and scream at this point. This scream heralds the arrival of Dave and Hect. They tell Desmond to stop and they spot Marcia in the audience.

Justine tells Desmond to hypnotize them, but Dave is able to avoid the glowing eye. Dave moves in to shoot Desmond but finds the assistant has dragged Marcia up onto the catwalk and is threatening to throw her off.

Dave gives chase as Hect pleads with the assistant from below. Justine does a scooby-doo and pulls her mask off to reveal she hates pretty woman as she is horribly disfigured. She orders Desmond to attack Hect, who eats a bullet from Dave. Seeing Desmond fall, the assistant throws herself off (or just slips, it is not really clear). Dave them pulls Marcia back up and the day is saved.

We then end with Hect coming onto stage to say "Ladies and Gentlemen, a word of warning. Hypnosis, although an important and valuable medical tool, can be extremely dangerous when improperly used by untrained or unscrupulous practitioners. Therefore, never allow yourself to be hypnotized by anyone who is not a medical doctor or has not been recommended to you by your doctor. Not even in a motion picture theater. Thank you." 

So yeah. The plot is all kinds of silly and doesn’t really go anywhere. The villain gets the normal cop-out ending that was common for this time. Nothing is really resolved, we don’t learn much about why Desmond and Justine are a team or why Justine is how she is, just that she is secretly ugly and bitter. In many ways, this film is the precursor to slasher films, the draw is seeing the various gory moments as opposed to focusing on what caused them.

This film perfectly encapsulates the opinion of hypnosis at this time. It is a period of flux. Hypnosis is still ill defined and scary enough to be used as the driving point of the move, yet is interesting and accepted enough for the film to pretend to actually hypnotize the audience.  Hypnosis is treated both as a serious and useful medical tool and an evil dark magic.

The methods used in the audience participation moment are sound and logical but there still needs to be the magical, ill-defined, hypnotic eye. Honestly if you were remaking the film today you could actually make the film work better by focusing more on the hypnotic eye, having Desmond be a good hypnotist who uses these very normal methods, but also having this strange magical tool that allows him to do things you couldn’t do with hypnosis.

Ironically, the lasting legacy to this film is a trading card. Kodak took a shot of a girl’s hair setting on fire and made a lenticular trading card out of it. They used this card to advertise and promote their new film technology, which actually caught on.

[hypnoticharlequin]

Secrets Of Covert Hypnosis- (Spoiler: The secret is stupidity)

I did it again. I was wandering round the internet looking for a specific reference from a paper I had been reading and I stumbled upon another site for another book. And it was terrible. 

So I decided to share the highlights of the pitch with all of you. I’m not linking to the site directly, mostly because I don’t want to give this kind of insanity traffic. 

We start, like one should when pitching a product, with a simple and basic elevator pitch. 

WARNING: THESE ARE THE DARK SECRETS THE INNER CIRCLE DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW!

I should put this out there. I’m quoting this site directly. So yes, that is written in all capitals on the site as well. Honestly it really sets the tone for the rest of the pitch.

Right, who are inner circle? I presume that you have to be an inner circle of some larger thing right? If your group is just called “The Inner Circle” are your core members the inner circle of The Inner Circle? 

This site is NOT like all those other hypnosis sites out there.

This site will teach you something different...

Something different? As in something different to hypnosis? So I buy your expensive hypnosis course and get a 5 DVD guide to knitting?

This site will teach you the INSANELY controversial and the most EFFECTIVE hypnosis and mind control techniques that have turned the heads of hundreds...

If these secrets are so rare how have they turned hundreds of heads? I mean if they have turned that many then The Inner Circle must really suck at keeping them hidden. 

But before we go any further, I must give you this warning:

This is advanced mental technology. If you're looking for "A Beginners Guide To Hypnosis" you won't find it here.

I love the fact this is termed as “technology” as opposed to facts or information or even skills. What even is mental technology? 

On this site you'll find exactly how to mind control anyone you want, any time, any place, and all without them knowing.

But if I reveal this information, please promise me you will use it responsibly and you will only use it for good.

So, just to let you all know, the uses suggested just a little bit down this page totally blow this “use it for good” line totally out of the water. And it’s inclusion is sort of funny in context as this whole pitch is so very obviously aimed at people who want more power in their lives. 

Also the author so missed the chance to say “With great power comes great responsibility.” 

My name is [REDACTED SO HARD], and I'm about to take you on a journey into one of the most intense and one of the most influential underground secret societies that has ever existed.

I presume this society is The Inner Circle, right? Because they are the ones who don’t want me knowing about this magical power? 

I wanted to learn the secrets of mind control that hardly ANYONE knew about... the secrets that would let me do stuff like:

Mind Control someone into finding me instantly attractive.

Make someone instantly forget ever meeting me.

Mind Control into being so fascinated by me they can’t get me out of their mind.

I wanted to have that knowledge, the kind of power that would let me do anything.

Ah yes. This doesn’t sound creepy or weird at all. Honestly this all smacks of really low self-esteem and rubbish social skills. I mean how often do you want to make people forget meeting you? 

Also, making someone obsessed with you is how you end up with them chasing you around the world, kitchen knife in hand, screaming how they will wear your skin as a shirt. 

Every single piece of information I ever found was useless.

Well maybe if all your research turns up nothing, your question is flawed and you need to use the information to reform your question? 

And by now you probably know what I mean, you've seen all those "learn hypnosis sites" out there selling those crappy hypnosis eBooks that are all based on the same information that was written 20 years ago.

The words pot, kettle and black are springing quickly to mind....

Then after going through them all and finding nothing new, I started to lose hope... and then it happened.

The Phone Call That Changed My Life

I like this little narrative, it would be a good start to a children’s story. However, this call does not end up with a magical quest of adventure and self-discovery.

  The phone call was from a friend of mine (NONE of the people in this story will let me publish their REAL names), this friend owned and operated two auctions. 

But who was phone? I wonder why no one would let you publish their name, maybe because they were all magical fictions that only existed in the confines of your high-security mind prison. 

Also the last bit confuses me. I admit that my only knowledge of auctions comes from watching Bargain Hunt on rainy Bank Holidays but isn’t the wording of that off? Wouldn’t he own and operate two auction houses? How does one own an individual auction. Also couldn’t that just mean he posted two things on Ebay? 

And in one of his auctions someone was selling a box of old books.

One of the books was an old, hand written journal of about 80 pages of intensely powerful information that was the collected wisdom of an underground subculture that absolutely no one knew existed.

Whoa, whoa. Back it up. Back it up. So, this box of old books is great despite the fact that earlier you said:

selling those crappy hypnosis eBooks that are all based on the same information that was written 20 years ago.

So 20 year old information is bad, but your old information is just great? Not just that, old information that was so great everyone just totally and utterly forgot about it? 

I know I make this joke a lot, but still. Psychology evolves, it is a comparatively young field, information becomes outdated very quickly. 

This group had been secretly exchanging their knowledge for nearly a decade.

Secretly working to turn hypnosis and mind control into a something new, something a lot more powerful.

This small subculture revolved around one man who was only known as "The Professor".

First time I read this, I got to the last line and literally said “oh fuck right off,” out loud. Seriously, this is the moment this whole tale jumps the shark so hard it enters fucking orbit. 

He was the most worshipped persuader in this secret community.

Inside the pages of the journal he spit out LONG detailed descriptions of techniques that read like algorithms of how to manipulate social situations and how to control anyone's mind.

A lot of the techniques in the journal, he had come up with and they were all chronicled in intimate detail right there inside those pages.

“Persuader,” is a horrible title. I bet he wanted to call himself “The Persuader,” but couldn’t, because it was too similar to the 70′s cop show starring Roger Moore. 

And I’m going to put it out there. I think The Persuaders is a more true reflection of police work than this is of hypnosis. 

Also he “spit them out,” was he a rapper? Or are the resulting descriptions just disgusting? 

The writing was filled with jargon of his own invention like:

Sliders, Shells, Claws, Sniper Inducer's, String Theory... and a whole lot more and they'd all become an integral part of this hypnosis secret society.

A lot of this jargon looks a lot like random words or terms stolen from other things. I mean Sliders was a popular sci-fi tv show in the 90s. Shells and Claws are just bits of animals. Sniper Inducers is very similar to a thing used in nuclear reactors and the like and String theory is a major branch of physics. 

Inside these pages they had documented a new kind of mental technology that they called "Dark Side Hypnosis".

Again, what is a mental technology? Seriously, that term makes no sense at all. Also why in the world would you call it something so utterly silly. 

That’s what makes me laugh about all of this, while he is putting forward the idea that this secret society is all cool and mystical, they use names that sound like teenagers in the 90s trying to be edgy. 

I finished reading the whole thing in less than a couple of hours, and by the time I was finished my heart was pounding and I was sweating...

I honestly felt like my head was spinning after finally finding that this kind of mind control was real and it really did exist.

The heart pounding and the sweat is likely due to some fungus growing on the old paper and ink. You should avoid licking the books, just in case.

As soon as I'd had a taste of Dark Side Hypnosis I needed to learn more.

Oh, too late. 

So there was no question about it, I had to meet the faces behind the names, watch them, find out who they were and what made them tick.

So I made it my mission and my obsession to hunt down these faceless names from this "secret society" and beg them to share with their secrets with me.

But There Was A HUGE Problem

These people had NO CLUE who I was so why would they want to tell me anything?

...And it's not like I could just pick up the phone and call them, you know?

After all ...I didn't even have a clue who any of them were.

So why would they even want to talk to me?

So after a few weeks of searching the internet, trying to find anything that might help me find them I told myself there was no way I could get in touch with these people... so I should just forget about it.

If this magical secret society ended up having their most important journal sold at auction you can likely guess that they are not around anymore. That or they are an appalling secret society. 

But hey, it is the end of the trail, maybe this means he moved on and went to a hypnotherapy college or studied neurology and learnt about the actual workings of hypnosis? Well as you can see this post continues on, so yeah, no prize for guessing he didn’t. 

I read those same 80 pages over and over again every night... I was so obsessed with it, even my wife started to think I was crazy.

I’m with your wife mate. Also, does anyone else find it interesting he mentioned wanting to make people find him attractive and become obsessed with him, despite already being married? 

Man, maybe this is all a clever story about a marriage on the rocks and how trying to salvage it only led to them drifting further apart. 

After weeks of reading the same thing over and over again my focus started to change to the three blank pages at the back of the journal, and what appeared to be a few pages that had been ripped out...

It was then that I notice one of the blank pages had a few words of text imprinted on it so deeply into the paper they were almost embossed on the other side.

The imprinted words were from what was written on one of the pages that had been ripped out.

Worst. Detective. Ever. Maybe I have played too many adventure games over the years. But wouldn’t that be one of the first things you pick up on? I mean it is really odd for someone to deface what is effectively a relic for this group of oddly named nutters. 

Also this guy must have written really hard to emboss that damn deeply on the page, that or this paper stock is super duper thick. 

I could just about make out the details of what The Professor was calling "The Dark Shadow Technique".

The first thing that came to my mind was "Why has someone ripped this page out?"

“The Dark Shadow Technique” so the professor is both a bit silly and a massive weaboo? As that is the most anime name for something I have ever heard. 

But the craziest thing was... right there at the bottom of the page, imprinted into the paper was an email address.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA oh god, my sides have ascended. 

Seriously? This has to be a joke right? We are meant to take this plot twist seriously? Who would look at this and think “yeah, this seems legit!” 

I would call this stupidly contrived even in a video game, let alone in what is being presented to us as a fact to make us buy a damn book!

This whole time, I had an email address for The Professor right there in my hands and I just didn't see it.

I grabbed my laptop and sent what was probably the longest email I've ever written... to this guy I've never even met.

I’ve honestly got no idea where to go from that last paragraph. I mean if I found an e-mail that shouldn’t exist, that even the owner of the book obviously tried to stop others seeing, I wouldn’t e-mail it. 

This Is Where It Gets Strange...

Oh, this is where it gets strange? Up to this point, everything has been totally normal. This happens basically daily does it? 

I got a reply back from him in about 2 minutes.

And the weirdest part was he told me he'd been expecting me and he actually hypnotized me by email!

It was completely insane, and when I finally got to meet him he explained how it works. (NOBODY knows how to do this, but I'll show you how in the course!)

It's crazy... I mean, just think for a second what you'll be able to do once you know how to hypnotize someone just by sending an email.

So when he said this is where it got strange. I didn’t believe him at first, because what could top what we just heard. 

But I take it back. I was wrong. This is where it gets strange. This is where it gets so strange I have to go sit down and have a cup of tea and a chocolate finger just to calm myself. 

The main issue with this part of the tale is, apart from it being horribly lazy writing, is that we are not told exactly what he hypnotized him to do. When did he send the hypnotic e-mail? 

I mean, if he sent it ages ago, does that mean the friend, the auction and the book are all fakes? If so that means the previous few pages have been utter junk and the writer is wasting our time. 

Did he hypnotize him via e-mail after he got the book? If so, why is this man sat around waiting for an e-mail from a guy who likely just stumbled on his random journal and solved his stupidly easy puzzle? 

My brain hurts....

Also, someone must know how it works? I mean the guy who taught it you must know it, and you must know it to teach it. So at least 2 people know it. Unless it doesn’t exist of course....

This group of insanely focussed individuals had the most powerful knowledge you can ever imagine - all broken down and backwards engineered into a step by step process.

Why did you need to backwards engineer it? Presumably the guy who wrote the journal already has a step-by-step method so he can do it? Why not just ask him for the method? Actually why isn’t he teaching the course? 

It took months before The Professor fully trusted me and excepted me as one of his own, but it was all worth it and my determination paid off for both you and me.

Wait, so you are stealing this guys secrets to tell us? Also this has a slightly romantic undertone. Honestly, that would be the best romance story, trying to make cult-leader-senpai notice you. Baking him cakes until he lets you into his inner circle and teaches you his forbidden knowledge and you do the forbidden dance together. 

So after months of persistence and begging him to let me under his wing he finally agreed to meet me.

To this day I'm sure the ONLY reason he met me was because I told him I found the Journal, and he wanted to figure out how I got my hands on this advanced mental technology in the first place.

Wow, he literally did “senpai notice me!” him into submission. Impressive! But if he did want to know how you got it, why didn’t he just hypnotize you via e-mail again? I mean if it does generate total amnesia he would have to do it once, then he would never be bothered by you again. 

You wouldn't believe some of the things I had to do if I told you.

Well that has slightly sexual undertones. But hey, total mental power is worth a little bit of butt stuff. 

And that's not even the craziest part...

Oh dear....

The Girl Who Bit Off More Than She Could Chew

Oh dear, oh dear.......

So a few months after I had finished my training with The Professor I had to go on a business trip to Florida.

Wait, so you had a day job while doing this mythical training? So you were only training part time? That makes all of this a lot less impressive. 

One night after having a few drinks in the bar I ended up being a little too lose lipped about my training with this hypnosis secret society and how it was the most insane stuff I had ever seen.

And there was this woman who was MEGA HOT that WOULDN'T LEAVE ME ALONE.

But it wasn't like the "good" kind of not leave you alone.

It wasn't like she was flirting with me or anything cool like that. It was just the opposite.

See, all she wanted to do was hassle me about Dark Side Hypnosis.

So, the person teaching us this course is an utter idiot? That fills me full of faith in the course and it’s materials. I mean he had one job and failed at the first chance he got! 

I like how he describes the idea of a girl flirting with him as “cool” it makes him sound like a teen who doesn’t want to admit they are shy about relationships. 

She basically followed me up to my hotel room and kept saying it didn't exist, and that I was just trying to impress everyone.

Well it doesn’t 

And you are, but doing a terrible job at it. 

So after a while I decided to teach her a lesson.

Oh yeah, totally a phrase that gives me confidence in you as a person. 

Warning! What Happened Next Was An Accident

You know saying it was an accident doesn’t cover you right? It still makes you a horrible person. And it really makes a mockery of you making me promise to be good earlier. 

As you know, I'm married... and my wife is cool and everything, but she's not THAT cool ;-)

Why did we suddenly use a smiley? It looks really silly when you only use one and you only use it in this context. 

Also your wife is a saint. I honestly don’t understand why she hasn’t packed up her things and escaped in a hot air balloon to some far flung corner of the world. She is the hero of this piece in my opinion. 

So I haven't used these techniques to seduce anybody in ages. And this is my "defense" for what happened.

I thought I would use a little bit of Dark Side Hypnosis on her just to sort of teach her a lesson.

All I wanted to do is get her to give me her number or something harmless so I could say, "SEE! I just used Dark Side Hypnosis on you and you just gave me your number. So quit bugging me."

You haven’t used them “in ages”. But it’s only been a few months since you finished learning all of this? 

First of all I used a slider to trigger the "Empire Man" technique on myself to instantly infuse my core with rock solid, unshakeable confidence. (you'll see exactly how to do this in the course)

(This one belief altering technique will instantly let you build massively powerful core confidence. Your life will be transformed by this one technique alone.)

The Empire man fills you full of rock. Is that just a fancy term for “I got an erection?” 

Then I used something called The Dark Shadow Technique, which in hindsight, was too powerful.

I know you've never heard of The Dark Shadow Technique.

This is because it's part of Dark Side Hypnosis and only a few other people in the world know it, besides The Professor and myself.

Anyway, here's what happened.

I started playing around using The Dark Shadow Technique and next thing I know...SHE'S NAKED.

I'm not kidding.

She "miraculously" has a total change of heart about me and asks to come in to see my hotel room.

When I let her in, she starts doing a strip tease to the music of... wait for it... ABBA.

Yes.

ABBA.

Anyway, I want you to know I had no intentions of getting her to come up to my room and strip to ABBA songs.

Like I said, I accidentally took it too far.

That's How Powerful These Techniques Are!

I still can’t get over that fucking name. How in the world is anyone ever going to buy into this when your technique sounds like a rubbish Dragon Ball Z attack . Not even one that takes an episode to charge, one that’s fired off in an instant and has no effect on anything. 

Also “next thing I know,” did you pass out of a few minutes? Or did her clothes get sucked into another dimension? Because taking clothes off takes time and if you are looking at her, you would likely notice it. 

Also, where did she get the music of ABBA from? Did you have it already set up on the stereo or did she just happen to be carrying a speaker on her at the time. 

Also, I can tell you from experience ABBA is perfectly good stripping music, provided you can strip in a European manner. 

Frankly, I'm getting a little worried because I think this type of mind control is a little too powerful.

IT'S LIKE HAVING A NUCLEAR BOMB.

Very bad news if it gets into the wrong hands... and that's why I've been so hush-hush about it.

Not worried enough to stop and avoiding profiting from it of course. Also I think this guy is the wrong hands. Not just for these fake hypnosis powers, but for anything more intensive than a crayon. 

You CAN Control Anyone You Want Instantly

But only if you take advantage of this opportunity today.

The reason why is... I can't share this information with everyone, and I'll probably be forced to take this site down some time soon.

The hypnosis community is already in an uproar about my site, and I'm banned from all the forums, so I can't be sure how much longer this offer will last.

So, just a tip. If you are going to say the site may be taken down, don’t leave the copyright data on the bottom of the site. As this makes it really clear the site has been up since 2011, which kinda screws your pitch up. 

Also we are in uproar apparently. I mean I’m in uproarious laughter, but apart from that it is the most zen uproar I have ever heard of. 

In fact, the only way The Professor would agree to let me make this knowledge public was if I:

Paid him a small fortune (which I did, but it was definitely worth it and I’d do it again).

Promised to NEVER reveal any of the "Dark Side Inner Circle" members true identities.

Only disclose this information to a VERY small, select few individuals.

Unfortunately those "select few individuals" are piling up quicker than I thought humanly possible...

Ever since I first posted about my discoveries on this website on January 7th of 2014...

17,477 people just like you have contacted me begging for this jealously guarded information.

Why does the Professor need a small fortune? Like if he can do all the stuff you say he can, what does he need money for? 

Also, this Inner circle is for a group named “Dark Side”? Wow, they really need to hypnotize a marketing manager.

Also, this might just be me, but I don’t consider 17,477 people to be small or select. I consider that quite a large number. 

But, please, humor me, how do we get these magical powers?

You Cannot Use This Secret System Unless You Swear Never To Reveal It To Anyone Else.

Please, whatever you do ...DO NOT share these techniques with anyone.

And yes, I'm being completely serious.

Two reasons:

This is powerful stuff that nobody’s ever seen before. If it was in the wrong hands or used in the wrong way, things could get ugly.

Because this is so hard-core, and it’s something that NOBODY knows, it’s like dynamite.

Once you get you hands on Dark Side Hypnosis you can put someone into a trance INSTANTLY.

And they won't even know you're doing anything.

I'D LIKE TO KEEP IT THAT WAY.

Yes, don’t share it with anyone else. Despite the fact that this is what he is doing and his mentor did the same. Because giving this away is bad, unless you are giving it away for money in which case go for it. 

Also, I think this guy is the wrong hands, based on a lot of the stuff he has been going on about. 

I've become publicly known in the Inner Circle as being the Professor's only protégé, and people are calling me "The most dangerous mind control expert in the world."

Wait, wouldn’t you be known privately within the Inner Circle? 

And wow, this makes the Professor out to be an utter dick. He totally passed over those he was worked with on this for 10 years just to take some random who chanced on his notebook and then pestered him as his apprentice. 

Also dude, that is not a good thing to be called. If the people who know this topic say you are dangerous they likely don’t mean it in a joking manner. Also I hope you realize that rule of two suggests that now you have taken over from the Professor you have set in motion the path to your own demise at the hands of your apprentice. 

Next we go to my favorite bit of these, the bullet point run down of:

Here's Just A Taste Of What You'll Discover In This Course:

You'll discover the weird (but devastatingly powerful) "Authority Hijack Method" for literally stealing someone's position as the top dog in the office, your social circle or anywhere else you choose!

This is called “Getting a promotion.” You get them very often when you don’t run off to train with your magical hypnosis teacher. 

The #1 reason why people aren't attracted to you and how you can change that in as little as a few hours.

Because you keep babbling about secret hypnosis cults and men with silly names. The way to change this is to stop talking about it. 

How to covertly hypnotize your husband, wife or children - this one technique alone will change your life!

The mark of a good partner and parent is to manipulate the will of your family. Yeah, that totally sounds like a good thing to do. 

A brand new breakthrough (recently discovered by the Dark Side Inner Circle) that makes even total Dark Side "novices" irresistibly attractive to anyone you meet. (This incredible little secret is how some average looking people are able to attract even beautiful models. Here's how they do it.)

Yeah, it’s not having a good personality or it just happens they share similar interests. It is magical hypnosis! Totally has to be magical hypnosis!

A "can't miss" way to instantly gain the respect and admiration of every single person in your workplace — even if you haven't hypnotised anyone yet!

Step 1- Don’t act like a pillock 

Step 2- Bring cake 

What to do with your eyes to command respect from almost everyone you talk to. (You can actually see this secret "in action" in most James Bond 007 movies.)

God..I hate to break this to you sweetie. But James Bond isn’t real. They are this thing we have called fiction, you should know about it considering you just wrote several pages of it. 

Then again, maybe the thing you have to do is become Roger Moore? That never fails to woo everyone. 

Four words that will destroy your chances of hypnotizing anyone (When I stopped saying these four words — that 99% of new hypnotists say — I became unstoppable.)

Word 1- Heteroscedasticity

Word 2- Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch

Word 3- Buttocks 

Word 4- Semprini

How to protect yourself from anyone trying to attack you using mind control - and actually have them apologizing and pleading with you... instantly (This secret works even if your normally a shy and timid kind of person!)

Tin foil, wrapped around the head. Keep wrapping until you can’t see anything or they have slowly backed off. 

Plus a lot more, like...

The little talked about fear every human being has... and how to use it to influence and persuade anyone you want.

Oh, that fear we all have of those tiny little bits of fluff that you sometimes find in your pocket? I mean I’m glad we are all finally admitting those things are weird, but I don’t think it is a good control tactic. 

You can get your hands on this course RIGHT NOW, today for just $197, $57. However in the next few days the price will be going back up to the regular price of $197.

The next few days of course being several years. When you are an all powerful hypnotist, the meaning of time changes dramatically. 

Also for those curious, $57 could buy you 158 Freddo Chocolate bars. Which I honestly think is a much better long term investment than this course. 

P.S. I'm also offering a special bonus to anyone who purchases the course today.

If you buy today, I will also include (free of charge) "The Looking Glass Technique".

The looking glass technique is where you repeatedly run into a mirror until you enter Wonderland or the owner of the mirror politely, but firmly, asks you to leave. 

As I've already told you, I've had over 17,477 desperate to get their hands on these powerful techniques.

So instead what I've decided to do is make it available for a VERY short time...

That way, only the people who are the most dedicated and the most determined will be able to get it.

I'm currently planning to pull these audio tracks at midnight on June 4+2, 2016 

You know it’s weird. But this date seems to alter with my system clock. I know time is fluid, but I didn’t think it was that fluid....

P.P.S. One more thing... Please don't tell anybody about the information on this page.

The more people that find out about it the more likely it will be taken offline. Because of this I'm giving you the chance to get your hands on all of my Dark Side Hypnosis knowledge before it's too late.

Well I wouldn’t ever do that. I’m a very nice person. 

Wooops.....

[hypnoticharlequin]

Weird Pitch For A Hypnosis Book

While looking for something online, I stumbled upon a page advertising a new hypnosis book. I will say it has an interesting pitch, I’m not going to link it here as frankly I don’t want to give them traffic, but what it says just has to be seen. 

The whole thing reads like the manifesto of an insane person and the author is obsessed with bold. Seriously, I am not adding bold to these quotes, they are exactly as they appear in the pitch. 

The author starts by declaring:

The Knowledge In This Book Has Been Hidden For Over 100 Years - Because "They" Don't Want You To Have It!

“They”? Why don’t they want me to have it? Why are they so keen on telling me what to do? Where was it hidden? I’m betting it was behind the couch, everything ends up there. 

The pitch then goes into a restrained and sensible statement of intent: 

In just a moment, I hope to make you so angry you'll want to punch a hole through the wall.

What did my walls do to make this person be so out to get them? And that is the best pitch aim ever, why bother trying to entice the audience when you can send them into a frenzied rage! 

What I have to tell you involves the scandal that's going on in hypnosis today.

Yes, the great scandal that hypnotists are no longer wearing capes. Standards are slipping people! If we don’t have the capes then how do we do Dracula impressions?!  

It's like they were intentionally leaving out the most effective methods so they could sell you the "latest, greatest" thing that they came up with while out drinking the weekend before.

Okay, that makes a tiny bit of sense. You don’t want to sell all your tricks and render yourself useless. But hey, don’t knock the things you come up with when drinking, some of my best inductions started that way. 

Then we are given a list of the things “They” have been hiding from you, including: 

How to turn your mind into an ultimate controlling force!

I mean isn’t your mind that already? I mean it controls a good chunk of your body

Develop a hypnotic energy that will terrify others!

So basically become a Dragon Ball Z character? Standing in a massive glowing cloud of energy. Also, nothing is going to help your rapport than terrifying your audience.....

The story of Mesmer, godfather of hypnosis - you will not believe what he credited for his hypnotic ability

Well Mesmer credited a lot of things, but based on my knowledge of him I am going to say hair curlers, because just look at this glorious mane. 

The one "gimmick" you can add to your hypnotic arsenal to send your success rate over the top

I know this one. It is a pirate gimmick, no one can resist the charm of an eye patch and some rum. Bonus point if you can get a parrot on side, once people see how cute it is they will be helpless before you. 

A single sentence that can "lock them in" to your voice - forever

Is “lock them in” some weird innuendo I don’t know about?  

Why almost everyone - including "scientists" - can't understand what hypnosis is really about

Well duh, “scientists” don’t know very much, if you want actual information you should go and consult some scientists. If they have to use the inverted commas I presume their degrees are not actually real. 

An easy-to-learn method that will make people think you are staring into their souls

I have no idea why you would want people to think that....

Are You Sick And Tired Of Being A Hypnotic "Guinea Pig" For Fat Cat Businessmen Who Don't Care About Serious Students Of Hypnosis And Seduction?

You know, I’ve realized that whenever I see a hypnosis product refer to itself as “Seduction” I instantly discount it as a useful thing. I’ve seen that attached to so much rubbish it is basically a conditioned response at this point. 

What I did was go back in time - way back in time - to discover what the experts of another era had to say.

Surprisingly enough, I found one particular book - over 100 years old - that did a better job of explaining what hypnosis is and how to do it than anything I've found before or since.

Not only does it contain word-for-word scripts easy enough for anyone to follow, but it also explains what I call "groundwork" - what you need to do BEFORE you try to hypnotize someone to increase your chances of success!

Oh yeah, because that is the joy of psychology, it hasn’t progressed at all over 100 years. We have learnt absolutely nothing new about the brain, we just reached that peak and sat back. 

Also 100 years is not way back in time, you cant use the bold until you go back at least 1000 years. 

This massive, 270+ page bible of hypnosis is not available anywhere else online and has some ideas in it that are really far out - like instructions on how to hypnotize people when you aren't even near them!

Describing the things in your formal textbook as “really far out” really doesn’t help their credibility. 

But wait! There’s more! 

How to "hypnotically project" someone to another planet and change their entire perspective on life

Is this book Scientology? 

Also, what happens if you project them to an inhabited planet and the locals get scared and start worshiping them as a god, which leads to interstellar war? I think I just wrote the plot of a TNG episode. 

"Reservation of power" - easy exercises to avoid the "overflow of energy" so common among other would-be hypnotists

Well that is just easy, you just need a better battery and possibly a capacitor.

How to perfect your "art of impression" and why it is so important to becoming a great hypnotist

As we all know hypnosis just works better when you sound a tiny bit like Bill Clinton. It is just one of those things. 

Simple ways to put an entire group into hypnotic sleep

Is the way to just read them this book and watch them laugh so hard they trance out due to exhaustion? 

What tone of voice NOT to use while you're patterning or hypnotizing - a top mistake I see all the time!

A really high pitched Russian accent is my guess. Or a voice that is actually a low growl that vibrates the windows and hints at demonic possession.

Experiments in "telepathic hypnosis" - hypnotizing from a distance. This is FAR OUT and you will NOT find this information anywhere else!

Yeah, likely a good reason you won’t find it anywhere else. Also is distance hypnosis being “far out” a joke? I mean it sounds like one. 

"Light hypnosis" - what it is, and when it is appropriate to use

Be careful you don’t want your hypnosis to refract and end up coming out as mesmerism. Also I presume it is not appropriate to use light hypnosis in places where flash photography is forbidden. 

Of course there must be a downside to this right? And yes, like a dodgy electrified boomerang  there is a hidden downside which we are told is:

The Dark Side Of Success...

So cue the imperial march and lets find out about it.

In fact, if you don't know what to watch out for, you could end up having trouble with jealous husbands/boyfriends, people who want to sue you, and so on!

“Buy our book and get sued into oblivion!” because that makes me want to buy something. Likely what you will get is restraining orders for being a weird creep who keeps trying to hypnotize people.

I know... I've already had many of these problems and they weren't much fun.   The good news is, [REDACTED] will explain exactly how to avoid this kind of nonsense!

Yeah, I wonder why you have had these issues. Again I feel it isn’t due to your success rate. Also isn’t the way to avoid this just not doing it? I mean it doesn’t seem like it is something you would accidentally fall foul of. 

More Svengali-Like Tricks That Will Be Revealed:

You know, Svengali didn’t have that many tricks in the book. I really don’t want to make a girl sing, so I’ll pass, thanks. 

How to train your mind and body for explosive hypnotic success!

I don’t want to explode...why would I want my body to explode? Won’t that wake my subject. I mean it is hard to sink down into trance if your hypnotist suddenly decides to detonate. 

Correct all your bad habits - and help others correct theirs

What if your habit is making bad books? Can hypnosis help with that? 

Subsconscious mind commands that will compel them to follow your lead

I didn’t copy that wrong by the way. They do have the extra S in subconscious. “They” don’t want you to put an extra S in subconscious but this rebel is breaking all the rules. 

How your sense of touch can help you know what others are thinking at all times

They are thinking “Don’t touch me creep”. 

How to make people literally FEEL your presence

This book will tell you how to physically exist? I guess that is handy? Also that doesn’t sound too positive, very rarely do I hear “I could feel their presence in the room,” without it being followed by “It felt like a heavy blanket of tragedy.”

The one thing you must "know" before you can be a successful hypnotist

So we don’t need to know the previous bullet points? If this one is the most important shouldn’t it be first? 

Also “Know”. Do they mean the biblical “know”? That we have to have sex with the concept of hypnosis before we can be successful, as that sounds like it could be difficult. 

How using "pressure" when you speak will help you mesmerize them - this type of "pressure" isn't what you think

Hypnotize people underwater, the pressure will prevent their lungs filling leaving their brain open to suggestion. That or it will break their knee caps so they can’t run off.

But that is not all! See if we go for this book. We get a free bonus book on hallucinations! This book includes: 

A series of images that will actually help induce hallucinations. You can modify these to suit your needs and use them over and over again - this alone is worth more than the entire price of the course!

So it is a load of those magic eye puzzles? The really bad ones that don’t really work? Also how do I modify them? Scribble on them in pen maybe? 

A method to make your target feel obsessed with you to the point that they see you in their dreams

And that is how they know. They have been chosen, you are the one that must be found, that must be destroyed, the fabric of reality requires it. They will doubt it at first, but as the image paints every moment of sleep’s embrace, they will come to accept it. We all have our mission in life, and this is theirs. They will find you, they will right the wrong. They put on their coat, doing up each button in turn and stare into the mirror. They will avenge it all. There is miles to go before they sleep. 

How to blend someone's "reality" with the images you conjure for them - creating the perfect mind-slave

Oh yeah, that totally sounds like a good thing to be doing. Nope, that does not sound evil at all. 

But hey, we can pay with paypal! So what is not to love. And we get a 30 day money back guarantee just in case you can read the book and resist the urge to burn it. 

[hypnoticharlequin]

Random Wikipedia Shenanigans

I thought I would share the result of the game/thought experiment I have been doing with myself for a little bit now.

Basically, the game is simple. You click the “Random Article” button on Wikipedia and then try and make a hypnosis session based around the article. In theory this would be a themed induction and some suggestions.

I don’t tend to write the full thing out, just bullet point notes (unless something really grabs my interest) but I thought I would play a few rounds and write them down here. I know that by saying this the next so many clicks are going to give me terrible pages, but that is half the fun.

Round 1: List Of Nicknames Of United States Presidents

This is screaming out for a double bind induction based on the official names for things verses the things we actually call them in common parlance. Also something about how nicknames tend to reflect your true self. So is your nickname “Sinking Yournamehere” or “Dropping Yournamehere” right now?

This of course could just be linked with basic triggers that happen to be nicknames. Or a suggestion that causes personality alteration to fit whatever nickname you were just called.

Round 2: Canadian Xtreme Paintball League 

Today in things I had no idea that existed...

Well with paintball comes small balls of paint, and as each one hits your body you feel the relaxing agent I mixed in with the paint working it’s way into your body, relaxing each muscle they hit. Even mentioning how the blue paint balls are naturally so relaxing with their soft blue color.

A fun suggestion for this, would be to get a paintbrush with body paint on it. And wherever you paint on their body, they feel an impact there, like they were being hit by a cane or paintball.

Round 3: Let Me In (The Osmonds song)

I think this one is obvious. A nice musical induction, focused on what else? Letting the hypnotist in. Maybe with a little overload thrown in, because letting them in is easier than having to fight them.

And suggestion wise, this would really suit a body possession suggestion, forcing the subject to copy the motions of the hypnotist’s limbs.

Round 4: Arrow Rock Historic District

So according to the article, this is the area where the Santa Fe trail crossed the Missouri River, it acted as a major marker on the trail.

So for this you could do an induction about a trail, about finding that boundary where you officially cross into trance. I mean have you hit Arrow Rock yet in this induction? Have you crossed the river between awake and in trance yet? And will you even spot it until your feet get wet?

Suggestions are harder for this one. As it is a “preservation” area, maybe do some statue based stuff? Then they can have their current position preserved for a little bit? 

Round 5: Macrogol 

Macrogols are chemicals that are used as laxatives and stabilizers in various things. This of course leads to a drug based induction where the wonderful Macrogol acts as a mental laxative, letting your thoughts slide out easily and quickly.

Of course a second dose of the Macrogol acts as a trance stabilizer, keeping you in trance, holding you there until such as time as you awaken.

Suggestion wise, this really fits drug play, as Macrogol is often dissolved in water, it could be something about the subjects mind blanking every time they drink from a specific glass.