talkmagic.co.uk

Just to be clear, I believe hypnotism to be BS from the point of view of someone claiming they can get inside your mind and make you do things or think things. However, it's not out of the realm of possibility that a skilled practitioner can help you acheive a state of mind-over-matter, but to my understanding that's not a form of mentalism and nothing spooky is going on.

What I object to is those people who pretend their techniques are something other-worldly and they have "powers". That's the context in which I say it's guff, because it invariably goes hand-in-hand with raking in large sums of money from people who, through no fault of their own, fall for the very clever trick.

Mark Lewis is right, however: I know next to nothing about the subject! I never let that get in the way of a strong opinion in the past, haha!

Dont think of a pink elephant!

they have "powers

i do have powers lol

I have never had any hypnosis training and have read very little about it. Yet one night I tried the rapid handshake induction whatjamacallit and successfully put the guy 'under' and made him lose control of both of his arms.

If you have the confidence and people believe you have done it before then you should have little problem in doing it.

Trust me there really is something in hypnosis and not all the subjects of stage hypnosis are fakes. I know because I've been one and the experience seemed very very real at the time. I can quite clearly remember watching a chair float around the stage, being convinced that I was a Ballet dancer at the Royal Variety Show and watching in horror as all my clothes vanished while I was stood in front of the audience.

And as for hypnotherapy, a good friend of mine went from smonking 40 a day to never touching a cigarette again after just on session.

queen of clubs wrote:I say it's guff, because it invariably goes hand-in-hand with raking in large sums of money from people who, through no fault of their own, fall for the very clever trick.

Isn't that what a magician does to the spectator? No?

MickyScouse wrote:

queen of clubs wrote:I say it's guff, because it invariably goes hand-in-hand with raking in large sums of money from people who, through no fault of their own, fall for the very clever trick.

Isn't that what a magician does to the spectator? No?

Not really. Magicians don't have clients who they instill with false hope so that the person goes back time and time again truly believing they are going to change their lives.

I've got nothing against hypnotism and mentalism and tarot reading shows, ie. doing it as a "performance" to entertain, just the people who exploit regular clients with cold reading and all the other tricks, basically fleecing people at the same time as allowing them to believe something supernatural is genuinely happening.

I'm sure no one on this forum does things like that, so this isn't an attack on people who use mentalism/hypnotism in their performances at all - just those who exploit by insisting it's "real". If it was real you wouldn't have to learn it, you would just have it inside you. Like that jerk John Edward in the USA who talks absolute rubbish about how he can receive messages from people's dead relatives. It's disgraceful to abuse people in that manner.

I'm willing to have my mind changed on the subject, however. As I've already openly admitted, I'm just a cardie, I know next to nothing about the mentalist effects. I'm just a loud-mouth who doesn't like to see vulnerable people pour their cash into the pockets of expensive hypnotists who are really not helping them, just deceiving them.

queen of clubs wrote:Just to be clear, I believe hypnotism to be BS from the point of view of someone claiming they can get inside your mind and make you do things or think things.

You've clearly never been the recipient of a deliberate post hypnotic suggestion...

Let's put it this way, the conscious mind is always the last to know what's going on. It's like a mushroom, kept in the dark and fed a lot of BS by the subconscious. It's immensely difficult not to believe what comes from the subconscious. Hypnosis is a method of suggesting things to the subconscious that subsequently get fed to the conscious mind as reality.

I can assure Queen of Clubs that hypnotherapy is a boon to mankind. I don't believe in hypnosis but I do believe it can do a lot of good for people. It is a bit like a placebo effect. You CAN stop people smoking with hypnosis. I have done it many times. You CAN help people to lose weight. And you CAN help people to stop stammering or nailbiting etc;

I understand that Lady of Mystery believes she was hypnotised. She wasn't. She only thinks she was. If she had never heard of hypnosis she would have called it something else or perhaps more likely wouldn't ahve experienced the "phenomena" in the first place.

deja vu...deja vu...

i say go for a full on pro course on clinical hypnosis if you want to learn the real thing...but...

if you are wanting to use it along side your magic, then read the stage hypnosis books that are about instead, you've got Building Blocks by Jermay? though that is suggestion, rather than hypnosis, however you define it...

i hate the majority of stage hypnotists acts, for exactly the reasons lomster described...i dont get the whole premise to be honest...come and laugh at strangers who are under the impression they have no legs...pfft...rubbish...

i would argue that suggestion is a little different to stage hypnosis in some ways...read kenton's work...especially Ultimately Under...

safe, interesting, reliable....

and yes, i would of thought it would be difficult to get pro gigs as a hypnotist these days unless fully insured and all that stuff...

From what I understand the climate for stage hypnotists in the UK is not very good anyway.

Good lord. Could it be that me and Mr Lewis are in agreement?

Whilst he may not be hirsute, he is certainly astute.

Well. He isn't from Yorkshire so that is of course to be expected.

Smoking bans.

Hypnotists unable to find insurance.

Mediums being frightened into not performing.

No more school trips due to health & safety issues.

Seems to me like all the fun is being sucked out of society. In a century or two's time we might all be finally happy when everyone lives in a bubble, never does anything, never gets hurt, and dies of boredom at the age of 247.

Magic Chris - I say go ahead and do your hypnotist show. What they going to do? Arrest you? And if they do, think of the publicity. You'll be made for life. That's certainly what will happen to the first medium that gets hauled before the beak.

I may not believe in a lot of things, but that doesn't mean that I want to see them disappear. Hypnosis, mediumship, smoking, school trips; think of them what you will, but they do add a little colour to what is fast becoming a rather grey existence.

Cue an onslaught of magicians on high horses with bees in their bonnets about those awful evil geniuses that are mediums.

themagicwand wrote:Smoking bans.

Hypnotists unable to find insurance.

Mediums being frightened into not performing.

No more school trips due to health & safety issues.

Seems to me like all the fun is being sucked out of society.

Are you a Daily Mail reader? I'd work it out for myself but unfortunately I don't pretend I can read people's minds.

Only stage mentalists purport to read minds. If there is any fakery it is with entertainers.

Mediums don't read minds. They merely contact the dead and pass messages on. Psychics don't read minds either. They merely get vibes about people and tell them what their impressions are. Even fortune tellers don't read minds. They merely tell the future. Palmists don't read minds. They read hands and interpret what they see. Tarot readers don't read minds either. They read cards. And they give their interpretations of what the cards mean. All these people use their gut feelings and intuition. Or psychic ability if you call it that. However not one claims to read minds.

As I said it is only entertainers on stage that purport to read minds. I agree such behavior is quite disgraceful