HYPNOSIS LECTURE/DEMONSTRATION

In November of 2001 I had the privilege to take the several-day, very comprehensive Masters Ultimate Stage Hypnosis Seminar, which at the time was conducted by Jerry Valley and Ormand McGill. I very highly recommend this seminar to anybody, who has a serious interest in stage hypnosis. Because I am primarily a research mathematician my stage show very quickly evolved into a lecture/demonstration of hypnosis. The program is billed as " An Evening of Hypnosis with C.J. Mozzochi." In this article I will discuss in detail the format of that program, which lasts approximately ninety minutes. The first thing that I do is give a basic lecture on hypnosis, which I take essentially verbatim from the very nicely written monograph “What Every Subject Should Know About Hypnosis and Self-Hypnosis” by David A. Gouch, MD and Garland H. Fross, DDS. Then I make a general statement that for the rest of the program I will be offering opportunities to the audience to participate in various experiments, and that if a particular audience member does not want to participate, to sit comfortably in their chair and simply do not participate. Then I announce to the audience that for those, who want to participate, to sit comfortably in their chair with their hands on their thighs, and I tell them that I am going to play a recording in my voice, which is known as a progressive relaxation induction, which will put them in hypnosis. I also tell them that as a post-hypnotic suggestion I will say, after they are in hypnosis, that whenever they give me permission to hypnotize them, all that I have to do is look at them, say the words “sleep now” and snap my fingers, and when I do that, they will go deep into hypnosis. Then I will give a few suggestions for well-being and take them out of hypnosis. Then I say to the audience if they would like to participate in the next experiment, to stand by their chair. Then I do the classic hand clasp suggestibility test, and I look for particularly good responders. If I see one that appears to me to be performing especially well, I sometimes will go into the audience, look at that person and simultaneously grasp their hands and pull them forward while shouting “sleep.” Then assuming that they go into hypnosis, I sit them down into their chair and proceed to do some basic deepening and then take them out of hypnosis. I find this routine to be especially effective. At that point, having made a mental note of the people, who responded well to the hands clasp experiment, I will ask between three to five people from that group to come up on stage to participate in further demonstrations. Once they are on the stage, I individually go up to each participant and say to them, “Do I have your permission to hypnotize you?” Assuming they say yes, I give the cue signal to “sleep now” and snap my fingers, and presumably they go into hypnosis. If they do not, I segue immediately into the Elman induction and by either means get them into hypnosis. Then I do some basic deepening. Sometimes I play, softly in the background, the theme music from the movie, Somewhere in Time, during this segment of the program. At that point, I will pick one or two of the participants that I think are responding especially well, and I will perform very carefully the standard testing procedure to determine exactly at what level they are in trance at that time. Then I will select a few routines that can be found in the references below for stage performance and work through those with one or more of the participants. There are two routines that I build into every demonstration, however. One is I select one of the participants while they are in hypnosis and presumably at least at level 4, and I will ask some basic questions such as the name of their first grade teacher, the color of their first car that they owned, and various questions like that, which concern really very inconsequential facts of their life, for which there would be no way I, as a perfect stranger, would know the answers. Then I will very strongly give the suggestion that that person will have no recollection on the conscious level of their ever answering those questions for me. Then I will go onto something else and then a few minutes later return to that particular participant and inform him or her that I am a superb mind reader and proceed to produce the answers to those questions. It is a very effective routine because the audience observes that the person is genuinely perplexed as to how I would have that information. The other routine I always do is pick one of the participants and give that person my business card, on which there is my phone number. I will say to this person that that night just before they go to bed they will feel totally compelled, to the point that they simply will not be able to resist, to go to the telephone, to call my number and to leave a voice mail notifying me that the Russians are coming. Then I inform them that they simply will not be able to resist doing that, and again, I conclude with the amnesia statement that they will have no recollection on the conscious level as to why they are doing that. Then I take all of the participants out of hypnosis. Next I lecture the audience on some of the things that I did with these people, explain why I did them and what information I got out of the testing and what I could expect if they went to certain levels, and so on. This way the audience will have a learning experience, not just an observing experience. Then, finally, I open a question and answer period, in which I encourage the audience members to ask me questions about anything I did that evening or anything about hypnosis, with which they might be concerned. I also bring some of my publications and make them available for sale at the conclusion of the demonstration. I have had very good success with this program, and frequently I encounter people that not only make appointments for my services, but also contact me with questions about hypnosis. I am always very accommodating, and I make every effort to either answer the question in detail or to give a reference for it. I also do some promotion for the National Guild. I point out the merits of the organization, and I encourage the audience participants to either seek the services of a hypnotist or to pursue the field further by perhaps taking a certification course or in some way learning more about the subject. References: 1. Jerry Valley, Inside Secrets of Stage Hypnosis. 2. Ormand McGill, The New Encyclopedia of Stage Hypnotism. 3. Ormand McGill, Secrets of Stage Mindreading. 4. Geoffrey Ronning, Stage Hypnosis. 5. Jonathan Royle, Secrets of Stage Hypnosis, Street Hypnotism, Hypnotherapy, NLP.