The Accidental Hypnotist

May the Trance Be With You! A 21st Century Look at Hypnosis

Stock Hypnosis/Mind Reading Poster signed "Escher". Augsburg, Graph. Kunstanstalt, ca. 1920. Courtesy: liveauctioneers.com

(SALEM, Ore.) - “You’re not going to make me do anything I wouldn’t want to, are you?” Mrs. Thomas said, half seriously.

“If you find yourself peeling grapes for me within the next hour and a half, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” I replied.

“Green grapes or purple?” she said. I had to hand it to her. She had a sense of humor. “That’s ‘Green grapes or purple?’ O Master,” I said, correcting her. Actually, a hypnotist can’t make anyone do anything against their will. Otherwise I’d lead a far more luxurious lifestyle and never again haul a trash can to the curb.

Mrs. Thomas was being entertaining, but that meant we were playing her game, not mine. For me to do my job, I needed to get her to play my game.

I gave her a look as if I were reading newsprint on the inside back of her skull. Not hypnotic, but a signal that it was my turn to lead.

“Most people have two sides,” I said. “One side is like a rainbow. This quality allows us see both sides of an argument. This is what gives us the ability to make fine distinctions, to reason and reflect as well as create poetry and art. It is a peacemaker.

“The other side is binary: yin and yang, hot and cold, black and white. It’s powered by emotion: anger, love, hate and fear. It’s irrational. It’s the quality that makes us blindly loyal to our country or to a silly sports team. It’s what drives men to seek justice. This may be thought of as stubbornness or determination. We’re going to use hypnosis to control it for our purposes.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” she said pinching at her waist. “Hypnotize me so I can lose some of this fat.”

I personally wouldn’t have called her fat, but I kept the thought to myself.

Taking her client history went smoothly, and I was able to design appropriate and I hoped effective suggestions based on her outcome frame, which is hypnotist talk for I made sure that she and I clearly understood what she wanted me to guide her to do.

I don’t have a naturally deep and resonant voice, but I’ve learned how to modulate it to be effective. In a matter of ten or so minutes she achieved a deep enough level to begin to seed suggestions into her subconscious, and I had time left over to work on her stress. It’s all a part of the job, ma’am. No extra charge.

Sixty minutes later, give or take, I closed the session. I turned off the audio recorder and transferred the .mp3 to my laptop where I would shortly email it to her for repeated future listening. Mrs. Thomas pulled out her checkbook and made rapid strokes of her pen on a piece of paper that would soon cause a measured amount of monetary credit to flow from her bank account to mine. It’s all good.

Without looking up she said, “You’re an entertainer, aren’t you?”

It wasn’t an accusation. Some consulting hypnotists frown on those who use hypnosis for purposes of entertainment. I have to agree with the sentiment. I use hypnosis, however, to educate and amaze, not to create a ritual setting for natural extroverts to make fools of themselves before the public. Well, okay. Every once in a while I’m forced to make an example, but I don’t make it a habit. A fool is a fool and there isn’t always a lot I can do to change that.

She tore the check out of her book and handed it to me.

“I’m a magician if that’s what you mean,” I said.

“Mrs. Dundee told me that you actually read her mind. Is that so?”

“I read a lot of people’s minds. When was this?”

“At the Art Fair last year.”

“I did a couple of hours magic and street hypnosis at the Art Fair this last summer, so maybe that’s what she’s referring to.”

It was during one of my mind reading acts some years ago that I first hypnotized someone. Accidentally. I’ve had training since, but my first induction was as much a surprise to me as it was to the young woman I hypnotized.

Mrs. Thomas continued. “I’m having a get together in a couple of weeks at our home and the entertainer we had scheduled cancelled on us. Paul Wesley, the Elvis Impersonator. Do you know him?”

I shook my head. I’m more of a Beatles tribute band kind of guy.

“He took a gig in Aruba. Can you imagine that?”

Considering the weather in Aruba compared to the local drizzle I could, but didn’t say so. “We’ll pay you well and a bonus of $50.00 for stepping in at the last minute. Can you do that?”

“What’s the date?”

She told me. I looked at my calendar and said, “It’s open, but I’ll need to see if my wife has plans for that evening. I’ll email you this evening after I speak with her. You won’t forget to listen to your recording, will you?”

“No, I won’t forget.” “Remember, you’re not dieting. You’re permanently changing your eating patterns and increasing your physical activity.”

She gave me a thumbs up. She would be successful.

When I got home Queen was buried beneath a pounce of cats. Pounce is a lovely term, isn’t it? It’s so feline. One cat was draped on the back of the couch just behind her head. One to either side. One in her lap and a second trying to wheedle himself in. I’m sure they have names, but I’ve misplaced the chart that I carry for purposes of identification. Where the other four cats were, I couldn’t say. In spite of being packed in living cat meat Queen typed merrily away on her MacBook Air. Don’t ask me how she managed it.

“How’s your day been?” I said, and gave her a peck on the cheek.

She gave me a loving but tired look.

“Your turn to select the restaurant where we shall dine,” I reminded her with the air of an aristocrat. This is our Friday night tradition.

She nodded without saying a word. She was in the middle of a sentence. And when she finished that sentence she would start the next. And so on. I knew to let her continue. When she got hungry enough she would make her choice.

Her given name isn’t Queen, but I haven’t called anything else since the cats arrived. She’s Queen of the Cats, or just Queen for short. I don’t know what the attraction is. Cats find their way to our door step from miles around. Could be the feeding trough. I will say we haven’t had any trouble with mice, but on a couple of occasions we have had skunks over for dinner.

By and by she said, “I think I’d like to eat at Chloe’s.” It’s a local sandwich shop that we both enjoy.

On Friday evenings we’re both pretty tired. She teaches biology at the university. I spend my days hypnotizing people. We have a lot in common.

I said, “I have a client who wants me to entertain two weeks from tomorrow in the evening. Do we have anything on our social calendar?”

“Is that our anniversary?”

“It’s the day before our anniversary, I think,” I said.

“I can never remember which day we got married. It was such a blur,” she said, wistfully.

“So, our calendar is clear?”

She nodded. “But the next day isn’t,” she said, with a knowing smile. “I want your heart and soul for that twenty-four hour period.”

“It’s yours any time you say the word,” I said, wrapping my arms around her.

Two weeks passed with the usual blend of the mundane and bizarre known only to those of us in the business. If another person enters my office smelling of patchouli oil and asks to be regressed to a former life I can’t be held responsible for my actions.

I’m sorry, but hypnosis is a legitimate phenomenon and useful for making significant changes in people’s lives. Tapping about on one’s forehead to feel better or fawning over the advice a bag lady who believes she channels a godhead is just flipping wacko. Hypnotists who cater to that sort of thing don’t help the profession get the respect it deserves.

The day of the party arrived and I dressed for the occasion—all in black, of course. I carry a deck of cards, a coin purse with four half dollars, and three lengths of rope. With these three sets of objects and the knowledge and skill that go with them I can entertain for hours.

Hilary (what I affectionately call my GPS) got me to Mrs. Thomas’s home without incident. I had to park almost two blocks away and walk in because the streets were lined with guests’ cars any one of which cost more than my house. I learned during her client interview that she was married to a defense lawyer, which the acreage of the neatly trimmed front lawn and scale of said domicile confirmed.

I rang the bell and the door was opened by a woman who looked like an older version of Mrs. Thomas.

I held up my hand to stop her from speaking. Squinting at her thoughtfully I said, “That movie...that movie,” I muttered and snapped my fingers as if trying to jog my memory. “What movie?” she said.

“The one you starred in with Burt Reynolds.”

“You must be the magician,” she said, and gave me a cautious smile.

“You read my mind!” I gasped.

“I don’t know where Marjorie is just at the moment, but feel free to eat some of this food. I honestly don’t know which army she thought set up camp here.” She waved her wine glass in the direction of the table filled with all the kinds of things my clients who are altering their eating habits shouldn’t even be near. “Your helper is here somewhere.”

“My helper? What helper would that be, ma’am?”

“I thought you were the mind reader,” she said, and pushed aside a sliding door that let out to a bricked walkway.

I followed her without eating or drinking anything as is my habit. The smell of barbecued chicken, citronella candles, and chlorine from the swimming pool washed over me.

Walking up to a group of strangers and asking permission to hypnotize them is no easy thing. Actually hypnosis is the easy part. The hard part is getting people to volunteer. Sober people, that is. Especially those over 35. Guys in their 20’s will do anything.

“Is this the group that wanted to see some magic?” I said, approaching a group of two men and two women. The alpha male held a beer can in one hand and a cigar in the other. He was about fifty-five, tanned, wore glasses and had grizzled, curly hair cut short. By his manner I guessed he was Mr. Thomas, the defense lawyer.

He reached out to shake my hand. “You must be the hypnotist my wife is seeing.”

I introduced myself.

“I don’t think she needs to lose any weight, do you?” he said.

That was a question to which any answer would damn me. So I just cocked an ambiguous eyebrow in his direction. He got the message.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize that she’d hired you or I wouldn’t have hired this other psychic.”

“This other psychic?”

“Some kind of mind reader. Or a palm reader or something. Henry Jackson at the club recommended her. His wife attends her séances on Wednesday evenings.”

A magician or a mentalist or a hypnotist is not in the same class as a psychic. We use roughly the same skills, but magicians don’t pretend to have real paranormal powers. We’re fakes and proud of it. It’s an insult to be grouped with the clairfraudulent set, but I didn’t say so. I just gave him a silent smile.

He said, “Are you looking for Marge?”

“When you were young your parents pushed you into sports, didn’t they?” I said.

“What makes you say that?” he replied with a poker face. He was a lawyer, after all.

“They wanted you to play a sport that you weren’t interested in.”

I watched his face and saw that I’d struck a nerve. “They wanted you to play tennis?” No reaction. “Golf. Yes, it was golf, wasn’t it?” He nodded. I looked him over. Too short for basketball. To thin for football.

“You wanted to play baseball, and you did after you gave golf a shot.”

“After Dad retired from law he turned golf pro.” He grinned and nodded. “You’re good.”

I turned to the woman on his left. They shared the same shape nose, the same eyes. She was younger, but not young enough to be his daughter.

“And this is your sister, right?”

She blinked her eyes in astonishment.

I swiveled and stood by her side.

“I want you to think of a card, any card. But don’t make it easy for me. Don’t pick the Queen of Hearts or the Ace of Spades, for example. Everyone picks those. Make it really obscure.”

I asked her to say the name of the suit over and over in her mind and to count the spots. “Now project that picture in your mind to me.”

“You’re thinking of the eight of hearts,” I said, after a pause.

Her eyes went wide. “That’s right. How did you do that?”

I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Your powers are not like mine.” said a short, slight woman of about fifty-five with close pixie curls dyed flat black framing her face like a bathing cap. Her fingers dug like claws into my arm.

So this was the psychic.

“You pretend to have powers, but you are a fake.” Her eyes burned into mine.

I gently took her hand and cradled it in front of her. “Do you believe in palm reading?” I said.

This wasn’t the reaction she was expecting. She blinked.

I said, “Could you take a look at mine and tell me what you see?”

But instead of showing her my palm I lifted her own palm toward her face.

“That’s right.” And I gently lifted her hand slightly above her eye level. “And as your hand moves toward your face, your eyes will begin to change their focus. As you become aware of your eyes, I want you to close your eyes and…” Here I snapped my fingers. “...sleep!”

Her head rolled forward and she began to slowly rock back and forth teetering like a sailor on a rough sea. Not everyone goes down that easily without a warm-up. I thought she’d resist, but she didn’t.

“As you listen to the sound of my voice both consciously and unconsciously you will find your balance and keep your legs solidly beneath you as continue to relax and sink like a leaf drifting in stream with nothing you have to know, nothing you have to do, and nowhere you have to go except deeper and deeper into hypnosis.”

In a heartbeat we were surrounded by all the guests. Mobiles galore recorded the event for posterity. I dislike cellphones, but here was pocket technology at its best.

“I’ve been told that you talk to dead people. If that’s so nod your head.” She nodded.

“And do you know the names of these spirits as well? If this is so, nod your head.” She nodded again.

“I find that a strange thing because in a moment you’re going to open your eyes, and when you do you’re going to be unable to remember your own name. You won’t recognize it when you hear it or see it spelled. It will vanish, disappear, fade completely from your memory. Completely erased. It’ll be as if your parents never bothered to give you a name. And even if you could remember your name it would stick on the tip of your tongue and you’d be unable to say it. Nod your head because you understand.” She nodded her head.

“One...two...three. Eyes open feeling refreshed, relaxed and alert.” She was about to say something (undoubtedly shout out her name) when I placed a restraining hand on her shoulder.

“Where did you park?” I asked.

She paused for a moment to recollect.

I said, “Down the street or on a cross road? South, I mean. Going east and west.” I made an ambiguous loop with my index finger in the air.

She closed her eyes and tilted her head trying to remember.

“And I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name. What did you say it was?”

Ever walk into a room with a purpose and forget what it was? It’s because another thought pushed the reason out of your mind.

Her eyes went wide. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. “Well, I know my own name,” she insisted. But if she did she couldn’t say it out loud. The crowd shook with laughter.

I turned to Mr. Thomas and shook his hand. “Well sir, I see you already have your entertainment for this evening, so there’s no need for me to stick around. She’ll remember her name in the next four or five minutes. If not send her to me, and I’ll give her a new one. Tell Mrs. Thomas I’m sorry I missed her. It’s been my pleasure.”

Mr. Thomas stood with his jaw hanging in surprise. So unlike a lawyer. I turned and left.

Glen Bledsoe is a Consulting Hypnotist who practices hypnotherapy in Salem, Oregon.

For more information please visit: glenbledsoe.com