Hypnotism

[Krepostnoi]

I like the tale Derren Brown (I think) tells of a hokey stage hypnotist who relies on extroverts to play along. One night he picked wrong, so he whispered to the guy in question "come on, mate, work with me here, and I'll slip you fifty quid after the show," which our hero accepts. Of course, come the finale, the hypnotist keeps him until last, and then announces to the crowd "and when I click my fingers, you'll come out of the trance and no longer be hypnotised, except that you'll be convinced that I owe you £50!"

 

[kamalktk]

Hypnotized.... to death! (how could I resist using such a B movie tagline for this newspaper article?)

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20151006/ARTICLE/151009766/2416/NEWS?p=all&tc=pgall&tc=ar

More at link above....

"SARASOTA COUNTY - The families of three North Port High School students who died after being hypnotized by former Principal George Kenney will receive $200,000 each from the Sarasota County School District under a settlement agreement unanimously approved by the School Board at its meeting Tuesday night.

The $600,000 settlement closes a bizarre, years long case that began after former North Port High School Principal Kenney admitted he hypnotized 16-year-old Wesley McKinley a day before the teenager committed suicide in April 2011.

A subsequent investigation found that Kenney hypnotized as many as 75 students, staff members and others from 2006 until McKinley's death. One basketball player at the school said Kenney hypnotized him 30 to 40 times to improve his concentration."

 

[ramonmercado]

Maybe he should have looked on a mirror.

Paul McKenna ‘Hooked On Hookers, Porn, Booze And Coke’ Claims Ex-Fiancée

He’s made a fortune telling people how to improve their lives.

But Paul McKenna now faces claims he’s in need of help.

The TV hypnotist, below, was “addicted to porn and prostitutes” and believed Jesus was talking to him, court papers claim.

https://uk.celebrity.yahoo.com/post/143735915699/paul-mckenna-hooked-on-hookers-porn-booze-and

 

[GNC]

Can I recommend the turquoise track suit, Mr McKenna?

 

[Ringo]

Maybe he should have looked on a mirror.

Paul McKenna ‘Hooked On Hookers, Porn, Booze And Coke’ Claims Ex-Fiancée

The TV hypnotist, below, was “addicted to porn and prostitutes” and believed Jesus was talking to him, court papers claim.

https://uk.celebrity.yahoo.com/post/143735915699/paul-mckenna-hooked-on-hookers-porn-booze-and

They say that like it's a bad thing.

I mean, come one, given the wealth and the chance - how many of us would be hooked on seaweed smoothies and going to bed early?

#trolol

 

[Mythopoeika]

They say that like it's a bad thing.

I mean, come one, given the wealth and the chance - how many of us would be hooked on seaweed smoothies and going to bed early?

#trolol

[Holds up hand]

 

[rynner2]

Police are looking for Helston hypnotist Dennis Seger to solve 1983 sexual assault case in Newquay
By G_Bartlett | Posted: September 28, 2016

Cold case investigators are trying to track down a dead hypnotist to solve a 30-year-old Cornish sex crime.
Police officers looking into an historic case of sexual assault are trying to trace friends or relatives of a man who may have had paperwork or evidence which could help with their enquiry.
They believe he may have been brought in by cops in 1983 to work as a consultant and obtain evidence by hypnotising the victim, as was occasionally the practice at the time.

The assault happened in the Newquay area and the man, Dennis Seger - or Seager - helped police mainly in the Newquay area but lived in Helston.

A police spokesman said: "If you knew of Mr Seger (or Seager) or any existing case notes or paperwork that he may have left on file, we would like to hear from you."
If you can help, please contact Detective Constable Kevin Williams on 01209 611460.

http://www.westbriton.co.uk/police-...e-in-newquay/story-29757941-detail/story.html

 

[ramonmercado]

Best evidence yet that hypnotised people aren’t faking it
By Clare Wilson

You are feeling sleepy…or are you? In a hypnotism performance, ordinary people seem to somehow become puppets, made to talk in silly accents, or act like a baby or in other embarrassing ways. But have they really lost command of their bodies, or are they just pretending?

Now we have some of the best evidence yet that people who are hypnotised really are acting involuntarily. When estimating split-second timings, hypnotised people behaved as though their actions were outside their control, in ways that would have been difficult to fake.

Hypnotism has long been contentious. Sceptics think that rather than being in some kind of special state of altered consciousness, hypnotised people do as they’re told because it would be socially awkward not to. People who are highly susceptible to hypnosis – about one in ten of us – could just be especially suggestible and eager to please, say the cynics.

Now Peter Lush at the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science in Brighton, UK, and his team have used a known trick of the mind to investigate this mystery. When we think we have done something that causes something else, we perceive these two events to occur closer in time than if we think they are unrelated. For example, if we think that pushing a button makes a sound, it seems like the sound occurs sooner after pushing the button than if we think they’re independent events – a phenomenon called “intentional binding”.

Lush’s team asked 18 people who were highly susceptible to hypnotism to sit in front of a very accurate clock and do a task repeatedly where they pressed a button, triggering a beep after 250 milliseconds, in three different circumstances. ...

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...ocial&utm_source=Twitter#link_time=1490350842

 

[Yithian]

Same subject:

 

[ramonmercado]

A dangerous tool to rely on.

After four decades of the dubious practice, the Texas Department of Public Safety has stopped using hypnosis during police investigations. Still, evidence purportedly gleaned from hypnosis is admissible in Texas courts. From the Dallas Morning News:

The Texas Rangers are among the most prolific hypnotists in the state,The News found, performing at least 1,700 hypnosis sessions since the 1980s.
The Rangers used hypnosis to investigate an attempted kidnapping as recently as October 2020, just two months before the program was ended. Various officers at the Department of Public Safety performed a total of eight hypnosis sessions last year, including three that involved murder investigations, according to internal memos The News obtained through public records requests.
New information came out of seven of those sessions, the officers claimed. It's unclear whether that evidence will still be used in investigations of these alleged crimes now that the program has ended.
Even without the program, local police departments may still be using hypnosis to investigate crimes. More than 800 law enforcement officers statewide have been approved to use hypnosis as an investigative tool since the 1980s, and Dallas and Houston once boasted the most hypnotists on staff.

https://boingboing.net/2021/03/30/t...esnt-work-and-leads-to-false-convictions.html

 

[Cochise]

I used to go to a dentist, as a child, who used hypnotism to draw teeth. I was hypnotised and had several milk teeth drawn (the idea being to get the adult teeth to come through straight as the milk teeth were overlapping - it didn't work) .

I never felt anything when he was pulling the teeth - in fact I never remembered them actually being pulled.

Subsequently the guy was struck off for misbehaving with female patients when they were hypnotised. This was in the late 60's/early 70's after I'd stopped going to him.

What do you think? I won't mention the guys name because I was searching for an on-line reference (more in hope than expectation - it would have only been in the local papers) and discovered to my surprise that although I thought his surname uncommon there are quite a number of current dentists with the same surname. They obviously can't be the same bloke, he must have died 20 or more years ago - I'd have said he was in his 50's at least when he was treating me.

I was reminded of this because I've just read a short story which treated hypnotism as real - it was a detective story, not a fantasy (or not intended to be).