The Dark Side Of Stage Hypnotism

daveg

Did anyone see the program on CH4 last night? Not posting in television as I'm posting to discuss the content rather than the program...

For those of you that have been to a Stage hypnotist beware. Seems the practice is banned in 3 European countries and due to several high profile lawsuits in the UK most acts are moving abroad (in the UK) as venues will no longer book the acts. Program last night highlighted 2 cases - extract taken from CH4.com:

Lynn Howarth, who won the only standing ruling against a stage hypnotist after being regressed back to memories of sexual abuse at the age of eight. Lynn was so distressed by the experience she attempted suicide and nearly saw her marriage break up. Lynn successfully sued the hypnotist and, while the judge summing up stated that the case was not one against stage hypnosis per se, the verdict has been seen as an important victory by those opposed to the whole phenomenon.

In 1993, Sharon Tabarn got up on stage to be hypnotised during a show. Towards the end of the show, she was told she'd receive 10,000 volts of electricity as she came out of hypnosis. Sharon suffered from a phobia of electricity, having received a major shock in childhood. Within a few hours of returning home she was found dead. Despite her mother's belief that the hypnotist was to blame, any links between hypnotism and her daughter's death were dismissed at the inquest.

jerk

i saw it,
just reaffirmed my reasoning behind never allowing myself to be controlled or open to suggestion by someone else.

LegacyUser

has anybody here actually been hypnotised, i always thought it was a load of bull and all the participants were playing along, nybody done it and what was it like ?

woosaysdan

i wasnt hypnotised myself but i went to a show b4 and it was fair good i knew a few of the lads who went up and its genuine scary stuffknowing that people can do that to you!!!

commuterised

yeah I saw that program last night, it was very good.

There was one guy on it, and it was claimed that he hypnotised women into thinking he was famous (like Mel Gibson or whoever they fancied) and then he'd sleep with them.
He had a criminal record and was actively performing some trick where he lays a person across the backs of 2 chairs and walks on them, which is illegal to perform.

I've never done it, nor seen anyone do it, but I would not be into stage hypnosis at all. The mind is such a complex thing, I wouldn't let anyone tamper with mine for other peoples enjoyment.

They used to always have them at freshers week and stuff like that in colleges didn't they??

firebird

I've done it - and it was scary as ****... Some of it was ok at the time - stupid stuff, like being made brush my teeth really, really fast, or being "on" the Jerry Springer show... But some of it was also absolutely terrifying - doing a bungee jump...
And what was scariest of all was afterwards, remembering the whole damn thing. The people on stage aren't just playing along ('least, I wasn't...) - I tried a couple of times to stop, cos the guy was making me do stuff I did not wanna do... But I just couldn't - scary at the time, terrifying afterwards...