Mind-Control

Along my travels this month, I found myself in Toronto, at the Exhibition, which is a huge kind of national fair, with vendors from all over the place, a boardwalk of games and rides, all kinds of displays and shows. I attended a hypnotist show, with my friends there, and I volunteered to be hypnotized, together with some 25 other members of the audience.

We were up on stage, and the hypnotists had us do some things, while he played with our minds, asking questions with too many double negatives so as to confuse us. We had our eyes sealed shut, and I tried to open them, but I couldn't. He had us roll our hands in circles around each other, and then uncontrollably switch directions. I was amazed that it worked, and kind of scared by the loss of control.

Then, the second part of the show, he put the volunteers into a trance, having us relax completely, and fall on the stage floor. I relaxed as he told me to, but as I fell to the floor, I checked to see that I wasn't falling on anyone. it could be that that's what did it, but after that, the rest of the show, I sat on my seat and was unaffected by any and all of the hypnotists instructions. I tried to do what he said-- he had us carve out mountains, he told us we saw a cloud that was the shape of a turkey float into a cloud the shape of an oven, and i tried to imagine these things. He trained the volunteers to be terrified of his face when he placed his thumbs on his two front teeth. He made one guy think he was a superhero, another that he was Captain Kirk. He made a woman forget her name-- a belt turn into a snake, and most everyone on stage was with him on everything. But I sat there, and watched, and tried to feel it-- but it didn't come. He had everyone scream "No, you shut up!" whenever they heard him say "shut up," and to think their butts were being pinched by the person next to them, or even by someone in the audience. I sat, and wondered why it wouldn't work for me. I felt left out, since it seemed, everyone else could loose a hold of his/her conscious mind, but i couldn't.

A friend of mine who does hypnosis told me that when in a trance, a person will not do anything that he finds morally unethical. Maybe that was the problem for me. The hypnotist had us imagine everyone in the audience was naked, and then that we were. But i was out of it way before then. He had a guy give him his wallet repeatedly, under this spell. I was astonished by how well it worked for everyone else, and how i was completely unaffected by his instructions.

I think there's a kind of paradox involved with control in general, and is not different when it comes to being in control of the mind. A parent, teacher, youth group leader, politician-- all these people have a certain amount of power and control over other people, but at a certain point, they all need to recognize that people have their own wills, and they need to let go.

I think people have a need to let go of their minds, as evidenced by the fact that so many of us like to be intoxicated, and because we love to drift into a dream. I think that the process of hypnosis a kind of paradox-- a catch-22, if you will. I had too much control to let go of my mind-- and not enough to be able to go under the trance. It takes concentration and focus to let go of ones mind in a hypnotic trance, and I didn't have what it takes. Or did I have too much?

Do you think I ought to try it again? The hypnotist promised that we would feel more well rested than if we'd slept all night when we came out of the trance. I think that is alluring enough to give it another shot. I aspire to be able to lose control-- at least to a degree. Hmm.