The Magicanada Project

teddy · Joined: 31 Aug 2007 Posts: 166

There's no Hypnosis forum, so I'll just post this here.

Hypnosis. There's no real, specific definition for it. There's not an easy way to explain it or describe it. Yet most mentalists and people who have had experience with this mysteriously powerful force will agree that it definitely exists. So why are there people who don't believe in it? And why does that disbelief challenge the effect on hypnosis if it's proven that hypnosis works? All of the reasons behind hypnosis, i.e. brainwaves, subconscious, etc. don't amount to anything if the person being hypnotized doesn't entertain the notion of it. We all know the mind is more powerful than the body, and it doesn't take the Matrix to prove it. With moms lifting cars off their children and people walking on fire and glass, it's easy to see that humans can do anything they put their mind too (in a realistic sense of the phrase, of course).

So here are my topics for discussion today. Listen closely, and think about your answers for a while.

1. What makes hypnosis so powerful? Be it confidence, willpower, or whatever else you can think of, how is it possible to control another person's body?
2. Which brings me to my next question - Is hypnosis really controlling another person's body? Or is it just tricking someone into thinking they are under some kind of influence?
3. Why do some people still not believe in hypnosis?
4. Why does disbelief affect the strength of hypnosis?

Have fun, kids.

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Michael Kras · Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 12:31 am Post subject:

I've experimented with basic hypnosis but am by no means even passable. I have been learning impromptu hypnosis via a book by Anthony Jacquin, but other than that I've not been doing it too much. Hypnosis relies a lot on credibility and belief, something difficult to obtain for a teeanger. For the record, there IS someone in my school who I've seen pull it off, and quite well too.
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LIVR · Joined: 29 Aug 2008 Posts: 52 Location: Ontario

http://www.randi.org/encyclopedia/hypnotism_hypnosis.html

Reuben The Great · Joined: 11 Sep 2007 Posts: 245

Did you just call us "kids"?
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BrianMillerMagic · Joined: 14 Aug 2007 Posts: 543 Location: New York State

1. The mind is mostly weak and susceptible to suggestion. That's why advertising works so well.

2. Hypnosis is influencing another's mind in a stronger way that the mind encounters in day to day life. Again, think about subliminal advertising.

3. People don't believe in things for lots of reasons, some are valid and some aren't. Hypnosis works, and it isn't up for debate. The degree to which it works is subjective.

4. Disbelief affects the strength because hypnosis is about providing suggestions to the mind. The more unwilling a person is to believe in hypnosis, the more unlikely it is that they will accurately follow the hypnotists instructions. It's like the spectator who when you spread the deck and say "Take a card" responds, "No."

For the record, there are accepted definitions of hypnosis that are almost universally agreed upon among hypnotists. It has been argued that hypnosis is merely the deepest state of suggestion.

"We all know that the mind is more powerful than the body." That's a wildly bold claim that is the source of huge debate and controversy in philosophy, psychology, science, and other areas of study, that I'd like to hear you defend.

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