Concerning this issue with the girl. I don't know, I wasn't there, but there is a concept known as anchoring:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring_(NLP)#Anchoring
Hypnotists will often set up an anchor with clients they intend to work with more than once so as to speed up the induction process at the subsequent visits.

IF hypnotism was real, it wouldn't manifest itself in this manner. People can't take control of your mind, and they can't do it by counting down from 10. Look, everyone else on that stage was goign through the same thing as you, they didn't want to look like an ass by not looking like an ass.

Your buddy, he's probably so deep in it now, he doesn't want to come clean...

OR, I guess it's possible that a guy on stage counted down and took complete control of people on stage making them involuntarily doing things by clapping and saying the the number seven.

LOL, "your buddy is so deep in it now...." dramatic much...

Obviously you are assuming I'm an idiot, which I guess is fair since to you I'm a random person on the internet.

But you are just plain wrong about this. I've been far above average at telling if people are lying, acting, etc. my whole life. I'm not saying "I read souls daily, no one can lie to me," but I'm generally far more perceptive to this kind of thing than the average person. The girl I was next to was faking (badly) like me. The other people on the stage were absolutely not. When the guy made them "go to sleep," their heads drops instantly, and they didn't peek when his back was turned (unlike me, who would look up whenever the cost was clear, wave to the crowd, inspect the other participants and then fake go back to sleep before the guy turned back towards me.) They did all "tasks" quickly and without hesitation, they weren't "planning" each thing and deciding how to best fake it... they were immediately doing what was asked unabashedly. The girl next to me was awkwardly going along, I probably could have spotted her from the crowd even if I wasn't next to her. If the other people on the stage were world class method actors or world class improv actors, you MIGHT have a case. But the fact is that these were just a random group of college kids, and there is no way your beliefs on this subject are correct.

I haven't jump in on this yet. There was a thread in OOT, probably between 1-2 years ago about hypnosis. I learned how years ago.

Saying it isn't real is silly. It's usually said by people that have no understanding of what hypnosis is or don't understand how it works. As RussianBear said, no one is taking over anyone's mind. The hypnotist is in a simple sense bypassing the conscious mind and communicating directly with the subconscious mind and offering suggestions.

I was never very good at hypnotizing people when you consider the depth of what is done in a clinical setting. I just learned some stage tricks and whatnot. It really took just a few weeks to learn at a basic level. I had a good time experimenting with hypnosis with friends and the people in my dorm - and I was successful in hypnotizing probably 80% of the people I tried it on. Including probably the smartest person I know. Intelligence has nothing to do with it. A person's willingness to be hypnotizes definitely does. At least at the level of understanding I had.

You also demonstrate your lack of knowledge on this subject. I'm not putting you down, I'm merely stating a fact. I am from Russia where people have been covertly hypnotising people on the streets for years. In a matter of moments they induce a light trance, ask for their mark to hand over keys, money, etc. and then walk away. By the time the person realizes what was done to them, the criminal is long gone. Now, they are not inducing deep trances, but what they are using is indeed hypnosis. It is one of the darker examples of what is possible. It is used to confuse people for a period of time. And confusion is the cornerstone of Ericksonain hypnosis (or as scott correctly put it, bypassing the conscious mind).

Kind of like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZZLukMA2ug

Really, what kind of clinical hypnosis? Like anxiety disorder, smoking cessations stuff? I did a presentation this morning on surgical hypnosis, its pretty interesting stuff.

In what way does it even make SENSE to talk about a placebo effect with regards to hypnotism and quitting smoking? What would that even mean? I dont know if "fake hypnosis" is even a thing.

there is no "magical hypnotic moment." You are hypnotized many times every day, most likely.

Because hypnotism has COPIOUS amounts of rock-solid research and medical data supporting its efficacy, and a couple hundred year history...would be my guess. Couple that with Randi being a sharp and you've got your answer.

This is me exactly, I'm about as skeptical as you can be, but hypnotism is quite clearly a real thing and has clear medical uses.

Exactly. I do smoking cessation, anxiety, phobias, etc. I've been doing a lot lately with helping people increase their confidence. There was a brief time in the 50s or so when a lot of dentists were trained in hypnosis and used it instead of anasthesia. Surgical hypnosis is an interesting application and this goes back to the 1800s. I did hypnotize a friend of mine when she gave birth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnobirthing.

All of this was covered in the presentation! The information I've read has said that anywhere between 10-50% of people are "hypnotizable." In your clinical experience would you say thats accurate?

I believe that all people are hypnotizable. The only people I've had trouble with are people who can't concentrate well or psychotics, though I have a friend who is a much better hypnotist than I am who does work well with psychotics and others who hallucinate. The fact is, all people can be hypnotized since it is a naturally-occuring state the we go in and out of several times throughout the day anyhow. It's just a matter of elegantly helping them learn to get into that state intentionally.

Yeah ok, I suppose that was a poorly phrased question.

No, not at all. You see, some years ago some psychologists made up a method to "test" whether or not a person is hypnotizable. The thing is, they only used one type of induction. All they really determined was whether or not that particular induction worked with that person. This is idiotic. A good hypnotist has a minimum of twenty different inductions that he can do at the drop of a hat so that if one is not working, no problem, just change what you're doing, try a different one until you acheive the result you want.

How about acupuncture? Is that like hypnotism

very interesting

russianbear it'd be great if you made an 'ask a hypnotist' topic if you have some free time

McBeef,
Thank you for the compliment but I doubt there is that much interest for that!

Garcia, acupuncture is a Chinese healing method involving poking people with needles and energy, etc. I have heard it is very effective for a wide variety of things.

Well I know that. But I am wondering if it is totally bogus placebo stuff, or does it tap into some human physiological stuff like hypnosis does. It is probably hard to get an informed opinion on this matter though

I think there is still too little known about acupuncture. I believe that it is a real thing. I do believe in energy and harnessing energy to use it for healing purposes, etc. That's just my opinion, though.

Why doesn't this happen anywhere else?

It does, just more prevelant there, I guess. At least, I know of it to happen here in the States, but I've never seen articles in the newspaper or on t.v. news about it, but I have seen several in the Russian papers. http://hubpages.com/hub/Handshake-In...ns-in-Hypnosis

http://www.mindpowernews.com/HypnoCrime.htm

http://www.lermanet.com/scientology/...tist-crime.htm

http://www.scrapsofmoscow.org/2005/0...-hypnosis.html

There is a fair amount in the medical literature about the efficacy of acupuncture. Basically, in the world of "alternative and complementary medicine," there are two categories...one containing acupuncture, hypnosis, chiropracty and a few others, and then the rest. In the other category you have a whole host of nonsense cures and bogus remedies that have either NEVER been tested or have been repeatedly tested and found to have no value. Since I despise snake-oil salesmen, it took me a while to see through the charade that they put up by trying to pretend that all alternative medicine is really just the same...and for that reason I was very skeptical and hesitant about things like acupuncture and hypnotism. But they really arent the same at all. Homeopathy, crystals, reiku, all of this is nonsense, or at the very least, none of it has ever shown any efficacy for anything. But that isnt the case for EVERY alternative therapy.

I pretty much agree with this, save for the fact that some homeopathic remedies have affected me. My mom is a huge believer in basically anything sold as "holistic" or "non conventional" and has no basis in logic, so she was always very into homeopathy. I was often given these remedies as a child, and some of the times they did have an effect (not always.) I'm pretty sure it wasn't placebo effect, since one of the times after I took it my symptoms severely accelerated, and then went away completely. There is a chance the medicine just made me worse and then I got better, but I think it's somewhat more likely that it "sped up" the process and got the sickness out of my system.

Anyhow, I agree that most of that stuff isn't worth taking too seriously, but there seems to be something to at least some of it.