Gerard V blogs about life as a performing stage hypnotist, some of the weird things that happen and that he notices others doing.
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My Faith In Public Service Restored |
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Thursday, 12 March 2009 |
When you fly on a plane they have these safety announcements. For a long time the ones on Air New Zealand were irksome, if anybody paid attention. I notice that the cool frequent traveller types make a point of reading the paper, but I watch the safety briefing. This little screen would come down and tell us where the exits were and what to do in the event of an emergency. At this point I would grit my teeth. You see they would show this tiny person in a huge airline seat with metres of leg-room bending double and hugging her knees. This, we were told, was what to do in case of emergency. However, recognising that perhaps a few people were not going to be able to do that they added the line in passing “if you can reach the seat in front of you” do this other thing. If? Most of us are pressed up against the seat in front of us for the entire flight. The next seat is so close I cannot open my laptop and to read the screen. It is too close to hold a book. The advice in this circumstance was equally laughable. They suggested that one place ones hands on ones head, and one’s elbows on one’s thighs. I could do either, but not both. I doubt anyone but the ballet dancer in row 11 could do that. So finally in December last year I wrote with my concerns to the Civil Aviation Authority, New Zealand equivalent of the US FAA. If the safety briefing is relevant at all, then it should provide useable advice to the majority of passengers. It took a while but I got a reply. (Click here for a copy of it) CAA acknowledged that I had a point. They did a study. Air NZ agreed that the briefing wasn’t relevant to most passengers. They are making changes.
What more can I ask – and isn’t this exactly how public service is meant to work?
My faith in the public service is restored.
I also get to enter the geek hall of fame or something.
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Thursday, 12 March 2009 |
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This isn't really about hypnosis. It is about advertising. Wherever I go there are people trying harder and harder to capture my attention because they have something they want me to buy. The latest “innovation” in this area has been to place LCD display screens near the checkouts in retail outlets so that they can assault their hapless customers with advertising while they wait in the queue.
Static adverts are easily tuned out. However while standing in line in front of a screen it is almost impossible to ignore the bright colours and flashy graphics.
Next someone will calculate that there is a value to the advertiser based on how many people are made to watch their ads, gaining revenue from slow service. But when I go to buy something I am already paying for service, must they really force advertising on us while we try to give them our money?
These adverts are annoying. It irks me to know that someone is making a profit from wasting my time in the queue. I am beginning to avoid places where I know these screens are, and this will encourage me to do more and more business on-line where I choose which ads to read or respond to.
It concerns me when I think where this all leads to, as advertising execs seek more and more strident ways to capture my mindshare from amongst the noise generated by all their peers. What is next I wonder, and where will we draw the line?
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Sunday, 09 March 2008 |
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It has long been common widsom that caffeine causes dehydration. I had been told and believed that caffeine had a mild diuretic effect, and that drinking lots of it (as I do) would cause me to be dehydrated. As it happens, this was just a myth, caffeine beverages like coffee are no more diurectic than water. Here's an NYT article on the subject . I am relieved.
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More scientific proof for the skeptical. |
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Sunday, 03 February 2008 |
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Despite the many documented cases of people undergoing surgery under hypnosis and without anesthetic, and the many instances of clinical success in the treatment of phobias and other verifiable evidence, there are still some people who “don’t believe in hypnosis”.
When questioned such people often argue that the subjects are just faking. Can you imaging lying on a surgery table while they cut open your abdomen and “faking” the absence of pain?
Anyhow – the following article describes an experiment where scientists have been able to demonstrate measurable and reversible changes in brain function as the result of hypnosis. But then again, maybe the scientists are faking, or the subjects, or perhaps the machine they used to measure brain activity . . . .
The article: Mind Control: Hypnosis offers amnesia clues |
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Do I Need to Learn Hypnotherapy to Do Stage Hypnosis? |
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Sunday, 27 January 2008 |
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Many stage hypnotists arrived on stage by way of training and a career in hypnotherapy. So it is common for people to think that the best way to learn stage hypnosis is to learn hypnotherapy first.
But is this really true? As with most such questions, the answer is both yes and no.
Learning hypnotherapy from reputable training establishment will give you a good grounding in hypnosis, some skills, experience and practise in working with trance subjects, and some do’s and don’ts related to safety and professional ethics.
But when it comes to learning the skills you need to go on stage, you’ll have learned only a little. And some of your fellow therapy trainees may have a dim view of stage hypnosis so you may receive little help or encouragement.
Even with a more open minded group, there will be little knowledge of, or discussion of, how to do stage hypnosis. You need a stage hypnosis training course for that. See Learning Stage Hypnosis .
My advice, for what it is worth, is that hypnotherapy training is a useful first step to a showbiz career, because it will make you a more flexible and capable hypnotist, and the more skill you have, the better. The experience you get working with people one on one will help you on stage when working with groups, and will help build your own confidence.
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Hypnotists and Hypnotherapists |
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Saturday, 12 January 2008 |
My mum sent me a newspaper clipping a few weeks back. It was about a hypnotist who was touring NZ. The journalist had interviewed a couple of hypnotherapists in Christchurch and quoted some material from the hypnotist’s press pack. The general impression the article gave was that the show was funny but somehow “bad”.
I am reminded of a quote from Richard Bandler. He said when he first learned of hypnosis that people would tell him that “it doesn’t work” and “it’s bad”. That’s what inspired him to learn more – how could it be bad if it didn’t actually work, both statements couldn’t be true, perhaps neither were.
One hypnotherapist that was interviewed for the article made the astonishing claim that the on stage volunteers were all extroverts and were in essence faking it, and went on to observe about the stage hypnotist that “he couldn’t make me [the therapist] do any of that stuff”.
If that hypnotherapist believes that a hypnotist should be able to compel someone to do something they are set against doing, then he knows little about his supposed profession. A stage hypnotist can no more compel a reluctant volunteer to perform a gag than that hypnotherapist can compel a willing smoker to give up smoking. That’s why hypnotherapists have a mixed record in creating non-smokers. I was left wondering if he was incompetent or deliberately deceitful. Neither was an attractive thought.
By implying that one should be able to compel a subject against their will he is damaging the reputation of all hypnotists and hypnotherapists. And he is suggesting that his own clients are at risk of being compelled against their wills when they visit him. He cannot actually do that, of course, but now some people will have the genuine fear that he can (and that he might try).
The other observation he made that all volunteers are extroverts can be disproved at almost any stage hypnotist show.
I haven’t named names, because that is not the point.
Most therapists are fine with hypno shows, some have volunteered at my shows. Many therapists also do shows and vice versa. But there remain a few therapists who are threatened by the show biz side, and think that it demeans their "art". Sadly, a few will indulge in the very thing they accuse others of in order to score points or to play up to the press. |
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Saturday, 12 January 2008 |
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Apparently there are a number of hypnotists with regular TV slots these days. I haven’t seen any of them. That is because I’ve given up watching TV. The programs are interspersed at least with 17 minutes of commercials per hour, and that doesn’t count the announcements and other station baggage that along with titles and credits reduces the actual viewing time to about 35 minutes per hour. And that’s if there’s anything worth watching which there usually isn’t. Even the best TV isn’t worth the advertising torture that goes with it in my opinion.
If you watch commercial TV you’d think the world was at peril from an epidemic of unsanitary toilets, yellow teeth and insufficiently moisturized skin if the adverts are anything to go by.
I used to watch the TV news.
TV news in New Zealand consists of infotainment and human interest stories. Their idea of reporting is to rehash the same press releases everyone else gets, and to interview the same paid communications professionals or politicos. For variety the journalists interview each other too. So we know about the latest scandal, but not much about how our world is changing around us, or anything genuinely important.
A recent trend on NZTV is to “report” on a video that has achieved popularity on youtube.
When I do find out about a TV show featuring hypnosis do I watch it (record it) or download it from the internet? No. I have only seen two shows in my life so far (other than my own). I have seen excerpts of other performers’ shows. But mostly I don’t like watching them. Actually, I don’t like watching my own shows either. Watching other hypnotists makes it harder to be original. And when watching my own shows all I see is my thinning hair and my mistakes. I do watch my shows from time to time to make improvements and to learn. But TV is just not worth it. I do watch DVDs. Lots of them. We have a specially built book case to house them all. I confess to having watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series about 8 times on DVD. Not watching TV doesnt mean I am not a geek. I am a geek. There's no denying it. |
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