How Stage Hypnosis has changed the view of Hypnotherapy

Interesting Article

Hypnosis has a public relations problem. For all its health benefits, it is like an outstanding public official who has gotten smeared by his evil twin. The image problem of clinical hypnosis is a result of years of hurtful comparison to stage hypnosis. A vaudeville act gone bad, stage hypnosis gives a black eye to the therapeutic practice of hypnosis.
For more than 100 years, while medical hypnosis languished in relative obscurity, stage hypnosis blossomed into an attractive and audience-appealing form of entertainment. Celebrities like Charles Dickens held house parties and toyed with hypnosis as entertainment. Hypnosis was very much in the public eye for its ability to impress audiences with what was often amusing results. Misused hypnosis was soon a theater event, giving rise to one modern-day catch-phrase: It will make you “cluck like a chicken”!

Worse for medical hypnosis was the publicity that came from an extremely popular novel of the late 19th century, titled “Trilby.” In the book, hypnotist Svengali turns Trilby into a brilliant singer, and in the process discovers that he can exploit her as his love slave. It’s like the Phantom of the Opera, himself, becomes sexual abuser. You can see why the very characterization, “Svengali” makes people shudder when they link this manipulation to the concept of hypnosis. Moreover, at that time, the power of hypnosis was generally thought to rely entirely on the hypnotist himself, rather than on the cooperation of the subject. It prompted a long-lived misconception of how hypnosis really worked.
Stage hypnosis today, following on this checkered history, relies on an eager, expectant audience, who give unspoken consent to cooperating in foolish ways, and being entertained by the foolishness of others. A good stage hypnotist, if he is not a total fraud, knows how to select the members of his audience for their suggestibility. He then brings those, who may already be in a self-willed trance, onto the stage, where he continues the selection process close-up. After he has his “best” subjects, he can impressively put them through their paces, to laughter of the audience. The great Kreskin himself dabbled in this kind of practice for a while in his career. In Denmark and Israel today, the performance of stage hypnosis is against the law.

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