Hypnomagickal Deception

I have posted on Keith Barry and his use of suggestion with mentalism before. Barry bills himself as a hypnomagician and he can be a lot of fun to watch in action. He combines genuine hypnosis effects with the illusion of same via mentalism (mental magic).

In addition to his stage shows and various television specials, you can see his work in a Discovery channel series (see here), Deception with Keith Barry, in which Barry plays with magic, hypnotic suggestion, and the like with each episode focused on a particular theme or context.

Here are some examples from that series:

Black Ops Hypnosis

Part of this sequence makes one suspect that there are pre-prepared trance partners involved as Barry walks around doing street hypnosis. However, many of the principles demonstrated are genuine enough. The bit with asking for the time and the watch is very similar to how a friend of mine used to do his variation of Milton Erickson’s pattern interrupt instant induction . . . although, I would strongly suggest one not attempt hypnosis without the consent of the person you’re working with (for a number of reasons, one being it’s very creepy and another being that if it don’t work quickly one can get a deserving punch in the face rather quick – a hypnotist from Thailand used to do a lot of street hypnosis of this sort and even though his technique is solid he would find himself running from a beating on several occassions).

Blindfold Driving

I’ve posted earlier on Barry’s demonstration of an old Helstromism bit of driving a car solely via muscle reading of the ideomotor response, although Barry, like many stage performers most likely uses a gimmicked blindfold and hood. In pure Helstromism, one has a genuine blindfold and muscle reads. The gag originated in the Nineteenth Century and involved a buggy ride with horses going at top speed. Since here Barry does NOT touch the passenger it’s more gag than mental effect or feat.

Car Drop

This is funny. The psychological forcing of the colors and car model is an old illusionist’s gag in which one can increase the likelihood of the color and model choice through a number of methods. This is carefully planned and can be extremely powerful when performed even in a club, let alone with the added slam of the dropping car. I prefer mentalism effects that rely upon genuine psychological forces rather than gimmicks that can be made to appear psychological but which are not.

Trashing Money

See the entire episode to get the use of dual reality here.

Now . . . here’s a bonus, Barry’s appearance at the TED Talk forum:

TEDtalk: Keith Barry on Brain Magic

Yes, I have performed a number of effects that Barry also uses, some via genuine hypnosis and others he does rely upon other factors but appear to be psychological (when I perform them, I typically use the psychological methods rather than those of the illusionist).

For further entertainment, some revious posts I’ve made here related to Keith Barry include . . . Keith Barry Mental Funness (https://briandavidphillips.net/2007/12/02/keith-barry-mental-funness) and Keith Barry and the Incredible Strength Sucking Suggestion (https://briandavidphillips.net/2009/09/18/keith-barry-and-the-incredible-strength-sucking-suggestion).

Want to learn how to do this and other forms of hypnotic work? Go to my main webpages at http://www.briandavidphillips.com and check out the online shop for numerous hypnosis training programs that may suit your level or skill sets.

All the best,
Brian
http://www.briandavidphillips.com