Rick Mitner demonstrates that performance hypnosis can create markets in places a lot of folks don’t think of . . . it can also be used as a beneficial demonstration of focused trance in an entertaining way that leaves the participants with a gift of self-confidence and positive skillsets . . . campers learn life lessons via hypnosis . . . many hypnotists don’t even consider the youth Summer camp as a possible market for their services, but this popular camp invites a hypnotist every year, as a regular gig, because it is very exciting and entertaining for the campers (and staff) and he makes sure to leave them with a positive impression of hypnosis with the participants receiving a gift of a positive life affirming suggestion at the end of the show . . .
Male campers grabbed their rear ends and writhed on the floor of the Sharp Concert Hall stage. They shook and tugged at their shorts, hoping to relieve the biggest wedgie they’d ever had. Or so they thought. The hypnotic state the campers and counselors were in led them to believe they had quite an unfortunate underwear dilemma. This was one of many scenes hypnotist Rick Mitner created with a group of volunteers on the first night of Camp Crimson. Campers laughed and pointed as the hypnotized students got into arguments with each other, danced to James Brown and shivered in the imaginary cold. “I think it’s pretty entertaining. It’s pretty funny to just watch everybody just fall over and fall over on each other,” said Erin Prater, a camper from Frisco, Texas. “The stuff he does is really funny, it’s hysterical. I really enjoy it.” Mitner performed at the popular Camp Crimson event for the first time. Mitner was the long-time apprentice of Dr. Bellows, the original camp hypnotist. Mitner had campers and counselors stare into brightly colored lights during induction, the process of putting them into a relaxed trance. Soon students were forgetting their names and reacting to foul smells that didn’t exist. Some volunteers, like Ashley Agura from Arlington, Texas, were skeptical at first, but fell quickly into a hypnotic state. “It was actually really cool, like, I didn’t expect it to be real,” Agura said. “I thought it was going to be really cheesy. But from what I heard, I was taking off my shoes, which is cool because I don’t remember doing that.” Before removing the volunteers from hypnosis, Mitner left them with encouraging and self-reassuring thoughts. He said being able to raise their confidence was his gift to them. “Building them up, and giving them self-esteem, that’s what I really like,” Mitner said. “I mean, I love the fun part, it is always fun, but the last part — to see them laugh and smile — that’s coming from within them.” Emily Westbrooks, camp counselor and public relations junior, said she enjoyed watching one of her campers on stage. “We had a guy from our group up there, and he was really funny. We were cheering him on from back in the crowd,” Westbrooks said. “I kind of wish I could have been hypnotized, but I’m glad I didn’t have to do all the embarrassing stuff.”
When I last taught my Stage Hypnosis workshop, I demonstrated a particular technique where the stage hypnotist has folks write their names on cards – nametags – but on the back of the card, the side no one sees, they write a single word that represents a positive suggestion they would like given to them that is reinforced throughout the show, each time they follow an entertainment suggestion, the stronger that suggestion becomes. In effect, the volunteers are working hard to follow the suggestions of the show not only for the entertainment of the audience but also for their own positive benefit in terms of accepting the suggestion they wish for positive change. I then end the show with a visualization exercise that incorporates that suggestion. It’s a fast, easy, and simple method to involve the volunteers, accellerate performance compliance, and give ’em something they want. Hypnotists who do this need to put in rider suggestions about "suggestions for your benefit" and "positive suggestions that are healthy for you which you unconscious can accept at this time" so you eliminate the creepy ("I want to wear diapers all the time" type suggestions or the "let me erase that creep from my memory" type stuff that would be inappropriate for most folks’ psyche. Put disclaimers into the suggestion set as well.
If folks are interested in learning more about performance hypnosis, I have a class starting in September. The Early Bird discount for registration expires the first few days of August so sign up now. See "training" in my webpages at http://www.BrianDavidPhillips.com for more.
All the best,
Brian
STAGE, PERFORMANCE, ENTERTAINMENT HYPNOSIS – September 4-8, 2006
See "training" at http://www.briandavidphillips.com for details!
Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH [phillips@nccu.edu.tw]Certified Hypnotherapist
President, Society of Experiential Trance
Associate Professor, NCCU, Taipei, Taiwan
http://www.briandavidphillips.com
