With the death of pop sensation Michael Jackson, a lot of folks are coming out of the woodwork to say their final farewells (excellent memorial pieces have been posted by Lisa-Marie Presley [here] and Deepak Chopra [here]) and others to capitalize on the media frenzy for their own publicity. Naturally, the pres will revisit some things we've seen before.
I've posted discussion on Uri Geller's claims that he hypnotized Michael Jackson and got the "truth" about Jackson's "innocence" regarding Jackson's child molestation charges (https://briandavidphillips.net/2005/06/uri_gellers_rep.html). Now, he's talking about it gain. In this video, which is now making the rounds in the hypnosis blogosphere as well as mainstream celebrity blogs and the like, he describes what the questions were and how they were answered.
As regular readers know from my previous discussion (posted here four years ago 21 June 2005 – https://briandavidphillips.net/2005/06/uri_gellers_rep.html) of this incident, from previous descriptions I didn't think Geller was much of a hypnotist nor much of a critical thinker . . . that assessment is unchanged.
While Geller claims that Jackson was in very deep trance for their session, that does not change the fact that persons can indeed lie while in hypnosis. A trained forensic hypnotist knows better than to hypnotize a suspect and ask them questions regarding guilt in cases like this. It is a myth that hypnosis is always a truth serum, deep trance or not.
Interestingly, Geller also admits to unethical behavior in this interview as well. Jackson was coming to him for help in an unrelated issue and Geller attempts to take advantage of the situation by asking questions and pursuing lines of inquiry that have nothing to do with what he was asked to deal with. So, not only is Geller a poorly trained hypnotist – or at least one who needs to learn a bit more about forensic procedures and clean session work – he's also an unethical one.
Granted, one can see how he was tempted . . . the whole world wanted the answers to those questions . . . but, giving into temptation is another matter.
Jackson's guilt or innocence in regard to the child molestation charges is not the subject of this post . . . perhaps some day information will come to light that proves the point beyond gut feelings on the issue . . . but that information has nothing to do with the single hypnosis session Uri Geller conducted at that time.
Long term readers of Life of Brian (https://briandavidphillips.net/) are already very familiar with my views on forensic hypnosis (evidence-seeking hypnosis) and my thoughts on it being of paramount importance that hypnotists working in such areas must be competent and clearly understand and use clean session language (that is hypnosis with no preconceptions or leading statements) as well as a clear understanding of the rules of evidence and the possibility of contamination of testimony in order to learn to appropriately avoid such things (honestly, had Jackson's case gone to trial, Geller could have damaged his friend's defense in that the prosecution had an open door to question any statements he made after that date due to the dangers of his recollection having been hypnotically refreshed or contaminated in the process).
All the best,
Brian
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Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH [brian@briandavidphillips.com]
Hypnotist, Hypnotherapist, Intuitionist, Trance Wizard
President, Society of Experiential Trance
Associate Professor, NCCU, Taipei, Taiwan
