Stage Hypnosis - Role of Deception

Role of Deception

Due to stage hypnotists' showmanship, many people believe that hypnosis is a form of mind control. However, the effects of stage hypnosis are probably due to a combination of relatively ordinary social psychological factors such as peer pressure, social compliance, participant selection, ordinary suggestibility, and some amount of physical manipulation, stagecraft, and trickery. The desire to be the center of attention, having an excuse to violate their own inner fear suppressors and the pressure to please are thought to convince subjects to 'play along'. Books written by stage hypnotists sometimes explicitly describe the use of deception in their acts, for example, Ormond McGill's New Encyclopedia of Stage Hypnosis describes an entire "fake hypnosis" act which depends upon the use of private whispers throughout:

“We are going to have some good laughs on the audience and fool them… so when I tell you to do some funny things, do exactly as I secretly tell you. Okay? Swell.” (Then deliberately wink at the spectator in a friendly fashion.)

According to experts such as Theodore X. Barber and André Muller Weitzenhoffer, stage hypnosis traditionally employs three fundamental strategies:

1. Participant compliance. Participants on stage tend to be compliant because of the social pressure felt in the situation constructed on stage, before an expectant audience.
2. Participant selection. Preliminary suggestion tests, such as asking the audience to clasp their hands and suggesting they cannot be separated, are usually used to select out the most suggestible and socially compliant subjects from the audience. By asking for volunteers to mount the stage, the performer also tends to select the most extraverted members of the audience.
3. Deception of the audience. Stage hypnotists are performers who traditionally, but not always, employ a variety of "sleight of hand" strategies to mislead their audience for dramatic effect.

The strategies of deception employed in traditional stage hypnosis can be categorised as follows:

1. Off-microphone whispers. The hypnotist lowers his microphone and whispers secret instructions to the participant on stage, outside the audience's hearing. These may involve requests to "play along" or fake hypnotic responses.
2. Failure to challenge. The stage hypnotist pretends to challenge subjects to defy a suggestion, for example, "You cannot stand up out of your chair because your backside is stuck down with glue." However, no specific cue is given to the participants to begin their effort ("Start trying now!"). This creates the illusion that a specific challenge has been issued and effort made to defy it.
3. Fake hypnosis tricks. Stage hypnosis literature contains a large repertoire of sleight of hand tricks, of the kind used by professional illusionists. None of these tricks require any hypnosis or suggestion, but depend purely on physical manipulation and audience deception. The most famous example of this type is the "human plank" trick, which involves making a subject's body become rigid (cataleptic) and suspending them horizontally between two chairs, at which point the hypnotist will often stand upon their chest for dramatic effect. This has nothing to do with hypnosis, but simply depends on the fact that when subjects are positioned in the correct way they can support more weight than the audience tend to assume.
4. Stooges. Several experts, including Kreskin, have stated that stage hypnotists have been known to make use of stooges (also called horses) who travel from show to show. A stage hypnotist may only require a single stooge because by using him first for each demonstration real subjects from the audience will tend to follow his lead and imitate his responses. Moreover, for the climax of the show, the hypnotist will often focus on one or two subjects to demonstrate more difficult and dramatic responses involving apparent hallucinatory experiences. A single stooge can be used for this purpose.

Weitzenhoffer writes:

Having not only had a chance to watch famous stage hypnotists of the 1940s and 50s such as Slater and Polgar at work but having also had a chance to have fairly extensive personal contact with other stage hypnotists, I believe I can throw some light upon the situation. To begin with, one should be aware that many stage hypnotists use stooges or plants.