On a personal level I have enough respect for Matt La Vore, DiceR, Mr. Browning, Cedric and all the others on this thread to feel that we can have this discussion here. Matt is probably right, in that, there are professional hypnotists who make a living doing this stuff at the Magic Cafe'. I think we lack that expertise here. However this thread has sort of drifted into another direction. One which I feel should be had here(if not specifically in this thread than at least in another) at Theory 11.
The fact is that T11 is a beginners website(okay so card guys and flourishers have plenty to keep them going until well past intermediate.) Because of that, this is the place is the kind of place we should be asking questions about how one might want to approach these subcategories of the magical arts. The fundamental question that really needs to be asked(my opinion only) is "Do you want to hire(become) someone who really is a hypnotist, or do you want to hire(become) someone who puts on a good show as a hypnotist?"
Some certified hypnotists put on a good show. Some do not. Some guys, who use nothing more than conjuring and mentalism tricks, put on great shows as hypnotists even though nobody on stage is actually hypnotized during the performance. My point is that weather you are hiring one, or performing as one, the bottom line is "Good Show." Becoming a certified hypnotist can cost hundreds, even thousands of dollars. It is definitely the way to go if you want to be both a hypnotherapist and a performer who does a hypnosis stage show. If, however, all you want is a stage show, and you have no desire to become a tharapist then that just seems a bit excessive to me.
A good friend of mine, Pete Turner, used to have a great clip of a knock back induction on youtube. The beauty of it was that it looked every bit as real and amazing as anything you might have seen on the Zap dvd or the Manchurian Approach dvd. The key difference being, it wasn't hypnosis. Just damn clever thinking. Now the next thing you are probably thinking is "stooge," but if you walked up to the subject after the performance and asked her about it you would still be convinced it was hypnosis.
So I go back to my original hypothesis, "Why aren't magicians thinking like magicians any more?" Much of this hypnosis craze over the last few years reminds me of the NLP craze that swept through Mentalism a few years back. The irony of that craze being that much of it was spurred on by Derren Brown who openly admitted to being skeptical of NLP and felt it was just a "charlatans game."
As James Randy said to "psychics" bending spoons, "If you are using psychic powers to bend a spoon....you are doing it the hard way." I feel you could modify that statement to stage hypnosis as well. "Why do it the hard way?"
