The art of hypnosis is hundreds of years old. Stage hypnosis is a form of covert hypnosis, meaning it is conducted without the knowledge of the recipient. The practice is widely used for entertainment venues all over the world. The most successful stage hypnotists dazzle audiences with their skills. They know pick the audience members who are most open to suggestion, put them in a trance, and make them do entertaining tricks.
Developing Your Showman Skills
Being a stage hypnotist is very fun, but it requires hard work, dedication, and the ability to multi-task. A good stage hypnotist needs to be quick on the draw. Being comfortable on the stage is a complete must. You need to be able to concentrate, be creative, speak well, and develop a report with the audience.
Creating Audience Belief
The first step to performing a successful stage show is to make the crowd believe they are able to be hypnotized easily. A typical audience member wants to be fooled, and to see strange things. You can use this desire to make someone extremely open to your responses. They will believe you can control their subconscious mind and it may cause them to do things without them being aware of it.
Selecting an Audience Member
To find the audience members most open to suggestion, you will have to perform some group hypnotizing acts. Start off by telling everyone to close their eyes and imagine they are in a quiet and calm place. Always remind them to listen to the sound of your voice as they fall deeper into their hypnotic states. Now it is time to perform the first set of hypnotic instructions. Some of these could include touching fingers together, or touching fingers to their noses. While performing these acts you will need to be watching around the room to find those audience members who are really working with the tasks you have laid out. It will be easy to tell those who are merely going along with you, and those who are really under hypnosis. These are your prime candidates. After you have done a few more group activities, like having everyone sit and stand, you should have an idea who is most open to suggestion. Invite these people on the stage with you. Most people who volunteer want to be hypnotized. You will notice those who volunteer are the same people you scoped out during the group activities.
Performing a Trance
Now that you have selected participants, its time to put them into a trance. This is not as difficult as you may think. Most audience members already want to experience a trance. People also are afraid that the hypnosis will fail on them, and they will be embarrassed in front of the crowd. This will make them feel like they should go along with what you suggest. This causes the audience member to slip into a trance voluntarily. Tell your participants to close their eyes again. This puts them in a state of calm concentration. Remind them, again, to listen to the sound of your voice. At this point in the show, you can place your participants in a deeper state of hypnosis. You can have them concentrate as you count to three, or listen for your fingers to snap to signify your commands. While in this deeper state of hypnosis, you will be able to make your participants do just about anything. They will believe they are a pig if you tell them to, or forget count to 10. Audiences love these kinds of tricks. Remember to return your participants back to normal before bringing them out of the trance.
