The Tricks of Art and the Art of Tricks

My friend Ray told me he had heard of people being hypnotised by reading  texts written in online chat rooms.  I think this is what he was referring to.  I told him I did not think this could happen.

However, I have had cause to reconsider having read http://www.ladyjulia.net/0057.html.  The post dated  16 August 2005 entitled Can someone really be hypnotized by text only? convinced me it is feasible.  So I will have to tell Ray to knock off reading those texts.

I am often sucked in by texts when reading fiction so I  develop affinity with the character/s in the novel and I suppose this is  a form of trance. In that sense I have been hypnotised into believing the premise of the story and reacting accordingly.

Nevertheless, I do not think I have performed any actions (such as, barking like a dog; walking around like a chicken; and the like) such as might be the province of the stage hypnotist.  Only booze, and lots of it, can produce that effect, I am proud to say.

And this is what Ray was really asking about: can you, by reading text, be hypnotised  into performing some action such as paying someone a lot of money on paypal or sending out your bank account details.  I said I did not think so: that is actually just internet fraud, not hypnosis.  Maybe I’m wrong to make this distinction.  Maybe I was hypnotised by http://www.ladyjulia.net/0057.html.

This is the subject of my newly-started honours thesis.  I attended a weekend workshop on research methodology and now am into the actual research stage, identifying the literature so I can review it.

Should be fun.  So far I have not found a lot of books/papers about this.  It is an architecture-centred topic but it will contribute to a project for the Q150 celebrations in 2009 marking 150 years since Queensland was founded.  There will be an exhibition in the Pinnacle Gallery in Thuringowa (Townsville).

Ages ago I wrote a post about this illusion “Post Mentalism” by Alvo Stockman.  I said I was going to try it out.  I did that and it worked a treat!  I predicted the result of a weekend football game.  I went to my friend’s house, wrote the prediction out on a piece of paper.  Sealed it in an envelope in his presence; Drove him to a post office and had him put it in the post box.  Then, when the post arrived (on Tuesday, the mail is so slow here) he rang saying “How the f##k did you do that??”  I had predicted the exact score and I got to laugh a lot and it was great!