The Transparent Hypnotist

Maybe it is the day after the day after the return that is the hardest. Yesterday was peaceful and leisurely. Today the pace picks up. Maybe knowing this has me a bit grumpier than most days (or maybe it has something to do with getting my taxes done soon).

Now that I have had time to read the papers, I am appalled that yet another hypnotic robbery is in the media. Perhaps you have already heard about it, but the basics are that it happened ain Italy (and just for the record, I did not go anywhere near Italy on my last holiday - nor do I ever pose as a man). The robber used the handy-dandy line -”Look into my eyes.” So, more than £600 was handed over and the clerk remembers nothing. To read more about it, visit the Telegraph.co.uk’s story.

Whenever these things hit the media, I inevitably have a new client or two who ask me about the incident. Usually, the questions come in the form of statements such as “But you said, you cannot be hypnotized to do something against your will.” And after suppressing the urge to personally find the robber and hit him with cold, wet rags for the negative publicity he has wrought for the good name of hypnosis, I ponder the whole thing. I know I have covered it couple of times, but here it is again.

Dr. David Loewenstein, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Miami School of Medicine, also has pondered this to the media. His premise, according to CBS4.com, is that it was not hypnosis, but that the clerk was distracted rather than hypnotized. Hypnotist Bert Tannen, also agrees, though I got a kick out of his quote:

If it (hypnosis) was this easy robbing banks…wouldn’t I be doing it…work is too hard.

That’s great, Bert. Ummm. No. You would not be doing it because it is …WRONG! Two slaps from the wet rag for you. LOL.

But in all seriousness, I agree with these two that it was not straight hypnosis. But I suspect it may have been more towards some sort of mental manipulation other than just plain distraction. You know, Mr. Thief, if you are reading this, please comment anonymously about your procedure. We would all like to know.

I once had a conversation with an NLP believer about this - thievery through hypnosis. I was not so game on his answer because it was unpleasant. His thought was that it involved a complex manipulation - gaining the trust of the clerk (which may have taken several visits to the bank), perhaps convincing the clerk to give the money to him through ideas that the money was something other than money or that it was for a good cause? Then were there suggestions to forget doing so? Or was it simple misdirection?

Any thoughts?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 7:28 am and is filed under In the News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.