You Cannot Hypnotize Me
Photograph by filipe ferreira
“But Ellie, you cannot hypnotize me.” It is inevitable. There is one in every crowd.
The hypnotist sighs, maybe even sighs again. She shifts a bit in her chair, not as though she has suddenly become uncomfortable and must physically find relief. No, she shifts in her chair as though settling in for a long winter of explanation. Then she smiles, not a happy smile, but one might swear it is the same smile Divinci favored on his painted lady. The words are bubbling up, effervescent, even.
“True. True.” Those are the only words she says for what seems like along while. Now the person sitting opposite her shifts, more out of a sudden feeling like discomfort, the loudness of the silence, saying it all. Affirmations and questions burble loudly without the help of words. Thoughts like, “I knew it” travel between them and the one-sided thought “why are you wasting my time” also lingers, but is quickly hidden with a verbal phrase.
“It would be pointless for me to continue with you if you already have it in your mind that I cannot hypnotize you.” She mask away the sarcastic urge to add “So, good day.” Instead, she paints herself in patience.
“But, you said anyone can be hypnotized.”
“Anyone who wants to be hypnotized. You have to be open to it, but coming here and declaring that you cannot be hypnotized is pretty much an assurance that you will not be hypnotized.” The hypnotist is long past the time when she would even find it partially amusing to rise to such a challenge. Time has softened that edge of need.
“But don’t you guarantee that you can hypnotize anyone?”
“No. I cannot hypnotize anyone who does not want to be hypnotized.” She takes a sip of her tea, which is becoming irritating luke warm. This person across from her is just curious about hypnosis, she surmises pushing away the thoughts about con-jobs and free hypnosis. It is always darkly interesting to her, that after speaking with someone on the phone and explaining the basics about hypnosis, how every so often someone like this person, squeaks past to the point of consultation.
“Humor me,” she says, her tone changing subtly, “Clasp your fingers together like you are about to play ‘This is the church, this is the steeple.’ Open the steeple so the fingers are not touching. Now put them up in front of your eyes and look into the space between them.” Then she walks silently over, talking in a calm voice, not quite the hypnotic one she uses in sessions, but close. There person looks up at her, wondering at the silent movements she just made.
“Look at the space between,” she says again. And she begins her little hypnosis parlor trick, without the aid of a real rubber band, she tells her bait to imagine that she does indeed have one and she has put it around the two fingers that were the steeple. She tightens the rubber band and the fingers gradually begin to go together.
“Whoa.” She gilds back to her seat and her tea, sits, and smiles.
“What was that?”
“Hypnosis,” she says and takes a sip.
