We went to a hypnosis presentation a few days ago. It’s called “Colin Mochrie’s Hyprov” and it’s extremely entertaining.
The basics – when people buy their tickets, they’re given an opportunity to sign up to be a volunteer in the audience. Now, I’m not sure if that’s how they do it every time, but that’s how they did it for our show.
Then, 20 of those people are picked at random and come out of the audience at the start of the show. 20 chairs are out on the stage, and the 20 people take a seat in whatever order they like. Then they’re asked that if they know the person sitting next to them, please move so that no friends sit next to each other.
The show begins.
Colin comes out and introduces the hypnotist Assad Mecci. Assad talks some, then lulls everyone on stage to sleep. He goes through and using some random or not random cues and picks five people to stay on stage. The other 15 are thanked and they leave the stage. The 15 chairs are picked up and the five remaining people are hypnotized more deeply.
Now it starts to get a little unbelievable.
First off, all five people are told their belly buttons are missing. Then they’re ‘woken up’ and told to find their belly buttons. And they do, or they attempt to. They wander around on stage, looking in and under things. Colin asks each of them what they’re doing and gets a variety of answers. A couple memorable ones being “Why are you looking for your belly button” and the answer being “Evidence, man, evidence.” Another funny one – “Did you have your belly button when you got here?” and two answers – “I’m not sure.” and “Yes, of course.” in a tone of voice that leaves no doubt of the “you idiot” tagged on the end.
Between bits, they are sent back to their chairs by Assad, and Colin sets up the next set. Each gets further and further out, and if this is faked, I have no idea how in the world it could be done. These are all local people, they were chosen randomly, they had no idea what was happening beforehand. One of the people on stage is a friend of my wife’s and she verified that they didn’t know anything about what was going to happen beforehand.
So. I have to say that I started out being far more skeptical than I am now.
In the end, we enjoyed it immensely, and I heartily recommend it if you get a chance to go. Check out their website, they’re currently on tour. They’ll be passing through Eastern Oregon the end of April. From the look of their itinerary, they hit a lot of smaller markets, so it might surprise you to find them in your relatively small town.
I’m on the fence too, but mostly at this point there’s an internal quarrel between wanting to be on stage, and wanting to be anywhere else but.
And finally, what do you think? Leave a comment below and tell me if you think it’s a fake, or if you believe, or feel free to send me email at vrtapscott@electrikink.com