#hypnomedia

[misscammiedawn]

50 Days of HypnoKink - Day 49: Hypno in Media

My heavens... we made it to the finish line. Tomorrow is the final day.

I wanted to save an obvious one for the end because I do so enjoy MC in fiction so very much. So much, in fact, that I made a Twitter thread with 110 recommendations and never even came close to emptying my resources.

I know so many of these scenes, both that Twitter thread and this page are skimming the surface.

I'll be using some of those recommendations here but let's divide by category:

Film

So let's get the obvious out of the way. You have

Trance

A Danny Boyle thriller with a terrible plot and Rosario Dawson as a hypnotherapist trying to get hidden information from James McAvoy's mind. Silly movie but one that doesn't get brought up a lot. Dawson learned hypnosis to get into the role.

Candyman

Horror movie in which the director literally hypnotized the actress so any time she was being stalked by the titular killer she looked completely entranced. Link above is an interview discussing this.

Hypnotic

HORRIBLE movie on Netflix but Sleepyhead and I have hosted a number of watch parties and let me tell you, this is the PERFECT movie to watch with a bunch of rowdy hypnokinksters. The therapist is unethical to a laughable degree and his office looks like it's inside of the Death Star. He's a living breathing red flag. The movie does have a really hot freeze scene, a good ragdoll and the dollification sequence. It's just enjoyable because it's terrible. Check CWs first though, this movie has a bunch of things that can make it an uncomfortable viewing experience.

The Great Hypnotist

This is a Not For Daja movie. A Chinese movie that doesn't get brought up a lot. Like Trance above it is a thriller with some twists and turns that I don't really want to spoil.

Stir of Echoes

A visualization of a dissociation induction designed to make a person view events on a screen so they are separate from the memory. It's a remarkably well done scene.

Now You See Me 1/2

The hypnosis in these movies is STUPID and I love it. The first movie has a punchline that every time Mark Rufallo's character makes a frustrated comment people who Woody Harrelson has hypnotized will start acting as if they're in an orchestra. Second movie has a twin Woody Harrelson as an evil hypnotist and he uses a pizza box as an evil induction. It's amazing.

Sherlock Holmes Woman in Green

This induction is one of the coolest I've seen in a film and I try my hardest to channel the energy of this when I am doing a relaxation focused scene.

TV

Charlies Angels

This is bar none my favorite hypnosis scene in any fiction. The typewriter induction is amazing, the hypnotist has such a smooth voice, the entranced gazes are lovely. It's just perfect. Heck, the link above is "hypnosis scenes" from the episode and is 26 minutes long. From a single episode of television.

Doctor Who

Sarah Jane gets hypnotized so often that I could make a list purely from her.

Legion

I just wanna link this one as it's one of those scenes that works so much better without context and the aesthetics are incredible. Plus who doesn't like Aubrey Plaza?

Quick Bonus Animation Round

Carmen Sandiego (Neflix) has a ton of mind control including the bad end to the interactive movie.

Totally Spies is a meme for a reason

And this one is a reason many of us are here <3

Comics

DC vs Vampires

I think the page speaks for itself. "Hypnosis isn't lying, Diana. It's speaking to your vulnerability."

Korra

This sequence of Asami, brainwashed to hate the avatar, being deprogrammed is so good that someone on AO3 did an incredible fan-fiction which may well be one of my favorite hypnokink stories of all time.

Super Mario Comic

I bring this one up as it was one of my earliest moments of "...oh... this is kind of making me feel some kind of way."

Video Games

A note that a full directory of video games featuring Mind Control can be found at mindcontrol.fun the MC Games Wiki, run by @soveryverytired

Full Service Shop

We don't want to type too much about this one as we wrote the hypnosis path in this game and are no longer with the studio but it's a visual novel where you go to a utopian future clinic for gender affirming care and select one of 4 techs to give you kink based surgery-- Dr. Kato was written by us and is the hypnofetish route.

Nyx Gaming (Featured game: Enthralled)

Nyx do incredible games which are designed to hypnotize the viewer and their consent practices are wonderful. They recently teamed up with Secret Subject to release a vampire enthrallment game and let me tell you, there is not a single word in that synopsis that doesn't make me happy.

Mind Melting Massaging Machine

The best tool for VR hypnosis. Upload custom files and program spirals, subliminals and chose between static spiral or headtracking. I have had so much fun with this over the years. There's a desktop version too but VR is optimal for this experience.

Spiral Clicker

It's such a simple concept. Click on the character and watch their will go away. Spiral Clicker is backed with a fun little universe, fun characters both original and community sourced, amazing art and a clever little gameplay loop that is quite addictive. Careful, the game features a constant spiral, you may find yourself falling in to trance. Don't worry. The game will wake you up. You can even ask the game to include suggestions for you :)

The sequel is being worked upon now and I cannot wait <3

Music Videos

Anna Soares - Hypnodoll (NSFW)

Straight up just a song and music video about hypnokink. If you click anything in this thread, click this one.

Little Big - Hypnodancer:

Silly antics but a fun music video.

Pharrell Williams - Hypnotize U

It's just Pharrell hanging out in a mansion with his hypnotized harem.

Grimes - We Appreciate Power

It's dronekink baby.

Andamiro - Hypnotize

Maid hypnotizes their employer.

I could do so many more in all areas. But the point is, media is hypnohorny. I never went over advertisements (UK ones especially), books, musicals (Phantom and Next To Normal for instance), anime (Sailor Moon) or manga.

But I write about a bunch more in my Twitter thread.

---

Day 48: Stealth Inductions

FULL SCHEDULE MASTER POST

FINAL Day 50: Presentation

[hypnoticharlequin]

Dr. Dante: From 60s Hypnotist To Modern Criminal

I have quite the story for you all today, involving stage hypnosis, crime, and one very interesting man. 

For a little context, I’ve been reading a book on the history of Knotts Berry Farm, the berry stand that slowly morphed into a theme park that today is the 15th most visited in the world. 

In this book, there is mention of a performance space that held many different shows over the years. One of these was a hypnotist, going by the name of Dante. 

Now the second I heard that name I had to look into the guy, I was hoping I could find a poster of his to add to an upcoming hypnosis posters write up, just because Dante is a great name.

But the story of Dante is one that fully deserves its own post as it is quite the twisted little tale. 

But where to start, well normally with such things I would do the basic historian thing of giving you a person’s name and their date of birth. But with Dante, we actually don’t know. 

So, Dante’s real name is Ronald Pellar, however, for most of his career, he said his name was Ronald Dante. But he has used over 40 aliases over the years, for reasons that might become apparent later...

Dante also gave differing people totally different accounts of his life, in a 2006 interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune he said he was born in 1920, however, in a Chicago Tribune article from 1985 he is said to be 57 meaning he would have been born in 1927 or 1928. 

He told the interviewer in 2006 that he had grown up in  Kuala Lumpur, where an attack left him and his brother orphans. They were then sent to an orphanage in Chicago, only for young Dante to leave at age 11 to become a street kid, making money by selling counterfeit goods.

However, his ex-wife, Lana Turner (who we will get onto later) said that Dante had told her that he grew up in Singapour and had a doctorate in psychology from a university in that country. However, reporters who investigated the claim found this to be totally and utterly bogus.

Every part of Dante’s past is honestly debatable with so many alternative histories floating around, from both his own mouth and the mouths of others linked to him. 

The story of the Dante starts in the 1960s, where, using the full name Ronald Dante, he was making waves as a hypnotist in nightclubs and bars. His deep voice and piercing eyes made him quite the imposing figure on stage, something that translated into many good reviews for his act. 

I was actually lucky to find a full scan of Dante’s press kit from the time, a collection of articles and other things he would send to those who were curious about booking him (however even this isn’t safe from accusations of fakery as I’ll mention later). 

Now, this might look weird, but this is how press cuttings were sent in this era, with the banner at the top. This was to show that you had been mentioned in a major publication. 

This specific issue is from October 16th, 1962, showing that Dante is playing to decently sized clubs and is apparently getting good reviews, even if those reviews are rather generic for the era. 

Something that interests me is the genie’s lamp motif used for his logo. Because it doesn’t really work with the name “Dante” then again, nor does the very “oriental” font they decided to use. Though you could likely see this as an attempt to mix the Arabic and Asian trends that were decently popular in the US during the period. 

Also of note is that Dante often used the nickname/tagline “Mr. Hypnotism” during his career. Interestingly you often see him using Mr. Hypnotism as more of a stage name, with it getting top billing over the Dante name. 

A big part of the press pack is letters of recommendation from various companies and venus commending Dante on a great show and for selling the venue out. 

This is a good example of this, apparently, in 1965 Dante was breaking records at a supper club. 

There are also other letters from the period from organizations that hold a lot more clout to the modern observer. 

In 1967 and 1968 Dante did shows in front of the US Airforce and US Army, one in Vietnam and one in Bangcock. 

These glowing reviews would be great for a performer, as a recommendation from two large government agencies would pretty much guarantee you work in the future.

Of note, I actually have a scan from a review of one of Dante’s Hong Kong shows, very likely from the same series of shows that the airmen attended. 

It is quite an interesting review, making a point that locals don’t think that speaking acts ever sell, due to the audience only being fluent in Chinese (and that Chinese acts apparently don’t speak?). 

But of interest is the fact that the reviewer volunteered to be one of Dante’s subjects and actually gives a write up of the action from the subject’s perspective. 

To summarize: 

-The subjects are told to stand with their hands relaxed, heels together. 

-The subjects then stand and look up at the ceiling, taking a deep breath  

-The subjects close their eyes, start to breathe normally and then count. 

-Dante then says when he touches them on the shoulder he wants them to visualize themselves as steel, and himself as a magnet, pulling them towards him.

-If they feel it, the subjects are to fall forward where Dante will catch them. 

This does not work on the reporter who is sent back to his chair, he does mention that he considered falling anyway just to keep the show going and notes that during the suggestions, several other people ended up coming back to their chairs meaning they might have had the same idea he did.

Dante even comments to him later that a good subject has “an urge to show off”. 

The acts performed during this show included: 

-Their arms are made of steel and they are unable to drop them

-Watching a funny film 

-Cheering on a racehorse

-Hiding the winnings from said racehorse 

-Feeling themselves pricked with a pin so they jump 

-Thinking they are naked 

-Dancing 

Then the subjects are sent back to the chairs, acting like the Road Runner. 

Interestingly this set would pretty much work today, which really shows you how little stage hypnosis shows have changed since the mid-60s. 

Amusingly the reviewer is actually surprised the Road Runner bit worked, due to the character being “popular 15 years ago” and suggests Dante should try making his subjects James Bond instead! (Which is honestly a good suggestion Goldfinger had been a smash hit in 1964 and Thunderball would make a decent amount at the box office when it came out in 1965 despite being considered the weakest Bond film today).

I would like to quote one of the final paragraphs verbatim: 

I don’t pretend to know as much about hypnotism as this highly-rated American performer who has made a half-million people into his slaves on stage. But I was bothered when Dante failed to remove the suggestions he planted. 

If hypnotism has the power to break bad habits as Dante suggests, and if his subjects were really hypnotized, then these eight people should jump as though stuck with a pin everytime someone resembling Dante stamps his feet.

This is honestly weirdly switched on for a review from the 60s, it honestly had me surprised. 

Dante’s press pack does include a recommendation from the Cafe De Paris in Hong Kong 

This poster is pretty interesting as it doesn’t really explain what the act is, minus the fact that two women will be present. In fact, the girls get a much more detailed billing than Dante himself. 

Now, this could be the venue working on the idea that “speaking acts don’t sell” or it is proof that Dante already had quite a name for himself in Hong Kong. There is also the third option of bad cropping as the edge of the poster looks very badly cut, as if it was quickly done with scissors so there might have been more to it. 

These were not the only international shows Dante did and his press pack contains a poster for a show in Mexico along with a newspaper cutting about it.

This poster has an interesting collage look to it, and once again Dante is advertised with this strange oriental font. For those curious, the text under Dante explains how his voice is insured by Lloyds of London for one million dollars. This is actually pretty common as Lloyds of London does allow performers to take out insurance on their talents. They have insured, amongst other things, Michael Flatley's legs, the hands of the1932 world yo-yo champion Harvey Lowe, the body of Ric Flair, Bruce Springsteen’s vocal chords and Tina Turner’s legs. So Dante having a policy totally makes sense.

Interestingly the cutting says that Dante has been in “five motion pictures” something I can’t find anything about, I’ve checked IMBD and every other film database I know of and can find a single one.

One other cutting from the pack really stands out to me, apparently, Dante played an 80,000 seat venue with the band Cream. 

This is advertised as the first time a top rock group had performed with a hypnotist, but weirdly the article only mentions Dante and not Cream themselves. 

Dante’s show seems mostly the same as in Hong Kong with a few minor additions of people being attacked by movie monsters, a trip through Disneyland (Disneyland being a weird recurring theme with Dante) and “sleeping in each other's arms”.

The ending of this article is really something, mentioning one “attractively packaged young lady,” being made to think she was a stripper and that she: 

had discarded all but her undies before Dr. Dante tragically stopped her. Several sympathetic audience members, undoubtebly disliked by the remaining viewers, ran up to cover her

Now, I’m actually a big fan of Cream and yet I had never heard of this show. And I can’t seem to find any good record of it at all. Now Cream was not together long so we know this happened sometime between 1966 and 1968. 

I would further presume it is post-1967 as I don’t think Cream was selling out big venues like this before Disraeli Gears came out. This is also due to them being described as “one of the world’s heaviest rock groups” which fits their post-Disraeli Gears sound.

Now there is a photo of Dante and Cream.

But there are a lot of photos of Dante with people as Dante loved getting his picture taken and often used the celebrities he was “friends” with as a marketing point. 

My Eric Clapton based conundrums aside, however, the biggest moment for Dante’s career was in 1969 when Dante married the actress, Lana Turner.

 Lana Turner had quite the life and most of it was in the public eye. The famous (and totally fake) legend says that the girl was spotted at the lunch counter of  Schwab's Pharmacy in the 1930s. She was deemed so beautiful she was hired on the spot. 

By the 1940s Lana was seen as a sex symbol and was a common pin-up for the troops fighting in Europe, and her role in the 1946 film “The Postman Always Rings Twice” cemented her as a powerful dramatic actress. 

However, by the late 60s, she was on a downturn, her films were doing less well at the box office and MGM, her home studio, were having money issues due to having to divest from their theatres. 

When she met Dante in an LA nightclub, they started a whirlwind romance that ended up in Lana’s 7th marriage. 

Now, this is where some element of fakery appears. As part of the press kit, there is this cutting: 

Compare this release to the one I showed above (and one I found myself from a newspaper archive). Note how the former focuses totally on Turner and this second one focuses mostly on Dante. 

The source I got this from says it is fake and isn’t something the LA Times ever published and while I don’t have the resources to verify this myself, I actually believe them. 

While Dante might have been a decently big name, he was not up to the level of Turner, who was a grand star even at this point. Also, this says Dante’s first wife was movie star Brigette Bardot which is totally not true. 

Bardot's list of partners via marriage is: 

Now, Bardot did say she had over a hundred lovers both men and women and Dante could have maybe been one of them. But they were never legally married, really throwing this cutting into question. 

One other cutting from the pack is called into question by the compiler as well: 

Basically, it is a review from Variety (another source I, unfortunately, cannot verify for myself) and says that Dante is better than any of the other hypnotists the reviewer has seen over the past 20 years, going as far to say the last time the venue was that full was when Frank Sinatra still owned the place. 

Also, something to note is that both of these cuttings referred to him as Dr. Dante, despite him not actually holding the necessary qualifications. While there is a long tradition of hypnotists adding Dr. to their name, this is an interesting deviation from other, legit, cuttings of the time. 

However, it does note that Dante hypnotized 27 people and “took them to Disneyland” which sounds like a euphemism but does seem to be a running part of his act. 

With a famous marriage, Dante’s fame grew, netting him more and more bookings. However, the marriage only lasted six months. Turner says she wrote Dante a $35,000 check to help with an investment but Dante ran off with the money. 

Turner then accused Dante of stealing $100,000 of jewelry from her and ended up suing him. At the trial, Dante produced a document that said he got $200,000 if he and Turner broke up. Turner said she had never seen the document before and the court ruled in her favor, making Dante pay her $25,000 in damages. 

It really seemed like the divorce didn’t slow down Dante one bit, he continued to do shows and continued to get good reviews. However, in 1975 things took a sour turn.

Dante was arrested for trying to convince another man to help him in a plan to kill rival hypnotist Dr. Michael Dean. Unluckily for Dante, this man happened to be an undercover cop who arrested him.

Dean and Dante had known each other for 15 years, with Dante even saying that he and Dean had learned hypnosis together. Dean, however, said that Dante had copied his act and that Dante had wanted to move into the San Diego county area where Dean had a long-running show. 

Dante’s lawyer argued that Dante had an addiction to prescription barbituates and these impaired his decision making and Dante himself argued it was a set-up and that Dean had paid off the cop.  Despite this Dante was found guilty of attempted murder in the second degree and sentenced to 7-20 years in prison. Dante went into Arizona State Penitentiary from February 1976 to June 1978, when he was released on parole. 

Apparently being an ex-felon didn’t hurt his bookings, with him quickly getting a two-year stint at Knotts Berry Farm. 

In 1985 Dante set up a hypnosis education course and took out massive ads in newspapers in Houston, Portland, Atlanta and Chicago offering the chance to become a hypnotherapist. 

He was now calling himself Dr. Dante, saying that he got the qualification from the American Hypnotherapists Association or the AHA. The AHA was actually something Dante had set up himself for the sole purpose of giving himself the fake title. 

Luckily, two journalists went to the Chicago presentations, Jeffrey Zaslow of The Wall Street Journal and Eric Zorn of The Chicago Tribune. both of whom give wonderful write-ups of the day. 

Those who responded to the adverts in the Chicago Tribune offering “Free” hypnosis seminars would be greeted into the room by music which is described by Zorn as:

``The Official Album of Disneyland and Walt Disney World,`` a pastiche of buoyant Americana and a salute to ripe and immense fantasies, the very things that had drawn the crowd. 

Once again Disneyland playing a role. I’m a nerd who actually has a copy of that album and I can only presume the music was from The Main Street Electrical Parade mostly because I presume the music from “The Country Bear Jamboree” was a little too on the nose.

Zorn goes on to describe the advert from the Tribune a little, noting that it features many pictures of Dante with different famous people.

Down the right side of the page, in an attempt, one assumes, to lend credibility to his free seminar, were three snapshots of Dr. Dante, each one showing off a different hairdo of his. One photo was of Dr. Dante in brown, wavy locks ``with wife, movie star Lana Turner.`` Another was of Dr. Dante with short, white hair ``being interviewed by Johnny Carson.`` And the last was of Dr. Dante in short, black ringlets ``with first heart surgeon Dr. Christian (sic) Barnard.``

Zaslow also makes note that these pictures are on the wall of the room the talk is held in, really trying to make Dante seem prestigious. 

However, one of these photos would cause an issue. The photo of Johnny Carson actually led to Carson suing Dante for $51 million. Carson’s lawyer saying: 

the photo was taken with Carson's permission 'sixteen or seventeen years ago,' but Dante has no right to use it in advertising.

While I can’t be certain, I think this might be the picture in question. It is one of the pictures featured in Dante’s press pack. 

To note, while Johnny Carson was the host of The Tonight Show, this picture is not on the set of that show as Dante was never on it. When asked about it by Zorn, Dante said it was when Carson was doing something else, but he couldn’t confirm what exactly that other thing was. 

Once people have had time to enjoy the music and to soak in the various images of Dante hobnobbing with the rich and famous, Dante would come onto the stage and pitch the full course to those there, saying such things like: 

“An ex-cab driver and a former Western Union deliveryman "with a twitch" each earn $12,000 a week as hypnotherapists”

"hypnotherapists can be in every neighborhood, like 7-Elevens."

Dante also claimed that the Wall Street Journal called Hypnotherapy the boom career of the 1980s, something that the Wall Street Journal kindly denied by suggesting he got them mixed up with “another publication”.

Those who were swung by the pitch were asked to put down $395 dollars to do the full weekend course.

During these seminars, another man called Bob Gold would join Dante to talk about the Mind Science Church, a group that had formed in 1949 and one that Dante was on the board of directors for. 

Basically, the Mind Science Chruch was a breakaway group of Christians who disagreed that hypnotism was evil and formed the MSC as a non-denominational sect to promote the practice. 

To quote Zorn (who throws a lovely bit of shade): 

They professed that hypnosis and prayer were very similar activities and that ministers were analogous to coaches or teachers. They used the biblical passage wherein God puts Adam to sleep as the scriptural cornerstone of their faith. Gold can quote it for you, roughly. 

Now, I think the passage they mean would be Genesis 2:21 which in the King James Bible reads: 

And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

Their aim was to get as many of their congregation certified in hypnotherapy as possible, saying that: 

`We have no priests or ministers,` he says. `Except that everyone who learns hypnotherapy, in our eyes, is a minister of our faith, whether he belongs to another faith or not.`

 Which is very interesting as it makes me a minister for them, which is impressive considering I hadn’t heard of them until like a week ago.

Those who went to the full weekend course would be greeted on Saturday morning by Dante in a doctor’s coat and stethoscope who would work to teach them all about hypnosis.  

Dante started by explaining that all hypnosis is self-hypnosis and that the basics can be taught in an hour, but the real skill comes with practice. He then went on to give attendees a basic script to use and did a basic Q&A session. 

He then handed out spiral disks to use as a fixation object, along with pink and blue cards containing the “hypnotic script” and had attendees practice on one another for a while. 

On Sunday evening Dante handed out diplomas and offered to sell those present a $198 kit containing fixation objects and other things to help them be a hypnotherapist, before giving two final pieces of advice. 

The first was to decorate your office with books and diplomas and the second was not to try and hypnotize family and friends as they know you too well and wouldn’t take you seriously. 

While you might doubt these courses would sell, the ones held in 1986 netted Dante $3 million, putting him in the Guinness World Records book for “highest ever lecture fee”.

It should be noted, while obviously a scam this was before things like hypnosis and hypnotherapy were regulated and thus anyone could declare they had a diploma in hypnotherapy without fear of repercussion or legal trouble. 

Dante also set up a permanent make-up college called “Perma-Derm Academy”. This college offered to teach makeup artists how to do permanent make up using tattoos, something Dante insists he was one of the first people to do. However, the school was highly sub-par with several students saying they were taught how to apply the makeup by using ballpoint pens on cantaloupe melons. 

This got him into legal trouble as according to the Federal Trade Commission, he misrepresented his school as an accredited institution and misrepresented what the course offered. He was ordered to immediately stop and repay $143,750 of the almost 1.5 million dollars he had made running the school. As part of this settlement, he was made to agree to not run such institutions again. 

In the April of 1997, the FTC started “Project Scofflaw” aimed at enforcing FTC court orders and making sure those who had agreed to not run misleading programmes actually followed through. It turned out Dante had not and was still offering the misleading programme. 

In fact, he had just renamed his company to “Permanetics Inc” and he had also set up the “American Professional Institute” a paralegal training firm which advertised that its graduates could make lots of money, despite the school holding none of the required accreditations. 

Dante was arrested and was sentenced to 67 months in prison for contempt of court. However, before the last day of his trial in the November of 1997 Dante is said to have told his lawyer that they should flee “either north or south”.  Dante chose to flee to Mexico and was sentenced in absentia in 1998.

Dante lived on his yacht just outside the Mexican city of Ensenada for two years. However, in 2000 ABC featured him and his scams on their show 20/20. Apparently, Dante gave an interview from the deck of his yacht, this interview was said to be heavily mocking of those who had fallen for his scams, however, I can’t find footage from the show to confirm this. 

Soon after Dante was arrested re-entering the US and sent to prison for the crimes he committed in 1998. Dante insists that the Mexican federal police kidnapped him and dragged him back across the border but no record of such actions has ever been found.

In 2003, while serving his 1998 contempt charge, the FBI indited Dante once more for mail fraud. Since 1996 Dante had been running the “Columbia State University“ a correspondence school that alleged to be an accredited university but was, in fact, a diploma mill. 

The CSU ran adverts in major publications declaring: 

University Degree in 27 Days!

Bachelor's, Master's, Doctorate

Legal, legitimate, and fully accredited. School rings available.

Its pitch was that students could use their work history and partially completed courses to get a degree in record time provided they paid the fee and did the tiniest bit of work (which mostly amounted to filling out a form). 

To quote from the official FBI inditement: 

According to court documents, Pellar set up Columbia State University in 1996 at a business office in San Clemente. CSU falsely represented itself to be a government-approved university in Louisiana and it falsely claimed to have faculty and accreditation sufficient to confer bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees by correspondence in as little as one month. Pellar created promotional materials, including a university catalog, that falsely told prospective students that CSU had an administration composed of Ph.Ds and medical doctors and that it had received full accreditation from legitimate accreditation agencies. The catalog cover featured a photograph of a building that bore no relation to the fictitious CSU or its San Clemente office. The mailing address was in Metairie, Louisiana, but in reality that was only a mail forwarding service that simply resent all correspondence to CSU's addresses in Southern California. The indictment alleges that, in November 1997, Pellar fled the U.S. and continued to direct the activities of CSU from Mexico through subordinates.

The indictment alleges that CSU took in more than $10 million from students around the country in tuition fees during the scheme. The indictment alleges that students around the country were defrauded because CSU gave them the impression that it was a legitimate academic institution, but in reality, it was nothing more than a diploma mill.

The US Senate hearings into CSU had a former employee testify that while the CSU has a gross income of around $20 million it had no educational staff and no facilities and that the ten-person board of directors was nothing more than a list of made up names and titles. 

The school had even advertised that Joans Salk, the inventor of the Polio vaccine had an honorary Ph.D. from them. A claim that was only removed when Salk himself complained about the lie. 

Dante pleaded guilty to nine counts of mail fraud, he was ordered to pay back $45,835 and forfeit the $1.5 million yacht as well as serving 8 months in prison.

Upon his release, Dante mostly stayed out of the public eye, in 2006 it was said he was living in a trailer park. However, in 2010 he was thrust into the limelight once more as a film about his life, entitled “Mr. Hypnotism” was shown at SXSW.

To end, I would like to quote part of J. Harry Jones’ interview with Dante from his 2006 Chicago Union-Tribune Article:

He proudly produces a copy of “Marquis Who's Who” from 1993, which lists Ronald Pellar as holding a doctorate from Columbia State University and of having been a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Is the Marine Corps reference true?

Dante smiled slightly. “Of course not,” he said.

[deeperforme]

This product makes your thoughts go poof!

(credit to @jukeboxemcsa)

[deeperforme]

Dudes! I stumbled on this by accident last night: a prestige HBO hypnotist drama full of swankily shot hypnofetish staples! You can find the whole first episode on youtube, with subtitles, and the oh-so-HBO opening credits are essential viewing.

Interestingly, I don’t think this would fly as a  theme in North America - in general hypnosis is pretty much dismissed as boring bullshit. Whereas in many other countries, such as Italy, it has a bit of dangerous mystique. Those countries have occasional news stories and urban legends about hypnotists committing dastardly robberies, which educated people in those countries dismiss. But maybe not entirely…

[hypnoticharlequin]

Do Not Open- Brainwashing Facts!

I have a lot of nostalgia for those “alternative” children’s educational books. You know the ones, they would often purport to contain only the “weirdest” or the “grossest” facts about a topic in the hope that it would spur you to learn about all the history and biology you refused to learn in school.  

The pinnacle of the genre has to be the “Horrible Histories” series which spawned several series of books, including a few covering other academic fields and even a full-fledged TV show. 

I still have a few of these books around the place, mostly because they tend to turn up spectacularly cheap in second-hand book shops and quite a few of them are pretty amusing to read through due to how quickly outdated they can become. 

Recently I picked up one entitled “Do Not Open: An Encyclopedia Of The World’s Best Kept Secrets.” When I spotted it I had a peek at the contents to see what secrets I could hope to find in this weighty tome. Most of the book was the usual stuff, the pyramids, what goes into making a plane, spies, and weird animals. But then I spotted one specific entry. 

Well, how could I turn that offer down? 

So join me as we find out just what we are teaching our kids about brainwashing. 

All the pages in this book work as double page spreads and they are all delightfully themed, so that really sets this book apart. Also, this book isn’t messing around going straight to Robert Jay Lifton. I can’t do his work justice in a succinct manner, so I fully suggest you go read his books, but he is pretty much the authority on thought manipulation. One slight issue I have to raise is that Lifton isn’t a fan of the term brainwashing and used the term “thought-reform”. 

But the guide they give is short but pretty correct and it doesn’t shy away from the darker realities of the process. 

The other half of the spread is a picture and a list of techniques for brainwashing. Now it’s debatable if you consider all of these brainwashing or merely persuasion techniques (and that is a really fuzzy boundary), but it does cover all of the major ones. 

Even hypnosis gets a mention! 

This is a slightly weird description of hypnosis honestly. It feels like it is talking about a specific scene or situation but here it is presented devoid of context. Also, it doesn’t explain how this could be used as part of the brainwashing, almost like it presumes the audience already know what you do with hypnosis.

Now, you may have spotted the cross-reference at the bottom of the page, and yes there is a section on the unconscious mind. However, it does not cover hypnosis instead it focuses on sleep paralysis, dreaming, nightmares, sleepwalking, and deja vu. 

The only other mention of hypnosis is this brief one in the section on reincarnation (which is one of the more unusual topics this book covers)

The highlight of this image for me is the wonderful color coordination between hypnotist’s hair, hypnotist’s outfit, hypnotist’s chair and subject. Maybe this hypnotist has a dress code for his subjects. Because nothing says “relaxing environment” more than a deep, heavy brown. 

Overall I’m actually really impressed by Do Not Open. Sure it is a bit silly and some parts of it are a little odd, but I would have loved this book when I was a kid and I give it credit for actually covering a topic I never see covered in these books. 

[hypnoticharlequin]

Wiki-Help

A friend recently introduced me to a pretty funny website. Basically, it shows you a picture from an article on Wikihow and you have to guess what article it came from. 

Now I knew nothing about Wikihow but quickly realized their articles and pictures are slightly, well, weird. So because I don’t value my own sanity I went onto the site and looked up hypnosis. And they have a lot of articles, some of them okay and some of them terrible. 

So let’s see what we can learn on Wikihow! 

I decided to start with learning stage hypnosis because I have always wanted to be a one because I love performing and I love cheap suits! 

And frankly this intro is pretty impressive, the footnotes lead to a few decent sites and this sounds pretty functional if a little wordy. But it does point us into a few areas we can learn about, including licencing and a few induction types. 

Oh, we are just jumping right to the inductions then I guess. Not even anything on picking the right people to use as subjects, just get people up and get dropping them! 

Now, this is where the pictures start appearing and well, I think they tell a slightly different story about hypnosis. So for each step,  I am going to talk about what the guide says and what I think the image is teaching us. 

Step 1- Jazz Hand Towards Subject!

This is apparently helping the subject comfortable, going to be honest, she looks pretty comfy already. That or she is totally ignoring the hypnotist. Also the guide mentions having them facing you and not the audience which is something I have seen hardly any hypnotist ever actually do.

Step 2- Intensify Jazz Hand!

This step is “Initiate eye fixation”, which might confuse you when you realize the subject in the picture has her eyes closed and the hypnotist seems to lack eyes entirely. 

We are told that we need to have the subject looking at an object a fixed distance away and tell them to relax and not blink and this will be what induces the hypnotic trance. 

Step 3- Double Jazz Hands!!!

This is apparently regulating the subject’s breathing. I’m not sure how wiggling your hands at a woman with her eyes closed helps to regulate breathing. Unless this picture is the moments before the man gives the woman CPR. 

We are also advised “Breathe with the participant in a very audible way. This may be necessary to help some participants synch up their breathing with your steady rhythm.” This is of course opposed to breathing with the participant in a very nasal way or in a very metaphorical way. 

Step 4- THE OL’ RAZZLE DAZZLE!!!!

This step is literally “Instruct the participant to become hypnotized”. Honestly, that seems to render the previous steps a bit superfluous to requirements. Also, this presumes you have some very easy subjects. 

Step 5 lacks a picture, which is a shame, especially when we find the step is called “Begin eye repetition”. I now want to see a romantic scene in a book where the lovestruck couple stares into each other’s eyes and one brushes the other’s cheek and whispers, “you have such repetitive eyes”.

So in this step we have the subject open their eyes and focus on the object and then close their eyes again to send them deeper

Step 6 is locking the eyes. Honestly, I prefer to use superglue as opposed to a lock but each to their own I guess. But this is just your normal convincer suggestion focusing on being unable to open your eyes. 

Step 7- Make suggestive hand gestures to explain what you like about your current subject.

Now we have to “Describe the relaxation”, which is working through some progressive relaxation, involving sinking into the chair and feeling tingling as you relax gently before working on some basic catalepsy. 

What is not covered is what to do if the subject is acting like the chair has an arm when it very clearly does not....

Step 8 is to “start directing movements”, I usually start with a good bit of Riverdance as it really helps the subjects relax. But this is more convincers and more catalepsy. I will give it credit for giving two variations on the suggestion.

In step 9 we continue this process with relaxing visualization helping the subject sink deeper.

Before finally in step 10 we count down telling the subject to start from 100 and go down. 

And then, after all that, it is time for...

The hand-drop induction method. Yeah. Also, this method has no pictures so let me give you the short version. 

-Get them to push your hand and focus

-Pull hand away 

-Scream the magic word (Sleep or Yahtzee if you are feeling exotic)

-Countdown

And then...it’s over. Apparently, that's all I need to know to be a stage hypnotist. I honestly thought there would be slightly more to it. I guess I just leave my hypnotized subject on stage? Just put them under, shout “Ta-Da!” and wait for the applause? 

Well, there is one more bit. See at the end of every article Wikihow has a Q&A comments page and some of them are closer to surrealist art installations than they are to educational resources.

The first two are pretty good questions: 

Honestly, you think the first question would have been covered during this article, but hey at least the answer given is pretty good. The second question is a common enough one for this kind of thing and while I raise issues with the figures and the wording it is the commonly given answer. 

The third question is an interesting one

See, while being sleepy does make you relax easier, it doesn’t really help you get hypnotized easier, especially in a stage show setting. If you hypnotize all of your subjects and then they all fall asleep I have a strange feeling your audience wouldn’t be very impressed. Honestly, it feels like the author actually was trying to write a guide on “how to put people into hypnosis” as opposed to a guide to stage hypnosis. 

But the true madness lies in the unanswered questions section. While most of them are actually pretty logical (and cover things that should be in the article, to be honest), two of them stand out as being slightly odd. 

This sounds like a Buddhist Koan if a monk decided to start making Green Tea with copious amounts of weed rather than tea leaves. 

I mean sure the man will grow in the physical sense, hypnosis isn’t suspended animation. But maybe the person means in the spiritual sense? If so then I can’t really answer, it depends on the suggestion really.

Honestly, your guess is as good as mine. This seems like a terrible attempt to give someone a Persona. I’m unsure whose issues we are trying to find out about, are we looking for the issues of the body or the issues of the third soul.

Wait, a third soul? So the subject already has two souls? That sounds rather greedy of them, I mean you can’t horde all the souls! 

 So there you have it. We are now all qualified stage hypnotists thanks to Wikihow. I hope you feel more knowledgeable after this experience, I hope you go on to use this knowledge to make lots of money doing slightly dull corporate parties where the bosses want to try and seem down to Earth but fail miserably. 

[hypnoticharlequin]

So I’ve been looking through various old comics and found this from a biographical comic called “Prison to Praise” 

So after getting out of prison our hero learns all about hypnosis. And what does he learn? 

Wow...based on the amount of times I’ve been hypnotized I must be more Satan than girl by now. 

That would explain those horns I’ve been growing.....

[hypnoticharlequin]

Secrets Of Covert Hypnosis- (Spoiler: The secret is stupidity)

I did it again. I was wandering round the internet looking for a specific reference from a paper I had been reading and I stumbled upon another site for another book. And it was terrible. 

So I decided to share the highlights of the pitch with all of you. I’m not linking to the site directly, mostly because I don’t want to give this kind of insanity traffic. 

We start, like one should when pitching a product, with a simple and basic elevator pitch. 

WARNING: THESE ARE THE DARK SECRETS THE INNER CIRCLE DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW!

I should put this out there. I’m quoting this site directly. So yes, that is written in all capitals on the site as well. Honestly it really sets the tone for the rest of the pitch.

Right, who are inner circle? I presume that you have to be an inner circle of some larger thing right? If your group is just called “The Inner Circle” are your core members the inner circle of The Inner Circle? 

This site is NOT like all those other hypnosis sites out there.

This site will teach you something different...

Something different? As in something different to hypnosis? So I buy your expensive hypnosis course and get a 5 DVD guide to knitting?

This site will teach you the INSANELY controversial and the most EFFECTIVE hypnosis and mind control techniques that have turned the heads of hundreds...

If these secrets are so rare how have they turned hundreds of heads? I mean if they have turned that many then The Inner Circle must really suck at keeping them hidden. 

But before we go any further, I must give you this warning:

This is advanced mental technology. If you're looking for "A Beginners Guide To Hypnosis" you won't find it here.

I love the fact this is termed as “technology” as opposed to facts or information or even skills. What even is mental technology? 

On this site you'll find exactly how to mind control anyone you want, any time, any place, and all without them knowing.

But if I reveal this information, please promise me you will use it responsibly and you will only use it for good.

So, just to let you all know, the uses suggested just a little bit down this page totally blow this “use it for good” line totally out of the water. And it’s inclusion is sort of funny in context as this whole pitch is so very obviously aimed at people who want more power in their lives. 

Also the author so missed the chance to say “With great power comes great responsibility.” 

My name is [REDACTED SO HARD], and I'm about to take you on a journey into one of the most intense and one of the most influential underground secret societies that has ever existed.

I presume this society is The Inner Circle, right? Because they are the ones who don’t want me knowing about this magical power? 

I wanted to learn the secrets of mind control that hardly ANYONE knew about... the secrets that would let me do stuff like:

Mind Control someone into finding me instantly attractive.

Make someone instantly forget ever meeting me.

Mind Control into being so fascinated by me they can’t get me out of their mind.

I wanted to have that knowledge, the kind of power that would let me do anything.

Ah yes. This doesn’t sound creepy or weird at all. Honestly this all smacks of really low self-esteem and rubbish social skills. I mean how often do you want to make people forget meeting you? 

Also, making someone obsessed with you is how you end up with them chasing you around the world, kitchen knife in hand, screaming how they will wear your skin as a shirt. 

Every single piece of information I ever found was useless.

Well maybe if all your research turns up nothing, your question is flawed and you need to use the information to reform your question? 

And by now you probably know what I mean, you've seen all those "learn hypnosis sites" out there selling those crappy hypnosis eBooks that are all based on the same information that was written 20 years ago.

The words pot, kettle and black are springing quickly to mind....

Then after going through them all and finding nothing new, I started to lose hope... and then it happened.

The Phone Call That Changed My Life

I like this little narrative, it would be a good start to a children’s story. However, this call does not end up with a magical quest of adventure and self-discovery.

  The phone call was from a friend of mine (NONE of the people in this story will let me publish their REAL names), this friend owned and operated two auctions. 

But who was phone? I wonder why no one would let you publish their name, maybe because they were all magical fictions that only existed in the confines of your high-security mind prison. 

Also the last bit confuses me. I admit that my only knowledge of auctions comes from watching Bargain Hunt on rainy Bank Holidays but isn’t the wording of that off? Wouldn’t he own and operate two auction houses? How does one own an individual auction. Also couldn’t that just mean he posted two things on Ebay? 

And in one of his auctions someone was selling a box of old books.

One of the books was an old, hand written journal of about 80 pages of intensely powerful information that was the collected wisdom of an underground subculture that absolutely no one knew existed.

Whoa, whoa. Back it up. Back it up. So, this box of old books is great despite the fact that earlier you said:

selling those crappy hypnosis eBooks that are all based on the same information that was written 20 years ago.

So 20 year old information is bad, but your old information is just great? Not just that, old information that was so great everyone just totally and utterly forgot about it? 

I know I make this joke a lot, but still. Psychology evolves, it is a comparatively young field, information becomes outdated very quickly. 

This group had been secretly exchanging their knowledge for nearly a decade.

Secretly working to turn hypnosis and mind control into a something new, something a lot more powerful.

This small subculture revolved around one man who was only known as "The Professor".

First time I read this, I got to the last line and literally said “oh fuck right off,” out loud. Seriously, this is the moment this whole tale jumps the shark so hard it enters fucking orbit. 

He was the most worshipped persuader in this secret community.

Inside the pages of the journal he spit out LONG detailed descriptions of techniques that read like algorithms of how to manipulate social situations and how to control anyone's mind.

A lot of the techniques in the journal, he had come up with and they were all chronicled in intimate detail right there inside those pages.

“Persuader,” is a horrible title. I bet he wanted to call himself “The Persuader,” but couldn’t, because it was too similar to the 70′s cop show starring Roger Moore. 

And I’m going to put it out there. I think The Persuaders is a more true reflection of police work than this is of hypnosis. 

Also he “spit them out,” was he a rapper? Or are the resulting descriptions just disgusting? 

The writing was filled with jargon of his own invention like:

Sliders, Shells, Claws, Sniper Inducer's, String Theory... and a whole lot more and they'd all become an integral part of this hypnosis secret society.

A lot of this jargon looks a lot like random words or terms stolen from other things. I mean Sliders was a popular sci-fi tv show in the 90s. Shells and Claws are just bits of animals. Sniper Inducers is very similar to a thing used in nuclear reactors and the like and String theory is a major branch of physics. 

Inside these pages they had documented a new kind of mental technology that they called "Dark Side Hypnosis".

Again, what is a mental technology? Seriously, that term makes no sense at all. Also why in the world would you call it something so utterly silly. 

That’s what makes me laugh about all of this, while he is putting forward the idea that this secret society is all cool and mystical, they use names that sound like teenagers in the 90s trying to be edgy. 

I finished reading the whole thing in less than a couple of hours, and by the time I was finished my heart was pounding and I was sweating...

I honestly felt like my head was spinning after finally finding that this kind of mind control was real and it really did exist.

The heart pounding and the sweat is likely due to some fungus growing on the old paper and ink. You should avoid licking the books, just in case.

As soon as I'd had a taste of Dark Side Hypnosis I needed to learn more.

Oh, too late. 

So there was no question about it, I had to meet the faces behind the names, watch them, find out who they were and what made them tick.

So I made it my mission and my obsession to hunt down these faceless names from this "secret society" and beg them to share with their secrets with me.

But There Was A HUGE Problem

These people had NO CLUE who I was so why would they want to tell me anything?

...And it's not like I could just pick up the phone and call them, you know?

After all ...I didn't even have a clue who any of them were.

So why would they even want to talk to me?

So after a few weeks of searching the internet, trying to find anything that might help me find them I told myself there was no way I could get in touch with these people... so I should just forget about it.

If this magical secret society ended up having their most important journal sold at auction you can likely guess that they are not around anymore. That or they are an appalling secret society. 

But hey, it is the end of the trail, maybe this means he moved on and went to a hypnotherapy college or studied neurology and learnt about the actual workings of hypnosis? Well as you can see this post continues on, so yeah, no prize for guessing he didn’t. 

I read those same 80 pages over and over again every night... I was so obsessed with it, even my wife started to think I was crazy.

I’m with your wife mate. Also, does anyone else find it interesting he mentioned wanting to make people find him attractive and become obsessed with him, despite already being married? 

Man, maybe this is all a clever story about a marriage on the rocks and how trying to salvage it only led to them drifting further apart. 

After weeks of reading the same thing over and over again my focus started to change to the three blank pages at the back of the journal, and what appeared to be a few pages that had been ripped out...

It was then that I notice one of the blank pages had a few words of text imprinted on it so deeply into the paper they were almost embossed on the other side.

The imprinted words were from what was written on one of the pages that had been ripped out.

Worst. Detective. Ever. Maybe I have played too many adventure games over the years. But wouldn’t that be one of the first things you pick up on? I mean it is really odd for someone to deface what is effectively a relic for this group of oddly named nutters. 

Also this guy must have written really hard to emboss that damn deeply on the page, that or this paper stock is super duper thick. 

I could just about make out the details of what The Professor was calling "The Dark Shadow Technique".

The first thing that came to my mind was "Why has someone ripped this page out?"

“The Dark Shadow Technique” so the professor is both a bit silly and a massive weaboo? As that is the most anime name for something I have ever heard. 

But the craziest thing was... right there at the bottom of the page, imprinted into the paper was an email address.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA oh god, my sides have ascended. 

Seriously? This has to be a joke right? We are meant to take this plot twist seriously? Who would look at this and think “yeah, this seems legit!” 

I would call this stupidly contrived even in a video game, let alone in what is being presented to us as a fact to make us buy a damn book!

This whole time, I had an email address for The Professor right there in my hands and I just didn't see it.

I grabbed my laptop and sent what was probably the longest email I've ever written... to this guy I've never even met.

I’ve honestly got no idea where to go from that last paragraph. I mean if I found an e-mail that shouldn’t exist, that even the owner of the book obviously tried to stop others seeing, I wouldn’t e-mail it. 

This Is Where It Gets Strange...

Oh, this is where it gets strange? Up to this point, everything has been totally normal. This happens basically daily does it? 

I got a reply back from him in about 2 minutes.

And the weirdest part was he told me he'd been expecting me and he actually hypnotized me by email!

It was completely insane, and when I finally got to meet him he explained how it works. (NOBODY knows how to do this, but I'll show you how in the course!)

It's crazy... I mean, just think for a second what you'll be able to do once you know how to hypnotize someone just by sending an email.

So when he said this is where it got strange. I didn’t believe him at first, because what could top what we just heard. 

But I take it back. I was wrong. This is where it gets strange. This is where it gets so strange I have to go sit down and have a cup of tea and a chocolate finger just to calm myself. 

The main issue with this part of the tale is, apart from it being horribly lazy writing, is that we are not told exactly what he hypnotized him to do. When did he send the hypnotic e-mail? 

I mean, if he sent it ages ago, does that mean the friend, the auction and the book are all fakes? If so that means the previous few pages have been utter junk and the writer is wasting our time. 

Did he hypnotize him via e-mail after he got the book? If so, why is this man sat around waiting for an e-mail from a guy who likely just stumbled on his random journal and solved his stupidly easy puzzle? 

My brain hurts....

Also, someone must know how it works? I mean the guy who taught it you must know it, and you must know it to teach it. So at least 2 people know it. Unless it doesn’t exist of course....

This group of insanely focussed individuals had the most powerful knowledge you can ever imagine - all broken down and backwards engineered into a step by step process.

Why did you need to backwards engineer it? Presumably the guy who wrote the journal already has a step-by-step method so he can do it? Why not just ask him for the method? Actually why isn’t he teaching the course? 

It took months before The Professor fully trusted me and excepted me as one of his own, but it was all worth it and my determination paid off for both you and me.

Wait, so you are stealing this guys secrets to tell us? Also this has a slightly romantic undertone. Honestly, that would be the best romance story, trying to make cult-leader-senpai notice you. Baking him cakes until he lets you into his inner circle and teaches you his forbidden knowledge and you do the forbidden dance together. 

So after months of persistence and begging him to let me under his wing he finally agreed to meet me.

To this day I'm sure the ONLY reason he met me was because I told him I found the Journal, and he wanted to figure out how I got my hands on this advanced mental technology in the first place.

Wow, he literally did “senpai notice me!” him into submission. Impressive! But if he did want to know how you got it, why didn’t he just hypnotize you via e-mail again? I mean if it does generate total amnesia he would have to do it once, then he would never be bothered by you again. 

You wouldn't believe some of the things I had to do if I told you.

Well that has slightly sexual undertones. But hey, total mental power is worth a little bit of butt stuff. 

And that's not even the craziest part...

Oh dear....

The Girl Who Bit Off More Than She Could Chew

Oh dear, oh dear.......

So a few months after I had finished my training with The Professor I had to go on a business trip to Florida.

Wait, so you had a day job while doing this mythical training? So you were only training part time? That makes all of this a lot less impressive. 

One night after having a few drinks in the bar I ended up being a little too lose lipped about my training with this hypnosis secret society and how it was the most insane stuff I had ever seen.

And there was this woman who was MEGA HOT that WOULDN'T LEAVE ME ALONE.

But it wasn't like the "good" kind of not leave you alone.

It wasn't like she was flirting with me or anything cool like that. It was just the opposite.

See, all she wanted to do was hassle me about Dark Side Hypnosis.

So, the person teaching us this course is an utter idiot? That fills me full of faith in the course and it’s materials. I mean he had one job and failed at the first chance he got! 

I like how he describes the idea of a girl flirting with him as “cool” it makes him sound like a teen who doesn’t want to admit they are shy about relationships. 

She basically followed me up to my hotel room and kept saying it didn't exist, and that I was just trying to impress everyone.

Well it doesn’t 

And you are, but doing a terrible job at it. 

So after a while I decided to teach her a lesson.

Oh yeah, totally a phrase that gives me confidence in you as a person. 

Warning! What Happened Next Was An Accident

You know saying it was an accident doesn’t cover you right? It still makes you a horrible person. And it really makes a mockery of you making me promise to be good earlier. 

As you know, I'm married... and my wife is cool and everything, but she's not THAT cool ;-)

Why did we suddenly use a smiley? It looks really silly when you only use one and you only use it in this context. 

Also your wife is a saint. I honestly don’t understand why she hasn’t packed up her things and escaped in a hot air balloon to some far flung corner of the world. She is the hero of this piece in my opinion. 

So I haven't used these techniques to seduce anybody in ages. And this is my "defense" for what happened.

I thought I would use a little bit of Dark Side Hypnosis on her just to sort of teach her a lesson.

All I wanted to do is get her to give me her number or something harmless so I could say, "SEE! I just used Dark Side Hypnosis on you and you just gave me your number. So quit bugging me."

You haven’t used them “in ages”. But it’s only been a few months since you finished learning all of this? 

First of all I used a slider to trigger the "Empire Man" technique on myself to instantly infuse my core with rock solid, unshakeable confidence. (you'll see exactly how to do this in the course)

(This one belief altering technique will instantly let you build massively powerful core confidence. Your life will be transformed by this one technique alone.)

The Empire man fills you full of rock. Is that just a fancy term for “I got an erection?” 

Then I used something called The Dark Shadow Technique, which in hindsight, was too powerful.

I know you've never heard of The Dark Shadow Technique.

This is because it's part of Dark Side Hypnosis and only a few other people in the world know it, besides The Professor and myself.

Anyway, here's what happened.

I started playing around using The Dark Shadow Technique and next thing I know...SHE'S NAKED.

I'm not kidding.

She "miraculously" has a total change of heart about me and asks to come in to see my hotel room.

When I let her in, she starts doing a strip tease to the music of... wait for it... ABBA.

Yes.

ABBA.

Anyway, I want you to know I had no intentions of getting her to come up to my room and strip to ABBA songs.

Like I said, I accidentally took it too far.

That's How Powerful These Techniques Are!

I still can’t get over that fucking name. How in the world is anyone ever going to buy into this when your technique sounds like a rubbish Dragon Ball Z attack . Not even one that takes an episode to charge, one that’s fired off in an instant and has no effect on anything. 

Also “next thing I know,” did you pass out of a few minutes? Or did her clothes get sucked into another dimension? Because taking clothes off takes time and if you are looking at her, you would likely notice it. 

Also, where did she get the music of ABBA from? Did you have it already set up on the stereo or did she just happen to be carrying a speaker on her at the time. 

Also, I can tell you from experience ABBA is perfectly good stripping music, provided you can strip in a European manner. 

Frankly, I'm getting a little worried because I think this type of mind control is a little too powerful.

IT'S LIKE HAVING A NUCLEAR BOMB.

Very bad news if it gets into the wrong hands... and that's why I've been so hush-hush about it.

Not worried enough to stop and avoiding profiting from it of course. Also I think this guy is the wrong hands. Not just for these fake hypnosis powers, but for anything more intensive than a crayon. 

You CAN Control Anyone You Want Instantly

But only if you take advantage of this opportunity today.

The reason why is... I can't share this information with everyone, and I'll probably be forced to take this site down some time soon.

The hypnosis community is already in an uproar about my site, and I'm banned from all the forums, so I can't be sure how much longer this offer will last.

So, just a tip. If you are going to say the site may be taken down, don’t leave the copyright data on the bottom of the site. As this makes it really clear the site has been up since 2011, which kinda screws your pitch up. 

Also we are in uproar apparently. I mean I’m in uproarious laughter, but apart from that it is the most zen uproar I have ever heard of. 

In fact, the only way The Professor would agree to let me make this knowledge public was if I:

Paid him a small fortune (which I did, but it was definitely worth it and I’d do it again).

Promised to NEVER reveal any of the "Dark Side Inner Circle" members true identities.

Only disclose this information to a VERY small, select few individuals.

Unfortunately those "select few individuals" are piling up quicker than I thought humanly possible...

Ever since I first posted about my discoveries on this website on January 7th of 2014...

17,477 people just like you have contacted me begging for this jealously guarded information.

Why does the Professor need a small fortune? Like if he can do all the stuff you say he can, what does he need money for? 

Also, this Inner circle is for a group named “Dark Side”? Wow, they really need to hypnotize a marketing manager.

Also, this might just be me, but I don’t consider 17,477 people to be small or select. I consider that quite a large number. 

But, please, humor me, how do we get these magical powers?

You Cannot Use This Secret System Unless You Swear Never To Reveal It To Anyone Else.

Please, whatever you do ...DO NOT share these techniques with anyone.

And yes, I'm being completely serious.

Two reasons:

This is powerful stuff that nobody’s ever seen before. If it was in the wrong hands or used in the wrong way, things could get ugly.

Because this is so hard-core, and it’s something that NOBODY knows, it’s like dynamite.

Once you get you hands on Dark Side Hypnosis you can put someone into a trance INSTANTLY.

And they won't even know you're doing anything.

I'D LIKE TO KEEP IT THAT WAY.

Yes, don’t share it with anyone else. Despite the fact that this is what he is doing and his mentor did the same. Because giving this away is bad, unless you are giving it away for money in which case go for it. 

Also, I think this guy is the wrong hands, based on a lot of the stuff he has been going on about. 

I've become publicly known in the Inner Circle as being the Professor's only protégé, and people are calling me "The most dangerous mind control expert in the world."

Wait, wouldn’t you be known privately within the Inner Circle? 

And wow, this makes the Professor out to be an utter dick. He totally passed over those he was worked with on this for 10 years just to take some random who chanced on his notebook and then pestered him as his apprentice. 

Also dude, that is not a good thing to be called. If the people who know this topic say you are dangerous they likely don’t mean it in a joking manner. Also I hope you realize that rule of two suggests that now you have taken over from the Professor you have set in motion the path to your own demise at the hands of your apprentice. 

Next we go to my favorite bit of these, the bullet point run down of:

Here's Just A Taste Of What You'll Discover In This Course:

You'll discover the weird (but devastatingly powerful) "Authority Hijack Method" for literally stealing someone's position as the top dog in the office, your social circle or anywhere else you choose!

This is called “Getting a promotion.” You get them very often when you don’t run off to train with your magical hypnosis teacher. 

The #1 reason why people aren't attracted to you and how you can change that in as little as a few hours.

Because you keep babbling about secret hypnosis cults and men with silly names. The way to change this is to stop talking about it. 

How to covertly hypnotize your husband, wife or children - this one technique alone will change your life!

The mark of a good partner and parent is to manipulate the will of your family. Yeah, that totally sounds like a good thing to do. 

A brand new breakthrough (recently discovered by the Dark Side Inner Circle) that makes even total Dark Side "novices" irresistibly attractive to anyone you meet. (This incredible little secret is how some average looking people are able to attract even beautiful models. Here's how they do it.)

Yeah, it’s not having a good personality or it just happens they share similar interests. It is magical hypnosis! Totally has to be magical hypnosis!

A "can't miss" way to instantly gain the respect and admiration of every single person in your workplace — even if you haven't hypnotised anyone yet!

Step 1- Don’t act like a pillock 

Step 2- Bring cake 

What to do with your eyes to command respect from almost everyone you talk to. (You can actually see this secret "in action" in most James Bond 007 movies.)

God..I hate to break this to you sweetie. But James Bond isn’t real. They are this thing we have called fiction, you should know about it considering you just wrote several pages of it. 

Then again, maybe the thing you have to do is become Roger Moore? That never fails to woo everyone. 

Four words that will destroy your chances of hypnotizing anyone (When I stopped saying these four words — that 99% of new hypnotists say — I became unstoppable.)

Word 1- Heteroscedasticity

Word 2- Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch

Word 3- Buttocks 

Word 4- Semprini

How to protect yourself from anyone trying to attack you using mind control - and actually have them apologizing and pleading with you... instantly (This secret works even if your normally a shy and timid kind of person!)

Tin foil, wrapped around the head. Keep wrapping until you can’t see anything or they have slowly backed off. 

Plus a lot more, like...

The little talked about fear every human being has... and how to use it to influence and persuade anyone you want.

Oh, that fear we all have of those tiny little bits of fluff that you sometimes find in your pocket? I mean I’m glad we are all finally admitting those things are weird, but I don’t think it is a good control tactic. 

You can get your hands on this course RIGHT NOW, today for just $197, $57. However in the next few days the price will be going back up to the regular price of $197.

The next few days of course being several years. When you are an all powerful hypnotist, the meaning of time changes dramatically. 

Also for those curious, $57 could buy you 158 Freddo Chocolate bars. Which I honestly think is a much better long term investment than this course. 

P.S. I'm also offering a special bonus to anyone who purchases the course today.

If you buy today, I will also include (free of charge) "The Looking Glass Technique".

The looking glass technique is where you repeatedly run into a mirror until you enter Wonderland or the owner of the mirror politely, but firmly, asks you to leave. 

As I've already told you, I've had over 17,477 desperate to get their hands on these powerful techniques.

So instead what I've decided to do is make it available for a VERY short time...

That way, only the people who are the most dedicated and the most determined will be able to get it.

I'm currently planning to pull these audio tracks at midnight on June 4+2, 2016 

You know it’s weird. But this date seems to alter with my system clock. I know time is fluid, but I didn’t think it was that fluid....

P.P.S. One more thing... Please don't tell anybody about the information on this page.

The more people that find out about it the more likely it will be taken offline. Because of this I'm giving you the chance to get your hands on all of my Dark Side Hypnosis knowledge before it's too late.

Well I wouldn’t ever do that. I’m a very nice person. 

Wooops.....