Hypnotist thief on video
Italian police released video of a thief who allegedly hypnotizes clerks at supermarket registers. From the BBC News:
LinkIn every case, the last thing staff reportedly remember is the thief leaning over and saying: "Look into my eyes", before finding the till empty...
The cashier who was shown the video footage has no memory of the incident, according to Italian media, and only realised what had happened when she saw the money missing.
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sounds like an inside job.
What they didn't show was before the cashire's shift, where they "hypnotist" paid her a few hundred euros to "not remember".
I have a relative who as a stage magician used to do hypnosis, both real and fake. According to him, only 1 in 10 people are actually able to be hypnotized, and there is no such thing as "cold" hypnosis. Anyone he had on stage that was to be actually hypnotized was someone he had previously hypnotized in a controlled environment, usually more than once. Most performances he did used what is called Stage Hypnosis.
Real hypnosis is a time consuming process. Most stage hypnosis, where the hypnotist quickly hypnotizes people by having them look into his eyes, snapping, or whatever, is based more on peer pressure and the willingness of people to do anything for attention if they have an excuse. He likened it to people acting drunk after drinking non-alcoholic beer without knowing it. If you tell someone that they aren't responsable for their actions and they're in front of a large crowd, most people will do anything for "fame". One common technique is to line up a series of volunteers and try to "hypnotize" them all at once, quickly sending away any that aren't effected by the "hypnosis". By making it clear that the hypnotist will get rid of anyone who doesn't play along, rather than being rejected from their five minutes of fame, many people play hypnotized.
If Zan is correct, and I'm sure he's close at least, I wonder how this guy was pulling this off? If he's paying the cashiers to pretend they're hypnotized, it doesn't really leave an out for him if/when he gets caught. It only gives the chance to let the cashiers off the hook. But then again criminals are stupid and he probably didn't think it completely through.
in Russia they believe in "gypsy hypnosis", don't know about Italy. If a folk belief is there as primer, who knows?
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002166501_hypnotic01.html
I have never been hypnotized, but I saw a hypnotist perform once, and he told us in the audience that we could go under too. I definitely started to feel like I was going under. It was very strange, and then my friend next to me did something, and I snapped out of it.
Perhaps the police can work up a Phrenological profile of the criminal.
Kind of reminds me of the "Pusher" X-Files episodes
"Oh gnomes now eh?! It's all in me hedd, I say, it's all in me hedd!"
why Beryllium, that's very cerulean,..... cerulean.... of you.
Hypnosis actually involves the hypnotist shooting little lightning bolts from their eyes into the subject's eyes, which become rotating spirals. The subject then starts talking in a monotone ("I...will...obey") and walking with their arms stretched out in front of them.
I thought everybody knew that.
It occurs to me that there are few more certain methods of mind control than the prospect of acquiring lots of money.
Dear ZippySC
no no! Not at all! Hypnosis needs the spectacles with the swirly lenses! Oh... wait.. that's the x-ray specs.... never mind
ah memories
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/mags/qf/c/PopularScience/6-1949/med_hypnotize.jpg
There might be some chemicals involved...contact or blown...
I do hope he warned them in advance that he was an evil hypnotist.
@15
yep, that's always a good one: have the subject look into a fold of paper you proffer under their nose and then quickly puff the tetradoxin mix into their faces with a quick breath of air.
I like to keep them buried at least three days to soften them up.
Baron Takuan
Seems like someone decided that Derren Brown's entertaining effects would make a good basis for a petty larceny scam.
It's really just sad that poorly knocking off the script of widely televised magic trick / prank can be seriously cited in the reporting of a real crime. I hope the police are keeping an eye on those staffers at the very least - if they care to solve the crime that is.
Speaking of Derren Brown, this is the segment where he talks people out of watches, wallets, and phones:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=f-TURhK90_8
A magician of my acquaintance tells me that Brown is on the level when he says he doesn't use stooges. I ache to try this on strangers to see if I can get it to work.
The only way to catch a hypnotist is WITH a hypnotist, so I envision a hypnotist-detective finally cornering the hypnotist-thief, and they have a "hypno-showdown" each trying to put the other in a trance.
If hypnotism really worked that way, we would all be under the control of a few ultra-powerful hypnotists who *snap*
Must...stop...posting...now...
Hypnosis?? Did you see the guy's hair?!? Sorry, but with that evil beard and bushy eyebrows you don't need hypnosis to distract the cashier. Hm... in fact... the man looks like an evil version of Count von Count.
the video in #16 is the best
Anyone that has been hypnotized knows that it actually increases your awareness and you remember everything and won't do anything unless you want to do it.
@19
I am willing to take Brown's word about using stooges since nothing he does in terms of magic effects really require them (though they would make things monumentally easier) but you have to keep in mind that he only claims not to use stooges for effects which means he does not deny using them for pranks and performances which may masquerade in the viewer's mind as magic tricks. If you could truly back him into a corner on some of the things he has done, I suspect his answer would be along the lines of 'Of course that was a paid actor but that was a dramatization not an illusion - oh you poor fool, you thought I was doing a trick when I was just putting on a short play'
A con man (and in his case an artist) on that level can easily find a way to lie with the truth.
Wonder if the DHS is doing anything to guard against this new potential threat of rogue terrorist hypnotists?
I really want to encounter a hypnotist and experience it one day. I'd be thrilled! Until I started eating brains.
Like most of you disbelievers, the first thing I thought was con. We're all cynics here.
This is interesting to me. Last semester in my Psychology course, one of the things my professor seemed to enjoy doing was ragging on the terrible reporting of science in the media. Everything from the Autism "epidemic", to the perceived and actual benefits of meditation, repression, and hypnosis. Hypnosis, he showed, could do nothing besides offer a distraction from pain. Their are people more susceptible to Hypnosis, and one of their traits is a large imagination. I would guess that they are playing along (maybe they think he has a weapon if they don't listen) or perhaps my professor was wrong (though he seemed very intelligent and is head of the department at my college).
Look into my eyes? It's Kenny Craig from Little Britain!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4v6q1BHarY
I studied hypnosis back when i was in college... as mentioned above, that just ain't happening.
Now, if he'd known them all previously and prepared them properly, they might have dropped back in at a cue or something, I never really did anything with that but I know it can be done (I saw a fair number of references to it regarding the use of hypnosis for dental work IIRC).
It's pretty widely accepted that you can't make someone do something they wouldn't do normally, but it's often conveniently left out that that leaves a heck of a lot of wiggle room. One of the more famous cases was when one of the military branches was researching to see if they could make someone shoot a friend... they wouldn't when just told to do so... but after a few days of reinforcement that their friend had been kidnapped by the soviets and this person on base was really a lookalike mole, the trigger was pulled.
I didn't watch to see if she gave him the money or just didn't pay attention, but either one would be a pretty obvious loophole... people get distracted normally, and cashiers hand out money all day... he'd just have to have convinced her that he'd given her a very large bill in need of change, or that he was taking the money over to another till, something that fit in with normal routine, aside from his presence.
And at risk of being wholly off-topic... if you ever run across a copy of the book "Hypnotic Poetry" (extended title -- Hypnotic Poetry: A Study of Trance-Inducing Technique in Certain Poems and Its Literary Significance) by Edward Snyder... read it! It's out of print, fairly rare, but a really fascinating book that gets to the guts, in a way, of how and why some poetry effects people so profoundly, as well as how poetry can be used to induce a hypnotic state in individuals, particularly those who are otherwise less receptive/susceptible.