Yes we’ve all been talked into doing something by our friends. Truthfully it never takes as much arm twisting as we’d like to think it does. Hypnosis however is not a buddy trying to get us to go along with them so they’re not thee only ones getting into trouble. Hypnosis is a state of semi-consciousnesses, you can’t really get there if you don’t really trust the person doing it. Also, you will never do something because of being hypnotized that you would never do elsewise. If you are not the type to do so, you will not run around naked, jumping on one leg, squawking like a chicken, it ain’t going to happen. You can’t be given a suggestion to kill someone, or steal, or commit any crime unless you are a criminal. Would you like me to go pull my psychology books out of storage just so I can quote them for you? (I have a little piece of parchment that says, yes I do know what I’m talking about here.) Peace.:harp:
My thinking is that for some teens, “hey, wouldn’t it be really cool if…” can be “suggestion” enough. It isn’t as if that is an age where the brain’s common-sense wiring is fully functional! Not that teens have no common sense; I mean these are once of the stretches of years when common sense goes at a low ebb for a substantial number of us. It only takes one, besides.
A very amusing story about the temptation to show off while being “mesmerized” was written by Mark Twain, BTW. It is hilarious. Not surprisingly, when young Samuel Clemens was the “subject”, he was lying through his teeth! Take the time to read the whole thing sometime when you are in the mood to split your sides.
trussvillecityschools.com/Teachers/Leslie.Terrell/General%20English%2011/The%20Mesmerizer%20PDF.pdf
Here is the very painful upshot of his crime (so you have that spoiler alert, this is the end of the story, about when he discussed the incidents with his mother. Don’t read it if you don’t want to know how his time being “mesmerized” ended!)
*…It is curious. When the magician
s engagement closed there was but one person in the village who did not believe in mesmerism, and I was the one. All the others were converted, but I was to remain an implacable and unpersuadable disbeliever in mesmerism and hypnotism for close upon fifty years. This was because I never would examine them, in after life. I couldnt. The subject revolted me. Perhaps because it brought back to me a passage in my life which for pride
s sake I wished to forget; though I thought -- or persuaded myself I thought -- I should never come across a "proof" which wasnt thin and cheap, and probably had a fraud like me behind it…
How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again! Thirty-five years after those evil exploits of mine I visited my old mother, whom I had not seen for ten years; and being moved by what seemed to me a rather noble and perhaps heroic impulse, I thought I would humble myself and confess my ancient fault. It cost me a great effort to make up my mind; I dreaded the sorrow that would rise in her face, and the shame that would look out of her eyes; but after long and troubled reflection, the sacrifice seemed due and right, and I gathered my resolution together and made the confession.
To my astonishment there were no sentimentalities, no dramatics, no George Washington effects; she was not moved in the least degree; she simply did not believe me, and said so! I was not merely disappointed, I was nettled, to have my costly truthfulness flung out of the market in this placid and confident way when I was expecting to get a profit out of it. I asserted, and reasserted, with rising heat, my statement that every single thing I had done on those long-vanished nights was a lie and a swindle; and when she shook her head tranquilly and said she knew better, I put up my hand and swore to it – adding a triumphant “Now what do you say?”
It did not affect her at all; it did not budge her the fraction of an inch from her position. If this was hard for me to endure, it did not begin with the blister she put upon the raw when she began to put my sworn oath out of court with arguments to prove that I was under a delusion and did not know what I was talking about…
Dear, dear, what a grotesque and unthinkable situation: a confessed swindler convicted of honesty and condemned to acquittal by circumstantial evidence furnished by the swindled! I realized, with shame and with impotent vexation, that I was defeated all along the line. I had but one card left, but it was a formidable one. I played it – and stood from under. It seemed ignoble to demolish her fortress, after she had defended it so valiantly; but the defeated know not mercy. I played that master card. It was the pin-sticking. I said, solemnly – “I give you my honor, a pin was never stuck into me without causing me cruel pain.”
She only said – “It is thirty-five years. I believe you do think that, now, but I was there, and I know better. You never winced.” She was so calm! and I was so far from it, so nearly frantic.
“Oh, my goodness!” I said, “let me show you that I am speaking the truth. Here is my arm; drive a pin into it-- drive it to the head – I shall not wince.”
She only shook her gray head and said, with simplicity and conviction – “You are a man, now, and could dissemble the hurt; but you were only a child then, and could not have done it.”
And so the lie which I played upon her in my youth remained with her as an unchallengeable truth to the day of her death. Carlyle said “a lie cannot live.” It shows that he did not know how to tell them. If I had taken out a life policy on this one the premiums would have bankrupted me ages ago. *
