Chuck:

Thanks for your response. What source are you basing your facts on? I've seen people "hypnotized" in much less time than 15-20 minutes. How do you know for certain that you can't make someone do something against their will?

Hey! I am getting very sleepy....ZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Chuck beat me to it: teller and robber in cahoots was my explanation as well.


Jack Shalom

There is another point to this, What the guy 'if he did' get the teller to do, wasn't something they shouldn't have!...think about it. Tellers give money out every day to legitamate people, the Guy would of had to get the teller to see the funds available only, hence why I shared the derren brown stunt. DB wasn't asking the teller to do 'somthing wrong per say' just to see something that wasnt there. Now that is something any good hynpotist should be able to do. Also I agree with jimtron, a breif friendly chat to a 'open' person would be enough time to induce hynposis, and bear in mind that it wouldn't need to be a deep hypnosis either . Then we also has all the conspiracy theories of other crimes that may has used hypnotism.

Did this happen as the story goes ...not sure, ..is it possible for somthing like this to happen. I belive it is.

regards

steve

I just hope the cops are safe when they catch this guy. Hopefully they're not hypnotized into letting him go

I don't know if this is a case of an inside job or not, but I do know this: I disagree with the idea that you can't hypnotize someone to do something they wouldn't normally do. Psychologists have gotten people to do some atrocious things *without* the use of hypnosis (well, things that would be atrocious if they'd really happened). Why couldn't you do the same thing *with* hypnosis?

Granted, it would take a little doing; you couldn't just hypnotize someone and go, "Rob a bank." You'd need to reframe it as something they want to do, should do, whatever.

And, as for the idea that you can't hypnotize people against their will, yes and no. All the standard texts say that, yes, but there's also this thing called ... covert hypnosis ... that I've heard about. What is covert hypnosis but hypnotizing someone without their knowledge and (most likely) against their conscious will? Ever hear of embedded commands?

I think that the idea that you can't hypnotize someone to do an immoral act was introduced largely to calm the fears of the general populace. That and to act as a kind of safeguard; if people *believe* they can't be hypnotized to do something immoral, then they can't be. That's very much in line with hypnotic philosophy (for lack of a better term). Also, if the hypnotist doesn't think he can, then he can't.

However. I don't think there's a terribly big danger of anyone abusing their "hypnotic powers" like that, at least when it comes to licensed hypnotists. The training for obtaining the license includes ethical training, iirc from looking at courses a while back. Most hypnotists *wouldn't* try something like this, even if they thought they *could*.

All that said, I still don't know whether the Moldova stuff is legit or not; I believe it's possible, conceivable, but *how* possible? I don't know. Can a few minutes of conversation give you enough time to find a way around their "this is wrong" filter? Perhaps if you're really gifted and skilled. Again, I don't know.

For what it's worth, I'd be inclined to look into the inside job possibility first, myself.

PS. The afore-mentioned is all just my opinion and I could very easily be wrong. I realize fully that I don't know everything, and that many people, including people here on the boards, know more than me about hypnosis and what is and isn't possible.

I think it's hard to make accurate, definitive statements (like not being able to force someone against their will via hypnosis) because hypnosis is still not very well understood, from what I know. I don't believe there is a consensus on what exactly hypnosis is. But clearly the power of suggestion and persuasion can be very great.

The Republic of Moldova (conventional long form, conventional short form: Moldova, local official long form: Republica Moldova) is a landlocked country in eastern Europe, located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the east. Its border with Romania follows the Prut and lower Danube rivers. Historically part of Romania it was united with Romania in 1918, then it was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945 after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact as the Moldovian SSR. It declared independence from the USSR on 27 August 1991.

Denny Loomis

My (limited) information comes from books and articles I have researched on the subject. I am a mentalist/magician, but I have dabbled in hypnosis over the years hypnotizing friends. I have also been hypnotized myself. Under hypnosis, you are actually in a state of EXTREME FOCUS AND AWARENESS, which is the opposite of what most people think. You are also aware of your surroundings and your actions.

I suppose (reluctantly) that if a VERY skilled hypnotist stumbled upon a VERY open-minded bank teller, he could convince her that what she was doing was the RIGHT thing to do.

To me, as S C A M sounds much more likely.

You will now cluck like a chicken.

A related story to this that I saw on 60 minutes or Dateline a couple days ago...

It was about some woman who is currently being tried for the murder of her husband. But the weirdest thing is not the murder, but how the two of them met.

The woman's husband was her hypnotherapist when she was something like 14 years old (he, being somewhere between 30-35). Sometimes during their sessions, the hypnotherapist would sexually assault her, but she would never remember it when she would wake up. I forget how she eventually found out what he had done to her, but after she found out, she got married to him.

To me, it proves that someone could do something against their will when under hypnosis, and that this whole bank robber deal is at least somewhat plausible, although I'm sure that there was something more than hypnosis going on in the robberies.

"mugician", I've been refered to as that more than 51 times in the last 20 years.
;)

John

How about this.... The Tellers hypnotize some guy, give him the money, have him drop it off somewhere, and then he wakes up remembering nothing? Then they claim that "He" hypnotized them....... I like the Vampire idea better! It really IS Vampire Country. Or at least a suburb.