http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopi......nds.html

Nah more like gullible

My vote is "in on it".

I am with Danny. Failed cameras, off premisis crime, new store... the whole thing looks fishey...

It would be interesting to know WHO was in on it. All of them, including the owner? If so, I think he's gonna be in for a shock because I don't think the insurance company will pay!
Having said that, and I know this'll come as a shock to some of you, there a deep dark seedy side of me that is desperate to try this out and I'm not sure how much longer I can hold myself together!!!
If I'm gone for awhile...

Bobser why go to all the bother? Just nut them like you usually do! Im sure its more effective for amnesia.

It would work for that wouldn't it?

Maybe we're looking too far into it. I think we, as hypnotists, would like to hope that there is more to it than there is.

Hell of a publicity stunt though for the shop - an even better one if the hypnotist eventually gets "caught"....

I actually didn't think when I read it that that was a particularly great post you made there Robert. Then I read it again. Then I thought about. Now I think it's potentially brilliant. There simply has to be a chance, just a chance, that the right hypnotee, with the right hypnotist and a great induction and several brilliant deepeners could pull something like this off.
Oh and MP, The nutting thing hardly ever happens nowadays. I was younger and had a drink problem. Can't we just let things go? If not then I'm gonna tell about you and that dwarf in Princess Street Gardens. Like I said we all make mistakes. Let it go!

There was a really interesting chapter in a book called Open to Suggestion by Robert Temple (just a coincedence!) called 'Hypnosis and Crime'. In it there are quite a few accounts that Temple dug up of people being robbed by strangers 'offering strange handshakes' and suchlike. He clearly didn't know anything about Erickson's techniques as he made no reference to them in the text, which at the time I thought made them more authentic. I remember though that often the 'hypnotist' arranged to meet the victim a second time before fleecing them. The returning sense of familiarity may increase rapport/suggestibility. I'm tending to think that its not a publicity stunt, as I doubt they'd think so creatively (surely just a foiled robbery would be simpler and more believable in terms of getting publicity). I guess the beauty of the hypno-crime is that its so unbelievable, the victim is probably embarrassed to even talk about it, and most hypnotists called in as 'experts' would feel threatened by it and spout off the old 'hypnosis cant be used for crime' chestnut. I'm not saying I believe it was a hypno-crime, but I am open minded to the idea that its possible and far more prevalent than people think.

Bobser that dwarf was willing to be hypnotised and wasn't harmed in anyway.

Will - I think hypnosis sometimes can be used as an excuse. You seen it over here when dozens of members of the public jumped on the bandwagon claiming they had been damaged by being on stage. It was a convenient reason for failing in life.

Having said that I do believe some people possess an inner charisma and exude an energy that does allow them to influence others. So anything is possible. Perhaps there is a sort of hypnosis that can have an effect on individuals and whole countries.

In America such a thing is a crime not a publicity stunt. The owner would be charged with the filing of a false police report and life would suck for quite some time.

And the whole "no publicity is bad publicity" thing is just stupid. Ask Copperfield if that is true. Ask the guy originally arrested for the Atlanta Olympic Park bombings if that is true.

Where would the "good publicity for the shop be" if the person taken in the crime is an idiot?