A group of 13- and 14-year old girls recently fell under a mass trance after attending a hypnotism act at their private high school in Quebec. The inexperienced 20-year-old hypnotist -- who claimed to have had about 14 hours of instruction -- had to call on his instructor to help snap the girls out of it, according to a CBC News report.
The school principal later apologized to parents and students saying "they didn't know that 14-year-olds were more vulnerable to hypnosis than other people," and noted that all the girls are now fine, a Canadian press account reported.
But some of the girls complained of nausea and headaches shortly after the show, a sign that hypnosis shouldn’t be used as entertainment, says Dr. Joseph Zastrow, president of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis and a family practitioner in Mooresville, N.C who teaches hypnosis and uses it in his medical practice.
"Stage hypnotists largely set a bad example to the public of what clinical hypnosis can do," says Zastrow. "We find it unethical to use hypnosis in a nonclinical fashion and certainly in the type of setting that it was provided in Canada," he adds.
Zastrow says the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis provides hypnosis training but only to health professionals who have at least a master's degree -- to psychologists, social workers, dentists, and doctors -- who will be using it as a tool in their practices. In addition to at least 60 hours of training, these practitioners also need to become board certified in hypnosis in their respective health field.
Using hypnosis as “fun and frolics,” is "like practicing medicine or psychology without a license,” Zastrow suggests, adding that doing hypnosis in groups is difficult to do properly.
There’s no magic to putting someone in a hypnotic state because a trance is a "natural extension of focus and attention," says Zastrow. Many of us are in a form of a trance when we daydream, or drive past our exit on the highway, or when professional athletes compete without being distracted by the crowd.
By some estimates 5 to 10 percent of people are easily hypnotized and a roughly similar percentage are resistant to trance. The rest of us fall somewhere in between. Young people between the ages of 10 to 18 are at a prime age for responding to hypnotic suggestions and using these skills, says Zastrow.
Medical hypnosis has been most effective for pain control, such as for cancer-related pain, dental procedure pain, or the pain of childbirth, says Zastrow. Studies indicate it can ease symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, and is effective for about 20 percent of people hoping to quit smoking.
When poorly trained entertainers – the types who make people quack like a duck or sing like Elvis – put teen girls into long deep trances, Zastrow believes "it besmirches the good deeds done every day by professionals using clinical hypnosis."
More from The Body Odd:
Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.


Yeah the 'professional' hypnotists should probably stop trying to say its evil for non clinical purposes and actually educate those who want to do it for show. Do not want to risk being hypnotized? Don't go to a show, that simple.
This happened in their school. Kids usually don't have a choice whether they want to attend a program or not.
The prohibition - "We find it unethical to use hypnosis in a nonclinical fashion and certainly in the type of setting that it was provided in Canada," - is retarded, given the fact that Science disputed hypnosis for centuries. It was classified as the same as stage magic, until through the efforts of practitioner (entertainers) who wanted recogition for their skills - it was taught to the scientific community.
Once the knew it worked and was teachable - they want to prohibit its use by the very people who taught them how it works.
The same thing happens all the time; take acupuncture, meditation, many other Eastern skills have been disputed - until "Western science" could explain what lay people had discovered - then they want to prevent "unlicensed" use. Many of the medicines we buy from Corporate Pharma is dependant on herbal remedies taught and passed down from tribal shamans,medicine men, wizards and witches. They copy and synthesis the active ingrediants then try to force the original users to go to school, be "taught" how to dispense their own cures.
Bite me!
I went to one of these entertainment shows with my mom and now ex-wife - they went out like light bulbs in the rain - I never felt a thing. I could have used hypnosis when playing basketball on glass backboards, I could never judge the depth the same way I could on backboards painted white.
Notice it was a Private school that brought in this amateur - who needs regulations... hahahahahahaha!
but-but-but it doesn't seem to have hurt the TEA Party guys any, other than they spout nonsense!
i love tea. and i love parties.
that's the reference you were making right?
I understand your confusion... They are better know by their Original name. He should have called them by their "orignal" proper name - Tea Baggers. For some reason they now want to take offense at being called "Tea Baggers".
You just can't please some people...
What? I hope you are being sarcastic. You do know that Teabagger was a derogatory term used to descibe the self-titled Teaparty members? You also know that it is a highly offensive term because to teabag someone is to place your testicles on their chin? I have to assume you're being sarcastic. But maybe not, I dunno.
Complete. Crap.
You cannot be hypnotized (if that is even possible) without wanting to... it's really just a type of meditation.
Propaganda: there are numerous situations in which an subject unwilling can be hypnotized.
The statement you made is the stock, pre-fabricated response given to "the Great unwashed" (hoi poloi). It was manufactured to disguise how easily manipulted is the transistion from normal conciousness to any number of lesser states or mental awareness, any of us may drift through in the course of even an aveage day.
Given control over a subjects enviroment, they can be manipulated in subtle way which they are never aware they have been taken.
Stuttering is a sign leftover by having been hypnotized and brainwashed swschrad. Now we know the Dems approach to conversion.
All the "stuttering" Tea-nutters out their proves this hypno-FEAR technique is what the RW CONServatives use to brainwash all those low info voters into voting against thier best interests (and America's).
This event actually shows how VULNERABLE the human mind is to "Neural Hacking"!
On a medical basis and on a technological basis we're are nothing more than just a load
of boolean logic code running on an organic digital signal processor CPU...THIS MEANS
I can used technology (likely pulsed microwaves) to IMPRESS NEW signals into neural paths
or "hack" into the brain using the already designed-in "backdoors" to pretty much make people
do what I want. There are quite a few patents made within the last 25 years...some of them
under Secrecy Orders that deal with using basic radio wave technology to induct new signals
into the specific portions of brain circuitry that has been well studied and understood in the
medical literature in terms of its actual electrical and biochemical workings -- These newer
technologies WILL be problematic for humans as we begin to find out at the molecular level
WHICH signals CAUSE specific neural events and higher-level behaviours.
I suspect that pretty soon we're going to need Organic Anti-Virus for protecting our wet-ware
from technological virii targeting towards human mind control.
People have been hacking the brain for a while. The "God Helmet" is a good example (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet).
Yeahhh can we leave the politics out of this, please? 2 of 5 comments so far, and it's unrelated to the article.
Dr. Zastrow nees to unpucker his sphincter a bit. 14 year old girls could be hypnotized by a nutless monkey.
looook intoooo my eyes!!!! you are gettting sleeepy!!!
The article actually doesn't answer the headline.
How a hypnotism show left teen girls in a trance
It doesn't explain it and doesn't say why they couldn't snap out of it.
A misleading headline on MSNBC!? That's a first.
What? One in a 1000? That's a better record than Fixed News, "Unfair and Unbalanced".
Exactly - there's plenty about hypnotism in general. But what were the girls doing that suggested they had been hypnotised? "...left teen girls in a trance" sounds like a euphemism. Were they actually IN a trance, staring into the distance with blank looks on their faces? What was the guy doing that led to this. What was the actual remedy? There's no real specific details at all about the story.
"How a hypnotism show left teen girls in a trance
It doesn't explain it and doesn't say why they couldn't snap out of it.'
---
From a technical point of view, it's a feedback loop...many humans have
a suggestibility factor that can be catered to that allows hypnosis professionals
to use noises, words, imagery and even local environmental conditions to
bring the brainwave patterns of a subject to a neutral or semi-sleeping state.
This allows a hypnotist to SUGGEST that a person reduce their inhibitions
or emotional self-limits. Basically, the hypnotist goads a person into doing
things that they normally would NOT do but would be OPEN to doing
on a more secretive level. (i.e. catering to a subconscious but normally
repressed desire).
In this case, the hypnotist probably caused a feedback loop where a person's
subconscious wish or desire conflicted with a specific brainwave state that
was induced and the persons thus hypnotized were simply UNABLE to snap
out of a semi-dreaming or half-asleep state since their minds PROBABLY
BELIEVED they were still dreaming or asleep.
On a personal basis, I KNOW that some people are just very difficult in terms of being
able to be snapped out of a dreaming or asleep state thus requiring either LARGE JOLTS
of external force or an antagonistic environment before they "Wake Up".
The Trainee hypnotist lacked to skills to FORCEFULLY but kindly snap the hypnotized
out of their somnulent state.
"A group of 13- and 14-year old girls recently fell under a mass trance after attending a hypnotism act..."
My question is how could anyone tell? They're 14 YO girls. To a girl, probably all of 'em just LOVE that stupid Twilight movie. IOW, not the brightest bulbs in the chandellier.
Why don't you "mind" your own business? Ha ha, I just made a hypnotic joke! Why am I so funny?
If I had only known this when I was 14 years old!
Hynotism show in school! All we ever got was pep rallies and PTA bake sales. I feel cheated!
At least you didn't have Sandusky chasing you down the halls.
He should have hypnotized them all to think they were in a freak show....teachers included, and then left the area.
Post pubescent girls are prone (susceptible) to mass hysteria, induce trance states - under many conditions or intense focus. All this Fainting and hysterics for singers, aka-groupies, is proof.
Beatle Mania was nothing other than susceptible young minds being swept up in the experience. Criminal instinctively know that girls in that age range are excellent targets for brain washing.
Charles Manson for instance....
However, some parents have become alarmed by the way their daughters have been acting. One parent stated when he daughter came home from school she "did her homework and her chores without being asked".
Another parent said her daughter stopped teasing her little brother.
Some have contacted attorneys.
I am feeling sleepy after reading this, zzzzzzzzz
Lake Norman Coaching and Hypnotherapy CenterMooresville, NC Lake Norman Coaching and Hypnotherapy Center of Mooresville serves the Lake Norman area with the following services:
Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy
Marriage - Couple - Family and Divorce Counseling
Personal - Professional and Life Coaching
Go to:>>
Lake Norman Coaching and Hypnotherapy CenterMooresville, NC Lake Norman Coaching and Hypnotherapy Center of Mooresville serves the Lake Norman area with the following services:
Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy
Marriage - Couple - Family and Divorce Counseling
Personal - Professional and Life Coaching
Go to:>>