Subject: Covert hypnosis - Scary thought...
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 23:42:22 -0700

One idea I came up with that kinda scares me is the notion that two 
people, Sam and Lisa could be in a room, one of them looking to go to 
sleep. Lisa wants to go to sleep, but is kinda having a hard time doing 
so... So Sam, with a terrible agenda, decides to help coax her into 
being more relaxed and tired, by referring to how her eyelids are 
feeling, the pangs of tiredness within her, any relaxing feelings he 
sees he's helping her build, etc. When she's sufficiently relaxed, he 
can tell her to the effect of: Now I want you to be more open to what I 
am about to say, for your openess will help you more easily go to sleep. 
When I count from 10 to 1, you will feel even more relaxed and ready to 
sleep. <does countdown sequence to 1 in that hypnotic tone of voice> and 
then "Now, I want you to further open your mind to what I have to say" 
and then he pauses and says 0. From there he can do more mind opening 
manipulative techniques and since the girl is unaware of being under 
hypnosis, can use say Paul Knight's clever idea to get her deep enough 
so her critical facility totally goes down and then do his tricks, 
providing he doesn't try to suggest anything that would be in direct 
harm to herself.

And no, I am not the sort that would try something malicious like this.