Chicken Hypnotism - Cultural References

Cultural References

• Friedrich Nietzsche, renowned 19th-century German philosopher, in his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra used a philosophical metaphor referring to the hypnosis of the chicken. It is in Chapter 6, "The Pale Criminal", and reads as follows: "The streak of chalk bewitcheth the hen; the stroke he struck bewitched his weak reason. Madness AFTER the deed, I call this."
• DC Comics hero The Vigilante hypnotizes a menacing rooster to protect himself and Stuff the Chinatown Kid, in the story "The Little Men who Were There" (Action Comics #69, 1944).
• Werner Herzog's has included chicken hypnotism in several films, including the 1974 The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, which features a scene in which a chicken is hypnotized by a line drawn by chalk.
• Federico Fellini's 1984 And the Ship Sails On features a scene in which a male opera singer hypnotises a chicken in the mess hall.
• Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" includes the line "I've been hurting since I bought the gimmick/About something called love ... Well, that's like hypnotizing chickens."
• Ernest Hemingway briefly describes the process in The Dangerous Summer, comparing it to the hypnotic effect of a bullfighters' cape.
• In E. Nesbit's book The House of Arden an old woman says that she has left a chicken in this state.
• In Bryce Courtenay's book The Power of One the witch-doctor Inkosi Inkosikasi uses this trick, though it is viewed as magic, and not as hypnotism.
• Criss Angel in his show Criss Angel Mindfreak hypnotized a chicken as a magic trick in the episode Burning Man.
• The 1993 film Even Cowgirls Get the Blues has some lines about chicken hypnotism and shows a character hypnotizing chickens by twirling them in the air exactly twenty times.
• The United States military when trying to avoid divulging information gives reporters briefings with 25 minutes of intentionally dull PowerPoint presentations and 5 minutes left at the end for questions from anyone who is still awake. The presentations are called hypnotizing chickens.