Stage hypnosis is hypnosis performed in front of an audience for the purposes of entertainment, usually in a theatre or club. Expert opinion is divided over whether participants' responses are best explained as being due to an altered state of consciousness ("hypnotic trance") or by a combination of deliberate deception and ordinary social psychological factors such as disorientation, compliance, peer pressure, and ordinary suggestion.
A modern stage hypnosis performance regularly delivers a comedic performance rather than a demonstration to impress an audience with powers of persuasion - effects of amnesia, mood altering and hallucination are demonstrated in a normal performance. Stage hypnosis performances often encourage audience members to look further into the benefits of mind powers.
Read more about Stage Hypnosis: History, Skepticism, Role of Deception, Law
Famous quotes containing the word stage:
“I have come to believe ... that the stage may do more than teach, that much of our current moral instruction will not endure the test of being cast into a lifelike mold, and when presented in dramatic form will reveal itself as platitudinous and effete. That which may have sounded like righteous teaching when it was remote and wordy will be challenged afresh when it is obliged to simulate life itself.”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)