Candiru wrote:
I don't think you see them as often as you used to, but does anyone remember the hypnotist shows that people put on at colleges and bars? They are shows where a hypnotist puts volunteers into a hypnotic state and has them do things like bark like a dog, see flowers grow out of their bellybuttons, and other comical things.
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In watching a webcast from a church I formerly attended, it occurred to me that this was almost the same thing. The pastor will say a few magic words and on cue someone will start quivering and giggling. Is speaking in tongues and getting slain in the spirit just another form of hypnotism?
Many similarities, yes. And the way "prophets" work lines up very well with stage psychics, too.  The audiences are cooperative, want the performer to succeed, are properly amazed when they get a "hit" and dutifully forget the misses (which, in skillful hands can look like near hits).  There's a whole set of tricks, which pretty much anyone can learn and put to use in a career.  The only difference between a pente prophet and a stage performer is that everyone knows it's an act, in the latter case, and everyone thinks (or pretends to think) it's real, in the former.  Many (most, I think) do know it's just an act, but are afraid to say the emperor has no clothes.


Tim