claire - Thank you! I mistrusted the stage hypnosis thing just b/c it seemed too much like the chicanery that goes on with a lot of televangelists and such. People *want* to believe, and other people are very good at sussing out who wants to believe. But that’s why good hypnotherapy (or any therapy, really) works, at least in part: an intense desire to make something happen.

I had always looked at stage/performance hypnosis with some derision, stemming most likely from my judgment of people who allowed themselves to look like fools (because I wouldn’t want to look like one/be at someone else’s mercy in public as it were). That those same people may have access to abilities I don’t hadn’t occurred to me. Intriguing.