The art of hypnotism is an intriguing concept. Just imagine the possibilities at having the ability to control another person’s thoughts at will. There are countless movies where someone waves a watch or makes a hand gesture that creates an obedient slave to suggestion. After witnessing Dr. Jim Wand’s show Friday night at the CAC Theater, I observed that the art of hypnosis is a performance art more than it being believed as an actual science.

Being one of the first people to enter the theater, the first thing that I noticed was that a number of the front row seats were already taken. This led me to believe that some of them just might be “plants” in the audience, meaning that they were going to be the ones to appear on the stage in the show and be the ones that stood out in the show. 

As the show started, Wand explained who he was and even engaged the audience into participating in hypnosis that included staring at a classic styled hypo disk, which was said to change our “perception,” not our will and that the people of hypnosis would be aware of what was happening. Of course, it doesn’t take a hypnotist to tell us that our perception changes whenever we look at anything for a long period of time. That’s a main cause why we all suffer from boredom in a classroom. 

After explaining more about the “subconscious mind” and how it makes you more perceptive and intuitive, Wand selected the members of the audience who were “excited” to go on stage. 

Notice there was no attempt to call on people skeptical of the process, because it was claimed that if you’re thinking too hard, nothing will come out of the hypnosis.  With 22 members of the audience on the stage, a multicolored ball of rotating light was brought on stage that seduced the participating members into the hypnotic state. 

Audience members were also encouraged to watch the light. To me, this was no different than looking at any sort of visual medium. If you focus all of your attention on it, your perception changes and sometimes someone has to break that to come back to reality. 

After performing a number of standard hypnotic commands, such as making a member on the stage forget her name, along with having everyone raise their right arm ridged to the sky, Wand made certain members on the stage return to their seats, while other members of the audience that were in the trance were called up to replace them, including some that were in the front when I first entered. This act was done so that the more extreme examples that were to come would be performed at the upmost level by everyone on the stage. The bits featured in the show included having the members on the stage use their own shoes as binoculars while observing a horse race, giving CPR to a dead puppy, seeing a balloon animal as a savage dog and even a lip syncing rendition of Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the U.S.A.”

Wand’s hypnosis show was really an outlet for audience members to feel free to let go of their inhibitions and be willing to perform in front of an audience. It’s really no different than when I was in last year’s play “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.” If I wasn’t willing to play along as the role I had in the show, then it wouldn’t have been very receptive and I would have greatly stuck out in a bad way. 

Now, if someone actually thinks that I am really a traveling actor performing for Prince Hamlet’s plot against his stepfather, then a lesson of reality and performing needs to be administered. This is not to say that Wand is bad at what he does. In fact, he’s a man very good at his craft. As the psychic Criswell said in the film “Ed Wood,” “If you look good and talk well, people will swallow anything.” 

So, believe it or not, the true art of hypnotism lies within yourself, whether you want to be the master or the slave.