The Power of Suggestion.

By Racheal Myers

The audience waits with anticipation as entertainer Gabriel Holmes mounts the stage of the Lane Center’s Alice R. Manicur Assembly Hall on October 17, 2011. His profession as a hypnotist is considered taboo in a society that always feels the need to be in control. To have a stranger take you out of your comfort zone and have you relinquish control to them is unnerving. Never-the-less, when Holmes asks for volunteers, hands fly up. In total he chooses 19 people to join him on stage. He has them all take a seat, and starts his gradual relaxation process which takes about 5 minutes. During this time he encourages the participants to relax each muscle group from head to toe in turn, and deters them from opening their eyes by convincing them that their “eyelids are glued down”.

Once Holmes says he has successfully brought the participants under his power of suggestion, he proposes different scenarios for the participants to react to. Holmes has them act out sports, such as horseback riding and canoeing, and has them act as famous people like Steve Irwin and the Harry Potter characters. The participants even go off stage and interact with the audience in true Dancing with the Stars form. The skit that seems to be the most entertaining is the very first skit Holmes suggests. In this skit, the participants are made to act as if they are driving a car. The stomping of a foot on the “accelerator” and twisting of an imaginary steering wheel coincide well with the bucking start and stop motions of one exuberant contestant who represents her school well by wearing a Frostburg State University sweatshirt and hat. Another notable skit is one in which a participant named Paul is asked to act like famed talent judge Simon Cowell. As one of the other participants sings “Unbreak my Heart” by Toni Braxton, Paul reacts to the performance with the same loathing that Cowell would, sneering “this is not amateur night at the f-ing Apollo”!

When the time to draw the show to a close comes, Holmes rounds the participants back into their seats, and counting backwards from 3 to 1, brings them out of their trance-like state. There is a catch to this however, in that Holmes suggests to them that when they hear the trigger word “koala”, the contestants will be convinced that they are Australian, and when they hear the trigger word “Tarzan”, they will act as if they are Tarzan. As the participants are going back to their seats, Holmes says “Tarzan” and the Hall erupts with bellowing monkey-man calls. Holmes says “koala” and the bellowing is replaced with Steve Irwin style accents and references to crocodiles.

Animated performances are not what the majority of an audience expects from a person who is hypnotized. Using television as a basis, most people would assume that to be hypnotized means to be in a zombie-like trance. This way of thinking is why many people assume that participants who are overly active while said to be under a hypnotist’s suggestion are faking. In introducing Holmes performance on the Student Activities calendar on Frostburg State University’s website, Holmes is said to bring “a fresh approach as to what is known to be hypnotism” and that he “dispels the mysterious and degrading myths that often are associated with this topic of interest”. With this thought in mind, audience members are asked to open their minds to the possibility that there is more than one reaction to being hypnotized. There will always be those who pretend to be hypnotized just to be included, like the girl in the white jersey who had a conversation with her friend when she was supposed to be interacting with the audience, and then left. Holmes acknowledges that not everyone can be brought under hypnosis, nor can everyone stay hypnotized, but he would “rather have 5 or 6 people have the experience of being hypnotized. As long as they have the experience, the show is worth it”.

For more information on Gabriel Holmes, go to http://www.hypnotistgabriel.com/.