Hypnosis in Media

The “Diablo III” game is one of the most anticipated computer games of the recent past. Fifteen years after the original game, and later, its eventual sequel, Diablo III is now in the hands of eager gamers across the world.

And one of the things they will find in this edition of the game is the availability of followers: henchmen, so to speak, and one of them is an enchantress named Eirena. An enchantress that is fully capable of hypnotic magic.

Eirena’s bewitching spells mean doom for your foes – she can force them into a dreamlike trance or turn them against one another, rendering them easier to kill.

Eirena offers ranged support, largely spells … to disorient her enemies and protect her allies. Her illusionary magic doesn’t deal a tremendous amount of damage; instead, it focuses on twisting and warping the minds of others.

Moreover, her magical equipment carries over the hypnotic imagery

Eirena’s unique equipment – enchantment focuses associated with scrying and hypnotism, like eyes and mirrors – recalls the ancient mysticism of her order, providing her with potent increases to her abilities.

While I played Diablo and Diablo II, I am now firmly ensconced in playing GuildWars where I can actually play a character profession that casts hypnotic magic (and also have one as a follower.) However, I may give Diablo III a second look.

More information on the Enchantress and the game of Diablo III in general can be found here.

Mind Control in the 30^th Century: a villainess with mutant abilities that forces men to obey her. (And, apparently, to fight for her as well.)

⇒ Continue reading “‘Missing Persons’ — Legionnaires # 66″

A happy but belated birthday in the memory of the late Pat Collins, who was born May 7^th. Pat was one of the most famous stage hypnotists of her time and appeared on several TV programs (including a “What’s My Line?” appearance before she was famous) and had two cable specials. She was also known for helping others with hypnosis, including several major television and film stars of her period.

According to the Facebook page here, the founder of the page is producing a documentary about Pat Collins and I for one am looking forward to seeing it.

Why haven’t I been posting for the past month or more? It was because the blog was cracked and much of the behind-the-scenes operations were unavailable. Add to that, I was too busy with other things to make much of an effort to get it resolved until very recently.

The blog got cracked because of a security issue that I thought was taken care of, one that crackers tried several times to take advantage of in the past, and they finally found the crack sometime after April 1^st. What happened then is that a rogue file was added to the main page and other files added to the theme directory, all for the spurious purpose of promoting fake online pharmacies. Removing the files from the front page without removing or replacing the files in the theme directory broke the administration section of the blog, until I replace the theme files with a protected copy.

Now things should be back to normal. I expect to be back on a regular schedule with a new post on schedule next weekend.

The brain is just several ounces of neural tissue, not particularly durable and pretty vulnerable if it were not for the bone shell it resides in. Still, it is the seat of all control operations of any living creature that possesses even the most rudimentary brain and is capable of doing a number of amazing things, several things all at the same time. Yet is also one of the most mysterious organs known, its many and varied functions only sketchily understood, in part because of its complexity and complex internal structure, hidden from view and direct manipulation deep within the skull, accessible for the most part only indirectly and therefore very difficult to investigate directly.

“Incognito: the Secret Lives of the Brain” is a book by a neuroscientist, David Eagleman. which attempts to shed some light on the subject. It is a book primarily destined for the lay person and is designed to show just how the brain is so complex and mysterious, yet understandable if only by a process of observation and deduction.

Commentary: This book mirrors much of what I’ve been thinking regarding the internal processes of the brain, although I was coming to the subject through the “brain as a computer” paradigm. The brain may be just one organ but it comprises many, many separate sections and functions, some of which are complimentary and some of which are even combative. It is a wonder that it even functions at all, and, of course, anyone can come up with examples from personal observation or experience when it doesn’t in one way or another, small or large.

My one biggest annoyance was that it was just a little too superficial for my tastes. It talked a lot about the what of the brain and its functions but not so much on the how and why of it. Granted, this book was intended for the general audience but I would have liked to see a little more meat to the descriptions and more space devoted to contemplation of the causes of how the brain does what it does. There are some flashes of that, as for example the description of how baseball players track fly balls in the outfield, where they do not automatically calculate the trajectory to figure out where to run to to catch the ball: instead, they watch the track of the ball and if it appears to deviate from a straight line, meaning they or the ball are moving away from the path, they change direction to return it to a straight line. But mostly the brain is treated as a black box of many internal devices, left unexplored.

My other annoyance was that it doesn’t mention hypnosis at all in the text, and only once in a footnote, remarking how it can affect the results of a particular type of test results.

Recommendation: For the average reader who wants to understand more about the operation of the brain, this would be a good start. However, it is rather shallow for someone who wants a more in-depth explanation of the various brain functions, and almost worthless for any one who wants to understand the particular subject of hypnosis functions.