Hypnosis in Media

Posts Tagged ‘enchantment’

Robert Lynn Asprin is part­ly to blame. Bob Asprin, who as Yang the Nau­se­at­ing found­ed the Great Dark Horde as an insti­tu­tion in the Soci­ety for Cre­ative Anachro­nism. Bob Asprin. who found­ed the Klin­gon Diplo­mat­ic Corps to pro­vide secu­ri­ty (and a means for peo­ple to dress up as Klin­gons) at the ear­ly Star Trek con­ven­tions. Bob Asprin, who was an ear­ly mem­ber of the Dor­sai Irregulars.

Bob Asprin, who helped cre­ate what is now referred as the “shared worlds” concept.

He and then-wife Lynn Abbey man­aged to con­vince sev­er­al oth­er promi­nent authors, includ­ing Poul Ander­son, Mar­i­on Zim­mer Bradley, John Brun­ner, C. J. Cher­ryh and Andrew J. Offutt, into con­tribut­ing to a series of short sto­ry col­lec­tions under the com­mon title of “Thieve’s World”, whose suc­cess begat a num­ber of oth­er “shared worlds” col­lab­o­ra­tions. The most famous is prob­a­bly the “Wild Cards” series, in which an alien retro-virus released by acci­dent on Earth grants the for­tu­nate few infect­ed with it super abil­i­ties while the vast major­i­ty died in var­ied and hor­ri­fy­ing ways.

There were a few oth­ers, but the one I am refer­ring to in the title, is “Bor­der­lands”. “Bor­der­lands” is set in a world where the Mun­dane and Faerie have crossed paths, result­ing the nat­ur­al exten­sion of the term “urban fan­ta­sy”. Vast areas in the mid­dle of the great­est cities are now on the bor­der between the two worlds, where the good and the bad of both worlds mix and plot and scheme, where both mag­ic and sci­ence work unpre­dictably, where rock&roll bat­tles with Fae melodies and Faerie steeds race motor­cy­cles, where aris­to­crat­ic and unpre­dictable Faerie go slum­ming and bewil­dered and bewitched mor­tals come to make their liv­ing. Cre­at­ed by edi­tor Ter­ri Win­dling (and how can I not appre­ci­ate some­thing by some­one who shares my first name), the “Bor­der­lands” shared world pro­duced two sto­ry col­lec­tions in 1986 and anoth­er in 1991, then anoth­er in 1998. Now, in 2011, anoth­er “Bor­der­lands” col­lec­tion is to be pub­lished, and I am look­ing for­ward to it.

Sto­ries that might con­tain fae enchant­ments and glam­ouries on unsus­pect­ing mor­tals? You bet I’m look­ing for­ward to it.

For more infor­ma­tion, see the Bor­der­town Blog.

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In “Mag­ic Knight Rayearth”, three Japan­ese high school girls are trans­port­ed to the fan­ta­sy realm of Cephi­ro on a mis­sion to save it and res­cue Princess Emer­aude from the grasp of the evil High Priest Zagato.

Except its not that easy, nor is it that cut-and-dried. Zaga­to has a host of fol­low­ers to attack and divert the three girls on their mis­sion to gain the pow­er they need to com­plete their task; in addi­tion, there’s anoth­er sto­ry behind the one before them, one that will result in pain and suf­fer­ing for all involved.

⇒ Con­tin­ue read­ing ““Mag­ic Knight Rayearth””

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Tanithia, sor­cer­ess, witch, keep­er of the Ancient Ways, is sent to scourge the ancient forces of dark­ness who have a foothold in a dis­tant cas­tle. But not all is at is seems inside the cas­tle, and dan­gers await her with­in and with­out its walls.

⇒ Con­tin­ue read­ing ““Cas­tle of Decep­tion” by Ed Fitch”

For the women born to enchant men. Max Fac­tor’s Hyp­no­tique … the new fra­grance that’s cap­tured the very essence of wom­an’s pow­er over men. Cool­ly and with great ele­gance Hyp­no­tique attracts … holds … per­suades … and then! Any­thing can hap­pen! (Adver­tis­ing copy from the first mag­a­zine ad.)

Descrip­tion: All cos­met­ics, includ­ing fra­grances, are designed in part to attract and focus atten­tion on the wear­er. Some fra­grances are just a lit­tle more bla­tant about it. Fra­grances with names like “Spell­bound”, “Hyp­nose”, “Mes­mer­ize” or “Hyp­not­ic Poi­son”  bla­tant­ly sug­gest the pow­er of com­mand­ing and con­trol­ling men (although Avon’s “Mes­mer­ize”, which was orig­i­nal­ly a wom­an’s fra­grance, is now being more direct­ly mar­ket­ed toward men, strange­ly enough.) Even fra­grances not so named are fre­quent­ly adver­tised using hyp­not­ic ter­mi­nol­o­gy and imagery.

But one of the ear­li­est and cer­tain­ly one of the most bla­tant of the hyp­not­ic cos­met­ics was “Hyp­no­tique” by Max Fac­tor. Released in the late 1950’s, the hyp­not­ic imagery was very notice­able in the mag­a­zine ads:

⇒ Con­tin­ue read­ing ““Hyp­no­tique” by Max Factor”