Posted inNonfiction The HiM Collection

The Lowdown: “An American Tragedy: Rape Under Hypnosis”

The Jan­u­ary, 1960 (Vol­ume 5, Num­ber 4) issue of The Low­down mag­a­zine includes a three-page (just under one page of text and backed by a lurid dou­ble-page spread image of star­ing eyes) relat­ing the “per­son­al” expe­ri­ence of “a young and pret­ty for­mer pros­ti­tute who was hired by THE LOWDOWN to track rumors that doc­tors were hyp­no­tiz­ing house­wives and seduc­ing them.”

The text does not offer any proof that there were even such rumors, only men­tion­ing a doc­tor in New Mex­i­co who alleged­ly hyp­no­tized sev­er­al women, includ­ing get­ting one of them preg­nant: no oth­er details were includ­ed. Instead the sto­ry reads like a “true con­fes­sions” per­son­al sto­ry about two dif­fer­ent encoun­ters that are light on speci­fici­ties that could have been pieced togeth­er from any num­ber of peri­od resources about hypnosis.

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Posted inNonfiction The HiM Collection

“Bachelor Goes to a Hypnotism Party”

The Decem­ber, 1964 (Vol­ume 5, num­ber 6) issue of Bach­e­lor mag­a­zine pub­lished a five page pho­to spread of a “hyp­no­tism par­ty”. The pho­tographs include female nudity.

“What will they think of next? Among the arty set, the old par­ty pick­ups like alco­hol and mar­i­jua­na just can’t hold a can­dle to the kicks one can get from a can­dle-wav­ing hypnotist.”

“Dur­ing soiree at sculp­tor Ed Lass’ apart­ment in N.Y.‘s Low­er East Side, dull moments were end­ed when hyp­no­tism began.”

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Posted inThe HiM Collection

The Hypnotism Museum — A Dream

I’ve looked, and there is no muse­um devot­ed to hyp­no­sis any­where in the world, at least noth­ing with any kind of web pre­sense or news sto­ries about it. The best I found through a web search was a short-lived expo­si­tion almost 20 years ago.

This is dis­ap­point­ing, since there are plen­ty of muse­ums to even the most triv­ial of sub­jects, so why not hyp­no­tism? Plus, I’ve spent the past *mum­ble mum­ble* decades col­lect­ing The Hyp­no­sis in Media Col­lec­tion, and I’ve invest­ed a lot of time, mon­ey, emo­tion and devo­tion to it and I want to see it in the hands of peo­ple who would be as com­mit­ted to it as me: I want it to be con­tin­ued, main­tained and used. I just don’t have the time, the ener­gy, the con­tacts, the funds or the exper­tise to do it.

So what would the Hyp­no­tism Muse­um look like? Pos­si­bly a loca­tion like a movie mem­o­ra­bil­ia store I found in Los Ange­les over a decade ago, when I was look­ing for hyp­no­sis-relat­ed movie mem­o­ra­bil­ia, pub­lic­i­ty pho­tographs, posters, etc. It was lit­er­al­ly on the bot­tom floor of a two-sto­ry urban mall, with eth­nic stores around it and a Japan­ese restau­rant / bar on the upper floor that over­looked the hall on the low­er floor. Only in Los Angeles …

Any­way, I can dream, though, and I can imag­ine, and I can con­vert those dreams and imag­in­ings into words. (And maybe, one day, into reality.)

Here they are:

Posted inFiction Radio

“The Shadow” — The Origin

“The Shadow knows” With that, one of the most successful pulp characters was introduced to the radio and magazine audience. Even today, that phrase is recognized and the character remembered: the Shadow, who possessed the hypnotic power to “cloud mens’ minds”.
Posted inCartoons and Anime Comics, Comic Books, Comic Strips or Manga Television

“Masters of the Universe: Teela’s Secret”

There was a change in car­toons in the 1970’s, fol­low­ing a mis­placed furor about vio­lence in chil­dren’s car­toons. Vio­lence, even car­toon vio­lence, was sud­den­ly for­bid­den. That was the rea­son you nev­er saw Thun­darr the Bar­bar­ian decap­i­tate any­one with his Sun Sword. It was why Cobra pilots always bailed out before their jets explod­ed. It was why GI Joe and Cobra used laser weapons that only seemed to affect tanks and jeeps instead of ordi­nary rifles and machine guns. (The lat­ter was also cheap­er to animate.)

It forced writ­ers to devel­op new and dif­fer­ent (or old and dif­fer­ent) sto­ries and plot devices on a week­ly basis.

Enter Mind Control.