Hypnosis in Media

Archive for October, 2011

A web­site that I will be inves­ti­gat­ing fur­ther is the Sci­ence Fic­tion Ency­clo­pe­dia web­site. An out­growth of the 1995 ency­clo­pe­dia of the same name edit­ed by John Clute and Peter Nichols and pub­lished in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Gol­lancz SF Gate­way, this is an attempt to be a com­pre­hen­sive ency­clo­pe­dia of the authors, themes and cul­ture relat­ed to sci­ence fic­tion (and fan­ta­sy as well.) The ency­clo­pe­dia is cur­rent­ly in beta release. 

As expect­ed, one of the top­ics in ques­tion is HYPNOSIS, which lists a num­ber of the ear­ly works involv­ing hyp­no­sis and mes­merism, includ­ing a few I was not aware of, such as “Kalee’s Shrine”  by Grant Allen and May Cotes. The web­site def­i­nite­ly bears fur­ther investigation. 

Note: Sev­er­al years ago, I wrote the arti­cle on “Hyp­no­tism” for the sec­ond edi­tion of the Green­wood Ency­clo­pe­dia of Sci­ence Fic­tion and Fan­ta­sy, which is appar­ent­ly not con­nect­ed with this online version.

Daugh­ters of Evil World Con­querors real­ly have only two options in life: be their father’s ador­ing min­ion who ulti­mate­ly falls for the Hero and helps him defeat her father, or strike out on your own and try to out-con­quer him. Fah Lo Suee, daugh­ter of the inscruitable Man­darin Fu Manchu, is entire­ly the lat­ter. But while Fah Lo Suee in the nov­els was more the for­mer, only once real­ly act­ing in the role of con­queror in place of her father, in the Mar­vel com­ic “Shang-Chi, Mas­ter of Kung Fu”, she was a re-occur­ring char­ac­ter with her own agen­da who bat­tled her father as much as she bat­tled her own half-broth­er Shang-Chi.

⇒ Con­tin­ue read­ing “Fa Lo Suee — “Mas­ter of Kung Fu””

They have men­tal and phys­i­cal pow­ers beyond the human norm: they can entrance with a glance, cre­ate light, heal wounds, and even tele­port long distances. 

They are mutants. They live among nor­mal humans, dis­tin­guished only by their pow­ers, oth­er­wise undis­tin­guish­able from any one else, dis­trust­ed and even hat­ed by both the gen­er­al pop­u­lace and peo­ple in author­i­ty because of their gifts. Some try to use their gifts for good, oth­ers for evil: some just try to exist. 

But they’re not the X‑Men and they’re not super­heroes: they’re the Deryni, a fan­ta­sy race and the sub­ject of sev­er­al books and short sto­ries by author Kather­ine Kurtz.

⇒ Con­tin­ue read­ing “The “Deryni” sto­ries by Kather­ine Kurtz”