Did you hear it this morning?
Kreskin appeared with Boomer and Carton on WFAN sports radio and MSG Television. On air, both men strongly urged and demanded that Kreskin offer his services to pull the Mets out of their slump.
Kreskin appeared this morning with Boomer and Carton on WFAN sports radio and MSG Television. On the air, both men strongly urged and demanded that Kreskin offer his services to pull the Mets out of their slump. Kreskin said:
“Considering who I am, I’m willing to do what I can to make the Mets “Amazing” again.”
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My reason for bringing the Wellness Letter to your attention is a rather dramatic piece they’ve done titled Hypnosis–hype or hope?, and it is an interesting read that needs some clarification in order to set some of the facts straight rather than some of the misinformation that they have suggested in this piece. In the article it states, “Hypnosis achieves a state of heightened suggestibility and deep relaxation.” It continues to proliferate the false information by suggesting that the hypnotic state is similar to the “relaxed alertness or altered consciousness achieved through meditation, tai chi, and yoga.” Just so you may know, my dear readers, if you haven’t seen my public demonstrations of entertainment that have some educational factors to them, hypnosis has nothing on the face of the earth to do with relaxation except that some hypnotists have suggested it and hypnotized themselves into believing that one of the factors of the hypnotic state is deep relaxation. Years ago a psychologist from Colgate University Dr. George H. Estabrooks in an early 1940’s book titled Hypnotism warned the scientific community that if they didn’t get their asses out of their offices and did not attend a stage hypnosis performance, they would continue to make the same damn mistakes. People who are responding to heightened suggestion can be standing, wide awake, or as people have seen in my program, moving around and not relaxed for one moment. The only reason hypnotic subjects appear relaxed is because that is what the hypnotist is implying or indirectly suggesting.
The hint of a continuous misinformation regarding hypnosis is in a paragraph where they admit as far as studying the benefits of hypnosis scientifically that it’s very difficult to put together a quality investigation and it’s hard to set up a “control group” to see if the benefits are “more than just the placebo effect.” To be honest with you, folks, that is what most of hypnotic mumbo jumbo is, a placebo effect, a belief that in the ceremony, whether it be metaphysical, outer space, or in some psychiatric setting, all of which is filled with pseudo scientific factors that the whole experience and time spent may be the healing factor, not the hypnosis itself.
The greatest misconceptions are dealing with pain management, and they suggest areas such as headaches, backaches, burns and arthritis. They state “hypnotherapy can help people stay calm, concentrate on sensations other than pain, and detach themselves from it.” That’s the key. Again, hypnosis has nothing, I repeat nothing to do with the pain management, but in analyzing and discussing with individuals who can handle pain, and it turns out that what they were doing is disciplining their thinking to concentrate on other sensations other than pain or detach themselves from it. That’s the real key. In the area of smoking, the amount of people that quit smoking is the same percentage as those who do it without hypnosis. In the area of weight loss, since I first entered the hypnotic field over some 65 years ago, people involved professionally in the therapeutic areas would confide in me that hypnosis as a treatment for weight loss is a major, major disaster.
Oh, there’s one more point that is not found in this article, an article which helps to shroud and perpetuate some of the misconceptions, and that is what they should have stated is that there is absolutely no evidence on the face of the earth of a specific state or condition that can be defined as hypnosis, because in order to define such a state or condition, you have to show what can be done with that condition that cannot be done without that condition. I have news for you, folks, there’s nothing, and I repeat nothing. The bottom line is if I had written this article, I would have made it clear that the key to the whole phenomena is pure suggestion, no trance, no deep relaxation, etc. etc., but pure suggestion.
In 1986, yours truly went on trial in the state of NJ, because a hypnotist and her psychiatrist witness felt they could prove the existence of a hypnotic trance and win the $50,000 offer I made for such proof. They never won the money, and the case was thrown out of court. Since then, I have raised my offer to $100,000 for proof of the existence of the special trance condition of hypnosis. There are conditions surrounding that offer, and they’ve been made very carefully so that I don’t have to worry about would-be kooks, pinheads, and what have you, and don’t you know in the past 30 some years, not a single hypnotist, psychiatrist, or psychologist has made an attempt to collect that money.
When we reflect on the passing of the legendary movie actress Celeste Holm, we recall fabulous moments in All About Eve and A Gentleman’s Agreement amongst an array of top movies. I have an even more personalized remembrance, since Ms. Holm guested on my TV series The Amazing World of Kreskin. It was fascinating to read her thoughts. As the images came to me, it was like seeing typewriting on a clear sheet of paper. Here, of course, was a top actress accustomed to movie and stage scripts and honed them in her mind.
As if the contagious social phenomena, which yours truly stated blatantly was pure auto-suggestion, namely the girls who came down with the inexplicable tics and spasms in LeRoy, New York, lest we think it stopped there, let alone the girls in Quebec, Canada a month or so ago who did not come out of the “hypnotic trance” until hours later when the master hypnotist had to release them, we have a further example of sociological suggestion taking on an incredible power when we find recently on Friday, individuals were taken from the Monmouth County Courthouse in New Jersey with all kinds of uncomfortable breathing experiences.
Every sign of it, from cleaning fluid to flowers, you name it, was cleansed from the building. Are you sitting down? The courthouse has to be closed for almost a week. Like the girls in New York, you had chemical experts and I’m sure other individuals with special interests coming in to decontaminate. Guess what? The physical cause, there was none. Once more we have a phenomena of powerful social suggestion. No, we’re not going to say it’s mass hysteria, that’s a derogatory, imbecilic term put together by half-baked psychologists, which really doesn’t explain the phenomena. This has nothing to do with mental illness. This has been repeated endless times, but when you consider this recent infection, it shows something I have been lecturing about and demonstrating in my concerts around the world, and that is the wonderful power of a force we’ve overlooked, suggestion. The real question now is, why is it even effective today on a sociological level? Why is social contamination of ideas even effective in a highly-educated society?
That’s the story that I can discuss and yes, demonstrate.
Gionna Ferguson (a student at First Cerebral Palsey of New Jersey) is pictured here with her father Joe Ferguson and The Amazing Kreskin at a reception for Janet Markman’s photo exhibit at
The Caldwell Public Library.
