It should perhaps be said that, in most circumstances most magicians are very reluctant to use stooges, and many effects that laypeople may think are done with the help of stooges are actually done some other way (one that most laypeople probably will not think of). If the effect can be pulled off in another, more ingenious way (and it usually can), using a stooge is regarded as cheating, and any magician who used stooges regularly would quickly lose the respect of his fellows.
However, I agree that in this case the woman was undoubtedly a stooge (and Cosentino will probably get a pass from his peers for using one in this case). Hypnotism just doesn’t work like JohnClay imagines. All the stuff about video auditions and inducing a trance is misdirection, which is something any even halfway-decent magician gets very good at.
BTW this is the third prime-time show about the Australian magician… it would be a big deal I think if that search for an assistant was a scam. I’ll see if I can track down the identity of the girl and we’ll see if she is actually an actor.
I think he did a proper hypnosis though… why bother?
I think the magician understands it very well - people aren’t telling me why he would bother learning it properly if it isn’t actually necessary and most people in the audience wouldn’t have half a clue about hypnosis - I consider myself to be quite knowledgeable on it though I’m not an expert.
BTW the “stooge” is reacting in a similar to the hypnotized people even though their arms are closed… e.g. when they say “try and lift your arm up” they’re all struggling a similar amount - the “stooge” isn’t doing it too fast or slow. I guess people here thing the stooge remember what amount to move.
“Let’s hope my instincts about Emma are correct” (at about 40+ mins in)
He talks about taking her deeper and about specific breathing techniques. He talks about “to induce her into a deep meditation” “her mind must be completely clear” “Now I want you to imagine yourself as light as a feather” “picture yourself floating through the air” “that’s it. relax. listen very carefully to my voice”
Earlier on:
“Four people that I think can be hypnotized have been invited to here tonight”
“Based solely on my gut reaction to my videos I’m hoping I’ve chosen wisely”
“First things first… breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth”
“I’m going to put them through a series of hypnosis tests to see who is the most responsive to my suggestions”
“There is a lot at stake during this stage. If I’m unable to guide any of them into a deep trance there will be no levitation and all of this work would have been for nothing.”
“I’m constantly watching the minute details about how they respond to direction. Their hands, breathing, even their eyelids are all clues to the depth of their hypnosis”
“Their ability to visualize my words must be crystal clear and their belief must be unwavering. My decision is now clear. It’s time to bring them out…”
Anyway I think the magician obviously is an expert at hypnosis. Again I ask why go to the trouble of becoming an expert if no actual hypnosis is necessary? The audience wouldn’t be able to tell if the magician is an expert.
It is highly unreliable. Sometimes hypnotized people follow the hypnotist’s suggestions and sometimes they don’t (even within the same session). Sometimes they forget all or most of what they did under hypnosis and sometimes they don’t. It is very unpredictable. No magician, even if they were a skilled hypnotist (and I doubt if many are - it is really a quite different sort of skill) would risk relying it on it to pull off an effect like this.
If you go to see a hypnotist’s act, it might be quite impressive and entertaining, but by no means everything they attempt to do will work. That is the expectation. Never mind if you can’t get Jim to cluck like a chicken, move along swiftly to get Jill to mime being a stripper, and you are golden.
By contrast, if you go to a magic show by even a minimally competent magician (let alone someone who aspires to be on national TV), then, almost always, everything will work as it should. The expectations on a magician are very different and much more rigorous than for a hypnotist. If even one trick goes wrong, the magician is basically screwed, and has lost his audience’s respect. If he relied on hypnosis, stuff would fail all the time.
He pretended to do a “proper hypnosis” in order to fool you. Fooling people is what magicians do. It is the whole point of what they are about. Clearly, in your case, it worked very well.
In my quotes the magician was expressing how uncertain he was that it would work out…
“Four people that I think can be hypnotized have been invited to here tonight”
“Based solely on my gut reaction to my videos I’m hoping I’ve chosen wisely”
“If I’m unable to guide any of them into a deep trance there will be no levitation and all of this work would have been for nothing.”
“Let’s hope my instincts about Emma are correct”
So he is portraying what an act depending on a successful hypnosis would be like.
He did many tests… also he didn’t tell them how their eyelids should react - that is a secondary sign.
I don’t recall him using hypnosis before… he isn’t really relying on it in this instance e.g.
“If I’m unable to guide any of them into a deep trance there will be no levitation and all of this work would have been for nothing.”
Though he is hoping it will work.
I’ve also somewhat similar with non-stage hypnosis. So what is happening in stage hypnosis? Are people under no influence at all? Why do they do embarrassing things? Do they think to themselves “well I feel no compulsion at all to do it but I think I’ll just do it and say it was the hypnosis that made me do it”.
BTW I see a lot of insight in those quotes about meditation, getting deeper, etc… are you knowledgeable about hypnosis? BTW a little of my background is “speed seduction” where there’s a geeky looking guy who picks up young woman using hypnotic techniques/NLP etc.
BTW remember that the only thing people knew about the trick was that it involved levitation. If the relaxed volunteer was unable to do the teleportation ending, the audience would still think the trick was a complete success.
This is all part of the act. It’s called showmanship. Do you think he’s going to go on TV and perform a trick unless he’s 100% certain it’s going to work? If the trick doesn’t work he looks like an idiot on national television. So, what’s the best way to make sure that the trick works exactly like he planned it?
Yes, all to fool you into thinking it really is hypnosis.
If what he said about eyelid is even true, the stooge knew this and probably practiced it beforehand.
And if it hadn’t, it would have been the end of his TV career. He made sure it worked.
Are you really as incorrigibly naïve as you make out, John, or is it all an act designed to fool us earnest Dopers?
There is another possibility that no-one has considered… what if the person wasn’t an actor but they were still in on it…
Four people were chosen from 400 fans who wanted to be an assistant… then out of those four he could tell one or all of them how the teleportation trick is done. They could have had to sign a confidentially agreement beforehand. Then the fan would become what they wanted to be - an assistant. So they’d be in on in.
“…embarks on a search for a lucky fan to act as his assistant and be levitated.”
It doesn’t say they’d be a member of the public and levitated… it said they’d act as his assistant
The disorientation could be real though… they’d be in a very deep meditation then snapped out of it - maybe she had to almost run while doing the “teleportation”.
So there are more options than a member of the public or an actor right from the start…
I thought if anyone would just relax very deeply then he could achieve the levitation. They had their eyes closed as well. The string-pulling would be done by other people - unlike the Copperfield trick they don’t need to be aware of what’s going on.