NOT SO HYPNO
Hypno-Trix: A Complete Act of Fake Hypnotism Without Stooges – Val Andrews
When magic and hypnosis collide, you can bet there will be magic acts that claim to use hypnosis when actually it’s all up their sleeves. But this, Dear Reader, is (according to Google) VERY RARE! (This pamphlet, not the concept.)
A customary search for the author, publisher, and title threw up that Val Andrews wrote over 1,000 books and pamphlets in his time (1926-2006 for the trainspotters), including lots of Sherlock Holmes novels. Apparently (unconfirmed) he wrote a lot for the publisher, The Supreme Magic Company of Bideford, Devon, UK. I couldn’t find a date for this pamphlet, but the eBay seller put it as “1960s?”.
Before we get started, and as a bit of a tangent, The Supreme Magic Company had a relatively interesting history, being well-regarded in terms of its books and props, and having been launched by Edwin Hooper in 1953. He employed Ian Adair (who went on to create over 3,000 magic tricks and write over 150 books) as a teenager who then rose up the ranks to eventually achieve ‘partner’ status with Edwin. Due to ill health, Hooper sold the business in 1987 after which it changed hands at least once more, before closing down in 1993. As a mail-order-only business (Hooper didn’t want a shop), it employed 100 people in its most successful times.
But back to the Hypno-Trix, which sounds a bit like a dominatrix who uses hypnosis – check out my interview with Undine de Rivière if that’s more your thing. No, ‘Hypno-Trix’ is more what it says on the tin; a series of non-hypnotic skits and routines that give the appearance of hypnosis, while actually requiring none.
Some of the routines you might have learned as a child – one person holds their hands/arms in a certain position (at least three to choose from) and (almost) no one can move them with force; a person sitting on a chair is lifted by four people using a single finger each: that sort of thing. But it also includes some absolutely outrageous routines that I’ve not seen elsewhere, such as being buried alive (two methods, both genuine), and how to hypnotise a crocodile or alligator, in case you happen to have one lying around not doing very much (again, two methods).
A longer routine towards the end is centred on electrocuting the participants! Not really, of course, but also not hypnotically either. For the avoidance of doubt, no actual electricity is used in the trick, but it would certainly appear as if it were. I won’t provide the method (as magicians we cannot condone that sort of behaviour) and I’ll leave it hanging here to hopefully make you really REALLY want to know how it’s done…
I’m not sure how it would stand up today against the assault of exposers on YouTube, and I have to wonder why you wouldn’t just learn and use hypnosis if that’s the look you were going for. But there is something quite quaint and of-its-time about the pamphlet that makes me glad we own it.
That said, no budding wannabe-hypnotist should indulge this nonsense, in the same way that no-one should really be using any tricks as pretend tests of suggestibility.
