THE TRILBY CONNECTION — Cosmic Pancakes!

Trilby – George du Maurier

Fiction interlude!

I realise as I sit to write this blog post that I started the tradition of Kev and I buying each other hypno-themed books.

We got together in August 2017 and, with no birthdays or Hallmark-card-enforced celebratory moments in between, I found myself contemplating what to buy him for our first Christmas as a couple.

A current glaring hole in this blog is the backstory of Head Hacking, the hypnosis training company Kev used to run with Anthony Jacquin. But, long story short, one of their best-known video products was/is ‘The Trilby Connection’ – where they train a laywoman to become a street hypnotist.

I’d watched ‘The Trilby Connection’ and had tried to impress Kev with my Wikipedia knowledge of what they’d been referencing; the original 1894 novel by George du Maurier.

But it turned out Kev had never read, or thought much about, the novel! So: a nice old copy was duly purchased and Christmas was ticked off my to-do list.

Now, Kev’s son was turning nine at that time and, being child-free myself, I had no idea it would be another couple of years before Kev was allowed to read books again. So there it sat on his bookshelf, gathering dust, neglected in favour of Minecraft and gingerbread-man-making… til I finally moved to his in 2019.

I have to credit Christopher Green with piquing my interest in the story of the ultimate hypnotic subject, Trilby, and the archetypal hypnotist, Svengali, in their book Overpowered!. I was unwell and not working when I moved to Kev’s, so, bored one afternoon, I picked up this book. And thus my fascination with Trilby began.

However, I HATED reading this book first time round!

I’ve since read a lot about the book and the era, but I was not prepared for lashings of Victorian sentimentality, and the fact that Trilby and Svengali are somewhat peripheral to a trio of tedious bohemian artists. I think it was only sheer bloody mindedness that made me plough on through, plotting to out-reference Kev.

I’ve come to LOVE this book, though.

Something about Trilby (the character) stayed with me… There is a deliciously rich world of hypnosis surrounding du Maurier (we’ll be dipping into the mesmeric capers of his mate Felix Moscheles soon!). But I’ve read the book several times since, and it’s incredible what shines through once you learn to navigate all that Victorian bullshit.

I’m so mesmerised by Trilby, in fact, I started writing a novel from her point of view…

By which I mean I’ve written a stack of post-it notes.

I can’t help but wish more hypno-people would read Trilby – it was the most popular, sensational novel of its time. A better understanding of how it shaped perceptions of hypnosis then and now would, IMO, loosen up the discourse on hypnosis being A Thing – a ‘state’ or ‘special process’ – vs it being a social construct and cultural phenomenon.

Think: Harry Potter and all the memes and monetisations borne from that. Trilby was not dissimilar – branded soap and spoons, du Maurier plagued by press and fans about his heroine, a stage play…

(Fun fact: the actress playing the titular role wore a new-fangled style of hat from which we get ‘the Trilby hat’.)

It’s almost impossible to believe hypnosis is anything other than a social construct and cultural phenomenon once you’ve gotten to know Trilby.