Hypnotist Visits Greenwood

Hypnotist Visits Greenwood

By Chanlar Mann, Reporter/Editor

On Monday, February 29, Greenwood High School’s AP Psychology classes were able to go see the famous hypnotist Rich Guzzi.  

Hypnosis, by definition, is an artificially induced trance state resembling sleep, characterized by heightened susceptibility to suggestion.  One misconception that many people have about hypnosis is that only unintelligent people can be hypnotised, but that’s not true.  The more intelligent you are the easier is to be hypnotised.

The show started with Guzzi asking for ten volunteers to be hypnotised, two were not able to be hypnotized or fell out of hypnosis and had to be replaced.  After he started on the volunteers, he turned to the audience and tried to hypnotise them.  A few fell into hypnosis and were put on stage with the ones who volunteered.  

Guzzi was able to fully hypnotise a total of 15 students:  Lorena Griffith, Mitchell Dodson, Carlos Gomez, Joana Sosa, Daniel Haddock, Alejandro Jaime, Daniel Waggoner, Chrisann Timbie, Lauren Cook, John Hicks, Madison Miller, Ben Morrison, Haley Pridemore, Allison Harper, and Briley Barks.  

He had the hypnotized students do various activities or become various people, such as: being a cop that was outraged whenever the audience laughed, being on a rollercoaster, dancing, and becoming a rapper who only rapped in Chinese.  Towards the end Guzzi had the students become dehypnotized after saying a few things that was suppose to make them relax.  

One student, Ben Morrison, was shocked when he came out of hypnosis to find out he was on the stage, “The last thing I remember was being in the audience, and then suddenly I was on stage.  I don’t really remember anything that happened.”   This was the case for many of the students.  Most of them felt as if they had only been on the stage for five minutes, when it was actually about one hour.  

Many of the students didn’t have really any negative side effects after being hypnotized.  There were just a few that felt a little tired, but overall they felt pretty good.  After, Guzzi went down the line of the hypnotized and asked how they felt. All of them answered that they felt relaxed and/or good.  One student Chrisann Timbie, afterwards said, “I was actually sick and felt kinda bad before I was hypnotized, but after I felt a lot better.”

After the show, Guzzi answered any questions the students had.  He said that when you hypnotize someone you can’t and shouldn’t make them do something they wouldn’t normally be comfortable doing.  He also said that you could hypnotize yourself and after you’ve been hypnotized once it’s easier for it to happen to you again.

Taking pictures and/or videos was not allowed because Guzzi is supposed to have a special on Comedy Central and he does not want anything on the show to be released before it airs.  If you want to see pictures, however, there are some on his website which can be found with the link below.  Guzzi does shows in Bowling Green occasionally, so keep a lookout on his website to see when he has a show here if you would like to go and see his talents.