Last Friday saw the release of two new effects of mine to the world’s magic community.

Nobody gets rich from selling the secrets of their magic tricks, but it’s nice to know I’ve contributed something to the field of entertainment which got me interested in performing in the first place.

The first effect, “Judge Jury and Executioner” uses five old photographs with a prediction and is described as follows:

What can you tell about a person just by looking at a photograph?

Aside from gender, race, age and social standing, is there some other message which is subconsciously communicated to us?
Is there something more sinister lurking behind the eyes that stare back at us?

Could you separate the guilty from the innocent or even divine a murderer from his victims?

A well thought out, flexible, easy to perform, yet effective illusion with a dark, dramatic and memorable outcome.

The ebook contains a detailed explanation of the basic effect and five variations (including two by Andrew Brown) to suit any performer or situation. No sleights and minimal skill required.

The second one, “BackTrack!” is a little harder to describe without giving too much away.

When I first thought of it, during a conversation with my daughter Phoebe, who was six at the time, I started to scribble down some notes and began to get quite excited.

I wondered if anyone else had thought of the same idea before. A brand new principle in magic really is quite a big deal.
If what I had in front of me was indeed original, then I had an idea upon which an infinite number of future tricks could be based on.

I sent my notes to a few respected Mentalists and Banachek immediately emailed me back and confirmed its originality, at least as far as he was aware.

It seems nobody had thought of it before!

For the last few months, I’ve been working on two example tricks which use the system to demonstrate how it could be used.

Once the manuscript was finally finished, I sent it to Magic retailer Chris Wasshuber of http://www.lybrary.com/ and his response was exactly what I’d hoped for:

“This is cool. I have never seen this method anywhere. I think this is very good and I would certainly retail it. For the thoughtful performer this opens up all kinds of possibilities and further avenues to pursue. It is an entirely new tool and I can see volumes of new effects based on this idea.”

I call it a Pseudo-subliminal Influence System and you can see the full description and Chris’ official review here:
http://www.lybrary.com/backtrack-p-77973.html

As you can see, both ebooks are currently being retailed by Chris Wasshuber here: http://www.lybrary.com/reg-blackwood-m-59245.html and will soon be available via my own site too.

I look forward to seeing what other tricks people come up with, based on my system!

This is my response to this blog post from Jon.

What’s this? “Jon Chase Protector of Somnambulists?” LOL

Wow. That’s a scary picture of the world you’ve painted there Jon.

Some kind of post-apocalyptic vision, with gangs of marauding Hypnotists preying on poor, unsuspecting passers-by. And look out! These renegades don’t have a reputation or paycheck to protect!

Fortunately, out here in the real world, there are very few people with either the balls or the skill to do what you’re describing, which sounds more like Ambush Hypnosis than Street Hypnosis to me. Most Street Hypnotists out there are open about what they’re doing. They ask for consent and are often accompanied by a friend holding a camera.
Even then, there aren’t that many of THEM either!

Anyway, in my experience, those who seek to use Hypnosis for ill-gotten gains tend to be crap at it. Why is that? Maybe it’s because the intent is subconsciously communicated to the person being or about to be Hypnotized (Yes. Even the somnambulist) and so most of us already have a natural, inbuilt defense mechanism. One could describe it as an instinct, intuition or sixth sense.

I think that’s why when I do a “family” Stage Hypnosis show, I get, keep or ditch a completely different bunch of volunteers to when I do a more adult themed show.

Sure, aside from Hypnotists, there are clever con-artists, hustlers and grifters out there and there are lots of THEM around.
Some of them even use misdirection, shock, confusion and unconscious pattern interrupt in their attempts to rip you off. But to call them Hypnotists or their techniques Hypnotic is just plain wrong.

It’s like calling a mugger a masseur.

Reg Blackwood
The Street Hypnotist

My good friend Jon Chase says you must also exude confidence, and I agree.

However, in my experience you must also demonstrate congruence.
Your actions and demeanour must be consistent with your words.

Potential volunteers seem to have an inbuilt radar for incongruence.
If they pick up subconsciously on some kind of inconsistency, the chances are they either won’t volunteer or you’ll lose them at some stage.

Stage Hypnosis, Walkaround/Street/Roving Hypnosis and Hypnosis for change-work (or Hypnotherapy) are three different disciplines requiring different skillsets.

But the one thing they all have in common is Hypnosis. To do any of the above you must be able to “do” Hypnosis.

Then you can apply either the stagecraft, the street tips and tricks or the therapy techniques.

Once you are confident in your own skills, your story and your mere presence combine with a few standard statements to become a big part of your pre-talk.

That kind of confidence and congruence only comes from experience.

Remember – Whenever you perform Hypnosis, you are not just representing yourself, you are representing me and every other Stage Hypnotist, Street Hypnotist and Hypnotherapist out there.

Do us all a favour. Make sure you know exactly what you’re doing before you even attempt to Hypnotise anyone else. Some of us are big and mean and like nothing less than paying for the mistakes of others.

These are just a few of the important questions you should be asking yourself:

Do I know how to wake them up?
Will I say and do the right thing?
Can I tell if they’re hypnotized or not?
Do I know how to make this safe for the subject, the onlookers and me?
What will I do if something goes wrong?
Can I truly call myself a Hypnotist?

You can watch those first videos here:

Apologies for the dress sense and nervousness. I like to think both have improved somewhat since then!

The first comment I received was one word “FAKE” which I promptly deleted and disabled comments.

Since then I have trained many new hypnotists and produced my DVDs “Hypnosis Happens” and “Not Another Street Hypnotist” which are currently available at http://quicknotist.com/dvd/

The real reason for this post however is not nostalgia but an email I received from The Netherlands which appears here in edited form (some names and details have been omitted at the request of the writer.)

The email has remarkable similarities to one I sent to my own mentor Jon Chase http://www.jonathanchase.com/ immediately after appearing on the very TV show you see in the videos.

It was really lovely to receive this email, and in spite of all the positive reviews I’ve already received for the DVDs, it’s this kind of response from a subscriber and regular visitor to this site which makes all the hard work over the last two years worthwhile!

So over to Holland’s Newest Hypnotist:

Hi Reg,

Thank you thank you thank you!

When it comes to Hypnosis, are you Crawling, Walking, Running or Flying?

(Inspired by Edelman’s Crawl, Walk, Run Methodology for Social Media http://www.edelman.com/)

You Crawl:

Your interest is sparked by something you saw, self-hypnosis or being hypnotized at a stage show.

You research by watching videos, reading books and articles, and ask questions of the experts in whatever forum.

You might even experiment a little with hypnosis on yourself, your close friends and family.

You fail more times than you succeed, but you succeed enough to want to walk.

You Walk:

You get taught. You find someone whose philosophy appeals to you.

You might attend a live training course or begin to be mentored.

You hypnotize strangers for the first time, but only in the context of a training course or a meet-up with other hypnotists.

You become more confident in the methods you learned and succeed more times than you fail and now you want to run.

You Run:

You’re hypnotizing strangers left right and center, people begin to know you as a hypnotist, not whatever it was you did before.

You succeed most of the time having developed your own philosophy and some of your own methods

You occasionally take money from people for hypnosis either at shows, parties or for therapy and you might get the urge to fly.

You Fly:

You’re seen as one of the experts in the field. A specialist. You are a hypnotist for the majority of your time and income.

You might sell products/services and seminars at a premium to those who seek your expertise in what you know.

You either teach others your methods, become a mentor yourself and sell products to those eager to learn your methods or sell products to those who want your help, advice and change work.

Congratulations, you’re flying!

Whether you’re a crawling, walking, running or flying hypnotist, if you’re looking to reach the next level, my DVD set Hypnosis Happens and Not Another Street Hypnotist has something for you http://quicknotist.com/dvd/

You don’t only encounter distractions on the street or on stage. Distractions are everywhere and some Hypnotists will even use the background noise as part of the Hypnosis. e.g. “Every car you hear pass just lets you focus more.”

My own office joins on to a hairdressers and my friend Nadine the hairdresser is a lively, funny person with a lovely, loud laugh always joking with her clients, making them laugh too.

Sometimes, someone is so focused, these background noises don’t even matter.
I was recently asked to perform Hypnosis at the Wildfoods Festival in Hokitika (See http://www.wildfoods.co.nz/) and in this video, you’ll hear the background noise and see the volunteer’s friends trying to distract us.

I can tell however, that even though her eyes are looking around a little, her head is often slightly leaned to one side and she is still listening intently and following my instructions well. That’s why I chose her over the others.

I congratulate her on her level of focus, without even mentioning all the distractions and you can see how well this works.

The girls in the video know I’m a Hypnotist and I’ve edited it slightly to remove some of the very loud interruptions picked up by the camera microphone.

I’ve also removed the final “wake-up” but otherwise, this is pretty much what happened from beginning to end:

One could imagine the headline for such a picture to be “Police Brutality!”

But what if the picture instead bore the caption “Brave off-duty policeman snatches club from dangerous thug.”

This video posted by a friend of mine on Facebook recently interests me because it plays on all our inherent prejudices and preconceptions.

What do you see?
An heroic white, old man standing up to the young dark skinned bully?

In this longer version of the video, we see the beginning of the exchange. The older man asking the younger man how much it would cost to spitshine his shoes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR8oHo6nQE0

Watch again and notice the “young” guy tells us his age. He’s 50.

I’m not saying either man is justified in his actions, I just wonder if reactions would be different were the title of the video different.
How about “Innocent man on bus stands up to racist and gets viciously beaten for it.”

This post shows an old newspaper advertisement for the book from 1902 as well as the cover and a couple of pages from the book.

Here is a biography of the author from The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Canterbury Provincial District] 1903. With thanks to the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre http://www.nzetc.org/

Kline, Charles Bertram
Metaphysician, 135 Montreal Street, Christchurch. Mr. Kline was born at Hokitika in 1866, and is a younger son of the late Mr J. P. Kline, journalist, formerly proprietor of the “West Coast Times” and “Evening Star.” He was educated at Hokitaka State School, and also at several private schools, including Mrs Alabaster’s, in Christchurch, the Bishop’s School, in Nelson, and Nelson College. Mr. Kline was brought up in his father’s offices, and subsequently owned and managed, the “Evening Star.” Early in 1884 Mr. Kline made a trip of a year’s duration to Europe, and some years after his return to the colony he took up the study of thought in its relation to health. Books treating of hypnotism, suggestion, and mental science were earnestly studied, and in 1897 Mr. Kline went to Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne, to ascertain the methods there employed in what was known as mental healing, and also to procure books which were not obtainable in New Zealand. The visit with its accompanying enquiries resulted in his taking up in 1899 the work of healing professionally, and his results have convinced him of the wonderful powder of mind, properly guided and controlled, to conquer diseases which have successfully resisted all other methods of cure. He contends that, by properly directed thought and habits of life, the causes of disease are reached, and with the removal of the cause the effect ceases. A booklet, by Mr. Kline, on “The Power of Thought in the Cause and Cure of Disease,” has run into a second edition, and he intends to publish a much larger work on the subject. His main argument is that the study of mental science shows that bad emotions, such as envy, jealousy, fear, ill-will, pessimism, hate, are injurious to the brain that feels them; that they poison their very source and express their influence physically on the body; and that, on the other hand, good emotions, such as the feelings of love, joy, good nature, kindness, courage, and a proper use of mind, unmistakably promote mental power, health, happiness, and success. Mr. Kline is hopeful that the great importance of this subject may impress the Legislature with the desirableness of giving facilities to mental practitioners of metaphysicians to pass an examination on mental science and physiclogy, and to thus secure legal recognition for themselves, and a scientific and honourable status for their profession.

I’ll conclude by saying: Once you start looking, you’ll find representations of Hypnosis everywhere!

Unfortunately, negative or inaccurate imagery of Hypnosis in Popular Culture isn’t only limited to cartoons like these. Some might say some of the worst offenders historically and in the present day are the Hypnotists themselves.

If you look at the publicity material Hypnotists used historically (and some recently) most play on having impossible or special powers, often without a hint of irony!

No doubt, some might have something to say about my own publicity or the images used on my DVD set!

I like to think people are intelligent enough to seperate fact from fiction and see most of this imagery as humorous or just plain silly.

So. That said. Have fun watching the following videos.

I know I did!

Woodpecker – Hypnotic Hick

http://revver.com/video/1482238/woody-woodpecker-hypnotic-hick/

Donald Duck – The Eyes Have It

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXSKbpeLYKQ

Popeye – Popeye’s Hypnotic Glance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5I5eqbegV8

Babbitt and Catstello – The Mouse-merized Cat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7kNYViTGsE

Road Runner – Zipping Along

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bse5iere8no

Sylvester and Tweety – Dog Pounded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e94RBtsCaYg

Enjoy The Hypnotist from The Flintstones!