Hypnosis in an Italian Horror Comic

It's been over two months since I last hypnotized someone. But it hasn't bothered me so much, since I have a new country to learn about and enjoy, with all its new ways, including a new language. I'm getting into Italian comics, partly as a way to learn the language, and partly because they're very cool. Where 90% of mainstream American comics are superhero comics, or Archie, Italian comics or "fumetti" have current, popular titles in mystery, old west, adventure, science fiction, and horror. And comics are more popular: Italian, Japanese, French, and the occasional American comic are found in every newstand and convenience store.

My favourite right now is a stylish Italian horror comic called Dylan Dog, about an investigator of supernatural terrors living in London. It's making me realize I've barely even seen horror comics, growing up in North America, and I can't help but be impressed by disturbing/awesome pre-Comics Code Authority imagery such as:

And not just monsters either, but incredibly brutal human violence:

These are all from an issue that fell into my hands, called La Meta Oscura, and just by chance it has hypnosis content!

At the beginning of the story, which is about 96 pages long, several people have been caught at the scenes of grisly murders, still holding the murder weapons, with no memory of what happened. This boy, for example, murdered his whole family with a straight razor. The book took several pages to depict this. (paging Dr. Wertham)

But when these people are hypnotized and regressed back to the time of the murders, they remember standing to the side, helpless, while a horrifying beast committed those same violent acts! Each one has their own particular monster, e.g. the gorilla, the skinless ghoul and so on.

The hypnosis is absolutely classical, performed by a paternalistic, pipe-smoking psychologist

using a pocketwatch and language that was easy for me to recognize.

For me, the most eerie and upsetting story turn was when the suspects start killing themselves in custody - which is, from their perspective, their beast avatars mournfully euthanizing them. Like this super creepy space alien:

(by the way, back in reality he is injecting himself with a syringe full of air. Ugh!)

It turns out the hypnotist was behind it all along! Did you guess?

Dylan Dog realized that the boy used the doctor's name under hypnosis, when the two had supposedly never met before. All the murderers were experimental subjects of the psychiatrist, who didn't remember his hypnotic experiments. His goal was to cure the "monster that is in all of us, the dark half, the disproportionate aggressiveness that the human carries inside despite millions of years of evolution". But to do that, he first had to "liberate it". And when he started getting great results with his patients:

he took a slight turn for the insane. He even hypnotized Dylan Dog without his knowledge or consent!

I found it to be a creepy, satisfying tale, even the way it was resolved, blaming it all on hypnosis. What's interesting to me is that this comic came out in the mid 90s, and is pitched towards teenagers and adults (at least I hope so). In North America these days, you would only see hypnosis - of the watch-swinging variety, not mind control by magic or technology - used as a device in stories for young children, and even then they would have a slightly retro feel. There have been periods where there was a lot of interest in hypnosis in America, like the 1950s. But I'll bet the average person, if they ever think of hypnosis, thinks it's boring bullshit. So they're not afraid of it.

My Italian friend on Fetlife told me it's different here. There is a fear of hypnosis in the culture, such that people have been kicked out of kink events just for being into it, since it's assumed they want to use it for sexual assault. If an educated person had even a 10% belief that what happens in this comic is possible, then it makes sense. 

In fact, my friend pointed out that hypnosis is even mentioned in the Italian criminal code, or codice penale, as written in 1930, which you can verify for yourself on the Italian wikipedia page for hypnosis. From Google Translate:

Hypnosis as health intervention (both as a psychological intervention-clinical and / or psychotherapy , or as therapy for diseases with organic component or as a pain therapy) should be practiced only by those who are entitled to pursue a health care profession .
...
Article. 613 of the Penal Code punishes anyone who by suggestion in the waking or hypnotic, narcotic or alcoholic substances poses a person, without the consent of you, in a state of ' inability to understand or want .
...
 Anyone who puts anybody, with his consent, in a state of narcosis or hypnotism or run on the same treatment that suppresses the consciousness or will be punished, if the act results in danger to the safety of the person...

Without reading the original code, this actually seems reasonable. I feel strongly that hypnotherapy should be left to people with extensive training in therapy, and that no one should be hypnotized without their informed consent.

But I still feel like it may be reflective of some misplaced fears about hypnosis. Although I do think there are ways that it can be abused, and this is something the hypnokink community is always debating, people who I've hypnotized all report the feeling that it's really a collaboration between us, and that they felt completely able to reject suggestions, and bring themselves out of  trance, any time they like. Most remembered everything that happened during the session, unless amnesia was something we specifically worked on (and negotiated a much higher level of consent for). And other hypnotists I've talked to report much the same thing. Hypnosis isn't mind control, and it just doesn't work at all like it does in Dylan Dog. Any more than it contains accurate information for dealing with vampires (that's a good way to get killed by a vampire).

I might have a chance to do some study groups here in Italy soon. Basically the message I want to tell people, is that although hypnosis isn't risk free, it can be managed between trusting adults within the framework of Risk Aware Consensual Kink. I doubt I could turn you, mentally, into a 12 foot tall dragon, but if I did, it would be only with your clear-eyed and enthusiastic consent and cooperation - and it would probably be a friendly dragon!

The Only Pickup Artist You Should Ever Listen To

The other day, I was at a munch where there was a pickup artist. I know this, because he was acting weird: he sat down beside me at the beginning of the munch and then, without saying hello, immediately changed his seat to one between two women at the other end of the table; in an argument later, he tried to get me into a "yes set"; and a female friend told me about his weird pressurized approach to her. He also describes himself as a pickup artist on his Fetlife profile (which my friend described as reading like those "the man your man could smell like" commercials).

How can you improve your social skills, and your chances of getting to enjoy your kink with people you're attracted to, without getting into this kind of junk? Is all pick up artist stuff poison?

I don't think so, and I say that as someone who had some *very* embarassing behaviour in my early 20s after reading The Game. Besides how entertaining that book is, I give it credit for eventually leading me to a guy I have learned a lot from, Wayne Elise.

Fair warning: he communicates within the pick up artist framework, with some of its goal-directedness, using some of the jargon, and assuming heteronormativity in talking about approaching "girls". If that stuff, or any association with pickup artists, bums you out, you should skip this. (and I will say up front that after marinating in gender studies and consent culture for a little while there are plenty of little things he says I'm not crazy about)

But I find that beneath that surface, it's a whole different approach, and one that is chill rather than toxic, and applies to social interaction in general.

This interview is a nice introduction:

(but what the heck is the other guy doing with his body language? Being "alpha"?)

And here's a relevant quote from a much longer, more technical video:

"I don't advocate going into a bar and pissing off half the bar. I don't advocate going in and acting strange and weird to people....the last thing a girl wants is someone who's goofy. Who can't socialize. Because they're approached by those kind of guys all the time."

Basically the philosophy, which is also discussed on his website charismaarts.com, is that to have good interactions, you figure out how to help people open up, be real with you, and show off what's cool about themselves. Then you reward them for that. And you share back, relating real stuff about yourself like emotions and perceptions, and you go for this equal back and forth exchange of energy. And that's the kind of thing that makes a spark.

He also talks a lot about how to reveal sexual interest, in a clear but non-creepy way. I think this speaks wonderfully to consent-conscious dating. And it easily extends to making play connections in the kink world.

What this stuff is not about is locking onto "hotties" like a torpedo and ignoring everyone else, nor is it about "negging" or steamrolling people with  unnatural routines memorized from a book.

I owe a lot to this philosophy, and the many little social interaction tips around it. When you interact with me you're seeing social skills that I've been working on for at least 7 years with these tips in mind. Ok, I'm still plenty awkward sometimes. But just be glad you're not talking to my 20 ish self. Unless you're really into Buffy plot summaries.

Should I be nervous about revealing that I have a guru who used to go by the handle "Juggler"? (that's more innocent than it sounds: he used to juggle for a living) Here's a good filter for whether a pickup artist technique is scuzzy: would you like to have it used on you? And I think that works for me and charisma arts stuff. I want to be asked "fat questions", and only ones that my partner is interested in the answer to. I want people to use "the vacuum" on me (that's where you ask a fat question and then just wait, however long it takes for them to give you some kind of answer). I want people to notice when I say something unique and compelling, and for that to be the reason things get a little sexier between us. And so on.

And rather than there being a predatory, sneaky feeling to it, where you can be "busted", it works *better* if both people have this stuff in mind! The ideal of interaction is very much like improv: totally in the moment, playful, personal, authentic, and built by collaboration.

I have to say that kink people I've met are a lot closer to this ideal in conversation, because it's normal to talk about this deep authentic part of ourselves, our turn-ons. And from there it's easy to talk about more real stuff. And we just seem comfortable going to more experimental and playful places in conversation.

If you're interested in Wayne Elise, there aren't that many other resources I can point you to - unlike most people who teach social skills online, Wayne Elise seems to spend the majority of his time out there enjoying his life and varied interests, not crafting marketing emails or making up new things to buy. The youtube videos are of variable interest, and most of his serious written materials are now hard to find. Some good ones are reproduced, probably without permission, here. I especially like this one about the importance of getting happiness out of your interactions. And yes, I just have more *fun* talking to people than I used to. After a while it was like, how did everyone around me get so interesting and sexy all of a sudden?

Just please, if you click those links, do not read the ads. And do not read stuff by other pickup artists. You're much better off with who you are right now.