Dear Author John-Ivan Palmer
As I began reading your book, Hypnotic Control – Reflections on the Nature of Staged Influence, I felt a mix of curiosity and slight apprehension, which I believe set the stage for a thoughtful exploration of its themes. I found it a haunting and disturbingly candid exploration of hypnosis’s mechanics and cultural entanglements. Written with the double-edged perspective of a former stage hypnotist and lifelong observer of human frailty, this work reads like both a confession and a cultural autopsy.
From the first page, you situate hypnotism not as a mystical curiosity but as a raw technology of influence, one as old as the power of suggestion itself. Tracing the lineage of “animal magnetism” to the modern “hidden camera” humiliations of today’s viral videos, you lay bare how hypnotic control has morphed across centuries, yet remains fundamentally about domination, spectacle, and loss of self.
Your essays, particularly “Death by Projected Thought” and “Mesmer Made Me Do It: Mass Murder in Schools,” forced me to confront how suggestibility underpins both everyday life and its most horrifying extremes.
But I think your voice is what truly defines the book. There is a hard-earned clarity here, sharpened by guilt and long experience. Your preliminary note alone — a darkly witty, almost Faulknerian monologue about being addicted to control — is worth the price of admission.
Some of the book’s greatest strengths lie in your refusal to sanctify yourself or your profession. Hypnotic control, as you suggest, is not just a parlor trick or a fringe science — it is a metaphor for how modern culture operates, whether in politics, media, or religion.
It’s a read that sneaks into your mind and forces you to question not just the power of hypnotists, but the daily unseen manipulations that shape who we are and what we believe. Hypnotic Control – Reflections on the Nature of Staged Influence is essential for anyone interested in psychology, culture, or the eerie elasticity of human behavior.
I am happy I had the opportunity to read your work.
With gratitude,
Poppy Scolnik for Dear Author Book Reviews/Speak Up Talk Radio