Mar 25, 2013 3 min read

A group of about 50 people gathered in the Burgettstown High School auditorium Thursday in hopes of being amazed. Hypnotist Jason Christopher performed in front of students, faculty and members of the public in order to help Burgettstown’s student government raise funds for their high school prom.

“It’s a completely fun and funny show,” Christopher said. “It’s a clean show, but I think we got a lot of laughs.”

Members of the audience of all ages sat in a group of chairs lined up along the end of the auditorium stage. Using what he described as the art of persuasion, Christopher implanted quirky scenarios into the minds of volunteers.

During one segment of the show, participants were asked to imagine that they were just given the car of their dreams. Members of the crowd laughed at the strange reactions the volunteers had to the imagined good fortune.

“I couldn’t tell if it was real or not,” said 17-year-old Burgettstown senior John Lapacik. “But most of the students seemed to be kind of feeling it. And it was funny.”

Lapacik said whether or not it was staged, it was still an entertaining show. Having never seen a live hypnotist perform, he hadn’t known what to expect.

“I didn’t think he would be able to take you places or do things like that,” Lapacik said. “That was the funniest part, I’d have to say.”

Lapacik was referring to a segment in the show in which participants were told they were on a sunny beach in the blazing heat. Despite actually being in a cool auditorium in rain-drizzled Burgettstown, those on stage reacted by fanning themselves, rolling up sleeves and slurping on imaginary drinks.

While the event at Burgettstown was lighthearted, Christopher claimed hypnotism had a wider range of applications, as well. He said he has worked with individual clients in the past to combat a wide array of phobias and bad habits, including smoking cessation, weight loss, stress relief and fears of everything from heights to sharks.

“Neuro-linguistic programing has to do with the brain, mouth and delivering what you want to have happen,” Christopher said. “It’s speaking to the brain in a certain way. Hypnosis works well because it happens automatically by programming certain suggestions.”

Christopher said he used hypnosis on himself in order to cure a lifelong, paralyzing fear of spiders.

“I didn’t like spiders, I hated them,” Christopher said. “Didn’t like looking at them. It even got to the point where I would freak if they were on TV or there were robots that looked like spiders.

“Now, after going through the phobia cure, I’m kind of cool with it. If one crawls on me, I just brush it off. It was a huge change.”

Christopher disclosed at the beginning of the program that hypnosis doesn’t work on everyone. A number of participants were sent to their seats because the meditation didn’t have the desired effect.

Danielle Mulkerrin, 29, of Oakdale, was one of the people who exited the stage early during the event. After the presentation, she was disappointed the hypnotism didn’t work on her.

“I do a lot of yoga, so I often get relaxed in a trance state,” Mulkerrin said. “But without the physical activity to get in the mood, it was difficult.

“I was hoping I could get hypnotized, but I just felt like I was too stressed out.”