When I was in college, I was treated to a fascinating display of hypnosis.  At a large university, in an enormous theater, a hypnotist first determined those attendees who were susceptible to hypnosis.  Those of us who were not then watched as the hypnotist introduced a trigger word into the subconscious of those under his influence, at the mention of which they would engage in whatever activity he directed.  He woke them up, and each time he used the word, they went under the spell, he told them what they would do when they woke up, and we watched as they did it.  I have no doubt that had the hypnotist told his subjects to punch the person next to them because that person had just offended them, the hypnotized would have done it just as surely as they danced like ballerinas on a stage in front of hundreds of strangers. Humans are emotionally and mentally pliable. That they can be so easily programmed to react to a cue is alarming, but that there are people...(Read Full Article)