Old Andrew Newton: New Peter Casson?

A Response to His 2014 Presentation:

"Stage Hypnosis – the need for tighter regulation."

By
I.V.A.Veritas.


 Answering his talk to the British Society of  Medical and Dental Hypnosis [sic]. Proposing hypothetical regulations in addition to those that he proposed.
Evaluating the status of his contribution to debate.

Andrew Newton is without doubt one of the most experienced stage hypnotists in the world today. That is, within the particular parameters of large-scale performance. He recently (March 2014) gave a speech at the British Society of Medical and Dental Hypnosis on the topic of "The need for tighter regulation" of his profession. His comments are intriguing, less for what they say about the topic, more for what they reflect about his personality and as a possible fore-taste of more to come.  Had he not made that speech I would have paid little attention to him. However, what he said requires a response. That response cannot, unfortunately, be delivered without taking into account the entire topic of the hypnotist himself.

One: Newton Vs Casson, Avowed Distance.

The speech was placed by Mr Newton on his own web-site among other "articles" on topics in "psychology". Before attending to it, it is useful to consider the character of his writing in general. Newton is best when writing about his own domain, stage hypnotism, regaling us with many tales of performers past. Buried in there are some personal anecdotes, a lot of very "personal" opinions  and a vast amount of obscure and fascinating foot-notes to history. Although, by and large his version of biography consists of regurgitating lists of events and dates (births, marriages and deaths) gleaned from elsewhere.  He is uninhibited in apportioning opinions of people, those who are still among us, this one being "weird" that one "extremely odd". He refers to "Paul McKennas crappy books" and, of one hypnotist still living that "...he was the greatest tosser ever".

Reading much of his writing we find his pieces start well with broad generalisation of views that I for one tend to agree with, but rapidly degenerate into the ranting of a drunken pub philosopher. In his address to the British Society of  Medical  and Dental Hypnosis [sic]  Mr Newton adopts his Sunday Best version of a sober prose, But When  he "spouts off" elsewhere on topics, from ADHD to "Yobs" his mask is left at home: he holds forth liberally with the unsubstantiated opinion and, to be frank, rank ignorance of most of the things he expresses opinions about. In one piece he caricatures 300 million Americans as a "...culture of Bible-thumping right wing Christianity". In another he decries ADHD as "an invented illness",a view with which we may have sympathy, but then asserts that Ritalin is "mental castration", presumably assuming it to be a tranquiliser whereas it is in fact a stimulant, before launching into a rant about parenting. You know the sort of thing, if he were American himself he might use the phrase "trailer trash". That he knows nothing about a topic clearly doesn't inhibit his holding forth upon it and he proffers numerous  "insights" based on "facts" that simply are not: for example referring to  "...the novel Svengali..." when, presumably, the book he refers to is "Trilby". It was a movie based upon it that was called "Svengali". It reminds me of people who think Thomas Kenneally wrote a book called "Schindlers List".  On most topics he offers arguments that could have come from a Daily Mail readers comment section.I wont even bother with his peurile musings about "religion", which seems to be a recurring object of discomfort for him popping up more or less randomly in relation to any topic.

I admit that I do agree with many of his opinions though not the "reasoning" with which he seeks to validate them. On one topic he has my total sympathy. Mr Newton reserves particular and recurring bile for the late Peter Casson. It emerges in fragments distributed among several articles. He affords  Casson a great deal of respect, as I hope the reader will realise that I do towards Mr Newton himself, but is unreserved in charting how the performer in his later years "...had completely lost the plot". Newton explains a scenario which, entering this field in the early Nineties I soon recognised by my own observation. It is refreshing to see Newton tell it as it was, both confirming my own assessments and putting these things on the record.

Casson was from a modest background. Through war-time opportunities afforded by the existence of Ensa coupled with a virtually non-existent competition he rapidly became a giant of stage hypnotism. Having had decades of success and earning a fortune, Casson then started to turn on other hypnotists. Newton explains how Casson created "FESH" (the presumptuously named "Federation of Ethical Stage Hypnotists") as a vehicle with which to attempt to control both other performers and the performing environment, licensing policy, the media representation of the topic and even legislation. Newton describes how this small coterie was ruled by Casson on a whim. Newton recounts how first this, then that, then another hypnotist and ultimately himself were arbitrarily expelled by Casson from the group. However, it was all stage hypnotists not members of his group and therefore not under his thumb, the great majority, who Casson sought to demonise.

The interesting thing is that few if any other hypnotist posed any manner of material competition to Casson so the phenomenon was not materially motivated yet at the same time it was profoundly self-serving. Not materially, but in service of atavistic impulses. It served Casson in expressing the following logical structure: 1) All Cassons success and his professional "worth" derived from his status as a hypnotist. 2) The status and perception of hypnotism as a field therefore reflected back upon his own status, particularly his sense of himself or identity, developed along a set track for decades. 3) In order to protect his own status and self-image therefore required shepherding of the image of hypnotism itself and 4) to do this it was useful to create a scapegoat for any criticism or to which to attribute disrespect towards his profession (ie, implicitly him), this being what he called "cowboys". 

These "cowboys" were , broadly speaking, defined as those hypnotists not members of FESH. In compiling a dossier in contribution to a UK Home Office inquiry in 1995 I identified seventy five stage hypnotists in the UK at that time, long before the internet made the task simple, when only performers with a certain visibility could be detected, of whom fewer than a third were members of FESH.

Newton emphasises how Casson was paranoid about the attitudes of "doctors" and attributes his Machievellian antics to his fear that they would seek to have hypnotism banned. I think it would be fair to say, however, that Casson was rather more concerned about how he, himself, was regarded by "doctors". After all, by that late stage, even if hypnotism had  been banned, it would have made nil difference to him financially. He was virtually retired. Rather, the impression Casson gave is of someone not desperate to be liked (and Newton states that he was universally disliked) but desperately needed to feel respected. Casson was not, I would contend, concerned about what "doctors" might do but what they would think. After all, he exhibited that commonplace phenomenon of the hypnotist seeking to portray themselves as somehow a "man of medicine". Hence, Casson's campaign of vilification against essentially any hypnotist not personally approved by him was more than anything about his attempt to ingratiate himself to the establishment. To suck up to some internal schema of his social superiors. It was, ultimately, about class. Casson's arrogance, coldness, superiority, pomposity and belligerence was not a reflection of inflated self-worth but its opposite, a  manifestation of an English proles deeply embedded and lifelong sense of inferiority to those of a "better" station. I did have a conversation with Casson once by phone and, there you had it (I do possess a recording though I could take forever to locate it now): in his evident lifelong cultivation of an entirely bogus  "posh" accent.

This is a sad picture of a man monumentally successful in his own right yet afflicted by a class-based sense of deep unworth expressed in his bullying others and stereotyping them as caricatures of the even less worthy. It is something I shall return to later. But it is important to attend the central topic here, which is what Andrew Newton has stated in relation to the regulation of other hypnotists.


Two: Newton's  "Posh" Piece.

In the opening paragraph of his piece about stage hypnotism Mr Newton promised to address "...very real problems lurking behind the laughter". However, reading the text of his speech we in fact find very few issues raised that exceed the ambit of common sense considerations as they might be applied to any form of audience participation show or indeed many passive forms of entertainment and far less of concern than in the majority of participatory activities.

What He Says.

Most of Newton's observations and recommendations appear innocuous.

He recommends that hypnotists should be licensed rather than venues and that  this require sitting an exam. I agree with this in principle and advocated it when asked to consult on the review of regulations by the UK Home Office in 1995.

From my point of view it is grossly unfair that there is no legitimate, government recognised certificate of knowledge in hypnotism yet hordes of "therapists" and stage hypnotists flash about various concocted strings of phoney credentials awarded by what Mr Newton calls "diploma mills".  I agree with his contempt for such things. Most if not all of these "qualifications" consist essentially of independent operators passing on received beliefs based on nothing but having themselves received such beliefs. Essentially the lost giving directions to the lost. I always felt cheated by the fact that I could not simply register to take an official exam and get a certificate in hypnotic theory and practice. I think that would be a good facility and the outcome might prove surprising. Legions of "experts" would not pass.

Of course it would depend upon who drew up the examination. It would have to be devised by bona-fide scientists and exclude such people as the supposed "experts" I refer to. The model of this was the Home Office Cullen inquiry into the alleged hazards of stage hypnotism. That was conducted by expert epidemiologists and very wisely excluded "experts" in hypnotism. One fear I have however is that, being the society we live in, we would be saddled with additional demands to be eligible to taking such a test, such as compulsory attendance at some very expensive course. In fact, I suspect this cost factor would be used to covertly filter out the "wrong" people, on the basis that "worthiness" is related to income and class. A factor buried in the core of this topic to which I shall attend later in this paper. Consequently, on balance, it would need to be handled very carefully or it might be better to leave things as they are.

Mr Newton recommends a limit of at most ten volunteers hypnotised at any time. I again agree with this and for myself have a maximum limit of nine. In most instances I adopt a personal limit of seven in a presentation. I think about ten is as much as a single operator can track. This is about net limits to the capacity of the operators working memory and attention. In early  presentations I had a practice of selection via induction and might initially hypnotise dozens of volunteers simultaneously but even then I would swiftly discharge all but about nine.

Mr Newton recommends that it be made clear to volunteers that they can withdraw at any time and that this should be facilitated, which cannot be disputed. 

Mr Newton also recommends several things that I shall attend to later, below: that regulation should be extended from public into private presentations, that the distinction between entertainment and "scientific" presentations should be clarified, that the definition of what constitutes hypnotism should be extended to encompass anything that might  conceivably be thought of as involving "hypnosis" or hypnotic techniques and that hypnotism should be allowed only in large venues.

Mr Newton concludes that "I passionately believe that hypnosis is safe if experienced in the right environment under the right conditions." Overall his observations are of a kind we could not disagree with though largely because they are so unremarkable as to border upon triviality.  However, he reveals a deeper issue by throwing in a number of contentions that are questionable yet without which his speech effectively becomes jejeune. The point of departure is when he recommends that hypnotists be subject to random alcohol testing. This rather peculiar idea reflects the essential sub text.

His characterisation of "hypnosis as it is today" in Britain resembles a caricature out of  the scurrilous adult comic Viz. His perceptions are Hogarthian in antecedence, reflecting, as did that earlier artist, social-alarmism and aversive class stereotyping whilst introducing an element of perfidy. Funny that...he actually tells us he has posters designed by a Viz caricaturist. But it is Mr Newtons picture of Britain that is the real caricature: He paints a picture of drunken hypnotists, lager louts and incompetent buffoons, educationally subnormal (any "idiot" can do it)   yobbo hypnotists, void of ethics, morality or decorum forcing unwilling volunteers to remain on stage, performing in deliverance-style beer-dens full of broken glass and wild rampaging drunks. He describes a Britain infested with this stereotyped "low life" like weevils scurrying about in the nooks and crannies of society (or the pages of the Daily Mail) undermining decency and the status of his profession, implicitly his own status, in identifying with it.  Against this background his version of hypnotists other than he and his coterie of ultra-successful pals is a resonant echo of Casson's rants about "cowboy" hypnotists. Attitudes that he himself has denounced .Its exactly the same caricature that Casson used to suggest! His claim that hypnotists should be subjected to random alcohol testing seems to be, without any supporting basis being offered, nothing less than one more bizarre bit of tabloid tub-thumping. Well, yes, b.i.z.a.r.r.e....Mr Newton is uninhibited about describing particular others as "weird" or "strange" or "very odd", so he cannot really object to the bizarrity of that view being pointed out. He came out with it in public did he not: he actually said hypnotists should be breathalysed?

Elsewhere he has described having watched a show in a British pub in the "late Eighties", but also states that he never spends more than three months in Britain in any year, living as he has in South Africa the past four decades. So I am not sure how much stock we should place in Mr Newton's assessment of anything in modern Britain, let alone what goes on in hypnotist shows there. He mentions no examples, data or sources for his assertions about the kind of thing miscellaneous unnamed "hypnotists" are getting up to. I have to say I've never seen it and to be frank, I think you will search hard to find anyone performing public hypnotist shows in the UK today anyway. Of course there are some (I still do them) but, literally, you would struggle to find one anywhere in any given week. Web searches yield results flooded with publicity and  shows in other countries but very few actual dates for events in the UK.

Its unclear quite what his picture of anything about contemporary Britain is based upon other than the tabloid media. The same source that appears to inform his articles on many other topics.  His opinion about what goes on in hypnotic Britain is no more based upon knowledge of what he is talking about than his perception of meditation or that Ritalin is "mental castration".

I would put it to Mr Newton, your conception of an English pub is not my experience. Take a drink in some of the places I know around David Cameron's constituency and you'll get a very different impression. But that's to introduce an element running through all of this. Its about class isn't it.

It is singularly ironic that Mr Newton has elsewhere held forth on the late Peter Casson's manipulation of anxieties about the practice of hypnotism and denounced the latter hypnotist as exploiting these fears to protect his own position yet appears in this speech to have adopted that mans mantle and to be sliding into his shoes. His recommendations for increased regulation, mild though they are,  depend  upon some highly questionable assertions about the kind of things that take place in hypnotist shows and we are forced to wonder whether he has reason to believe himself in  the picture he paints (for no evidence is presented) or what his motivations otherwise are.

There is nothing that is going to undermine his success as a performer at this late stage in his career, but the same was also true of Casson. Yet Casson, who Newton himself describes as "pompous",  seemed to be motivated to stir up trouble more out of a jealous regard for protecting the basis for his status in hypnotism than out of practical interest. The same is what I sense of Newton, not merely upon the basis of his statements in this speech but more upon observation of his assiduous courting of associations with mainstream psychologists, with whom he is keen to pose with in photographs at conferences. To which I shall come in due course.

Now for what he doesn't say:

Curiously, on the one topic of which he has a certain extensive if circumscribed experience he is totally unforthcoming, conspicuously constrained. Nowhere does he seem to reveal what he actually thinks hypnotism is or even whether he subscribes to the belief in "hypnosis" and its quasi-magical powers that merely by performing he by default promotes.  Yes he does write pieces that  offer a pretence of explaining his views, with titles such as "The Nature of The Trance" but no matter how hard you read these offerings, you will not uncover what he actually believes "hypnosis" to be. On the contrary, we are offered a collection of morsels that from one paragraph to the next actually contradict each other.

In one paragraph he refers to brain imaging studies (that he clearly doesn't understand, a voxel is not a type of automobile) as though these indicate a "state" of "hypnosis". In the next paragraph he says there is no such thing as "hypnosis".  At one point he notes that people can be hypnotised whilst engaged in physical activity, which was graphically demonstrated by Hilgard and Banyai's 1974 Monarch cycle study, though he seems oblivious of this and muddles it up with the brain imaging. Soon afterwards he blithely states that "hypnosis" is a form of lethargy. Its almost as though he fires things off at random, except I don't see that as the case. Rather, he is cannily covering his...bases, so that he can fall back on the impression he agrees with or disagrees with utterly anything that anyone might state or reveal or he might read later, about the topic.

Most persistent among his evasions is his recurrent statement that "its" all "suggestion". This is just a circular statement. Ie, if challenged to explain hypnotic behaviour he says its the result of "suggestion" and then asked to explain what "suggestion" is, he's liable to say its the cause of hypnotic behaviour. Its moving words around like that guy in Leicester Square shuffling three cards around on a folding table. His table, I fear, would fold as soon as you actually look at it. Oh how many times people at my demonstrations, grappling with my contention that "hypnotism is real but hypnosis is an illusion" resort to saying "so you're saying its suggestion". No I'm not saying its "suggestion" and in fact to say that is not to say anything at all, but simply replaces one word ("hypnosis") with another ("suggestion") and allowing the ignorant echoing void to remain un-illumined.

You can present demonstrations of hypnotism whilst explaining that it is an illusion without substance. Does he do this? I don't think so. He certainly doesn't admit to such a view.  I've done so for three decades. To demonstrate hypnotism without adding this caveat serves to reify the myth of "hypnosis" and the entire baggage of hypnotic lore.

Mr Newton is careful not to tip his hand, preferring to retain the option of implying or suggesting either that he believes or does not believe, this thing, that or another, in any given context. He does this throughout his writing on hypnotism, never actually stating what he believes but implying viewpoints when and as it suits him even when these all together cannot be consistent. On any other topic he has clear opinions and by golly does he let us know them!  His equation of Tony Blair with Joseph Stalin runs to  thousands of words. That diatribe, which villifies Blair as equivalent to the murderer of forty million of his own citizens on the grounds that both sought to control  everyone through "suggestion" culminates in a footnote that states that if you want to learn how they did it and do it yourself you should buy his book, available online. You really could not make it up, as the saying goes. Whilst its popular in some circles to disagree with Tony Blair, to equate him with Uncle Joe has to warrant a tin-foil hat. And the hypocrisy with which the piece concludes by offering to sell the reader a guide on how to abuse the same techniques as he contends facilitated Stalins reign of tyranny is staggering. It was such a golden nugget I just had to keep a screen-shot of it!

So, ahem, forthright, is he on every topic under the sun. But on "hypnosis", no. Much though he maligns Paul McKenna and his "crappy books" Mr Newton is much like that other hypnotist in this respect: McKenna trumpeted "hypnosis" for some years until in court he adduced expert opinion in the guise of Graham Wagstaff to testify that no such thing exists. Wagstaff personally said to me that he thinks everything that takes place in a stage hypnotists show is pretence. McKenna tacitly adopted this line for as long as it suited him. Then he was back to selling snake oil. I might add that whilst I regard Wagstaff's "Hypnosis, Compliance and Belief" to be one of the most valuable works ever written on the topic and his other contributions invaluable, his role in debate vital,  I do not agree with the extreme position he expressed on stage hypnotism.  In my opinion there is a technique of manipulation required to carry off a hypnotic act and that's what hypnotism is. As for what Andrew Newton actually believes however, well that remains a mystery.

That is part of what Newton doesn't tell us! A lot more he reveals unwittingly in the detail of what he does say.

On his web-site Mr Newton concedes that he has only ever performed to very large audiences, typically in their thousands. Hence it is unsurprising that he can state that he has in thirty years hypnotised over 60,000 people. However, his declaration that he only performs for large audiences, presumably in correspondingly significant venues, actually constitutes not a validation of his experience as a hypnotist but an admission of its narrowness and limitation. He states that ten is the maximum number of volunteers a hypnotist should select to work with, with which I broadly agree. Ten people is but 0.5% of a two thousand person audience. Ten people is but  2% of a 500 person audience. Ten people is still only 5% of a two hundred person audience. It is pretty much accepted that the range of hypnotic susceptibility categorises ten or more per-cent of the population as "highly susceptible". Clearly, Mr Newton would be a fool to select any but the "best" volunteers. Therefore we can conclude, on the basis of what he tells us about his "experience" as a hypnotist and simple arithmetic that Mr Newton has only ever hypnotised highly susceptible volunteers. To hypnotise such volunteers requires virtually no skill and only robotic technique, however "smooth" the delivery may be.

Perhaps this is why Mr Newton states that "an idiot can do it". In effect, he reveals a picture of a man who has hypnotised over 60,000 people but has never been challenged to employ any substantive insight. That he makes these statements and doesn't see where they lead indicates surely a lack of reflection and how profoundly narrow his actual experience of the grist of hypnotic interaction actually is. Moreover, how lacking in insight into the behavioural dynamics of hypnotism is the man who has hypnotised 60,000 people. On his web-site he has an online CV in which he states that he is a qualified percussionist and holds a pilots licence. He is scathing about people with phoney qualifications from "diploma mills" and with that I agree. On the other hand, I have a BSc (honours) in psychology from a chartered British university (a 2.1 pass which is the UK higher second) and I am on that basis also a member of the British Psychological Society, entitled to bear the suffix "MBPsS" after my name.  That venerable institution, the professional body of psychologists in the UK, does not accept diploma mill paper. Oh, I also have passes in Social Sciences, Archaeology and History. My degree, by the way, entailed design and conduct of trans-national experimental studies,  scrutiny of the application of Psychology to UK government policy and, yes, brain imaging, in depth. However, I can't play the Glockenspiel and I don't have a pilots licence, so what do I know?

Its not about being big-headed, it just took several years of hard work and misery, but I thought I would throw it in in case Mr Newton waves his often used Ever-Ready 9 Volt ad-hominem torch  in my direction. 

In my opinion, my having earned a "string of letters" after my name is incidental. What is more directly relevant is that whilst Newton states having hypnotised 60,000 people in thirty years at major events I have nonetheless hypnotised about ten thousand people in something over twenty years whilst performing in a very large number of much smaller venues. I have presented  shows even with one, willing but not particularly susceptible volunteer as well as many with my personal limit of  nine volunteers, selected from among dozens forthcoming. I can tell you that the latter is very easy compared to the former but provides you, as the hypnotist, with vastly less insight into the process. The hypnotist who does only what in his own words he says any idiot can do is really only admitting that what he does any idiot could do! Nor does he provide any indication of having been taught how to read, interpret, evaluate or generate scientific data. His colourful ruminations on Ritalin illustrate how, before ranting about unspecified lesser hypnotists, he should take stock and consider: he is the one lacking in an understanding of "his" topic! So, who ya gonna believe: the percussionist with a pilots licence or the officially qualified psychologist?

For me, having had an education in science and obtaining qualifications in Psychology as far back as 1978,  it is patently clear, based both upon the abundant scientific literature and extensive experience (less voluminous yet I would contend vastly broader and deeper than Mr Newton's): no-one has ever seen such a thing as a "trance". Only  those "good" volunteers exhibiting their convincing impression of one. If you only ever perform at large venues, with large audiences, with the "best" volunteers from among a large volunteer cohort, then you aint seen anything but such convincing renditions of the hypnotic role.  The bulk of what is popularly believed about hypnotism is completely la-la and the unicorn state of "hypnosis" doesn't exist.  All the baggage of belief, the ordure about "suggestion", "trance", "altered states" are, in terms of any solid scientific account, neither sufficient nor necessary to explain hypnotic behaviour. "Sufficient and necessary" is fundamental to the scientific outlook as are parsimony and most fundamentally, falsifyability. Orthodox blather about "hypnosis" fails all of these criteria of scientific validity. It is an aspect of our culture. A set of beliefs. A dogma.

For those readers still bamboozled by interpretations of the brain imaging data it should be pointed out that every human behaviour that expresses a particular aptitude at which some are better than others (playing computer games, for example) bears a corresponding pattern of particular cerebral activity that distinguishes the "better" participants from their less good peers. Thats what imaging studies of hypnotic participants reflect. That doesn't mean that playing computer games (in the given example) is the product of a "state" (I suppose we could call it "gamenosis") any more than it indicates hypnotic behaviour to be the manifestation of one: "hypnosis". To assert otherwise is both absurd (implying that an act of playing a computer game is the result of a state found in the imaged signature of the act rather than that imagery being the corrollary of the elective action) but also meaningless, as it would imply that every human action is the product of a "state" and not any one in particular.

Hypnotism is a method of harnessing normal behavioural dynamics to a specific end and is on a continuum with the experience of such things in every-day life. You see this when you engage with it, observe it and learn from it. Hypnotism is a method of manipulation not fundamentally different from salesmanship or rabble-rousing, novel writing and movie making. Newton himself, implicitly acknowledges this, time and again, as in his rant about Blair. I have, elsewhere, explained in some detail how the informed operator manipulates the social variables, in a book on the topic. It is not a vague "view-point" but a set of explicitly accounted actions. In so doing I explain how hypnotists, stage hypnotists and hypnotherapists unwittingly and without insight into their actions enact these dynamic processes through the repetition of established  patterns of interaction. People like Andrew Newton, who have an abundance of volunteers, are free to choose only those with the greatest aptitude for being hypnotised and therefore never really learn very much from their narrow experience as hypnotist, however many times repeated, rote.

I am one of very few performers to openly admit the scientific perspective and, leaving aside academics who perform under the guise of "lectures", I am probably the only  stage hypnotist equipped to back up the assertion. There must be many who are disappointed to discover these hypnotic realities from experience but who maintain the pretence of belief in "hypnosis"  because they think that is necessary for a hypnotic act to work (it isn't). Then there are those who, intriguingly, really do believe the "lore" themselves.  Where Mr Newton sits on that spectrum we cannot tell, he changes his tune to suit his audience and the context. That's his game and he's entitled to play it. What is utterly unacceptable is for him to slate those of us with the knowledge and the balls to contradict such postures.

Some regulatory recommendations of my own.

If we are to "tighten" regulation then I think its time we ought introduce a few regulations that might not be to Mr Newtons liking.

For a start, anyone demonstrating hypnotism, especially in a supposedly academic setting, should be required to do so in a manner that is consistent with scientific insight into the topic. No more "special state" nonsense, misrepresentations of data and "hypnotherapy" snake oil. Hypnotists like Mr Newton who exert a massive influence upon public perception of hypnotism through the scale of their success should not be permitted to do so in a way that adds weight to popular delusions about "mind control" , which fuels the conspiracy nonsense our culture is drowning in. The kind of lunacy that has it the Charlie Hebdo killers were obeying post-hypnotic commands implanted by Mossad (scratch a conspiracy theorist and you usually find anti-semitism under the surface). Every hypnotist, including Mr Newton, should be required to include in all publicity and at every performance a declaration that the effects they demonstrate are not viable in most other contexts outside the strange situation of the performance. No hypnotist should be permitted to give the impression that there exists some magical phenomenon that would, to take one recent example from the movies, enable a hypnotist to make someone rob a bank, or indeed "make" them do anything.

To give an idea of the kind of thing that performances by people like Mr Newton puts in the mind of the public, I once was approached by a man who wanted me to induce him to forget he had ever been married! Leaving aside the disastrous implications of such a feat were it possible, the fact that people can even imagine that such a possibility could exist is a damning reflection on how the mythology of "hypnosis" not only persists but has grown in what is supposed to be an age of science.

Such widespread beliefs are encouraged by the performances of those stage hypnotists who do not clearly state that "hypnosis" is in practical terms an illusion. We agree surely that hypnotism is a controversial topic and an area of debate, but to merely present particular interpretations of it as  a "fact" without indicating to the audience that such controversy and debate exists should not, perhaps, be permitted. Personally, these issues have been in the fore-ground of everything I have done in hypnotism since the mid Nineties.

The 1995-96 UK Home Office inquiry into stage hypnotism comprised two aspects. The appointment of a panel of epidemiologists to assess the alleged hazard posed to volunteers in stage hypnotist acts and a review of the regulation. The "Expert Panel" was not, as Andrew Newton elsewhere states, composed of illustrious members of the medical profession but a group carefully selected for their complete uninvolvement with hypnotism or hypnotherapy and capable of impartiality. This panel produced the Cullen Report. In it they stated that they could not find a single instance of harm arising as a result of hypnotism in a performance. The Slater case which Newton cites he mis-represents, as it didn't in fact involve hypnotism but material negligence (a volunteer fell off stage). That in itself is an aspect of the conduct of a stage hypnotists act but is not a consequence of it being a stage hypnotist act. It could also happen during a karaoke act. Of harm arising from participation in a stage hypnotist act in itself  no case could be found.

By contrast, cases of harm arising from belief in "hypnosis", among people who have for the most part not even been near a stage hypnotist, exist in their thousands. Many of these are victims of false "recovered memory" accused of heinous crimes which were not believed to have occurred until someone else was lead to believe they recalled them "under hypnosis". Although "recovered memory" does not always involve hypnotic regression the very conception of a repressed memory susceptible to recovery  originated as part of the lore of "hypnosis". Although Freud dismissed "hypnosis" that was only after his use of hypnotism had engaged his thinking on the topic of memory and the emergent concept of repression.  The idea of "hypnosis" is therefore the main underpinning of any approach to "recovered memory" whether or not it uses hypnotism, which it often does.

The danger of imagined events being "recalled" as being real depends almost entirely upon belief in the reality of "hypnosis" and its supposed capacity for "regression". It is such that the UK Home Office long ago forbid its use in any police investigation in the UK. This would not, however, prevent someone launching a criminal investigation against the alleged perpetrator of a crime on the strength of supposed memories "recovered" in "therapy". Moreover, if we leave criminal cases to one side, even without such accusations arising, many thousands have had their lives irreparably altered by either their own or family members  belief in recovered memory, beliefs dependent upon the principle core belief in "hypnosis".

The grip of such belief and the extent of the harm it can do is graphically illustrated in the case of Paul Ingram. Ingram's daughter attended a quasi-cult "therapy" group where a "therapist" "regressed" her and "recovered" "memories" of  an incident in which he supposedly murdered a friend.  The friend could not be identified. There were no missing person reports, no murder reported or alleged. When the spot where the supposed victim was supposed to have been buried was dug up no body was found. Ingram himself remembered nothing about such a friend let alone murdering her. By any rational account, the entire episode was a figment of the imagination of his daughter, lead to it by a "therapist" and who believed it because she believed in "hypnosis". Moreover, such was Ingram's own belief in "hypnosis" that, after a time, he confessed to the crime which had not been. He stated that, if his daughter had remembered it through hypnotic regression, then it must be real and that he surely could not recall it only because he had repressed the memory himself! Such thinking was the result of belief in "the power of hypnosis".

Richard Ofshe was professor of Sociology at the  University of California at Berkeley and is an expert on hypnotism, interrogation, manipulation and false recovered memory. Ofshe interviewed Ingram whilst he was in jail awaiting trial.  He set up a covert experiment in which he tested Ingram's belief. He told him that his daughter had recovered  through "hypnosis" another detailed memory of a separate incident. Ofshe completely fabricated this allegation, but being in jail Ingram was not able to discover this. Ingram denied any recollection of the incident. However, such was Ingram's belief in "hypnosis" that he said, if his daughter had recovered the memory through hypnotic regression then "it must be true" and that he must have repressed his own recollection of the event! By the time  Ofshe interviewed him again at a later date, Ingram had created his own false memory of the non-existent incident. Such is the power not of "hypnosis" but belief in "hypnosis". A belief encouraged by  Andrew Newton and any other hypnotist who does not warn their audience of the illusory nature of the phenomenon.

Paul Ingram was convicted solely upon the basis of his confession to a crime which never occurred (it could not be established that the supposed victim had ever existed), which he did not recall and only made because he believed that what his daughter said under "hypnosis" must be true! It is not hypnotism wielded by hypnotists that is hazardous but the belief in "hypnosis" circulating among the populace and which such "mainstream" hypnotists as Andrew Newton, as much as any "cowboy" has reinforced and promoted.

Paul Ingram was convicted before I became a hypnotist (he was later paroled but retains a  nominal conviction for the murder of someone who presumably never existed). However, I have since very early in my performing career insisted on promoting the understanding that there actually is no such thing as "hypnosis". Anyone who does otherwise, however, is contributing directly to the promotion of ideas that are doing real harm to a great many people, wrecking families and even resulting in criminal accusations and confession to non-occurrent murders!  Mr Newton denounces various "therapies" and the concept of ADHD, but the harm hypnotists do when they continue to bandy about the notion of "hypnosis" trumps such things hands down. Ingrams' case is exceptionally graphic in exposing the dangerous power of belief in "hypnosis" but at a lower level there are many thousands of cases. Throughout the Eighties legions of people had their lives negatively affected by claims of Satanic abuse which a few "therapists" had been inspired to seek out in the wake of Rosemary's Baby (yes, a work of fiction, a fantasy). Although hypnotic regression was not universally used it formed part of the approach and belief in "hypnosis" and "regression" are the fundamental underpinning of  "recovered memory" . Ultimately, no actual evidence of any such satanic abuse cults was ever discovered. But not before very many had had their lives irreparably wrecked. In the UK  for example there was the Orkney case which saw many of the children from a small, isolated community taken into care.

Stage hypnotists cannot of course be blamed directly for a social phenomenon. However, it is cultural, depends upon belief, of which a belief in "hypnosis" is a key element and for which belief the demonstration of hypnotism by "hypnosis" mongering hypnotists-without-caveat is a major contribution. Belief in "hypnosis" would not exist were it not for stage hypnotists.

I do not believe in increased regulation of anything. It is a manifestation of a society-wide Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, with such legislative projects promoted by well-intentioned idiots as making it a criminal offence for parents to smoke in a car with a child in it, dictating what  they feed their children, seeking to ban E-cigarettes, making thrice weekly attendance at a gym' a compulsory requirement for a taxi operators license and requiring the registration of smokers to obtain a permit to purchase tobacco products. I invented one of those items but can you tell which?  Such is the cuckoo land culture the British now "live" in.  The world anticipated in Anthony Burgess's satirical novella "1985". Mr Newton elsewhere rants against such a society yet seems in his speech to want to contribute to this mass neurosis. I would like to see it rolled back, principally through the non-enforcement of such pernicious laws as dictate that a licensed victualer cannot permit anyone to smoke in what is their own home. Such asinine laws exist throughput Europe but are broadly unenforced, apart from in the UK, where regulation is everything.

So I would not propose any new regulation of anything. However, if increasing regulation is to continue then in fairness there are many regulations I would propose. I would contend that once this regulatory obsession gets out of control, as Obsessive Compulsive symptoms do if unchallenged, then almost everyone would ban or regulate various things others do. The banning mentality would have toy guns,  model airplanes and other "war-toys" banned along with the entire-industry of violent computer games and Hip Hop music. If I proposed  banning mass-"jogging" on the public footpath I bet a great many would support such a ban. People who have colds should be banned from public places. Banning the music of Harrison Birtwhistle might be a good idea too as his heinous compositions may trigger suicidal thinking in vulnerable listeners. In fact, it's claimed that the song "Gloomy Monday" has triggered many suicides including that of the man who composed it. So I guess we should ban that as well. I am quite certain that there is no person who does not do something that certain others would ban and may already be the target of groups lobbying to have banned. Angling for example. Once we start with the regulatory obsession where does it end?

In relation to stage hypnotism, in all seriousness, given the dreadful effects of persisting belief in "hypnosis" I would argue that if a new range of regulatory requirements are to be imposed upon hypnotists then the requirement to state that no evidence exists for most of what is claimed for "hypnosis" should be one such requirement. That all hypnotists should be required to admit this, including Andrew Newton. I wonder if he would be happy to do that? I do all the time.

Three: Newton & Casson, Fellow Spirits?

Casson famously said that stage hypnotists volunteers were being "corrupted and depraved on stage". Andrew Newton hasn't gone quite that far ...yet. But I fear I see the same traits emerging. In this final section I will finally address the core issues here. 

In order to do this, it would be instructive to first look at the level of reasoning on display in Newton's  "hazards" speech.  Because on closer examination some of what he says, in his Sunday Best prose for his "respectable" audience actually reveals gross illogicality, lack of insight or reflection and muddy thinking of the most tabloid variety.

Lets start with the definition of a "performance" and Newton's proposed eradication of the distinction between private and public. This is essentially a core project of the regulatory culture across all topics.  On current trends we will eventually have CCTV installed in all newly built private homes. I do not mean that as a joke. In UK law not only the police but local authorities ("jobsworths") are already permitted to covertly install concealed surveillance systems in private homes for the investigation of such trivial matters as whether the homeowner uses their refuse bin in the prescribed manner and, no,  I am not making this up. Why not have CCTV installed during construction with only the activation requiring a magistrates approval? This seems to me eminently logical and absolutely "do-able". However, lets return to stage hypnotism.

If three people gather in someone's house for a drink and a fourth arrives who  is a hypnotist and starts demonstrating procedures, does that  constitute a performance to be subject to regulation? I have performed at a very exclusive gathering at which over three thousand guests were present and believe me, Mr Newton would not have been allowed through the door, even to perform, via the tradesman's entrance (leastways, not without a blindfold). Whether this was private or public is ambiguous. Eradicating the distinction might seem to get around that but it doesn't: it merely redefines the ambiguity as being over whether something is hypnotic activity in private and not a performance as such and when it is a performance, private or otherwise. Where exactly between three and three thousand does a private gathering become a regulated event, thirteen, twenty three, thirty, three hundred?  The idea is entirely consistent with the kind of thing that Mr Newton himself rails against elsewhere in his best tabloid style rants.

But then, if we are concerned to regulate both private as well as public deployment  of hypnotism, why bother trying to clarify a distinction between performances and academic demonstrations Newton advocates, instead of just requiring regulation of those as well? No orthodox medical training contains anything about hypnotism, so it's at the very least perverse to suppose that holders of such credentials should be exempt from regulation of its demonstration whilst those who have made it their career are not.

Then again, far from there being any pattern of stage hypnotists presenting shows as "scientific" demonstrations or lectures, there are very few documented cases. The main one being Andrew Newton himself, who on his web-site boasts that "these student lectures are always a sell out" illustrating the point with images of his presentation of, by any description a stage hypnotist act, but in a lecture hall. In fact, Newton must be one of the few stage hypnotists to do this, which he accuses unnamed others of doing.  Most of the known cases of such presentation of stage hypnotism under a pseudo-academic guise as "lectures" were by academics and medics themselves. Foremost among them being J.M.Charcot whose "lectures" at the Saltpetrier hospital became a freak-show renowned across Europe and to which it almost seems everyone who could, strove to see for themselves, notably Charles Dickens. These "lectures" were conducted, moreover, using a handful of stooges who lived on Charcot's dime at the hospital and who,  "for a few sous", would repeat their performances for visitors long after the neurologists death.

Another blatant example is that of Milton Erickson, the psychiatrist whose status as a hypnotist was built almost entirely upon  "lecture" "demonstrations" at  not just academic institutions but hired venues across the USA and Mexico. Erickson denounced stage hypnotism entirely and would have binned Newton,  Casson and every other self-regarding "respectable" stage hypnotist into the trash along with those that such "elite" hypnotists like to look down upon. Yet he published detailed accounts of his stage performances, including one which, allegedly, unintentionally resulted in a participant leaving the stage and disappearing completely from her family, friends and community. She reappeared years later at another of his shows and revealed that she had gone straight from the previous performance to join the navy, abandoning her old life and identity completely. This was a story (which I do not believe for a moment to have occurred in the manner in which it was presented) told by a guy who had the effrontery to then assert that he was safe to entrust with the supposed powers of "hypnosis" but that those who admitted to being stage hypnotists were not.  The "biggest" hypnotist of all time, Erickson must have been an even bigger hypocrite.

This whole matter of exemption from regulation for the "right type of people" is yet another manifestation of issues of class that run through the entire topic of hypnotism in English culture like the fuzzy writing in that sea-side candy.

When it comes to the scale of any presentation, limiting it to a minimum size of venue, whilst conceived in respect of regulating the operators,  would impose a limitation on any private individual wishing to engage a hypnotist. Whilst Oswald The Etonian with five hundred guests at his swish stag party full of drunken yahoos might be permitted a hypnotist, John and Joe Electrical Contactors limited with a staff of thirty might be forbidden from having one at their annual tee-total staff dinner. Clearly this cuts to the topic common to all these considerations, the relative affluence of the multiple communities to which such regulatory regimes would apply. Ultimately, it yet again comes down to class.

This matter of scale is actually directly relevant to Mr Newton's only claim to authority to speak on the topic of hypnotism at all. His experience as a hypnotist. Such a minimum scale regulation would of course suit Mr Newton's large scale coterie grandly. However, it would also, as the statistical distributions I discussed earlier demonstrate, also limit stage hypnotism to demonstrations by those who may well be great variety performers but who have the least understanding, insight or depth. The very paradigm of (ostensively) well-intentioned regulations resulting in the opposite outcome to that intended.

The Bottom Lineage.

I still respect Mr Newton, not in spite of this litany of his intellectual weaknesses but because of them (trying as I am to adopt the viewpoint of something he maligns, a Christian) . Also because he performed  percussion with the Halle orchestra. Presumably that's one way to access the world of large , high profile venues with vast audiences, the management and promotion of events at such a market point. I wouldn't know, its another plane of existence to the one I inhabit only overheard distantly via  Radio 3. Yet I can salute his success on that rarefied plane of existence. So why is he so keen to defecate on the rest of us? Which leads directly to the heart of the matter.

Throughout this topic we find the issue of English class sensibilities in the sub-text. It is the ultimate instantiation of the Faucauldian circulation of power that is entirely invisible to those who promulgate it to whom it seems merely "right". Or is that "Right". Power,  embedded in the cultural nuances of class, is what the empowered fish does not notice that it is swimming in. Class is the elephant in the room in just about every discussion about stage hypnotism there has ever been in those septic Isles. It is the proverbial "bottom line"  underpinning the outlook, sensitivities and opinions of both Casson and Newton. Both men came from modest backgrounds, attained great material success in their own right then in later years began to exhibit a need to suck up to the establishment, the supposed "betters" to the milieu from which they came.

According to Newton, Casson was paranoiacally obsessed with "doctors" and we can see for ourselves how he sought to ingratiate himself to them by attacking his own people. Now we see Newton starting to do the same. It is exactly like the classic Monty Python sketch in which John Cleese says "I am upper class, I am better than him" indicating Ronnie Barker who says "I am middle class, I am not as good as him [Cleese] but I am better than him" indicating Ronnie Corbet, who adds "I know my place". Only here we have the Master Hypnotist (Casson or Newton, take your pick) in the middle saying "I want to respect myself by the standards of him (Upper Class Cleese) therefore I have to demonstrate that I am better than him" (Lower class Corbett).  Therefore Casson sought to create and demonise a  supposed cohort of "cowboy" hypnotists to dump on with all his pathetic social anxieties. I fear that this is what Newton is now starting to do. Like Casson he had the privilege of openings in the theatrical world denied the rest of us Ensa and Stoll Moss for Casson, the Halle Orchestra and big time theatre for Newton. No doubt being a member of the Halle orchestra (which, as a veteran Radio 3 listener I will say I respect at least as much as his subsequent career as a hypnotist) no doubt furnished him the entry he needed into theatres, promoters and artiste management. He's amassed his success. Now he wants to improve his self-image by shitting on the rest of us. And we (anyone not in his uber-hypnotist coterie) are by default counted among the dumped upon and are supposed to accept "our place".

But, hey, guess what, I'm NOT Ronnie Corbett or any character he might play. Yes I do listen to Radio 3, with a sack of salt. There's something beyond a "modest background", that's actual poverty and that's where I came from, and those of us from that under-class, well most of them have lead lives that taught them to have zero respect for their supposed "betters". I came from a family of ten who lived in four rented rooms and relied upon furniture made from scraps of wood retrieved by the father from his job as a school repair man. As Andrew Newton likes to say "I'm not making this up". Many of my favourite toys were lumps of wood. "I'm not making this up". I have an enduring fascination with hardware. I also have a deformed rib cage because my mother forced me to wear vests until they became too tight to remove unaided, because she couldn't afford to buy new. We ate out of recycled food cartons. "I'm not making this up". Sounds like a joke but it wasn't, I can assure you.

All of those children were later successful in ways that illustrate English society, class and this topic. The eldest went to Cambridge and became a professor at a top-league Mid-Western university. His earliest books on his topic are now standard texts in every university teaching it, globally.  His motto was "don't judge humanity by the English". He was also a completely and utterly egregious human being. This taught me not to equate the academic performance or success of an individual with their supposed quality as a person, their humanity or competence in human affairs. Though I grudgingly came to accept his view of the English. Two became policemen (figures of the establishment) and this gave me a direct window into corruption in English society. The English pretend that only Johnny Foreigner is corrupt but the truth is that that British society is so profoundly twisted that corruption occurs throughout, hidden in plain view. Two entered construction, of whom one, leaving school at fourteen, became unimaginably successful heading a billion-dollar budget (literally) on the strength of being a hard worker and more importantly a bullying arsehole. The other of these two had his job invented for him by his brother. These two illustrated for me how people succeed or how they don't, regardless of merit. Moreover how success is no indication of worth as a person. Oh and by the way, Mr Newton, they too emigrated to four continents including one among them who also went as you did to enjoy the advantages of then Apartheid South Africa.

Newton feels the need to state on his online CV that he went to grammar school and even tells us where it was. How sad. How middle-class, how desperately Ronnie Barker ("I am not as good as him [public school] but I'm better than him [comprehensive]" ). Well I wouldn't mention this anywhere else. But I also went to grammar school. A vastly superior one to his up North, whatever it was now. "My" grammar school in the South was  founded by royal edict in mediaeval times and operated continuously for five hundred years. It had and continues (now as a private school) to churn out members of the social-climbing class, which I witnessed with my own eyes as a friend from middle-school within weeks transformed into an arrogant asinine snob of the first order. This schools alumni numbered multitudes of colonial governors, generals, explorers, authors, hymnists and missionaries plus me and my brother, the academic mega-star. It was part of the rectal passage of the English middle-classes which we oiks got into by defiantly passing the entrance paper.

All of this family were people who the likes of Peter Casson would out of their desperate need to suck up to their "betters" make a display of stereotyping and denouncing as the  "scum"   of British society. A pattern which I fear I see Newton now falling into. It is a desperately Tajfelesque pattern in which an essentially weak person seeks to quell his sense of imagined inadequacies by identifying with a model group via the stereotyping, scapegoating and persecution of those not members of that elite. It is fundamentally shitty behaviour and the lowest common denominator of Middle Class conduct and the English. It is so very English. Tajfel who pioneered the study of this behaviour had survived the NAZIs but it was upon the behaviour of the English that he based his work. 

Strangely, you might think Newton would be alert to such things, because he's written about it under the heading "Group Behaviour: The Yobs". Yet, whilst regurgitating relevant material gleaned from elsewhere (referring a lot to Eric Fromm) he seems incapable of recognising that he exhibits exactly the same processes in his own attitudes expressed in the very same article. In fact, that article IS the very embodiment of the thing he pretends to deride, in others. Just like the people he denounces for doing so, Newton conceives himself the member of a superior group and defines it in contradistinction to an "out-group".  stereotyping them with the, to be frank, utterly disgusting epithet "Council Estate Man". When I read that I stopped. It was like walking into a lamp-post. Oh how very English. How utterly vile. How disgusting is that verbal excretion. How could anyone seeking to ingratiate himself through a prance of faux erudition in spite of such wheening propensities be so dumb as to display bigotry openly. Self regard is not the same as self scrutiny. Those who lack the capacity for the latter are also incapable of conceiving how their gestures will be perceived by others.

I suspect that Newton doesn't care whether what he says in his "dangers" blather sustains scrutiny, makes sense or even makes him look foolish (breathalyser tests for stage performers indeed). Its an exercise in sucking up to the people he wants to respect him, exactly like the members of a gang that he described in his "Yobs" piece. The self-delineating "in-group" that he seeks  to identify with are those who he perceives as the elite of hypnotism. I have written at length about the British Society of Medical and Dental Hypnosis and their one-time head, buffoon, idiot and ignoramus David Waxman. A man who believed you really could fire a pistol beside a persons ear without them reacting or suffering permanent hearing damage (as in fact they would) ...through the supposed "power of hypnosis".

I don't respect such people. I reserve for them an especial contempt. The medical profession as a whole is unworthy of respect, their crimes cost millions in reparations. They arrogate to themselves the special status of "science" whereas, as Clark Hull showed, they are generally bereft of any insight into what constitutes scientific reasoning. But for Newton it is clearly part of his emerging life project to brown-nose them with what he thinks they'll want to hear and pat him on the head for prancing. Its about having been at the meeting and speaking to them. His closing of the speech with the comment that he will be personally circulating copies of it for those present is a desperate footnote to an exercise in pathetic ingratiation.

None of this can be divorced from the broader picture, like his posing for photographs with his arm thrust around an embarrassed looking Philip Zimbardo or snap-shots from his pilots window as he demonstrates his high-flying lifestyle or a snatched-shot of standing nearby the Duchess of York on a stage somewhere. The things Andrew Newton posts on his web-site. I mourned Richard Gregory on his passing, I didn't think as some others might have, of posing for photographs with him in his office! 

If sucking up requires some guy dancing in go-go boots and a mini-skirt (Alan Partridge) or even...what a thought...going to church one Sunday, so be it! Such is the subordination of the bourgeois-climbing (arse creeping) English to the deeply embedded unconscious programming of class.

It is the level at which the latter day performer has begun to "morph" into his maligned predecessor. It is almost uncanny to see it, so clear to the impartial observer, happening before our very eyes to a man who we might have least expected it of, who himself might least expect it, doesn't suspect it and clearly isn't aware of it.

Andrew Newton struck me as a nice guy, but perhaps I was wrong, his perceptions seem generally to reflect the rich heritage of two short planks informed by The Daily Mail. But I kind of respect him nonetheless, as a former member of the Halle orchestra.  Newton strikes me as dangerous...exactly the kind of character who would strike me, literally,  if he could get close enough to try it.  The kind of guy  you dont try to reason with in a bar. Please...Mr Newton, take a step back, review your attitudes, take a few thousand deep breaths,  some diazepam, have a rest, retire, stick to South Africa and stay out of things you patently know nothing about. Such as present day Britain, apart from anything else. Try to attain some insight into your own behaviour before denouncing unnamed (probably imaginary) others, based on one show you saw in a pub somewhere three decades ago, shitting all over the rest of us in the process: hypnotist know thyself. Avoid going down in history like the Titanic as the heir to Peter Cassons mantle as a ....

Footnote: I have downloaded the articles from Andrew Newtons web-site and made screen-shots of their appearance there, so there'll be no denying the ludicrous, ignorant and facile rants he's written on various topics later.

I haven't even bothered discussing his peurile opinions on religion.