I was a Hypnosis Scam Artist

For every person that believes in the power of hypnosis there is another one that doesn't. This article won't tell you whether or not you should believe in hypnosis but what it will tell you is how I helped one man pull off the age old hypnosis scam.

When I was 15, I went to live with a man I had never known; a man notorious for violence, drugs, money laundering and thievery of every kind. He was the lowest form of human. This man was my biological father.

I had been living with him for almost a year when he decided to start his own Stop Smoking and Weight Loss Hypnosis seminars. I was elected to do all the hard work and the planning began.

The first thing on my father's agenda was to actually visit a seminar. He found an ad in the newspaper and off we went. We drove for two hours to Dallas Texas where I was given a micro-mini tape recorder to put in the inside pocket of my jean jacket. A microphone was taped to my arm inside the sleeve. My job was pure and simple; go in and record the session.

At the age of 16 I weighed 97 pounds standing at five foot seven inches high. I sat through a 4 hour hypnosis seminar with a room full of over weight, obese people desperately looking for a way to lose weight.

During the hypnosis phase I personally witnessed people falling asleep in their chairs, snoring and many of them mumbled. While they were sleeping the Hypnotist stood lingered around the front of the room and watched. After a few minutes he began rousing the audience by tapping them on the shoulder. As they gained consciousness he began talking them the rest of the way awake.

After I endured supposed hypnosis, I went to the Stop Smoking Hypnosis seminar. I was excited to see if this one worked because I was a heavy smoker.

The stop smoking seminar was an exact repeat of the Weight Loss seminar. At each break halfway through, I would go the ladies room to turn the tapes over. I did manage to get both seminars recorded. I even enjoyed my "last" cigarette outside, on the steps with the rest of the hopeful smokers.

Once we had an audio tape of the hypnosis seminar, I transcribed it onto paper and handed it over to my father to memorize.

Setting up a Hypnosis scam is easier than you think. I got my very first desktop publishing experience in all of this. I glued, taped, spliced and typed until I created a newspaper advertisement that looked as good as the one my father had found.

In order for the ad to be believable my father told me to include a few things like 10% of all proceeds will go to the American Cancer Society and mention of his P.H.D. in Hypnosis. People will believe it if it's in the newspaper.

If we were going to have people show up we had to have a way for them to call and reserve a special spot so a 1-800 number was set up in my bedroom. "Higdon and Clark Hypnosis Seminars. How can I help you?" I always answered, day or night, regardless of time.

Before we ran our ad I made a few phone calls and before you know it we had booked several hotel conference rooms to hold our seminars in.

The phone rang off the hook and we booked "special seats" at higher prices and then we worked on preparing our presentation. My father practiced reading the transcribed manuscript in a deadpan monotone voice until he was able to put my step-mother to sleep with tales of white rabbits falling into nasty dirty tar pits.

My step-mother smoked heavily until she died at the age of 46 from cancer. In fact after he put her to sleep, the first thing she would do is light one up.

My father is a master with words and a fantastic actor with the power of persuasion so he was a natural at this scam, unlike his previous contractor scam he had recently had to retire.

On the night of our first seminar we raked in almost $4,000. Read it again, Four Thousand Dollars. On just one seminar. We did a grand total of 5 seminars before it was laid to waste.

The next time you are wondering if something is a scam, you better look long and hard at it because its people like you, who refuse to believe their gut instinct that lose their money to people like my father.

Me, I was able to get away from him after having to participate in more than just a few of his schemes. It wasn't easy but that's a story for another time.