MovieChat Forums > Holy Man (1998) Discussion > He's a bad hypnotist

He's a bad hypnotist


Jeff Goldblum's character is trying to get the actors to not mention 'balls' so much, but instead, talk about 'laundry solution' or whatever it was.

However, all you remember of what he says a few minutes afterwards, is 'balls, balls, balls, balls, balls' .. not sure how many times he says it, but he's basically conditioning everyone's sub-conscious to say EXACTLY th word 'balls' with such repetition!

He should be repeating 'laundry solution, laundry solution, laundry solution' and so on - would be better to name it something more catchy, though.

The basic rules of hypnosis and sub-consciousness are:

1) Simplicity, directness
2) Repetition
3) 'No' doesn't exist

In so many movies, some or many of these rules are not understood, and blatantly broken. Look at 'Rocky IV', where the cringy character always says "No pain".

That's basically two negative things - the 'no' makes you feel bad, because it's a 'rejection word', and the sub-consciousness doesn't hear that word as a meaning (only feeling), so all your sub-consciousness really hears is PAIN.

So, the 'no' makes you feel bad, then you install the word 'pain' into you.

That's SO stupid and against all the rules of hypnosis.

It would be better to ACKNOWLEDGE the pain instead of trying to deny it (which only makes it stronger and focuses your attention to it), and then transform it to something else, OR giving you courage to withstand it or the wisdom to make it into something meaningful. You can also circumvent it and lessen it..

..but why even think in terms of PAIN, when you could focus on OTHER things completely, like 'becoming stronger' (this IS the Rocky theme, after all!) or muscles growing or .. there has to be 800 possibilities.

Instead, he says "no pain", and in addition to all I mentioned, this adds a BURDEN to try to somehow 'not feel pain'. So every time you DO feel pain, you feel FAILURE! You feel like you failed, you might also feel a panic because you don't know HOW to 'not feel pain' and so on.

This is the WORST mantra EVERRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!

I mean, from the perspective of hypnosis, but from so many other perspectives as well. Whoever wrote THAT into the script is an utter moron and a complete idiot and I would fking slap them if I could.

reply