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3 students die after principal hypnotizes them

Gord_in_Toronto

Penultimate Amazing
Gord_in_Toronto
Joined
Jul 22, 2006
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I'm not quite sure what to make of this but it does make me doubt the claim that "You cannot be forced to do anything you don't really want to under hypnosis".

3 students die after principal hypnotizes them; board pays families

A Florida school board has paid a total of $600,000 to three families whose children died after being hypnotized by their high school principal.

George Kenney stepped down as principal of North Port High School after Wesley McKinley, 16, Marcus Freeman, 16, and Brittany Palumbo, 17, all died shortly after hypnotic sessions in 2011.
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http://www.torontosun.com/2015/10/0...principal-hypnotizes-them-board-pays-families

:boggled:
 
Back up story:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ised-students-avoids-jail-time-plea-deal.html

Seems they were hypnotized days to months before suicides. And how would we know that a student self hynotized before dying?

I would suspect that he was "treating" troubled students, and his treatment didn't help. They might as well have used the drugs that don't work either. Heard the ads? "side effects- suicide..."

So no, I don't think they did foolish things that they would not have done except under hypnosis. Unless they were clucking like chickens as the car crashed?
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
I'm not quite sure what to make of this but it does make me doubt the claim that "You cannot be forced to do anything you don't really want to under hypnosis".



http://www.torontosun.com/2015/10/0...principal-hypnotizes-them-board-pays-families

:boggled:
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Not me. I don't buy hypnosis very much as it is (this should be well-known by now); however, it says the principal was mostly about relieving "stress and concentration problems". I highly doubt he gave the two suicidal kids hypnotic orders or suggestions to kill themselves regardless of the efficacy of such suggestions. The third student died after "performing a hypnosis technique on himself" and driving either during or shortly afterwards (it's not specified).

I'm frankly pleased that the school principal was forced to resign for pandering his new age baloney to staff and students; I would be willing to entertain a causal link between his teaching some "concentration technique" to a teenager, and that kid trying to use it and ending up in a car wreck as a result. And I am willing to entertain the idea of the principal being partially culpable in that case for that reason. As for the suicides, I see neither a causal link nor culpability, nor can I support the year of probation he was apparently sentenced to for "practicing hypnosis without a license"; I think that gives the "techniques" he pushed more credit than they deserve.
 
casebro said:
....
Seems they were hypnotized days to months before suicides. And how would we know that a student self hynotized before dying?

I would suspect that he was "treating" troubled students, and his treatment didn't help. They might as well have used the drugs that don't work either. Heard the ads? "side effects- suicide..."

So no, I don't think they did foolish things that they would not have done except under hypnosis. Unless they were clucking like chickens as the car crashed?
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This ^ and I rarely agree with casebro.

If he was treating them when they needed professional help and he didn't refer them, if he hypnotized them without parental consent, tuff luck he got blamed.

But it's a shame about the suicides.


Hypnosis is real, I don't understand the people who think the people are faking it. I've seen it first hand and no way was my friend faking it when my brother hypnotized her and told her she was on the ceiling looking down and she started screaming and kicking her legs.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
You weren't there and no there wasn't. My friend was not smart enough to have come up with that.

But you can continue to believe BS about hypnotism, like a climate change denier.
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You wouldn't accept an anecdote as evidence, right? Well...
 
"Lie on the bed and I'll pretend to hypnotize you and tell you you're lying on the ceiling looking down, so cry and scream and kick like you're scared. Shhhhh shush here she comes!"
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
This ^ and I rarely agree with casebro.

If he was treating them when they needed professional help and he didn't refer them, if he hypnotized them without parental consent, tuff luck he got blamed.

But it's a shame about the suicides.


Hypnosis is real, I don't understand the people who think the people are faking it. I've seen it first hand and no way was my friend faking it when my brother hypnotized her and told her she was on the ceiling looking down and she started screaming and kicking her legs.
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Does your brother still have this skill?
Could your brother hypnotize you to the point that you sincerely believed you were on the ceiling?
Could you brother hypnotize you into performing a simple task and then forgetting about the task to the point you would be surprised and amazed if you saw a video of yourself performing the task?
 
Varanid said:
You wouldn't accept an anecdote as evidence, right? Well...
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Not expecting anyone to. You can look for the research if you want.

But I was there, I'm a valid observer, and Scrut doesn't have any evidence my observation was faulty.

So his claim had no supporting evidence, whereas mine was based on a valid observation.
 
Ladewig said:
Does your brother still have this skill?
Could your brother hypnotize you to the point that you sincerely believed you were on the ceiling?
Could you brother hypnotize you into performing a simple task and then forgetting about the task to the point you would be surprised and amazed if you saw a video of yourself performing the task?
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My brother was 15, he and his friend went to a hypnotist show. About 80% of the people called up on the stage went under, a couple didn't. And one person in the audience in the front row did. My brother's friend was one of the guys on stage that went under. He swore he wasn't faking it. Why would he fake it? For what reason?

When they came back my brother read a bit more how to do it. It was fairly simple, you just talk to the person in a monotone voice telling them to imagine floating on a cloud. He was able to hypnotize his friend again.

And once again, what would a 15 yr old gain from pretending he was hypnotized? He told the friend an onion was an apple and the guy ate it like it was an apple. Then got mad later because he said he burped onion all that night.

So my brother tried me and my friend. I am not the kind of person than can relax like that so I wasn't surprised it didn't work on me. Besides, he was my brother. But Teri went right under. First he told her silly things like everyone in the room was naked, or she was and they weren't. She mostly giggled. But when he tried the ceiling image she became hysterical.

Again why would anyone fake that? What would be the point? And you have to remember this was a 13 yr old girl and she was not interested in my brother or his friend (she was cute, they weren't). It was not a circumstance that fostered faking it. And there's just no way anyone would think to pretend to be hysterical, especially considering imagining everyone was naked only made you giggle.

No one expected her to become hysterical. He woke her up right away, we were all concerned with the reaction. She was fine afterward. She didn't recall being on the ceiling, I think because he woke her up right away after it happened while saying she was back on the ground.

If you'd been there, you would never question the validity of the hypnotic state. I find it bizarre there are hypnosis skeptics.

The fad didn't last very long. After the onion and ceiling hysteria, he only did it a few more times that I know of and everyone lost interest.
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
Not expecting anyone to. You can look for the research if you want.

But I was there, I'm a valid observer, and Scrut doesn't have any evidence my observation was faulty.

So his claim had no supporting evidence, whereas mine was based on a valid observation.
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On a skeptics forum no less.

:dl:
 
[off topic, briefly, no need to make a thread of it]

Hypnosis found to alter the brain: Subjects see color where none exists
That result wouldn't be so surprising at a carnival or stage show, but it comes from a tightly controlled scientific experiment done at a Harvard University medical facility.

Researchers separately hypnotized eight people as they lay in a scanning machine that recorded activity in their brains. These subjects then tried to drain bright color from pictures, or see color where none existed. They also attempted to do the same thing when not hypnotized. The records of cerebral activity clearly show that hypnosis can change the state of the brain.
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Brain states and hypnosis research
Research in cognitive neuroscience now considers the state of the brain prior to the task an important aspect of performance. Hypnosis seems to alter the brain state in a way which allows external input to dominate over internal goals. We examine how normal development may illuminate the hypnotic state.
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Mind you this has nothing to do with the claims one can recover lost memories under hypnosis. That claim has been discredited.

I rest my case. [/off topic post]


Edited to add, you're only making yourself look foolish, Scrut, the evidence supports my observation.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Not expecting anyone to. You can look for the research if you want.

But I was there, I'm a valid observer, and Scrut doesn't have any evidence my observation was faulty.

So his claim had no supporting evidence, whereas mine was based on a valid observation.
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Says every big foot witness, every UFO abducted, every psychic client ever

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
 
beren said:
Says every big foot witness, every UFO abducted, every psychic client ever

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
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Not exactly comparable. There is clinical measurable evidence hypnosis changes the state of consciousness. There is no corroborating evidence that Big Foot or ET visitors exist.


You guys are really sticking your foot in you mouths here, the evidence supporting the hypnotic state is well established now that various brain observation tools are available. You are probably conflating the fact recovered memories have been discredited with the mistaken belief hypnosis has been discredited.

It hasn't been. Just the opposite, the hypnotic state has been well documented with neurological studies of the brain. The changes are measurable, consistent from person to person, and repeatable.

Before you make even more foolish posts, you really should look at the science.
 
I've spent some quality time in zazen, self-hypnosis, guided meditations, "right brain" drawing exercises, religious meditations, mental self-reprogramming and altered mental states of various internal and external origin.

On the basis of that experience set:
1) I'm not willing to throw out the categorical notion of Hypnosis as totally bunk, other than the Hollywood version. That is crap.

2) I'm intensely skeptical of a direct cause and effect relationship between the act of hypnosis and the result of death in these 3 students.

Not enough information.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
My brother was 15, he and his friend went to a hypnotist show. About 80% of the people called up on the stage went under, a couple didn't. And one person in the audience in the front row did. My brother's friend was one of the guys on stage that went under. He swore he wasn't faking it. Why would he fake it? For what reason?

When they came back my brother read a bit more how to do it. It was fairly simple, you just talk to the person in a monotone voice telling them to imagine floating on a cloud. He was able to hypnotize his friend again.

And once again, what would a 15 yr old gain from pretending he was hypnotized? He told the friend an onion was an apple and the guy ate it like it was an apple. Then got mad later because he said he burped onion all that night.

So my brother tried me and my friend. I am not the kind of person than can relax like that so I wasn't surprised it didn't work on me. Besides, he was my brother. But Teri went right under. First he told her silly things like everyone in the room was naked, or she was and they weren't. She mostly giggled. But when he tried the ceiling image she became hysterical.

Again why would anyone fake that? What would be the point? And you have to remember this was a 13 yr old girl and she was not interested in my brother or his friend (she was cute, they weren't). It was not a circumstance that fostered faking it. And there's just no way anyone would think to pretend to be hysterical, especially considering imagining everyone was naked only made you giggle.

No one expected her to become hysterical. He woke her up right away, we were all concerned with the reaction. She was fine afterward. She didn't recall being on the ceiling, I think because he woke her up right away after it happened while saying she was back on the ground.

If you'd been there, you would never question the validity of the hypnotic state. I find it bizarre there are hypnosis skeptics.

The fad didn't last very long. After the onion and ceiling hysteria, he only did it a few more times that I know of and everyone lost interest.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your answer.

May I ask you for a more thorough description of what you mean when you say "it is real"?
 
Once the various entities willing to do scientific studies of hypnosis can agree on a consistent, specific definition of what a "hypnosis state" is, and what is not a "hypnosis state", and then agree on a standardized procedure for both inducing hypnosis and objectively determining whether a patient is properly in that state or not, I'll start considering hypnosis studies useful. Until then, it may as well be a dozen different people studying a dozen different but similar-appearing things, and calling it all proof of the same thing.
 
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