One of the most beloved and longstanding Walpole High School traditions has been the annual Hypnotist Show. Each year, about a dozen seniors volunteer to be hypnotized in front of the audience as entertainment for a night.  On December 1,  Student Council hosted the show by hypnotist Jim Spinnato. This year, twelve seniors — Dan King, Patrick Maloney, Hannah Doelling, Courtney Bradley, Katie Cavaca, Hope Kelley, Cailey Griffin, Joey Murphy, Bobby Gay, Russell Ollis, Tim Conley, and Marvin Jean Simon — volunteered to be brought up on stage to be hypnotized by Mr. Spinnato. Once Mr. Spinnato hypnotized the the volunteers, the audience spent the next two hours laughing at the expense of the Senior Class.

The show began with Spinnato testing each senior volunteer to see how well they could be hypnotized. Approximately half the senior class volunteered, but only about eighteen were actually picked to be hypnotized on stage. Out of those original eighteen picked, only twelve were affected by the hypnosis — a couple of seniors left the stage mid-show because they had not gone under when Mr. Spinnato started the show. Once all participants were successfull hypnotized, Mr. Spinnato told them that when they woke up, the other volunteers would smell completely irresistable to them, and they would only want to move closer.  All of a sudden, the audience erupted in laughter as Murphy, Conley, Ollis, and Jean-Simon were piled on top of each other, just trying to get a better scent of the other volunteers. After the audience had a good laugh, Spinnato put the contestants back under, only to have them wake up thinking the people around them had a horrible case of B.O. This command left many of the volunteers gagging, and Ollis and Murphy both getting angry at Jean-Simon for farting in public, even though the smell was in their heads.

The show kept going with Spinnato kept commanding the contestents to do even funnier acts for the audience.  Gay and Doelling were ordered to read their “favorite” book, a childhood story about Elmo, out loud in voices like Elmo’s and the Cookie Monster’s. Murphy was convinced that hypno-dust existed, and whoever he sprinkled it on would fall asleep. Griffin was instructed to be the “Laugh Police” for the evening, and she was to scold anyone who attempted to laugh during the show. Anytime she heard laughter from the audience, she would stand up and start yelling “Why are you laughing? It’s not allowed! I’m the Laugh Police! I even have a badge!” which caused the audience to erupt into more laughter, which in turn, made Griffin even angrier. She ended up accosting a police man watching over the event, saying “[her] badge is bigger and better than [his].” Griffin did not hold back in punishing the audience for laughing: near the end of her spiel, she pulled a metaphorical gun from her belt, and threatened to shoot anyone in the audience who dared to laugh. Even a visiting photographer, a complete stranger, was not safe from Griffin. After the photographer laughed while taking a few photos, the photographer was approached by Griffin, who shouted, “I don’t even know who you are, and I will kill you. I don’t even care.”

Following Griffin’s act as the laugh police, Spinnato had an audience member, Student Council President Christina Freiberger, hand out a stuffed animal to each hypnotized volunteer. Each participant gave their stuffed animal a name, and each participant offered something for the audience to laugh about. Cavaca named her chipmunk Bushy, Jean-Simon named his moose Jeffrey, and King named his miniature weeble, Weeble. After choosing and naming their imaginary stuffed animals, Mr. Spinnato instructed them to hold their animals high. Once the animals were up in the air, Spinnato told the volunteers their animals had pooped all over them, which brought out many disgusted reactions. The audience laughed as Conley cried about his zebra making a mess. Kelley was anxious to get her animal’s mess cleaned up, while King complained about something dripping down his arm and staining his shirt.

All participants were happy when Spinnato made the mess disappear, and even better, now their favorite celebrity crush was in the audience to see them. A couple of the volunteers even got to meet their dream celebrity: Conley was introduced to Taylor Swift; Jean-Simon, Beyonce; Kelley, Bradley Cooper; and Dan King, Jennifer Lopez.  To the audience, the volunteers were actually just introducing themselves to random audience members, but under hypnosis, they thought they were talking to their favorite celebrities. Conley saw a underclassmen boy in the visage of Taylor Swift, while Jean-Simon saw senior Kim Ciardello as Beyonce.

The last act of the night involved Spinnato ordering every hypnotized volunteer to react to different hit songs in different ways. The crowd cheered as Doelling performed her best disco moves to “Disco Inferno” by The Trammps, and as Kelley performed her best Jennifer Lopez moves to the artists’ new hit “Papi.” The best dance performance, however, was by Jean-Simon who was told to dance to Beyonce’s hit single “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It).” Jean-Simon incorporated hip-shaking moves and some of Beyonce’s original “Single Ladies” moves to get the audience cheering. By the end of the night, the entire audience was brought to tears with laughter from the crazy stunts pulled by the volunteers. As it was in the past, the hypnotist show was a huge hit with the student body, and it left the audience anxious for the show in upcoming years.

Hypnosis has been there for years and has helped people battle many problems. One of the best ways of improvement is to make self hypnosis mp3 by recording one’s own voice. This has been proven as a person is more likely to believe themselves than anyone else.