Hypnotic Control - Reflections on the Nature of Staged Influence

John-Ivan Palmer


Career stage hypnotist John-Ivan Palmer takes us on this strange, behind-the-curtains look at hypnotism—how it works on the stage and also how hypnotic forces shape society at large. Topics include: mesmeric performance, cults, terrorism, school shootings, TV, the internet, Trumpism, and other true cases of bizarre influence. How it happens and why it works—it’s our world today.


A talented writer with unexpected gifts. A solo operator in a twilight world of mental enigmas

—Allison Campbell-Jensen, Continuum, University of Minnesota News


He makes art of degenerate show business and people pathologically seeking attention.

—Tom Bradley, Exquisite Corpse, Journal of Letters & Life


This is a book that resists simple answers. It doesn’t come with a redemptive arc or a final conclusion wrapped in a bow. But that’s part of its brilliance. Palmer’s not trying to hypnotize readers—he’s trying to wake them up to the ways they’re influenced every day, to the absurdity they accept as normal, to the strange masks they wear because someone told them to.

-Lily Andrews, Feathered Quill



ISBN 978-0-98293351-0       $15 US       Includes free shipping!

JOHN-IVAN PALMER has published fiction and non-fiction in literary journals in the US and several foreign countries. He has won the Pushcart Prize for fiction and been nominated for the National Book Award for non-fiction. His previous books are Motels of Burning Madness (“Very strong stuff” —Richard Kern, filmmaker, author of New York Girls) and Master of Deception (“What a story he tells!” —St. Paul Pioneer Press). He and his wife divide their time between Minneapolis and Choshi, Japan.


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