{"id":4626,"date":"2017-02-17T09:49:17","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T14:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=4626"},"modified":"2025-08-23T16:47:44","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T20:47:44","slug":"hypnotist-mesmerizes-crowd-at-umpi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2017\/02\/17\/hypnotist-mesmerizes-crowd-at-umpi\/","title":{"rendered":"Hypnotist Mesmerizes Crowd at UMPI"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Imagine becoming convinced that you\u2019re a member of the cast of \u201cHigh School Musical\u201d or a drill sergeant in the Army. Perhaps you might even be persuaded into thinking that your hand is a talking person. This is exactly what happened to some UMPI students on Tuesday, Jan. 24, inside the Wieden auditorium. That\u2019s when hypnotist Paul Ramsey took the stage with his one-of-a-kind show, Mind Games.<\/p>\n

Ramsey persuaded Christian Mumley, a freshman at UMPI, that he was having a baby. Ramsey persuaded other volunteers into helping deliver the miracle child. \u201cI was just waiting for the word \u2018delivery\u2019 and then I was just having a kid,\u201d Mumley said.<\/p>\n

Ramsey began the show by involving the entire crowd in meditation-like practices. Not all minds can easily fall under the spell of hypnosis. \u201cYou have to have a genuine openness to it,\u201d Ramsey said.<\/p>\n

Shortly into the show, he invited some members of the crowd on stage. Nine brave students climbed the stairs to the stage to await their fate.<\/p>\n

The volunteers took seats on stage and Ramsey persuaded them into a state of relaxation. With the volunteers slumped forward in their seats in a deeply relaxed state, he gave them specific instructions on what they were to do.\u00a0 This came from responses he received from the audience using remote controls and polling software. He uses well-known pop culture and other popular themes in his show. \u201cI\u2019ve tailored it for what you\u2019ve grown up with,\u201d Ramsey said.<\/p>\n

At one point, Ramsey gave Ben White, freshman, instruction to believe that he was a drill sergeant. As Ramsey awakened the volunteers from their relaxed state and began to speak, White jumped from his seat and demanded that Ramsey drop and give him 20 push-ups. The crowd roared with laughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember yelling at him,\u201d White said, chuckling.<\/p>\n

For an hour and a half, Ramsey entertained the crowd.\u00a0 He often caused unstoppable laughter among audience members as he persuaded the volunteers to do things such as play air guitar with their tongues or to think they were attending a Lady Gaga performance.<\/p>\n

According to Mumley and White, being under hypnosis was very relaxing but also very confusing. \u201cYou\u2019re conscious and you know you have to do stuff. It makes it sound fake, but when you\u2019re there, you know you have to do this now but you don\u2019t really know why,\u201d Mumley said.<\/p>\n

Ramsey\u2019s show Mind Games debuted back in 2011, but he has been a board-certified hypnotist since 2004.\u00a0 He is also a certified instructor with the National Guild of Hypnotists. He has a Master of Education degree and is a past teacher.<\/p>\n

Mind Games is the first interactive hypnotism show ever developed. It\u2019s promoted as interactive because the audience gets to decide the direction of the show by remote controls and polling software. It allows those who don\u2019t want to go on stage to still experience the hypnosis experience.<\/p>\n

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Imagine becoming convinced that you\u2019re a member of the cast of \u201cHigh School Musical\u201d or a drill sergeant in the Army. Perhaps you might even be persuaded into thinking that your hand is a talking person. This is exactly what happened to some UMPI students on Tuesday, Jan. 24, inside the Wieden auditorium. That\u2019s when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":242,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/242"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4626"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8898,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4626\/revisions\/8898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}