Well, yes. At least the suggestions we did leave always worked. But then we'd just leave suggestions to stand up on a certain cue, walk into the next room, come back, say something stupid … things like that. While the subjects were still in a trance, we we were more interested in asking them questions then trying to make them do things. We didn't try any stage stunts like making their bodies stiff and placing them across chair backs. As I said, we really didn't want to hurt anyone and we did read the sections of the books where we were cautioned against certain things. We'd direct them to walk around and pick things up but, as I said, nothing strange or dangerous. To tell the truth, we were astonished that hypnotism actually worked and was real and that we could learn to do it. When we realized what could actually happen, it scared us a little. We were only curious adolescents.

Probably the most amazing thing, to us at the time, was the post-hypnotic suggestion that would cause the subject to suddenly reenter the trance state upon seeing a certain cue. That would work even days after the initial session.

It's now understood that aparant memories of past lives aren't really that at all and The Search for Bridie Murphy has been debunked but back then it was all fresh and seemed plausable. The book was serialized in the daily newspapers; it was best thing since UFOs. We would try to get subjects to recall very early experiences but we were afraid to try to probe back before birth.

      - Mark