Photo courtesy Colin Chapman
On the stage of the historic Hippodrome Theater in Jackson Ward, stage hypnotist and clinical hypnotherapist Colin Chapman promises to place volunteers into a state and that entertainment will ensue, though he says, “This is not your daddy’s ‘bark like a chicken’ show.
“Hypnosis at the Hippodrome,” Chapman deadpans. “It’s a natural fit.”
We asked him about his introduction to hypnosis and what to expect at his show.
Richmond magazine: When did you make your connection to hypnosis?
Colin Chapman: I got into it completely by accident. I was in sales, and 12 years ago a mentor told me about neural linguistic programming. It’s hypnotic suggestion without the formal introduction to trance. I got on the version of Amazon that existed 12 years ago, and got every book, read cover to cover. Couldn’t YouTube at the time, so I got hypnosis videos. At coffee shops, parties, I’d hypnotize people for laughs and to blow people’s minds. Then I started messing with self-hypnosis to break free of my two-pack-a-day smoking habit. And it worked. I received further training and got certified. I have been doing hypnosis on the therapeutic side.
RM: How did this progress, though, into performance?
Chapman: I’d been thinking about this for a while but kept kicking the can down the road — until last April when a lady blew through a stoplight. I suffered a traumatic brain injury. I couldn’t even remember my own name. The prognosis was scary, but inside five months I received a clean bill of health. One of the great things to come out of this otherwise sucky experience was that I couldn’t afford to put off moving hypnosis onto a stage.
RM: But some people think that hypnosis for an audience is, well, fake.
Chapman: First off, if a stage hypnotist is paying off a bunch of stooges, he’s not making any money. Then you have what Hollywood did: The film “Get Out” is a horror story that uses hypnosis instead of a Texas chainsaw. Truth is, to be hypnotized is to experience a change. I can only hypnotize people who want to be hypnotized. I can only give suggestions that they want to accept that’ll make them feel comfortable and happy. Some of it feeds into the selfie culture; you come up onstage and you get some outrageous suggestion from this hypnotist dude and people are going to be paying attention to you. Some people you’d never expect will come running up to be first in line.
See “Hypnosis Is Amazing” with Colin Chapman, March 13 at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. at the Hippodrome Theater. $25 to $35. hippodromerichmond.com
