Mass hypnosis via Facebook

Image via CrunchBase

You’ve heard the argument a million times: media like television and the Internet are the new opiate of the masses, making us all zombies, and victim to the whims of our electronic inventions.

With that in mind…

From the Independent:

A modern hypnotist is planning to put a world record number of people in a trance tonight using the internet.

Chris Hughes has signed up more than 6,000 people for the stunt being run through social networking sites Facebook and Twitter.[...]

“Social media is all about bringing people together, so it is a perfect way to help educate the world about hypnosis. Now I’m getting one to two registrations a minute, it has gone absolutely mad.” [...]

The event, called SocialTrance, which coincides with World Hypnotism Day, will begin at 8.30pm and is expected to make it into the Guinness World Records book. [...]

The session will feature an audio webcast, with Mr Hughes conducting the half-hour social trance live.

“Within a minute of starting the session, those listening will be gradually taken into a relaxing level of hypnosis and it should be very enjoyable.

Yeah, so now that’s happening. Hughes has also advised his audience to find a comfortable place to sit, undisturbed (as opposed to the way people are usually sitting while staring for hours at their computer screen) while he performs the hypnosis.

So, how far down the vortex are we when someone decides to use the Internet as a tool for mass hypnosis and it’s presented without any apparent irony? Probably pretty far. After all, here I am talking about it on a blog.