Is Stage Hypnosis Fake? Debunking Common Myths

If It’s All Fake, Why Does It Work So Well?

You’ve seen it happen. A volunteer on stage suddenly forgets their own name. Another can’t lift their feet off the floor, no matter how hard they try. The audience is laughing, amazed, and maybe just a little skeptical.

And that’s when someone says it:
“It’s not real. They’re just pretending.”

Stage hypnosis has been misunderstood for decades, often dismissed as performance, peer pressure, or elaborate social compliance. But when you strip away the skepticism and actually understand the principles at play, one thing becomes unmistakably clear: Stage hypnosis is real hypnosis.

And the only people claiming it’s fake are usually the ones who don’t understand how it works.

Let’s set the record straight.

“Stage hypnosis is just people going along with it.”

This is the knee-jerk reaction of people who haven’t studied how suggestion and response work. What they’re describing—people responding to simple instructions and escalating from there—is not evidence of fakery. It’s actually textbook heteroaction.

Coined by André Weitzenhoffer in the 1950s, heteroaction describes a central mechanism of hypnosis: When a person responds to one suggestion, they become more likely to respond to the next. The brain builds momentum through a chain of compliance, regardless of whether the suggestions seem related.

That’s not manipulation—it’s how hypnotic trance deepens.

In stage shows, hypnotists start with small, testable instructions. “Close your eyes.” “Imagine your hands sticking together.” These build responsiveness quickly. What looks like someone “going along with it” is actually the hypnotic process in action.

“They’re just picking the most obedient people.”

Of course stage hypnotists choose responsive volunteers. That’s not deception—it’s good practice.

In the Mike Mandel Hypnosis Academy, we teach students to work with the best subjects first. On stage, it means starting with a large group and narrowing it down, often using suggestibility tests. This process is often called “salting the stage.”

Why? Because stage hypnosis is designed to entertain. It needs fast, visual results. That requires subjects who respond rapidly to suggestions.

Selection doesn’t disprove hypnosis—it enhances it. It ensures the best hypnotic subjects are the ones getting the spotlight. And guess what? That’s exactly how hypnotists in clinical settings approach their work, too. They just don’t have a spotlight and 200 people watching.

“They're just trained to follow instructions.”

Some critics claim stage hypnosis relies on “conditioning,” implying it’s more like behavioral training than real hypnosis. They’ll say, “If you tell someone to do something small, they’ll keep going along with it.”

Exactly.

That’s how yes sets and compliance sets work. If you say “You’re sitting down... you’re breathing... your feet are on the floor,” and the subject agrees with each one, you’re stacking momentum toward greater suggestibility.

This isn’t manipulation—it’s structure. And it’s used everywhere: in therapy, in sales, in advertising, and yes, in stage hypnosis. The principle is the same; only the purpose changes.

In fact, teaching people to follow small instructions before offering a bigger one is one of the most respectful ways to hypnotize someone. You’re guiding, not forcing. And when the mind is ready, it steps in with both feet.

“They’re in front of an audience. No one can be hypnotized like that.”

This is where we step firmly into nonsense.

Hypnotic trance doesn’t care where you are. If the structure of hypnosis is in place: rapport, intention, and suggestion—then trance will follow.

On stage, subjects frequently exhibit clear external trance indicators:

• Facial flushing
• Eyelid fluttering
• Slack facial muscles
• Catalepsy
• Instant response to post-hypnotic suggestions

None of these are the signs of someone pretending. They’re physiological responses, observable in both therapy offices and auditoriums.

In fact, the audience's energy often helps deepen trance. Laughter, applause, and the sense that “everyone is watching” reinforces the subject’s focus and compliance. Many subjects go deeper into trance in a stage setting because the environment heightens their internal experience.

As Clark Hull of Yale University famously said in 1933:
“Anything that assumes trance causes trance.” 

When a subject begins behaving in a hypnotic way—whether it’s forgetfulness, rigidity, or hallucination—that behavior confirms the trance.

“They’re just acting. It’s not real.”

This might be the most dismissive—and the most incorrect—of all the claims.

Sometimes, people on stage under hypnosis don't even remember the show. They walk off the stage and, in many cases, experience post-hypnotic amnesia so strong that they genuinely believe they were never hypnotized—until they enter a triggering context.

There are documented cases (including from Mike Mandel’s own shows) where the memory only returns when the subject enters a restroom—a pre-installed trigger. The look of shock, confusion, and facial flushing when memory returns is unmistakable.

Actors can’t fake unconscious recall returning under a specific cue.
Pretending doesn’t produce spontaneous catalepsy.
Volunteers don’t "snap out of it" when no one's watching.

This is real trance. The stage doesn’t invalidate it—it just adds lighting and laughter.

To watch one of Mike's best stage hypnosis performances, click here.

Same Principles, Different Contexts

Whether someone is seeking deep therapeutic change or just a jaw-dropping experience on stage, the principles of hypnosis do not change.

What changes is how those principles are applied:

• In therapy, the suggestions aim for healing.
• In coaching, they aim for performance.
• On stage, they aim for fun.

But the trance? The unconscious processing? The internal experience of focused absorption?That’s the same everywhere.

To call stage hypnosis “fake” is not just misleading—it’s a complete misunderstanding of what hypnosis actually is.

To really understand the rules of stage hypnosis and how to apply them, click here.