Retro Bio: The Intimate Casebook of a Hypnotist - Page 2
© Michelle Troutman
Ellen's first subject was a friend at school, whom he influenced to brag about his broad jumping prowess. The principal threatened expulsion if he did it again. Ellen pursued hypnotism as a career and eventually rose in the ranks, moving through the Catskills circuit, where he met many celebrities, including some he ended up treating.
At his first club gig, he walked on stage before empty seats. He saw a man at the bar and hypnotized him into telling others on the street about his act and the man returned with 15 people. Ellen wasn't sure he would be successful; just in case, he had an exit planned. It went so well, his original three-night performance was extended to ten.
While a stage hypnotist, he first used hypnosis to heal. A man at one of his shows asked if he could help his crippled teenage daughter. Years earlier, she had survived a brain tumor operation, and she revealed that she overheard a nurse after the operation saying she might not walk again. Ellen discovered she could move her limbs while hypnotized. The press reported the incident was a hoax. To set them straight, he guided her through her steps as a Pathe newsreel camera filmed.
Singer Pearl Bailey employed him to help one of her musicians kick a heroin habit. As a post-hypnotic suggestion, Ellen gave him a business card -- every time he would look at it, he would feel positive and secure, without the need to use drugs. Ellen lacked confidence in the cure; the man didn't think he had been hypnotized. A few years later, he met a piano player at a supper club whom he discovered was the man's brother. Since the session, as the brother related, the man had stayed sober. "We stood up to leave, and the pianist pulled me aside for a moment. 'He didn't kick it by himself,' he whispered. 'I know it, and you know it. Hey man, have you got another one of those crazy cards?"
Also on a lighter note, Ellen aided a woman who feared pain from a nose operation. He told her the operation would go so well she would start singing Yankee Doodle, which she did, much to her surprised doctor, who couldn't shut her up.
The book tends to stay stuck in the groove of problems and resolutions, but Ellen's ample successes fuel his adept defense of the
