Celebrities in Trance: Charlotte Hatherley, Ash

Charlotte Hatherley was until very recently the lead guitarrist of British Rock Band Ash. In 2003, Ash taped a special documentary for England's Channel Four called "Ash:Love and Destruction" where the band members where subjected to several esoteric tests and trials. In one of them, Charlotte was hypnotised and regressed to a past live. According to an article on BBC's site, the full story goes:

Charlotte from Ash hypnotised
Charlotte from Ash has been telling us how bizarre it was being hypnotised for the band's spooky new documentary.

It's definitely not your usual band TV doc - the Irish band are kidnapped by a group of obsessed fans and taken to a secure location, where they have to confront their innermost secrets and desires in a journey into their dark side.

You get to find out quite a bit about each member, plus you'll see Mark exorcising demons, Rick getting crucified by dominatrixes and Tim spending time in a flotation tank.

Charlotte gets hypnotised and goes back to a past life of someone born in 1902, at home with her husband and son.

She says it was very weird seeing a film of herself being hypnotised:

"Yeah I didn't like it actually… it was kinda strange seeing yourself completely hypnotised. Anything could have happened. Being laid bare to an audience full of strangers, talking about quite personal things…"

A research through several Ash fansites hasn't produced much information about the documentary; but in one of them we've found this not-terribly -interesting screenshot os Charlotte's hypnotic session.



If you have any more information about "Ash:Love and Destruction", lovely Miss Hatherley's hypnosis experience, or even a copy of the thing, we'd love to have a look at it. Just tell us.

Vintage Hypnotism | Celebrities in Trance: HIldegarde Kneff

Hypnosis with style rule #1:There can no be more glamourous and sensual hypnotic subjects than golden age Hollywood Stars.
Hildegarde Kneff was a german actress that had a long career in the film industry, both in Germany and in the USA. She starred in "Svengali", one of several film adaptations of George de Maurer's classic novel about hypnotism "Trilby". In this video, taken once again from the Pathe Archives (sorry for annoying copyright notice on screen), Hildergarde is hypnotized by a psychologist that is helping her research for a role, presumably "Svengali"'s. The induction and film itself are good, not great; but the piece of film is a rarity. There's evidence of plenty of classic hollywood stars that were hypnotized in some ocassion, but very rarely on screen.

Beautiful Inductions | Vintage Hypnotism: Hypnotist in French Magic Festival in the 1960's

The Following video has no sound, and there is an annoying text in the middle of the screen all the time. However, it's worth every single second of it. It depicts a Hypnotist walking down the street and approaching a group of strangers that are sitting on an outdoor café. It's Paris; it's 1969. Without a single word, the hypnotist starts putting to sleep the surprised beautiful young ladies. Many of them seem to resist, of course unsuccesfully; see how their eyelids flutter and how hard they fight to keep them open. In the end, their bodies collapse in the chair, their arms hang loose. Beautiful.

I love this stuff that comes from a more innocent time where all clichés about hypnosis originated; when hypnosis was mysterious, and hypnotists seemed all powerful. The video comes from the British Pathe Online Archive, and it's identified only as a "magician meeting in Paris".

Enjoy.

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