Mike Lamp

Background articles on the history, origins, and foundational ideas behind hypnosis, trance work, and related disciplines 📜

Arthur Ellen Hypnotist Lived in Two Worlds at Once and Was Taken Seriously in Both There is a story from 1949 that tells you almost everything you need to know about Arthur Ellen. A professional boxer named Harry Haft was minutes away from climbing into the ring to fight Rocky Marciano when three men entered […]

Began His Life in the Last Place Anyone Would Expect There is a certain kind of life that defies the place it started in. Martin St James was born Joseph Stanley Overell Simmonds in the remote goldfields of Western Australia, as far from a theater stage as it is possible to get on a continent […]

Hypnosis Myths and Legends Have Been Around Longer Than You Think If you grew up watching old movies or reading thriller novels, you already have a picture of what a hypnotist is. A mysterious figure with piercing eyes, a swinging watch, and the ability to make anyone do anything. That picture is wrong in almost […]

Joan Brandon Hypnotist: The Woman Nobody in Hypnosis Talks About Anymore There is a particular kind of invisibility that falls on people who were genuinely ahead of their time. Not the invisibility of failure or mediocrity but the invisibility of having done something so far outside what anyone expected that the record keepers of the […]

The Enigmatic Career of Peter Reveen: A Master of Stage Hypnosis In the world of performance arts where the boundaries of the mind are tested and teased, Peter Reveen emerged as a figure of considerable intrigue during the latter half of the 20th century. As a stage hypnotist who combined illusion with audience interaction, Peter […]