If you have read any of my “Travels of an American Mystic”  you will know about my talent for hypnosis.  I have been doing it since I was 10 years old and this is the story of my first experience.

I got the idea from an episode of Twilight Zone where the hypnotist used a swinging pocket watch to induce a trance.  The next morning I pocketed my fathers pocket watch and sought my first subject in 5th grade study hall.

I pulled out the watch and turned to my unsuspecting friend, Paul Donello.

"Paul," I whispered, "look at this watch.

As the gold glint grabbed his eye I started it swinging and his eyeballs soon were keeping pace.

"Watch the watch ... your eyes are getting sleepy," I kept repeating in a whisper.  "Watch the watch...   your eyes are getting sleepy ... soon you will be asleep... 

It only took about a minute and his eyelids began to flutter.  Soon they closed on his dancing eyeballs, his head drooping and swaying hit the desk with a thunderous thud.

"You are deep asleep and you will not wake up until I count l..2 ... 3 wake up!" I whispered forcefully.

Everyone started laughing as I stared in amazement.  It worked! It actually worked easily. (I found out much later that one out of ten people are highly suggestible; and Paul was one of them.) The laughing brought Sister Burna Joseph's eagle beak up out of her book, grasping her well-worn ruler with an ancient reflex.  Her beady eyes soon spotted the absence of Paul Donello's head and she was down the aisle in a flash of movement.

"Mr.  Donello," she bellowed, smacking the ruler on his desk.  "Mr.  Donello! No sleeping in class!"

The roar of laughter increased as Paul continued to sleep undisturbed.  So deeply that a pool of drool was gathering next to his flattened cheek.

"Mr.  Donello!"

Nothing.  Not a stir.  He just slept on and it was beginning to worry me.  So I cupped my hand over my mouth and in my best ventriloquist voice I said,"One, two, three, Paul! One, two, three, wake up!"

His head shot up, eyes glassy and wide open, everyone in the class falling out of their desks in laugh convulsions.

Sister B.J. pounced.  "Mr.Donello, you are creating a disturbance.  No sleeping.  Now hold out your hands!"

At these words Paul snapped awake and said, "My hands? What for? I wasn't sleeping!" Pointing his flnger at me he exclaimed, "He hypnotized me! He told me to watch his watch!"
 
 
 

Well, you know who had to hold their hands out for the "measurement" now.  I thought it worth the payment for the new talent I had learned.  My only problem was how to tell my father who now had his pocketwatch.