Hypnotist entices Rider students with powerful trances

By Stacie Hueter

EXPECTANT, nervous smiles lined the faces of curious students who came to see mystifying hypnotist, Keith Karkut, on Oct. 10 at 7 p.m. in the Bart Luedeke Center’s Cavalla Room.

Karkut urged willing students in the audience to volunteer to be hypnotized and experience mind-bending trances. Nine raised their hands and were quickly seated in front of the audience in one of the nine chairs placed alongside one another. 

First, Karkut utilized relaxation techniques such as deep breathing and progressive muscle relaxation, which involves briefly tensing up the body before loosening its muscles, in order to get their            guards down. 

Next, Karkut asked the group to close their eyes and imagine vivid imagery of humorous movie scenes, using funny voices that influenced them to laugh along. He repeated this process with the intent to scare them, replacing his own laughter with a chilling rasp and ominous vocals.

Through the subjects’ susceptibility and the hypnotist’s influence, Karkut triggered in them reactions like phantosmia, or smelling hallucinations, and deceived them into believing they were someone else. Some volunteers even forgot how to answer basic facts, such as basic addition problems, their majors, or with some, their own names. 

The effects left an impression on the perplexed audience members, such as freshman sports media major, Isabel Kotscho. She stated that her personal highlight was the students’ imitations of famous music artists such as Katy Perry and Bruno Mars. “It was very funny because they were dancing and coming to the audience. It was crazy,” she said. 

However, the student reactions within their trances generated roaring laughs of disbelief from the   peering audience.

Karkut stated that he was particularly excited to return to Rider since it was his father’s alma mater in the 1960s.

Karkut’s interest in the entertainment industry was fostered by seeing another hypnotist. “I asked him some questions and he was very pompous … ‘Don’t mess with [Hypnotism],’” the hypnotist told Karkut. Curiosity overtook the young college student prompting him to experiment with its capabilities.

“I was a communications major, and I studied every book possible in hypnosis,” said Karkut. For beginner hypnotists, he recommends the book. “Hypnosis for the Seriously Curious,” by Kenneth S. Bowers. 

Karkut’s college resident assistant was the first bewitched by his hypnotism; in a similar manner to which he used that night. Karkut performed a hypnotic induction, or a trance-like state that facilitates therapeutic methods, which left him in a daze. 

Karkut’s first hypnosis inspired him to follow his new passion and the experience eventually sparked a lucrative, at least 30-year career in hypnosis across 48 U.S. states and hundreds of colleges. “It’s a cool career,” Karkut said with a smile. 

One participant, Xander Ebert, a freshman graphic design major, illustrated his initial expectations.

 “I was going in it with the relative expectation that it would probably work … a lot of it is essentially believing that you can get affected,” Ebert said.

Ebert described the mesmerizing impacts of Karkut’s techniques afterward. 

“When I counted up to 10, I wouldn’t remember the number two … my mouth just blurts out three,”   he recounted. 

Ebert also called the hypnosis experience “bizarre,” yet, “very funny, at least.” 

Karkut inspired future hypnotists by highlighting that they could easily learn the craft. “But in this day and age you can figure out a lot just by watching and learning online … I’m self taught and that’s  my career.”