Earlier this week, I linked to a story from London about a shopkeeper who was supposedly robbed by a thief who hypnotized him temporarily. The story sounded bogus to me, so I asked Ben Radford (deputy editor of The Skeptical Inquirer and author of seven books) to take a look at it and share his thoughts on my KTRS show today. Ben explained why he, too, doesn’t think the shopkeeper was actually hypnotized and what probably did happen. We also talked about stage magicians who “hypnotize” audience volunteers, and the clinical use of hypnosis to stop smoking or lose weight.
Listen to our conversation here.