Esoteric Robbery

Perhaps this would make a better section on the blog entitled "In the News," but I am not so sure this story involving hypnosis truly would deserve such a label.

Apparently this week in Marlborough, New Hampshire (this would have been more fun if it had been Marlborough, Massachusetts) there was a robbery involving hypnosis. So, if you were anything like me, upon hearing the subject of the story, you might have said to yourself something that would involve the notion that "well, you can only be hypnotized if you want to be," blah, blah, blah.

Read on. I found a fairly in depth article about it from a local New Hampshire station. Click here to read it and see the surveillance footage. Turns out the robbers did some handy, dandy little magic tricks and a bit of blackmail, along with a dab of hypnosis to convince the owner of the convince store to hand over $1000. They had told the owner that they were guruji, a form of Hindu priests and could read his mind. With what sounds like a fairly normal parlor trick (I had a waiter show me this on a cruise once) and probably some NLP knowledge, they were able to convince the owner that they were mind readers. It is not clear in the video what was actually said (bummer), so it is hard to tell. I guess they gave enough suggestions and NPL to convince the the owner he wanted to give them the $1000.

Any thoughts?