My World: I put a spell on you, now you’re mine...

Ok, maybe hypnosis isn’t quite in the same bracket as the other dark arts listed above, but for me it has always had a tinge of the unnatural.

Last night, Andrew Mosley and I went to see Andrew Newton, a comedy hypnotist at the Rotherham Civic Theatre.

As a natural sceptic towards these sorts of things, the show threw up a lot of questions in terms of the actual act.

In some parts of the show I found myself totally believing that Newton had his subjects under his control, and at other times I just couldn’t believe.

But imagine for a moment that hypnosis is real, and anyone can learn the skills needed to get someone under their spell.

The opportunity for comedy and danger rolled into one is something I’m not sure I can handle.

I could go home and hypnotise my partner, friends and family to do all sorts of things; I could get them to go to Meadowhall to buy their own Christmas presents, and they wouldn’t even know about it!

Or every time football was on the TV, I could hypnotise my partner so I could have full control over the remote control, the possibilities are endless!

I could hypnotise my family into getting me everything I want for Christmas – that would make it truly magical.

But as these thoughts swirl around my head, my sceptical side quashes any chances and brings me back down to earth with a bang.

If hypnosis was real, then surely everyone would be doing it to everyone? Surely every political speech would begin with the words ‘One, two, three, and you’re under...’ and every job interview would result in getting hired.

I could make an attempt to get up and try and learn how it is done, I could maybe research a little deeper into the history of it and where it has come from.

Or I could just continue to be sceptical and brush it to the side along with voodoo dolls and magic potions.

I suppose you could say I walked out of the theatre hypnotised about hypnosis...