In Yekaterinburg, the cashiers, instead of exchanging 100 rubles for a man, unquestioningly gave him 25 thousand. They explain their act by the fact that at the moment they were under hypnosis. Victims often sin on the mental impact of intruders, mysteriously forcing them to voluntarily give up what they have acquired by back-breaking labor. The iz.ru portal found out from a hypnotist, psychologist and psychiatrist what hypnosis is, how gypsies "work" and whether it is possible to protect themselves from such tricks of criminals.
Lost 300 thousand
In Yekaterinburg, cashiers gave an unknown 25 thousand rubles after a hypnosis session. In any case, the victims say so. The local department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs spoke about the incident in a regular store on Tuesday, May 8. According to store employees, the business developed as follows. An unknown person approached the cashiers and asked them to change the 100-ruble bill. A conversation ensued between them, after which the sellers - without realizing their actions, if you believe their words - voluntarily gave the visitor about 25 thousand rubles. They came to their senses for 10 minutes, after which they turned to the police.
In February, an employee of a store in the Rostov region complained of the theft using hypnosis. At the same time, in Veliky Novgorod, a trial in a similar case ended: a local woman who robbed an employee of a jewelry store "with the use of mental influence" received two years in prison. The victim claimed that hypnosis was the culprit: the attacker first invited her to tell fortunes, performed a “good luck conspiracy” ceremony on a coin, after which the saleswoman was distracted - then the theft occurred.
The alleged cases of the use of hypnosis regularly appear in crime reports. In April 2018, a sales assistant at one of the Moscow shopping centers stated that she was tricked into giving up 28 thousand rubles. The woman, introducing herself as a participant in the TV show "Battle of Psychics", told the cashier that damage was imposed on that one, because of which her loved ones were in trouble. The saleswoman got scared and, in addition to the money, gave the malefactor jewelry, presumably for 250 thousand rubles, so that she would consecrate them in the church. The woman did not remember the appearance of the deceiver, a source in the police told the iz.ru portal.
In January, an even more mysterious statement was received by the internal affairs bodies. A resident of Moscow claimed that during the walk she decided to go to a restaurant and drink tea. At the holiday in the institution, according to her, illusionists worked. The woman is sure that they put her into deep psychotropic hypnosis, she fell into a "state of prostration", after which she could not remember how she ended up at a night party in the same restaurant. She told the police about this because in the end she was left without a wallet with a travel card.
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And then everything is like a fog
According to a hypnotherapist, a specialist at the Center for Psychological Assistance. A. Adler Anastasia Kondaurova, in a professional environment hypnosis is divided into two types: circus and the one that is used in psychotherapy.
- When we put a person into a trance for therapeutic purposes, he does not lose, for example, the ability to speak. He just goes into an altered state of consciousness - this is what is called an everyday trance. We all go through this state many times during the day, the expert explained in an interview with the iz.ru portal. An ordinary trance, in fact, has nothing to do with hypnosis, but is associated with a change in the biorhythms of the brain and some internal processes that a person is busy with at that moment.
It is very easy to enter this state, says Anastasia Kondaurova.
- For example, the interlocutor comes to meet you and holds out his hand. And when you come close to him and stretch out your hand in response, he suddenly walks past you and begins to scratch his head. At this moment, due to the mismatch of the two realities - the one that has already formed within you, and the one that appeared after his actions - you fall into this trance, such a state of inner confusion, she gives an example. - You are numb, because the brain is knocked out of its usual rhythm, it needs to orient itself and generally understand what it was.
It is into this state that fraudsters, including Roma, who are most often listed as suspects in such crimes, introduce people. They confuse a person, put him in a kind of pre-trance state, and then, with the help of illegible phrases, leading questions, they support this state of internal confusion.
“They don’t give you time and space to get out of there, they begin to strengthen it, strengthen and strengthen it, and confusion inside you at this time is growing,” says Kondaurova.
Gypsies do not hypnosis, but put pressure on an emotionally depressed state, says Anton Matyukhin, a hypnotist and host of the Street Hypnosis program on Channel Five. According to him, their tricks have nothing to do with the technology of hypnosis itself.
“Gypsies choose people who are already permanently in this state,” Matyukhin said in an interview with the iz.ru portal.
Turn on aggression
You can protect yourself from the tricks of criminal "hypnotists", says the source of the portal. People with developed critical consciousness, who know how to filter and question any information they receive, do not succumb to such psychological pressure. It is necessary to educate these skills from childhood, he is convinced.
- In no case should such conversations be allowed with the child: "Can I eat candy?" - "You can't!" - "Why?" - "Because I said so". It is necessary to explain why, from childhood, to accustom to critical consciousness.
Matyukhin shared some practical advice with the iz.ru portal.
- A gypsy came up - immediately you need to switch to aggression mode. This is the best way. She came up, grabbed her hand - nothing will happen if you send her, - he shares. - That's enough - she will instantly step aside.
Fraudsters using such psychological techniques are more likely to target people who are more likely to enter a state of “everyday confusion,” says a specialist at the Center for Psychological Assistance. A. Adler Anastasia Kondaurova. Increases susceptibility to such tricks is the stereotypical fear of the same gypsies, embedded at the unconscious level.
- The main recipe is not to be afraid, - the psychologist advises. - Anyway, some part of the consciousness realizes that something is wrong. And if so, it is best to just physically get out of this situation - to leave the room, for example.
The brain will begin to function normally after the environment changes.
Anton Matyukhin admits: everything sounds very simple, but in reality everything is somewhat different. This is evidenced by the number of letters from people who succumb to the tricks of scammers.
- A man recently wrote to me that he gave 8 million rubles for fortune-tellers last year, - says the interlocutor of the portal. As it turned out, a man in the 1990s, on the advice of a fortune-teller who “pointed her finger at the sky”, successfully invested money.
- And he was in such an emotional state that later he began to connect these events. - The main problem, according to the hypnotist, is precisely the lack of the ability of people to question what is happening around.
Themselves to blame
Hypnosis is still the subject of heated debate among scientists. In Soviet times, it was used in medicine much more actively than it is now. Today, it is used in very rare cases, for example, in the treatment of hysterical monoparalysis, Yuri Savenko, candidate of medical sciences, president of the Independent Psychiatric Association of Russia, told the iz.ru portal. This remains a controversial topic not only in Russia, but throughout the world. In early May, French professor Daniel Bontu stood up for hypnosis, claiming that he remained an underestimated therapeutic agent.
As for the issue of committing crimes under hypnosis, then experts have dotted the i.
“The idea that it is possible to commit a crime with the help of hypnosis was extremely relevant at the beginning of the 20th century and was thoroughly studied,” says Yuri Savenko. - Since then there has been a stable position: with the help of hypnosis, you can commit only that crime to which there are no obstacles, obstacles in the personality of the one who commits it.
If this is a person of a different breed, it is impossible to break him, the psychiatrist emphasizes.
According to him, hypnosis is "the merit not so much of the hypnotist, but of the hypnotized." All people are hypnotizable - in other words, they tend to succumb to this state, only to varying degrees. And this always goes hand in hand with self-hypnosis, the level of which also varies from person to person. Each specific case, including a criminal one, must be analyzed separately, the specialist emphasizes. However, regarding the case of hypnosis of cashiers in Yekaterinburg, he is almost sure - "most likely, this is speculation."
Ekaterina Korinenko