Stage hypnotist Chris Cady promotes his show as "controlled, positive, safe" entertainment. But in what could be a mesmerizing case, a volunteer at one of Cady's performances is claiming his experience of being hypnotized caused him severe psychological injury.

Louis Johnson had to be subdued by police and hospitalized after Cady allegedly failed to bring him out of the hypnotic state during a performance for seniors at a northern California high school in May 2006.

There is no precedent in the U.S. for a successful claim of psychological injury against a stage hypnotist. According to Cady's Web site, “It is impossible for anyone to get stuck in hypnosis, lose control or be made to do something against their morals ... No one has ever been injured physically or mentally in one of my shows.”

Johnson, then a senior at Hercules High School, volunteered with several other students to be hypnotized by Cady. But he and his mother allege in a negligence suit filed earlier this month that toward the end of the performance,

while still in a hypnotic trance, [he] proceeded to run out of the building, jump two flights of stairs and continued running through the campus in an incoherent state.

Six police officers were required to handcuff him and strap him onto a gurney for the ride to the hospital, where a psychiatrist “'reversed' the effects of the hypnosis and brought Louis Johnson out of the hypnotic state.”

The complaint names Cady, Clowns of the U.S. -- which referred him to the school –- and the West Contra Costa Unified School District as defendants. “As a result of each of the defendants' actions, [Johnson] suffered extreme physical and emotional injury,” it says.

In Britain, activists campaigned to ban stage hypnosis, arguing it is too powerful a tool to be used for entertainment purposes. William Kroger, a renowned hypnotherapist, has warned that stage hypnosis can cause adverse psychological reactions in some subjects.

But Johnson will have to show that a stage hypnotist owes a duty of care to protect a volunteer who offers to undergo hypnotism from psychological injury.

In 2001, a British judge awarded £6,500 in damages to a woman who claimed a stage hypnotist reawakened memories of childhood sexual abuse by persuading her she was eight years old. “I went to that stage show as a normal, happy, healthy, energetic woman and came out a zombie,” she testified in the landmark case.

The hypnotist, the judge concluded in Howarth v. Green, “failed to ensure that his instructions were sufficiently clear for his volunteers not to indulge in [the] known danger of age regression.”

Johnson's attorney believes Cady should be liable for failing to disclose the risks of stage hypnosis. "You can't have an individual make an informed decision [about volunteering] if they don't know the risks," David Hermelin (Hermelin Law Firm, Martinez, Calif.) tells On Point.

Since Cady describes his show on his Website as "one of the safest types of programs you could ever have," it would not be surprising if he made no disclosure of risk.

Hermelin also argues that a higher degree of care is required at hypnosis shows involving underage volunteers. The complaint does not detail what instructions Cady gave Johnson, but Hermelin says the hypnotist may have videotaped his performance.

Johnson has graduated from Hercules High but, according to the suit, "still suffers the adverse effects from being hypnotized at the Senior Breakfast.”

By Matthew Heller
5/29/07