‘R-Rated’ Hypnotist Entrances Students

For about an hour Friday night, Undergraduate Council President Matthew W. Mahan ’05 was not himself—he was a stripper, a man who reached orgasm through handshakes and a Britney Spears back-up dancer.

Aided by soothing colored lights and calming melodies, the self-billed “R-rated” hypnotist Frank Santos put Mahan and around a dozen others under a trance before a packed crowd of about 350 at the council-sponsored “Harvard Unhinged” in Lowell Lecture Hall.

“I was aware of what I was doing,” Mahan said. “For most people hypnosis is not falling into some sort of trance and being controlled by the hypnotist.  It’s more like you are freed from inhibition and more open to suggestions. It’s analogous to alcohol.”

For a few minutes, Mahan “forgot” his own name. After Santos suggested that the hypnotized would be unable to remember their last names, Mahan identified himself as “Matt Blickstead,” adopting the last name of council Vice President Michael R. Blickstead ’05.

“It was more about acting than being controlled by someone,” said Mahan. “At one point, I thought to myself, ‘I could get up and walk off this stage, but this is kind of fun.’”

But Dane J. Skillrud ’06, another hypnotized contestant, said he remembers nothing at all. When informed afterwards by friends that he squirmed in his chair uncomfortably after Santos suggested that he had “itchy balls,” Skillrud could only respond, “Is that what people are talking about?”

Amid cheers from the crowd, Skillrud performed *Nsync’s “Bye, Bye, Bye,” believing himself to be Justin Timberlake. Along with other students, he was reduced to moans and making faces after being told that handshakes produce “supercool orgasms.”

Amalia W. della Paolera ’07, who performed as Britney Spears and who was led to believe her breasts were growing larger as she sat on the stage, said she would not consider herself hypnotized under the usual definition.

“I was conscious of it all. I just felt that I was blindly doing what he told me to do,” said della Paolera. “But I do insane things on my own.”

Santos suggested to the hypnotized group that the audience was naked, that the cameraman was playing with himself and even that aliens were outside the lecture hall having “wild sex.”

After being led to believe that he needed to use the bathroom but that upon unzipping he would find his penis missing, Vasco S. Bilbao-Bastida ’06 returned on stage exclaiming, “It wasn’t there.”

“It felt like a force was pulling me to do things that I might otherwise not do so quickly,” said Bilbao-Bastida afterwards. “I roughly remember almost everything; some things are clearer than others.”

Mahan, who along with the other male students shed his shirt while moonlighting as a stripper, called the event a success.

“I thought it was a really entertaining and carefree event,” Mahan said. “I am happy to embarrass myself a little if it does something to improve social life on campus.”

—Staff writer Robin M. Peguero can be reached at peguero@fas.harvard.edu.