I was watching an episode of the series "Leverage". Its sort of a Mission:Impossible type of series, with the IMF being replaced by a group of every experienced criminals and led by a former insurance investigator. Its kind of fun, and the best parts are when their schemes have unintended and unexpected consequences that they have to adapt to.

Anyway, a scene in a recent episode showed the 'muscle' trying to hustle a professional con artist. He's being instructed (by radio) how to proceed by the team's 'face' who can't show up at this very fancy party because of her previous history with certain attendees. As part of the instructions, she tells him to use some techniques that are unquestionably NLP: for instance, anchoring the target's emotions through physical acts, in this case, sipping champagne whenever she smiles.

And that got me wondering: just how closely related is con artistry and hypnotism?

I admit there are basic differences, the most basic being that the con artist does not have the subject's interests in mind while the hypnotist should be quite the opposite. But their methods can be quite similar. After all, both, at their core, rely on convincing the subject of things they may ordinarily be wary or dubious of. (Try telling someone out of trance that they will not feel pain as you poke them with a needle and see how far they stay away from you!)

I will have to admit that I think this goes doubly for stage hypnotists. I will have to ask my stage hypnotist friend about this although I'm pretty sure his response will be "Of course!"