At this convention, it’s mind over matter

You are getting sleepy ... sleepy. When I snap my fingers, you will open your eyes, read this article and find it utterly fascinating.

Braving rain-splattered roadways, two dozen hypnotists invaded Long Beach on Saturday as part of HypnotizeAmerica .com, a multi-city campaign billed as “the largest mass hypnosis event” in the world.

The nationwide series of free demonstrations and seminars was the brainchild of Wendi Friesen, a Sacramento hypnotist who has come under fire for claiming hypnosis can enlarge women’s breasts, sprout hair on bald heads, make people taller and combat cancer.

None of the hypnotists in Long Beach went quite that far, but they still made some astounding promises.

At a table decorated with Egyptian mummy bead jewelry and a whirling disc with blinking red lights, Ron Nodvik trumpeted the romantic benefits of hypnosis.

“I’ve had various girlfriends, and I’ve hypnotized them so that when I winked, they’d go into full-blown orgasms,” he confided. “It’s extremely useful.”

The ponytailed hypnotist also touted a trance state called hyperempiria: “Let’s say you’re married and your wife has a thing for Brad Pitt. She could go into hyperempiria and, for a weekend, she’d think you were Brad Pitt.”

Other hypnotists offered to turn visitors into Tiger Woods or Donald Trump. At a lecture on “golfnosis,” Doug Juola explained how hypnosis could improve a person’s golf game. And mesmerizer Richard Rumble, wearing a black shirt with a “Mister Hypnosis” logo, sold tapes on becoming a “money magnet” through hypnosis.

Elsewhere at the daylong expo, which took place in several conference rooms at a Holiday Inn, visitors could buy CDs with such titles as “Mind Over Menopause,” “Hypnobabies” (using hypnosis for painless childbirth) and “Tao of the Duck.”

Some attendees took a break at the “relaxation station,” a reclining chair where visitors could put on headphones, crawl under a pink blanket and listen to a soothing CD.

The overall scene was “a cross between [motivational guru] Tony Robbins and a New Age fair,” said David Snyder, president of L.A. Sleepwalkers, the hypnotist club that organized the Long Beach expo (similar programs were held in Irvine, San Diego and cities across the U.S.).

Not all of the exhibit booths were run by hypnotists. A chiropractor hooked visitors up to a “biophotonic scanner” to measure their antioxidant levels. Another peddled “aurasticks,” crystal wands that purportedly heal ailing auras.

But hypnosis was the main attraction. At a session on procrastination (which had trouble starting on time because people kept arriving late), Thomas Greenhalgh appeared to hypnotize the entire room, telling people to imagine a ball of positive energy filling their bodies “like Scrubbing Bubbles” to dissolve the habit of procrastination.

At a lecture on pain control, hypnotist Scott Sandland demonstrated his method on the arthritic knee of Gwendolyn White, a 42-year-old Los Angeles woman who learned about the expo on the Internet. Sandland didn’t use a traditional hypnotic trance. Instead, as he touched various spots on White’s arm, he asked her to think of a happy time in her life, identify the color of an audience member’s sweater, count backward from five to one, and sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”

At the end of the two-minute session, White said the pain from her rheumatoid arthritis had virtually disappeared. Hours later, the knee still felt fine, she said.

Attendance at the expo seemed sparse. Spokesman Richard Clark estimated the turnout at 200 people, but the guy manning the entrance said it was more like 40 or 50. (Perhaps the organizers should have consulted with hypnotist Cesar Vargas, whose booth claimed he can make websites and marketing materials “irresistible” through the use of “hypnotic copywriting.”)

Many of those who showed up were seeking some sort of life-changing breakthrough. Cesar Duron of Huntington Park hoped for a psychological jolt to transform him into a super salesman. “I thought I would come in here and they’d go whap, and I’d be ready to go,” he said. That didn’t happen, but he was impressed enough to sign up for a $100 private session the next day.

Other visitors wanted help losing weight or quitting cigarettes, areas where hypnosis enjoys mixed success, according to scientific studies.

The most effective arena for hypnosis is reducing pain, studies show. It also has a proven track record in treating asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, phobias, anxiety and hemophilia.

Beyond that, the alleged benefits of hypnosis are mostly fantasy, according to hypnosis experts at Stanford University and UC Berkeley. Interviewed by e-mail, Dr. David Spiegel, associate chair of psychiatry at Stanford, and John Kihlstrom, a psychology professor at Berkeley, scoffed at many of the claims made by organizers of Saturday’s expo:

* Height increase -- Sacramento hypnotist Friesen, the woman behind the seminars, sells an “experimental” set of CDs designed to “energize” the pituitary gland to release growth hormones. But Kihlstrom was skeptical: “You’d get better results stretching someone out on a torture rack.”

* Baldness -- Placebos spurred hair growth in some men during tests of Propecia, so it stands to reason hypnosis can achieve the same effect, according to Friesen’s website. Is she right? “If you could see my head, you would have the answer,” Spiegel replied.

* Breast and penis enlargement -- No way, Spiegel said.

* Charisma -- A number of hypnotists say they can make people more persuasive, confident or successful. “There is no scientific evidence that hypnosis can produce permanent changes in personality,” Kihlstrom said.

* Improved eyesight -- Early research was hopeful, but recent studies cast doubt on the idea, Kihlstrom said.

* Better orgasms -- “Maybe,” Spiegel said.

* Cancer -- Friesen offers a $99 CD set claiming it can spark the subconscious mind to “remove toxins [and] harmful cells,” unblock the body’s immune system and promote healing. “Expect a miracle,” her website urges. Kihlstrom said hypnosis can boost the immune system by reducing stress, but “hypnotic suggestion will never be the treatment of choice for AIDS or cancer.” Spiegel agrees: “There are mind-body links with hypnosis affecting gastric acid secretion, asthma, irritable bowel disease ... but nothing indicating it can help heal cancer.”

Event spokesman Clark conceded that some of the claims made by Friesen and others might sound outlandish. Hypnosis for breast enlargement or height increase “isn’t something I’d sell,” he said. But he stopped short of criticizing any of his colleagues, saying, “There’s a grain of truth” to their claims, and “I don’t want to rain on anybody’s parade.”

But at least one person working the tables at Saturday’s event seemed to think hypnosis has some limits.

When Nodvik’s daughter, recovering from jaw surgery, mentioned she had a headache, her father suggested treating it with hypnosis.

“No, that’s OK, Dad,” she protested. “I’ll just take a Tylenol.”