"The Story of a Hypnotist" by Franz Polgar with Kurt Singer. NY: Hermitage House, (1951).
The dust jacket on Franz Polgar’s “The Story of a Hynotist” describes the book as follows:
This is the life story of “The Amazing Polgar,” as he is called by thousands of audiences from coast to coast. And amazing the life-story is, from Polgar’s youth when he narrowly escaped burial alive to the present and his “Fun with the Mind” program on television.
It is estimated that Polgar has hypnotized a million people. He has been employed by a college football team to give hypnotic relaxation. He has given hypnotized subjects water and told them it was champagne whereupon the “champagne” produced a state of artificial intoxication but no hangover. Once a girl whom he had hypnotized on a tour was transfixed on a New York street simply by looking at a poster of his face – and he was summoned to release her from her trance.
Polgar also has a prodigious photographic memory and in this book he tells amusingly of his memory feats.
To cap these strange powers, he has a telepathic gift. Very often he tells an audience: “Hide my check. If I can’t find it through a mental guide, you keep it.” And he always wins this bet.
Born in Hungary, Polgar attracted the notice of Ferenczi, the psychoanalyst, who wrote Freud about the young hypnotist. Freud invited Polgar to Vienna and for a while he attended Freud’s classes. But the man he learned most from was a seedy Professor Nemeti in Budapest. Polgar earned a PhD in Psychology from the University of Budapest. Later his path crossed that of Hanussen who was afterwards notorious as Hitler’s astrologer, and he gives an interesting account of Hanussen’s tricks.
Coming to America, Polgar had to start at the bottom as a waiter in speakeasies where he “read” customers’ minds. For small fees he gave hypnotic shows but finally he got a big start at San Francisco and from then on he has been a headliner in entertainment.
In an important chapter he tells about the persuasion method he uses in hypnotizing people. He also discusses the advances hypnotism has made in therapy and other scientific applications.
“The Story of a Hypnotist” is more than a personal narrative. It is a quick survey of hypnotism as a science from the experiments of Mesmer to hypnotic therapy today.
"The Story of a Hypnotist" by Franz Polgar with Kurt Singer. NY: Hermitage House, (1951).
The dust jacket on Franz Polgar’s “The Story of a Hynotist” describes the book as follows:
This is the life story of “The Amazing Polgar,” as he is called by thousands of audiences from coast to coast. And amazing the life-story is, from Polgar’s youth when he narrowly escaped burial alive to the present and his “Fun with the Mind” program on television.
It is estimated that Polgar has hypnotized a million people. He has been employed by a college football team to give hypnotic relaxation. He has given hypnotized subjects water and told them it was champagne whereupon the “champagne” produced a state of artificial intoxication but no hangover. Once a girl whom he had hypnotized on a tour was transfixed on a New York street simply by looking at a poster of his face – and he was summoned to release her from her trance.
Polgar also has a prodigious photographic memory and in this book he tells amusingly of his memory feats.
To cap these strange powers, he has a telepathic gift. Very often he tells an audience: “Hide my check. If I can’t find it through a mental guide, you keep it.” And he always wins this bet.
Born in Hungary, Polgar attracted the notice of Ferenczi, the psychoanalyst, who wrote Freud about the young hypnotist. Freud invited Polgar to Vienna and for a while he attended Freud’s classes. But the man he learned most from was a seedy Professor Nemeti in Budapest. Polgar earned a PhD in Psychology from the University of Budapest. Later his path crossed that of Hanussen who was afterwards notorious as Hitler’s astrologer, and he gives an interesting account of Hanussen’s tricks.
Coming to America, Polgar had to start at the bottom as a waiter in speakeasies where he “read” customers’ minds. For small fees he gave hypnotic shows but finally he got a big start at San Francisco and from then on he has been a headliner in entertainment.
In an important chapter he tells about the persuasion method he uses in hypnotizing people. He also discusses the advances hypnotism has made in therapy and other scientific applications.
“The Story of a Hypnotist” is more than a personal narrative. It is a quick survey of hypnotism as a science from the experiments of Mesmer to hypnotic therapy today.