An Entrancing Time at Conference!

13/01/2012

Students at the conference take part in a hypnosis demonstration on stage

AS and A2 Psychology students from the Haywards Heath campus attended a Science and Pseudoscience conference in London recently, where they got the chance to hear lectures from some of the top psychologists in the country working in the area of paranormal psychology.

Professor Richard Wiseman, from the University of Hertfordshire detailed his work on the psychology of Magic and Illusion as well as the psychology of Luck, a topic which he has discussed on a number of TV shows recently. He explained why people are so easily misled by some instances of so called 'paranormality'. Students had a chance to take part in various activities on and off stage, to demonstrate how easy it is for people to succumb to illusion.

There was also a chance for students to take part in hypnosis sessions with Andrew Newton, who is one of the world's foremost experts in hypnosis, and currently on a UK tour with his show. He gave a demonstration on stage involving volunteers from the audience, and two College students, Alex Oecken, and Tim Rogers, both aged 16, were selected for the early part of the performance but were not selected for the final hypnosis demonstration. Andrew Newton originally trained Paul McKenna, so the stage show saw volunteers getting up to all sorts of mischief whilst in a hypnotic state.

Psychology teacher, Wendy Garnham said: "It was a really enjoyable day which linked in well with the Psychology topics of anomalistic psychology which our A2 students cover this term."