Their interest piqued by advertisements in popular newspapers, 500 people filed into an auditorium at the Palace of Culture of the Main Administration of the Internal Affairs for the City of Moscow. Fifty thousand rubles and 18 lecture hours will buy you a red diploma, official registration as a Hypnotist of the International Category, and the power to make others do your will.
Goncharov used the example of yellow roses.
"Say you want somebody to send you yellow roses," said Goncharov, a slight, fair man, from his desk on the stage of the auditorium. "You can use this power to plant an idea in someone's mind. It may not happen immediately, but believe me, there will be a bouquet of roses. There may be 15 of them. There may be 100."
Goncharov opened the school of hypnosis seven years ago, and through seminars like this one has taught 10,000 ordinary Russians the skills that he learned from peasants in rural Belarus. Raised by his grandmother, Goncharov inherited the folk wisdom of "pagans," a generation that he described as illiterate but "genuinely close to the Earth."
His method centers on the ability to focus psychic power on a person or animal, and through visualization manipulate the subject in useful or crafty ways. In addition to the basic techniques of hypnosis, the course reveals secrets of the trade -- redheads and blondes are easier to hypnotize than brunettes, for instance, and extremely large men are often the ones who fall into the deepest trances.
The first 18 hours cover the basic techniques of hypnosis. The second course covers practical applications, and the third teaches you to hypnotize yourself -- a very difficult craft, Goncharov pointed out, and one that, if practiced incorrectly, can go horribly awry.
The large audience claimed a wide range of reasons for being there. Parents came to help their sick children; smokers came to kick the habit. Some just thought hypnotic power would come in handy.
"Listen, I'm a realist. I have some problems. If they can help me, God bless them. If they can't, it's just two hours of my time," said Misha, 32.
Midway through the meeting, Goncharov held a seans, in which all 500 people in the hall clasped their hands behind their neck, shut their eyes and gave themselves over to the lulling sound of the hypnotist's voice.
The trance state was punctuated by one intoxicated viewer who climbed onto the stage and urged Goncharov to wake up his wife, but a dozen people were so strongly affected that they needed special attention to unclasp their hands.
Still, the 20 minutes of mass hypnosis left some participants skeptical about the trance itself, to say nothing of yellow roses.
"This is not for me. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't this," said Natalya Galeyeva, 48, a nurse who said she found Dianetics more persuasive. "I don't know why I would need to hypnotize anyone anyway."
Nina, 75, a pensioner, slipped out of the lecture halfway through. "Well, I'm not a great hypnosis enthusiast," she said. "Of course it is pleasant to listen to music and relax. But I'm not going to pay for it."
She peered into the auditorium behind her. "A lot of them in there believe it. There's nothing wrong with that," she added. "Everyone has to believe in something."
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