Originally posted by Kaniaz
I read in the book \"The Demon Headmaster\" (heh, it was ages ago). At the end it said something like:

\"Don't be alarmed by this book. In real life; you can only be hypnotised if you are willing, and will not do things if you do not want to.\"
I'm not sure that makes much difference. Most people will do most things given the right reasons and motivation. For instance, someone who claims that they wouldn't kill another human being, even if hypnotized, might very well take the life of another person if they were made to believe that their "target" would murder their family if they didn't take action. I'm not very knowledgeable about hypnosis itself, so I don't know how strong hypnotic suggestion can be (i.e. if the subject would believe the suggestion enough to take action against the supposed murderer or if enough doubt would remain to temper such action); however, people are generally capable of a far greater variety and intensity of action than they usually give themselves credit for. For that reason, I've always been somewhat doubtful that claim that "you won't do anything while hypnotised that you wouldn't do if awake" offers any real limitation to the applications of hypnosis.