Lecture: How To Handle Audiences (1956)

Now, actually, in handling groups and so forth, I, of course, myself, am a little shy. I like to be amongst friends. I do. I like to be amongst friends. I do not like to talk to hostile groups. I really do not.

And I’m mean, too, when I do. You never saw such a change in a man in your life as when I have to talk to a hostile group. I immediately go off onto an entirely different line of stagecraft. It’s tough! It’s tough! They’re there challengingly. They are willing to listen, but they already have been told how bad it is. They’re sure you’re not going to say anything interesting. But they’re going to suffer through it somehow so that they can get on with the dessert or something. I get mean about that time, and I do bad things. I seldom give bad reports on myself, but that is actually an instance when I do.

I hypnotized, one time, the staff of St. Elizabeths. Told them they’d heard a good speech and left the stage. They all came around afterwards saying, “What a good speech that was you gave!” That was a mean thing to do. That was certainly backing out of it, wasn’t it? But it was in the early career of Dianetics and I felt very much like backing out of it. I was preceded by someone who told all of them how bad it was over “Ron-ward.”

They might afterwards have suspected my knowledge of the mind, but certainly not my knowledge of hypnotism. It’s very easy to hypnotize groups.¹

Notes