By Brenna Eller
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Ron Diamond, Master Magician, Mentalist and Hypnotist has been mesmerizing people with his show for 38 years and has been performing for about 50 years. He comes up with creative, fun and interactive ways to keep his audience entertained and laughing each time he performs.
If you haven’t seen Mr. Diamond’s show before, he performs at the Peoples Bank and Trust Arena and asks for volunteers to allow him to hypnotize them on stage while a crowd watches in the stands.
To make the volunteers fall under hypnosis, he usually starts by having them relax and focus on a point straight ahead in the distance. He plays music while talking and using specific words, saying them in a specific way that ends up putting some to sleep and those who don’t fall asleep eventually get asked nicely to take their chair and go sit back with the audience.
“It doesn’t work on everyone,” Diamond said.
For the show to be the best it can, 16 to 30 volunteers are needed on stage in case some aren’t able to go under hypnosis. When it rains or if there aren’t enough audience members to try the hypnosis, Diamond said he doesn’t cancel his show, but he will change the act because he doesn’t want to put on a bad performance. Instead, he has fun with the whole audience.
On Friday, this was the case since it was raining on and off throughout the day and there weren’t enough audience members to get volunteers on stage for the act.
“There’s ten of you for every one volunteer, so I’d probably get about five or six of you and that’s just not enough to pull off the big show,” Diamond said.
He suggested coming back Saturday for his three shows for the main performance because while what he does with the audience is still fun, it isn’t the same experience as the main event. He did play some games with the audience and kept it entertaining through jokes and activities, such as seeing if you could be hypnotized by focusing on his words “shrink” and “grow” and staring at a spinning board. Once the 15 seconds is up from staring at the board, you look at Diamond and either see his head get smaller or larger depending on the word you focused on from before.
Last Saturday, Diamond had 17 people under hypnosis acting out all sorts of crazy things like feeling like they were filling up with helium and then floating around the stage, weightless like balloons. Even the men’s voices, which were deeper before when they spoke in the microphone were higher pitched when Diamond asked them questions.
He had one volunteer named Andrew who was saying and spelling his name correctly before unable to say his own name every time Diamond asked him. Only when Diamond said he could say it, Andrew could finally pronounce his name correctly.
Something interesting that Diamond shared last Saturday is that even though he is talking to people on stage, some are so dialed in from the audience that they go under hypnosis too and he has had people fall asleep and do actions as those on stage do too.
On Saturday, Sept. 9, a lady in the audience kept falling asleep along with the volunteers on stage and Diamond had to address her a couple of times saying, “Ma’am, wide awake,” and she would shake her head and wake up.
Diamond said it won’t harm anyone to be under hypnosis and they mostly feel really relaxed.
On Sept. 15, Diamond shared with the audience that he uses hypnosis on himself for a form of pain management for an accident he was in on a movie set when he was a choreographer and show designer for the Walt Disney Company. Diamond broke someone’s fall, literally. They were falling from a high point on set and Diamond took the fall for them, most likely saving their life from the sound of it.
Diamond has been using self-hypnosis twice a day for pain management for the past 40 years and said he has never touched a pain pill since Diamond said.
“If you knew how bad I was hurting, you would be unbelievably surprised that I’m even here,” Diamond said.
He shattered four discs completely in his back and five in his neck and completely destroyed his right sciatic nerve, which no longer functions.
“That’s why I’m a hypnotist,” Diamond said.” “It’s more than just the fun, it’s a great tool for a lot of people.”
If you are planning to see Diamond perform at the fair today, he will have a show at the Peoples Bank and Trust Arena at 1 p.m. and another one at 3 p.m.
