A Florida high school principal accused of using hypnosis on students entered a written plea of not guilty to two misdemeanor charges on Thursday.
George Kenney, 52, was charged earlier this week with two counts of unlawful practice of hypnosis.
Officials say George Kenney hypnotized two North Port High students before the two, independently of one another, committed suicide last year. Officials say Kenney had been warned by his boss to stop using such one-on-one hypnosis with students.
But Kenney's attorney, Mark Zimmerman, said that the Principal's supervisor only expressed concern and never gave him a written directive to stop the hypnosis. Kenney, who currently is on administrative duty not at the school, plans to retire from the school district at the end of the school year, Zimmerman said.
Kenney is not guilty because the law requires proof that the hypnosis was for therapeutic purposes and that wasn't the reason for the hypnosis, Zimmerman said.
"The purpose always was to either boost athletic performance or academic performance," Zimmerman said. "My interpretation of therapeutic is that implies a form of treatment. He wasn't treating anybody."
Prosecutors decided not to file felony charges of unlicensed practice of health care. The misdemeanor charges of unlicensed practice of hypnosis carry a maximum of up to a year in jail.
A state attorney's investigation included interviews with hundreds of people.
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I do not believe in hypnosis as a valid fact. True we can fall into self directed trances where we can drive a few hundred miles and do so safely but at the end of the drive have very little memory of the trip.
How does one get licensed as a hypnotist, is there a board to review one, must this person register as a person of skill like a professional boxer has to have his hands registered as lethal weapons????
Fancy how this would work if hypnotism was a real fact. I was hypnotised by this licensed hypnotistest to buy a car from him. Cashier's at store would now except a $1.00 bill as a hundred dollar bill.
Darn anyone with that skill needs to work for the military.
The power of suggestion is powerful in deed, we are bombarded with this crap every day, need to advertise for a company that pumps out septic tanks, advertise with a half naked woman on top of the tanker.
The so called amateurs hypnotists are legion, but they only succeed with those ready and willing to block out reality.
Dentists often use this method to convince their patients that reality is not so. A patient is ready to under go hypnotise believing in it. It is the patient with the belief they will feel no pain that is the key. It is not the hypnotist's dentist but the person themselves that block all pain by their belief and the body followes the brain.
So in all this how does one prosecute anyone for mind controll ?? Have people not the free will to do good or bad??
Are there people that that can influence others minds to do their bidding???
Interesting problem for us today, kind of harks back to witch doctors and belief in Voodoo.=====But then the question arises that perhaps these practices are as valid as mind control today.
