Magic, Hypnosis and Poetry

They even sell hypnosis DVDs as "magical",
when it is really more science.

According to Buddhist texts there was once a Buddhist monastery being attacked by bandits. One of the monks was cornered and alone, unarmed against a single bandit. Thinking he was about to die he wanted his last words to be poetry so he quoted a bit of poetry from an older text. The bandit hearing him ended up throwing down his weapon and running away. The monk managed to survive the massacre and told his story to others.

Hypnosis is achieved through words, the sound of a person's voice. Even today modern scientists don't know how hypnosis works - despite numerous studies trying to determine how it works this suggestive quality of voice and still eludes science. Maybe someday we will understand it.

And herein lies my point - Words have power. They're not magical but maybe we explain and understand how the conscious and unconscious mind works by first identifying how words and the tone of a person's voice effect the mind and human behaviour.

This could even explain things in the animal world as well, people who have an unusual talent with animals like horsewhisperers for example.

It isn't magic. It isn't even psychic powers. We know this because it doesn't work as easily on people who speak a different language. People can enter an hypnotic state from the soothing sound of a person's voice - but due to the language barrier cannot be instructed to perform silly things in front of an audience.
Thus we know language is an important aspect of this ability for poetry and hypnosis to effect the mind.

Simply saying gibberish to people would have little results.

And so before I end this post I ask that if you have heard similar stories of events where words had power please post a link in the comments to any website or book which documents the event.

Essentially the power of a Hypnotic Voice cannot be underestimated.

Update! Music can also effect the mind but its power is more limited.