But give me a microphone and 10 chairs and I'm happy If I can do it, anyone can."He has been very open about the trauma of attending a Catholic school where he endured all manner of psychological torture and humiliation. But give me a microphone and 10 chairs and I'm happy."He was raised by his father, who was a builder, and his mother, a teacher, in Enfield. If you are not familiar with this glum corner of Middlesex then you should a) be thankful and b) know that Mike Leigh shot his film Life is Sweet among its soul-sapping concrete wastelands. McKenna invokes the town frequently in conversation to express humility, or to explain how far he has come. When he tells me that he has been flown on private jets to the doorsteps of some of the world's richest people just to cure some phobia or other, he rounds off the anecdote with an all-purpose pay-off: "And I'm from Enfield!" He uses it also to underline his inclusive appeal for others to chase success just as he has done "I'm just a kid from Enfield. I get letters from people saying that the upturn in interest about hypnosis is because of me. So-fucking-what if one or two people find it in bad taste? I find The Generation Game to be in bad taste."There is, he admits, quite a gulf between the public Paul McKenna and the private one "People have remarked on it I'm not the life and soul of the party by any means. It was just the goatee brigade wearing long coats at the end of the pier, making poodles out of balloons and convincing people that the onions they were eating were actually apples." He taps the floor repeatedly with his foot while he talks, as though keeping time "I've trained 50,000 people My TV shows are seen all over the world. "You only have to turn on the television to see people willingly making fools of themselves," he says. "Anyway, hypnotism wasn't all fine and dandy before I started. "My agent came up with that one when we were trying to decide whose round it was," he confides.McKenna rarely has to face the accusations of irresponsibility that plagued him during the infamous court case in which a volunteer tried to sue him for causing schizophrenia That charge, at least, has been settled. But McKenna is aware of other kinds of scepticism, most of which arise from the disparity between his areas of expertise. If he is so serious about the benefits of hypnosis, say the doubters, then what on earth is he doing persuading grown adults to humiliate themselves?He believes that this line of attack has been weakened by the popularity of reality TV shows.
McKenna's latest show includes a trick in which an audience member is programmed to announce "The drinks are on me!" at the bar during the interval. His own carnivalesque show features stock routines in the same spirit - a woman can be convinced she is wearing X-ray spectacles, or a man will believe he is talking to Cameron Diaz when it is, in fact, a broom that is receiving his declarations of affection and his tender caresses. "Whenever we invent something cool, we're on the phone to each other," he enthuses "I saw this friend the other day. He's invented speed seduction, where you use hypnotic language to seduce someone you're interested in." He laughs, then pulls himself together. "Clearly, we're not in the same business."It is one of the apparent contradictions in McKenna's career that he can switch so easily from curing phobias and assisting police in forensics work to presiding over, yes, the "Orgasm Olympics". "Freud decided hypnosis was bad because he couldn't do it," he fumes. "Let's have a look at some of his fantastic contributions, shall we? Oh, we all want to screw our mothers. Please! My mother is a 65-year-old woman." He looks disgusted.McKenna had a ball in New York, but most of his friends were back in Britain, which gave him another reason for returning He has some pals in the hypnotism business. Stern roped in four strippers, and McKenna programmed them to have an orgasm on cue He rocks backwards on the sofa at the memory "It was so funny. It was just like When Harry Met Sally." He holds Stern in far higher esteem than Freud, about whom he becomes suddenly and visibly agitated. |
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