Hypnotizing people to cluck like chickens can be wonderfully entertaining for audiences, but what happens when the commands given aren’t so harmless? In September of 1894, a Hungarian hypnotist named Franz Neukomm gave a hypnotic séance at a dinner party and placed the host’s daughter under a trance. He told her she was suffering from consumption. The girl then shrieked and fell to the floor, dead. Luckily for the hypnotist he wasn’t convicted of murder. Neukomm was cleared at his trial since it was believed death could occur at any time—it just happened to be a terrible coincidence. A similar … Continue reading Murder, Accidental Deaths and Other Misfortunes When Hypnosis Goes Wrong