Tony Lee brings XXX show to Turret

Hypnosis is defined as a state of induced relaxation; a place between sleep and consciousness. The volunteers of Tony Lee’s XXX Hypnotist show were able to experience this state first hand at the Turret last Thursday night, and it’s safe to say they were the only ones dozing off during Lee’s crude and entertaining performance.

While I had half-expected a cape-wearing mystic entering the stage through the smoke of a fog machine, Tony Lee did not fit this description. He was all muscle and charisma, engaging the crowd interactively through several mind games before selecting his volunteers based on the results apparent from certain crowd members.

“Sometimes people are over analytical and don’t give themselves the opportunity to relax,” explained Lee during a pre-show interview. Beginning with an introduction in his smooth and resonating voice, Lee requested total silence from the audience, who waited and watched as Lee “put under” several students on stage. Some became induced to the point of slumping off their chairs.

At Lee’s word, the spectacle quickly escalated, from the volunteers believing that they drove a Lamborghini, to being porn stars in elaborate sex scenes. Shockingly, the volunteers acted each role accordingly.

“In a relaxed state of mind you become more susceptible to the power of suggestion,” said Lee.

“If somebody in a room yawns, you feel like yawning,” the hypnotist continued. “Now think about the same principles, but replace the yawning suggestion with a verbal suggestion.”

In this case, his “verbal suggestions” included orgasms and magic-mushroom highs. Consequently, it was difficult to assess who had the short end of the stick that night; Lee, the audience or the volunteers.

Tony Lee has now been performing his unique hypnotic act for twenty-six years. “We used to do about 300 shows a year but we cut it down to doing 160 campuses a year and maybe 30 theatres,” Lee explained.

The majority of Lee’s shows end up selling out, suggesting a very successful career ahead for Lee. Surprisingly, Lee explained that the first show began as a mere fluke.

“At the time, I wanted to be a cop,” reflected Lee. “I was just sitting there with my girlfriend one night and I was making fun of hypnotism, saying things like ‘You’re getting sleepy’… I was very repetitive and about a couple of minutes later she fell over.”

“I started developing it over the years. I ended up joining a society of therapeutic hypnosis and developing it further, started teaching relaxation techniques to a lot of societies that worked with hypnotism,” he said.

“Because I’d never seen a hypnotist before, I was just doing stuff that made me laugh. It ended up picking up so much traction though, I had no idea it would take on a life of its own. Today we’ve done over 6,000 performances,” said Lee between swigs of his drink.

“And what does it mean? Absolutely nothing except that I’ve drank a lot of alcohol and had a fucking great time.”