One hypnotist’s final act

By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express

Speaking about the moment that he steps on the stage for the last time on March 3 at the Regent Theatre, Mike Mandel says he really doesn’t know what to expect. At first, the thought that he may get emotional never crossed his mind, but as the date looms closer, it’s starting to sink in.

“I thought I was going to be fine with it,” he says. “It’s like saying goodbye to a friend in a way. I’m assuming I’m going to be an emotional basket case.”

With that said, he has no plans on letting his final group of fans down, and has friends, family and supporters from far and wide coming out to see his final performance.

“Everything I have to say, everything I want to say, I’m going to say right at the top, before the show,” he says.

For years, Mandel has been performing his brand of hypnotic entertainment across the world and has taken the stage before and after a myriad of Canada’s top musical talents. However, it was in 1978 that a wild plan took his career to the next level.

It was an ambitious plan, one that was trying to tap into the mania surrounding space, and everything Star Trek and Star Wars. The idea, to create a travelling stage in the likeness of the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, then hypnotize the audience and “take” them into outer space.

And so, they ran with it. A firm from Las Vegas was hired to design the set, a pyrotechnics company that did work for Kiss and Rush were brought in to formulate the indoor fireworks (fireworks that would explode and break apart over the crowd) and suddenly, Mandel went from performing for college and university students to shows in Vegas with an entire road crew and a manager.

“That’s what turned me into a hypnosis rock star,” Mandel says. “It was a blast at the time.”

Mandel’s show also benefited from the fact that he travelled with, and opened for, a lot of successful bands, which gave him access to a wide array of potential fans.

However, after a couple years of the performance, anyone reading Mandel’s mind would have known that he was getting tired of it. Not only was it the extensive set-up and take down surrounding the show, but he was also locked in a creative box.

“I went from being able to improvise at will on stage for 90 minutes, to doing two and a half hour shows that I would have a grinding three hour set-up and then an hour and a half tear down afterwards,” he says. “It just ran me into the ground. I just got sick of it.”

In the years that followed, his gigs would highlight his disdain for the props, as he left it all behind, sticking to simply an empty stage, and his uncanny ability to draw people in with only his voice.

“That’s the challenge I like, to create an event of entertainment with no props,” he says. “I like to just take the challenge and create everything in everyone’s imagination.”

Needless to say, he’s been successful doing it, and has been trusted by many to use his methods to help them, including a number of music talents, some so famous he won’t name them.

With that aside, Mandel is officially putting the theatrics behind him, but it may not be the last time you see him, as he plans to turn his mind and energies toward sharing his knowledge and skills, in order to help others.

“I want to the focus of whatever years I have left to be helping other people, therapists, hypnotists, counsellors, whatever, replicate excellence, so that they can spread the love around and help other people too,” he says.

Now, Mandel says the hypnosis is undergoing its biggest boom since the 1800s, and he plans to focus his energies on centring Toronto as the “hypnotic epicentre”, a go-to place to learn the skill.

In fact, Mandel, along with partner Chris Thompson, are already teaching sold-out classes and offering a number of workshops and resources on the topic, drawing in a massive audience from all backgrounds and professions.

“They come in because they’re open minded, and they come see it works and it just blows their minds and they take it back to their patients,” Mandel says.

And in terms of the diversity of uses for hypnosis, Mandel says the experts haven’t even begun to scratch the surface.

“It is still a never-ending fascination. We have still not reaching the limits of this,” he says.

And while the final show may be a whirlwind of emotion, one feeling Mandel will not be talking about, is regret. Instead, audiences can expect to hear a man, grateful for everything that he’s had the chance to do during nearly 45 years in front of the crowd.

“I honestly believe I am retiring from the stage at the peak of my abilities as a hypnotist,” he says. “I’m so grateful to all the awesome Canadian musicians who let me be their opening act, so I could learn my chops in front of ready-made audiences.”

And for one final time, a ready-made audience, will get the opportunity to be put under his spell.