On Mesmerizing Things

ON MESMERIZING THINGS

Saturday Evening Post; 13 Aug 1949. Researched by Alan Schenker, digitized by Doug Frizzle, Dec 2011.

STEVAN DOHANOS' cover for the July 2nd issue had a lobster on it. The Post's cover box reported that a pet lobster posed for the picture, and that it has been trained by its master to stand on its head. A. Hyatt Verrill, of Lake Worth, Florida, informs us that any lobster still in possession of its faculties can easily be made to do a head stand.

Verrill says that you merely set a lobster on its nose, with its claws folded and its tail bent down, and stroke its back up and down a few times. He explains that the reason more people don't do this to lobsters is because few know of the trick—"I have seen old lobstermen gaze in speechless amazement at their lobsters standing motionless on their heads after I had 'mesmerized' them."

Verrill adds that a similar staled mind can be produced in a hen. You tuck the hen's head under one wing and wave her around in the air a few times. When the astonished creature is placed on the ground, she will lie motionless on her side for quite a while, as if deceased.

Does anybody know whether this sort of thing works on animated young children?