"Isn't all of this going to be fairly vulnerable to people covering their ears and shutting their eyes?" says the guy with bright red hair.

"Well, to a certain extent, yes. But it is possible to do hypnotic induction solely through other senses, such as smell, or touch, but more importantly, blocking off one's primary senses entirely is a very short-term solution. There are people who will voluntarily choose blindness or deafness on a permanent basis, but the number who would choose both is much smaller." 

"I mean, if I'm trying to hypnotize someone, and they close their eyes and shout 'I can't hear you' at the top of their lungs and run away, we've sort of reduced the problem to a non-mind-control one."

"Depends on how good at mind control you are and how much you prefer it to be a mind control problem," she says cheerfully. 

He shrugs, apparently willing to be convinced.

Slightly nervously, Emily raises her hand. 

"Is hypnotism usually more conspicuous than other kinds of mind control? Because you have to do things the ordinary senses can perceive?"

"Excellent question! Often, yes, particularly for a novice. Of course, it can be concealed in a number of ways. Your subject, of course, can be hypnotized to forget that they were hypnotized; bystanders can be prevented from sensing your induction in the first place, through methods as simple as facing away and using a hypnotic focus obscured by your own body or as complex as layering subliminals in sounds soft enough and precisely located enough to be audible only to your target. A sufficiently skilled hypnotist can use only motions and words that would seem innocent to an uninformed observer." 

Bright Red Hair has another question. "I have the suspicion it would be really good for crowd control, does that sound right? Broadcast something on TV?"

"Yes. Very good. You'll want a good foundation in technology to do something like that, of course; and mobs are much easier to hypnotize than individuals in their homes watching TV--I don't know how much you know about mob psychology already, but you might want to investigate it; anyone acting as part of a mob is half-hypnotized already." 

"That generalizes across species?"

"Not every species is subject to this effect, and in cases of dissimilar psychology you'll have to adjust your approach regardless, but your species is certainly susceptible to it." 

"Will we be covering self-hypnosis? It seems like that might be useful for some things."

"Certainly. Although you'll want to be careful who you self-hypnotize around, inasmuch as that applies--a trance is a trance; they aren't tied to the originator like a spell might be."

"Are there limits to hypnosis that don't apply to other disciplines?" Wei Wuxian asks, curiosity overtaking caution. "You said that hypnosis involves manipulating natural connections between the brain and the senses--surely there are things that naturally can't cover that a spell could." 

"Hmm. Theoretically, you might have a point, but I suspect you are grossly underestimating what the unaugmented mind is capable of on its own. Essentially, anything the brain is unable to do on its own, you are unlikely to come up with on your own." 

"Hmm. Thanks." Food for thought.

"...are songs magic or are they hypnosis? You have to be able to hear them..."

"There exist both magic and hypnotic songs. Sing me a bit of one of yours." 

Beka starts the lullaby she tried on Edie yesterday.

The teacher holds up a hand to stop her a few bars in. "That's magic," she confirms. 

"But there are hypnotic ones? What's the difference?"

"The difference is, if you stripped the magic out, that song wouldn't do anything. The sound is the transmissor for the effect, not the cause of it."

Beka is not sure she follows but she does not ask another question.

"Think of it like this." She puts one hand up and punches into it with the other. "If I hit you, it would hurt, and possibly bruise, because that's a natural reaction to being hit with any real force. But if I just did this," she taps her palm gently with her fist, "nothing would happen--unless there was magic attached to my hand, which caused pain and bruising. Anyone can tell the difference between a blow that will hurt on its own, and one that won't, but the difference between sound that will hypnotize and sound that won't is harder to pick out, if you don't have the experience and skill. I do. You don't, yet; imparting it to you is why I'm here."

"If I took a song that was already hypnotic and then revised it into a magic one would that be extra strong?"