"I'm very skeptical," warns Anastasia, 20, rocking back her long blonde tresses.
The young woman, who crossed paths with the hypnotist Ado_Pharaon, in front of the Fountain of the Innocents (Paris I) asks a few questions, before letting herself be tempted.
"Can you make me do something I don't want to do?"
she asks him.
“Impossible,” reassures Ado Pharaon, fixing her with his black eyes with long curved lashes.
“Your subconscious wouldn't allow it.
You have to agree to let go and on this condition, your subconscious takes control of your body.
He can then listen to the proposals that I make to him”.
This 31-year-old former professional dancer, cultural programmer at the town hall of Garges-lès-Gonesse, in Val-d'Oise, is also certified in hypnotherapy and has been practicing NLP for 12 years. Neurolinguistic programming is concerned with how humans function in a given environment. “It's close to hypnosis and that's what appealed to me,” he says. Adonaïs Yankan, his real name, has shaken up the discipline by bringing it to the street, to practice sessions on the fly, which are aimed at a very young audience. These videos are then posted on TikTok, a social network on which he has 1.6 million subscribers.
Under the Canopy of Les Halles, on this rainy January afternoon, Ado Pharaon accosts a few groups of teenagers to offer them a street session.
During the “trick” of the magnets, where the facilitator snaps his fingers and orders the hands to attract each other, some participants see their fingers seal, others keep their hands apart.
“It's all about responsiveness.
It varies from individual to individual and even from moment to moment.
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Next to Anastasia, Mana and Gary are keen to try. While Ado Pharaoh briefly explains the rules to them, Mana has difficulty concentrating. Pigeons fly around the Fountain of the Innocents. These birds are his phobia. The hypnotist jumps at the chance. He puts her to sleep and whispers in her ear: “You were never afraid of pigeons! You adore them and you don't understand people who are afraid of them. Snapping her fingers, then suddenly, under the dumbfounded gaze of her friends, Mana heads straight for the birds huddled around breadcrumbs. Gary can't believe it. “I've never seen him do that, it's incredible,” he comments.
Over the hours, other small groups pass through the hands of the hypnotist.
Enzo thinks he's taking a selfie with the singer Jul, when he's photographing himself with a girl.
Others think they have their feet glued to the ground.
Many forget their first name and swear to be called “Le Parisien”.
Under the laughter of passers-by.
