Meet Mohit Rao, the man the BSE is wary of

Mohit Rao PicDatta KumbharHopelessly curious about hypnosis its only mediafed visuals and unsubstantiated stories of people being mysteriously transformed into mindless pawns thats kept us away from giving it a shot But recently curiosity won the battle when we learnt of homegrown mentalist Mohit Raos almostparanormal abilities mdash to hypnotize over 25000 people including an entire local train predicting BSE Sensex live before the closing to the last decimal he has now been prohibited from trading at the BSEMeditation with bad reputationIts a Thursday afternoon and we are sitting with Rao in a small colourful studio at our office Dressed in a white shirt paired with a navy blue blazer Rao who likes to call himself a mind reader has a disclaimer This might be not be as exciting as youve imagined You wont be doing anything dramatic because what you experience will be entirely in your mind But Ill handhold you through the experiment he tell us with the assurance that there will be complete recollection of all events It will feel like your imagination but the memory is for life he smilesRao starts with the waterfall experience Imagine walking to a waterfall and standing under it with the gushing water washing all over you He then leads me to another scene This time its a beautiful house where I am to climb down a series of imaginary footsteps mdash 10 at a time Gradually with the slow hum of his instruction we are put into a state of complete relaxation While we are aware of our surroundings everything begins to feel distant mdash the sepialit room and people in it It is a happy state of being that you want to stay in Rao however says its possible for a person to snap out of the deepest state too Theres conscious subconscious hypnosis and sleep Unlike what people think sleep is deeper than hypnosis he saysWhen the 38yearold who was formerly working for an IT company started practising hypnosis five years ago he admits being worried about a person being stuck in a state of hypnosis But that doesnt happen Lets assume you are in this state and we all leave the room two things will happen either you will come out and kick our or fall asleep and wake up 20 minutes later But you will find your bearings soon after he assures us Rao says his first experience of being under hypnosis was hardly what he expected When I first became interested in studying how the mind works I attended a few workshops During one session I was put under hypnosis and all the while I kept thinking to myself is this it I couldnt believe that I had just been hypnotised he laughs Today having tried hypnosis on over 30000 people in seven different countries Rao is aware that people are usually moderately responsive to the treatment Its important to build a rapport with the person Its only if you are open to the idea will it work A self taught mind reader Rao says he had to develop the hypnotic skills on his own because he was unable to find someone who could teach him No psychiatrists or any expert helped me because they felt it could be misused So I scoured through a lot of books and began practising selfhypnosis I realised it is a fantastic form of meditationTo predict the Sensex Rao uses a combination of analytics and intuition There is no hypnosis involved in this prediction he says Hypnosis he says is a trancelike state but there are physical clues to deciphering if a person is hypnotised Relaxed body language deep breaths slight flutter in eyelids plus my skill as a mind reader helps me to visualise what they are seeing he says Next up Rao wants to hypnotise people in Mumbai local trains The locals are filled with stressed people I want to train them to use hypnosis to relax themselves reach home refreshed As the hourlong session nears its end we are gradually pulled out of our trancelike state where we are asked to trace our steps from our journey to the waterfall and back to reality For now at least my mind feels relaxed and rejuvenated