I am not entirely sure why I am facing such a prolonged argument about the question of whether Howie Mandel was actually hypnotized. If hypnotism is real, then it does something. What does it do? This is the kind of thing that it does. It places post-hypnotic suggestions in the minds of people who are hypnotically suggestible. You could tell someone to see gloves when there actually are no gloves. People are sloppy about what they perceive anyway. If you are not paying attention it is quite easy to imagine that you see something that is not actually there, or fail to see something that is there. Hypnotism does not FORCE people to see things. Hypnotism does not take over someone's mind and turn them into a robot. But hypnotism can influence a person's perceptions. Cpmmercial advertisement is something like that, as well. A commercial cannot FORCE you to buy a given product. But it can suggest that you buy a product, it can possibly influence your shopping decision, if it is very cleverly done. And strangely enough, if you use hypnotism to help someone to overcome a phobia, that would indeed be considered hypno therapy. This would actually be good for Howie Mandel, to overcome his germ phobia.

I have already said repeatedly in this discussion that I have no way of knowing for certain whether Howie Mandel was actually hypnotized or was faking it, but certain circumstances make it plausible that he was hypnotized. He does have an actual phobia. He did do something that he normally is afraid to do. Somehow he overcame his phobia. He could have done it by sheer determination, without the help of hypnosis, but why was he so determined? Again, it is not his job, as a judge of the contest, to make the hypnotist's act successful. Howie Mandel does not have to make anyone's act successful. He is only there to judge whether the act is successful enough to continue in the competition.

But who knows. Maybe he thought it would be a good joke on us, to pretend to be hypnotized. I can't rule it out.