The return of 'Mr. Velvet': Jim Sullins aims to induce life change through career as a hypnotherapist

After watching the teenage Jim Sullins hypnotize a subject in less than two minutes, a New York magician remarked, "Wow; you ought to go by Mr. Velvet."

Sullins liked the moniker, and adopted it for the majority of his professional career as a hypnotist. Now 81, he has spent roughly the last two decades in retirement, but feels compelled now to get back into hypnotism.

"I spent the last 20 years playing golf," he admits good-naturedly. "I got bored playing golf. I want to help people again."

When he says "help people", he means using hypnotism to induce life change.

"If you can get somebody to change their mind, they'll change their life," he says.

He explains that through years of research plumbing the depths of the mind, he's adopted an unusually nuanced understanding of the human mind.

Pulling a pen from his breast pocket, he sets it on the table to demonstrate. Even in conversation, he's still got a certain stage twinkle, balanced between conspiratorial intrigue and grandiosity.

"The subconscious is a very positive thing," he says. "It only responds to active thoughts. Picking up this pen, for instance; trying to pick it up doesn't get you anywhere. You just pick it up."

These types of misconceptions and mental blocks are responsible for many peoples' undesirable habits, he says, explaining that's why hypnosis is such a potent tool to affect change. It can suggest changes directly to the subconscious.

"Your subconscious is nine times stronger than the conscious mind," he says. "The conscious mind is too wrapped up in the analytical reasoning that we use every day. The subconscious mind is how we deal in thoughts and ideas."

Over the course of his globetrotting career, Sullins has hypnotized countless subjects in two settings: hypnosis as entertainment and hypnosis as a tool for change. Sullins says now, he much prefers to use his talents to help people quit smoking, cursing, lose weight and so on.

"There's only one person in the world that can change the self," he explains. "And that's the self."

Although that's not to say he doesn't also enjoy having some harmless fun with his subjects from time to time. As a disaster preparedness specialist for the Air Force, he moonlighted as Mr. Velvet, performing his hypnotic act for officers' clubs in Germany, England, Thailand and beyond.

"I've been to about every country you can go to. You actually come across a lot of talent," he says. "People get up, not thinking twice about it, and all of a sudden, they're doing some real impressive Frank Sinatra stuff."

He has invented 22 techniques of putting someone in a hypnotic trance, and he says even the most difficult person to hypnotize rarely takes more than three minutes.

"I only want to hypnotize skeptics," he says. "I want the people who don't even want to be there, tell them, 'Yes, you, bring your analytical butt up here.'"

But Mr. Velvet says he's had his fun convincing people they're flying a jet plane or being pestered by a tinkling poodle. He plans on starting up his hypnotherapy practice within the coming months.

"I enjoy what I'm doing now [hypnotherapy] because I've seen some really fantastic results," he says.