A conversation with Dr. Adam Jones 

Rachel Benton

Voted Timberline High School’s Teacher of the Year, Dr. Adam Jones is one of the kindest, most gifted, and genuinely fun people in Thurston County.  

Every great teacher in the arts is an artist themselves, and rather than discuss Jones the teacher, I am going to celebrate Jones the comedy stage hypnotist and mentalist with shows for all ages.  

I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.

Our conversation 

 Benton: What can the audience expect to see at one of your shows? 

 Jones: “I never do anything that is going to embarrass somebody, I just do really silly, goofy stuff we can all laugh at.  At a hypnosis show, you’re probably going to see 30 people run up on stage and volunteer to be part of the show.

“We’ll go through a process and at various times, I will have people howling like a werewolf, believing they're on a spaceship with some aliens, or I might take two people who are fans of rival teams and flip their loyalty.

“One of my favorite things to do (at a mentalist show) is to have people write down the name of their childhood pet, and then they hold on to that. Without me ever seeing it, I reveal the name of that pet. 

“There’s one trick that I do with a volunteer on stage where they freely select a card and look at it. I don’t know what the card is and the deck gets shuffled.

“I have them predict how far down the deck their card is. Then, using my ‘mentalism powers’ or whatever you want to call it, I figure out what their card is, and we will count down to their card, and it will be at the exact number they said it would be. 

“This is always a fun one to do because it’s not me doing the magic, it’s them. I do things that leave you wondering, ‘What in the world just happened? How is that even possible? But I lived through it and witnessed it with my own eyes.’” 

 Benton: What is one aspect of the work you do that people may not realize? 

 Jones: “A lot of people view hypnosis as a thing that is a little bit creepy, where I have power and control over your mind, and I don’t. The reality is, every single one of us is going in and out of hypnosis all the time, every day.  

“Say you’re driving down the road and all of a sudden you realize that you have no idea what has happened for the last five or 10 minutes, as you have wielded a heavy piece of machinery at high speeds.

“All that is happening there is your brain going into a hypnotic state. Your unconscious mind has just taken over your driving, while your conscious mind goes on a little bit of a vacation, and you think about something else. (Another term for it is zoned out).

“The only difference between that and what happens when I get to build a rapport with your unconscious mind on stage as I have taken you through certain exercises. 

“Now with that rapport with your unconscious mind, your unconscious mind is willing to listen to me when I give it these suggestions and directions. With the car, nobody is giving your unconscious mind directions, so you’re not going to start clucking like a chicken or something like that. " 

Benton: What is something you have learned or observed about humanity along the way in creating art and doing your shows? 

Jones: “I think people have a desire to see and believe that there is more than just what we see in front of us. I think with the current state of the world being as it is, things can look pretty bleak at times. There is this question that kind of comes up in all of us like, ‘Is this it?’ (Doing what seems to be impossible on stage tells people), ‘OK, well maybe other things are possible too.’

“When you get people together to laugh about something or experience something new, you create a common shared thing where it doesn’t matter what you do in your daily life, or what you believe. All that stuff goes out the window. 

 “(The arts in general) are important because they create experiences like that. These moments are very important because they lower our defenses so that we all can receive messages of hope, confidence, courage and inspiration to go make new possibilities for ourselves.”  

Rachel is a writer, arts advocate, performing arts enthusiast, and passionate about our beloved Thurston County. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with a double major in History and Political Science and minor in Music. You can enjoy more of Rachel's writings by visiting her website. All inquiries for Rachel can be submitted here.