hypnotism...?

The other weekend was Whiteford's after prom, my family along with the help of the Fielder family did the photos for them. The main entertainment of the night was a hypnotist. It was insane to see! A group of four students were selected to be hypnotized. The man could just say Whiteford and then all of them would start rubbing their elbow or something like that.
For one part of it, the students were told that a roll of toilet paper was actually a million dollars and they would get part of it, but they would have to keep it out of view from the others. One of the boys in the group grabbed the paper then took off running around the gym towards the exit. He ran towards where Ryan, Cassie, and I were standing, but then the hypnotist yelled "stop!" and he completely stopped from his full out sprint. We're all laughing and enjoying the show, but then we saw the look on his face. It was one of the strangest things I have seen, he just wasn't there, it's hard to explain if you didn't see it, but it was very odd.
The next day my Mom, Matt, and I were standing in my kitchen talking about the show and the question was brought up where hypnotism stands in a Christian point of view. Matt whips out his phone and dials Pastor Pat *voicemail* But later he called back saying how hypnotism is part of all of that dark stuff: allowing yourself not to be in control, and opening yourself up to basically anything... it is like the gateway drug into darker things. (My words, not Pastor Pat)

What are your thoughts on this?