Under the reflecting glow of the purple stage lights in a dimly lit room, Lamberton Hall buzzed with students waiting to learn about astrology or see if hypnosis could make them fall asleep on command.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, University Productions invited Lehigh students to explore self-discovery through the event \u201cWritten in the Stars, \u201d which was sold out and met by over 60 people. It featured Chicago-native hypnotist Chris Jones, known for his appearance on \u201cAmerica\u2019s Got Talent,\u201d and astrologer Brandi Cheeseborough.<\/p>\n
Ella Smith, \u201827, the president of University Productions, said this was the first time the organization hosted this event, and the goal was to give students a chance to meet new people.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Prior to the show, hot food and refreshments lined the tables while students socialized in small groups. Cheeseborough opened the evening with an astrology session of reading horoscopes, followed by Jones\u2019s live hypnosis show.<\/p>\n
Cheeseborough guided students through birth chart basics, astrological houses and her specialty, AstroMapping. She described this as a practice connecting planetary lines to physical locations on Earth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She encouraged students to use astrology as a tool for reflection rather than prediction.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people learn about astrology, it can lead to self-discovery,\u201d Cheeseborough said. \u201cThe planets don\u2019t tell us what to do as they just create energy we can choose to work with.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Cheeseborough\u2019s presentation, Jones took the stage, using humor throughout his performance. He began his hypnosis routine and within minutes, volunteer participants were sleeping, dancing and acting as the rest of the crowd watched.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Jones snapped his fingers, the hypnotized audience members would drop their heads onto each other\u2019s shoulders.<\/p>\n
Yingyi Ma, \u201826, said she was smiling the whole time and couldn\u2019t tell if the participants were pretending or actually under hypnosis.<\/p>\n
Jones, who has performed across the country for both small and large audiences, said he first discovered hypnosis while studying sociology and psychology in college.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw a hypnotist perform and chased him to the parking lot to ask how it worked,\u201d Jones said. \u201cThe only secret is that there is no secret.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/LIFESTYLETANGIMANPROFILE10101725-3.jpg\")
Students sit on stage under hypnosis during hypnotist Chris Jones\u2019 performance at University Productions\u2019 \u201cWritten in the Stars\u201d event in Lamberton Hall. The show combined humor, hypnosis and astrology for an evening of self-discovery. (Julie Synder\/ B&W Staff)<\/p>\n
Grace Lothian, \u201926, the special events director for University Productions, said the organization wanted to host an event that blended a fun time with something most of the audience had never experienced before.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHypnosis and astrology both deal with the mind and energy, so it just made sense to pair them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Lothian, who is family friends with Jones, said seeing him perform for Lehigh students was a special experience, as Jones was able to connect with the crowd and create a great atmosphere.<\/p>\n
Throughout the night, Smith said the audience members were both amused while trying to figure out if the hypnosis was real or not, talking about it after the show ended.<\/p>\n
By the end of the evening, Smith said she was happy University Productions achieved its goal of creating an inclusive and engaging campus event.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis fits right into what we try to do, and that\u2019s to build community,\u201d Smith said. \u201cEven if people didn\u2019t believe in everything, they still left talking and smiling. That\u2019s what we wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Under the reflecting glow of the purple stage lights in a dimly lit room, Lamberton Hall buzzed with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[4842,119,121,120,5609,1197],"class_list":["post-16003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-3-minute-read","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-event","tag-feature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}