A scientific study reported on in the Times Online UK (here) and in the BBC News (here) suggests that by reading Agatha Christie you become hypnotized. Mesmerized by her repetitive phrases, the study claims that your brain secretes, in Skinner box fashion, “the chemical messengers… that induce pleasure and satisfaction”.

Bloggers however, disagree (Link. Another Link.) They accuse Dr. Roland Kapferer of making comments on the science while he actually works as a television producer for an Agatha Christie documentary, which recently aired in Britain, celebrating the “75th anniversary of one of her most famous creations, Miss Marple”. (Link.)

The data for the study was compiled by Dr. Markus Dahl, a research fellow at the University of London Institute of English Studies who, according to blogger Ray Girvan, boasts a reputable track record in the computer analysis of texts to determine authorship. Linguistic patterns were compiled from Christie’s texts, Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) techniques were applied, and the Agatha Christie trance theory emerged.

After watching the television documentary, Blogger Ray Girvan elucidated the hypnotic technique:

Repetition of key concepts over small spaces (e.g “life”, “living”, “live”, “death” in a couple of paragraphs) consolidated concepts in the reader’s mind… [According to NLP theory] we can only hold nine concepts in the mind at once… [and] Christie’s use of more than nine characters overloads the reader’s conscious mind, making them literally go into a trance.

So whodunnit? Did Agatha kill us with a Scooby snack in the text? Or did the father of NLP, Dr. Richard Bandler, do it by suggestion through the BBC publishing monopoly? My bet—Dr. Roland Kapferer did it as a free agent. My clue?—It’s A Small World After All, Or, Consultancy And The Disneyfication Of Thought by Roland Kapferer.

Photo source: nndb.com