Conviction Spiritual healing, divination, and mediumship Hypnosis, trance, and altered-state practice Kuurne, West Flanders, Belgium · 2020

Belgium: hypnotherapist convicted a second time of assaulting clients he had placed under hypnosis

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Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

practicing hypnotherapist conducting paid hypnosis sessions with clients

Organization

No organization assigned

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

Clients placed under hypnotic trance during paid treatment sessions, rendered unable to resist while he touched them — a repeat pattern across at least two prosecutions, with the hypnotic state itself functioning as the disabling mechanism.

Spiritual healing or treatment

Evidence structure

Proceedings

Date in cited record · conviction

Rechtbank van eerste aanleg (Correctionele rechtbank), Kortrijk, Belgium. Ivan V.L., a 72-year-old hypnotherapist from Kuurne, was convicted of assault (aanranding) for touching several women on intimate parts of their bodies while he had placed them under hypnosis during treatment sessions, leaving them unable to resist. It was his second appearance before a Belgian court in three years on comparable allegations from clients. He attributed his conduct at trial to encroaching dementia.

Documented coercion mechanisms

induced hypnotic trance used to prevent clients from resisting or realizing what was being done to them
repeat offending across multiple clients over several years before facing a second prosecution

Cited record

Sources

high quality reporting disposition "Hypnotherapeut (72) veroordeeld voor aanranding patiënten: 'Hij bepotelde hen omdat hij dement wordt'", De Krantenkoppen (aggregating Belgian regional press).: Report of the conviction, the hypnosis mechanism, and the defendant's dementia claim.
high quality reporting proceeding "Hypnotherapeut riskeert twee jaar cel voor aanranding van cliënten", Het Kortrijks Weekblad (KW), 10 June 2020.: Regional paper of record on the prosecution, confirming this was his second appearance in court on client-assault allegations.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis: https://www.dekrantenkoppen.be/detail/1318709/Hypnotherapeut-72-veroordeeld-voor-aanranding-patinten-Hij-bepotelde-hen-omdat-hij-dement-wordt.html Corpus classification: high-quality-reporting; evidentiary role: disposition. SHA-256 255ea5c2c01cb98e76b5ec239621b5d6bb43485f12cf348b4e57ab6be4510b6f
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis: https://kw.be/nieuws/criminaliteit/hypnotherapeut-riskeert-twee-jaar-cel-voor-aanranding-van-clienten/article-normal-444853.html Corpus classification: high-quality-reporting; evidentiary role: proceeding.
Retrieval: 2026-07-27 · Retrieval failed; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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