The Truth About Trancelight

More and more I find myself amazed and frankly appalled by the behavior of some of the more visible hypnotists in our online community.  They boast about their financial successes yet beg for tributes.  Some sell worthless and vapid recordings that do nothing more than give the  hypno-fetishist something to masturbate to.  Many even go so far as to pose as women so that they can perpetuate the atmosphere of lies and deception that is so rampant on today's internet.  Now, one high profile personality has stooped even lower.

It seems that one of the well-known "hypnotists" here online has run aground in her attempt to raise funds for a little side project.  Apparently having someone point out that you are committing fraud and mishandling funds will put a real damper on your ability to take people's money.

Isabella Valentine spearheaded a fundraising project on Indiegogo.com entitled The Trancelight Project.  Indiegogo is a third party fundraising site which allows individuals and organizations to present concepts and projects and collect donations from interested persons. It should be mentioned now that part of the Trancelight Team, were Isabella Valentine, Mona Blu, Tessa Fields, Mistress Candice Layland, and Mistress Ellechemy. Five of the top Hypnodommes were involved in this grand charade.

The original description for The Trancelight Project posted in May of 2011, clearly stated that money was being raised to purchase and donate an Mp3 jukebox to The Kinsey Institute located at Indiana University.  This jukebox would be loaded with "hundreds or thousands of donated erotic hypnosis recordings and videos" and would be located in the gallery of the Institute itself.  The project page included a video which showed footage of the Institute's museum and specifically named the museum as the recipient of the donation.  Over $1800 was collected under this definition of goals.

“We are asking for $5000. We have found a suitable jukebox on eBay for under $4000. Donations will cover not only the cost of the jukebox, but shipping and placement of the item into the Gallery at The Kinsey Institute, maintenance and server upgrades of the internal harddrive, and a mini tabletop jukebox for Trancers (a local meet-and-greet).”

Then suddenly on June 10th 2011, there were massive changes.  The video was removed from the Indiegogo.com fundraising site, as well as from YouTube altogether.  The description of the project was altered.  All mention of the Kinsey Institute was deleted.  The jukebox was still going to be purchased, but the utilization of this technology became very vague:

“Our plans with this jukebox are up in the air right now -- however, one promise I (Isabella) can make to you is that your money is going towards a jukebox which will play erotic material which by artistic standards, would be welcome in certain galleries, museums, or universities.”


It was at this point that Ms. Valentine apparently became confused.  Later on June 10th she posted the following to the Announcements section of her Indiegogo page:

“In light of new information, I was wrong in mentioning an organization by name, and I apologize. I’ve removed the video and any references to the organization to make right. I believe in the entertainment and educational momentum this project can bring when placed in the right hands.”

Weeks later on June 29th, 2011, when an anonymous commenter in the Indiegogo comments pointed out that Ms. Valentine was committing a bait-and-switch, her response on July 7th, 2011 was the following:

“To anonymous, this still intends to be a donation to a specific institute. The video was removed simply because it was adult related and flagged from YouTube. The reason we removed references was because it was REQUESTED by the Institute. They cannot guarantee acceptance of the item in the gallery but welcome it as a donation to their juried art show. Please get your story straight before accusing me of something so ridiculous. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this project!”

Don’t let the wording fool you, there was no “request”.  The Institute required that she remove the references to their organization or face legal action.

Shortly after posting that response (roughly 2 hours later) Ms. Valentine was back; apparently having re-thought her actions:

“I want to thank all our fans, friends, and supporters who believe in this project. Because of you, and because we know there IS interest in stuff like this, I’m now more motivated to create many more fundraising projects. Since we did not meet our financial goal, and because I don’t want to “misdirect funds,” I’ve written IndieGogo and requested everyone be refunded. I do thank everyone who has supported this project!”

Seems fair enough, except that apparently Ms. Valentine either didn’t read the fine print on her IndieGoGo contract or decided to flat out lie to her contributors.  You see, IndieGoGo doesn’t allow campaign owners to refund raised money through their site.  She would have had to do that all on her own.

At the same time as her second post to Indiegogo.com (July 7th, 2011) Isabella began posting to her Facebook page.  A little mini-rant intended to justify her behavior, but instead lending validity to her accuser's claims.  In addition to making it clear that the Kinsey Institute has little to no intention of ever including the jukebox in their gallery, she admits that the Institute made it clear she was not authorized to fundraise on their behalf or even mention their name in her attempts.

The result of this little "explanation" was, most likely, not what she expected as one commenter pointed out that since she was forced to change the project, the best course of action was indeed to refund everyone's money.  To not do so would definitely put her at risk of having committed a bait-and-switch.  Isabella begrudgingly agrees and admits she's refunding the money.

In her next Facebook post, Ms. Valentine makes another startling admission:

“The funny thing is, I really don't even need money for this. If I wanted a jukebox, there are cheap ones on eBay for a couple hundred bucks. The whole point of this was to generate community interest in erotic hypnosis which is why I shot high, chose a jukebox that was way better than I ever imagined, and decided to see how "it would take." (July 7th, 2011 @ 9pm EST)

According to Isabella, the best way to judge community interest is to ask for 2500% more money than you actually need to accomplish your goal and then....see what happens.

Continuing on, we find out later in that same post that even though she insisted earlier the Kinsey Institute was still her intended recipient of the donation, suddenly her new fundraising will be directed towards a jukebox for her own home:

“However, [name deleted], if you do want to donate any money, not necessarily towards The TranceLight Project (which is over), but towards Trancers, I would happily use that money to acquire a small mini jukebox so that trancers at our house can listen to hundreds of erotic hypnosis recordings at the press of a button. That would be so hot.” (July 7th, 2011 @ 9pm EST)

But ultimately it's all okay.  Everyone got their money back, so it's no-harm-no-foul right?

Wrong!

No one got their money back.  IndieGoGo doesn’t process any refunds through their site, and Isabella made no attempt to contact her donors to offer refunds.  Instead, nearly two years later she begins posting about Trancelight again.  Not on IndieGoGo.  On Inraptured, a site she herself owns, even though the Trancelight Project page is still active on IndieGoGo.  I understand that she cannot simply issue a refund though the IndieGoGo site, however it seems that if she was really concerned about returning the money she raised to the people that donated it, she would post in the forum on which she raised the funds.  She claims that it’s pointless because some of the donations were anonymous.  But aren’t those people more likely to be checking the project’s progress on IndieGoGo than on a completely different website?  And what about the donors that aren’t anonymous?  Why didn’t they receive any correspondence from Ms. Valentine?

Now she's posting suggestions for what to do with the funds she did raise.  I quote:

“About a year ago, Inraptured sponsored The TranceLight Project where we raised funds towards what we hoped would be a jukebox for storage of erotic hypnosis for long term archive at The Kinsey Institute, which we were given the RED LIGHT to stop accepting funds from TKI since we didn't talk to them first and while they appreciated the intention, they couldn't be associated with the project because the board didn't discuss it first.

We raised approximately $1200. The money still hasn't been used or spent, so no one has profited from it. It sits in a separate account, which is immediately accessible.
So Maurice and I have decided to ask everyone who donated to help us decide what we should do with the money. Almost all the donations came from Inraptured members, hypnotists, and our fans and friends." (January 19th, 2013 @ 8:50:58pm EST)

There are three problems with this.  Three lies.  1) The Kinsey Institute shut her down, not because the board hadn't discussed it, but because she illegally represented her fundraising as an outreach of their Institute and because the project is not something they would ever actually consider putting in their facility.  2) She's not asking the people who donated.  She's asking her followers and the members of Inraptured.  I assure you that all the donors were not contacted.  There weren't that many.  We're not talking about hundreds even, there were only 26 individuals.  Exactly no attempt was made to contact the donors individually to ask them what they felt should happen to their money.  3) The amount raised was not $1200.  

According to an email that each and every donor received from IndieGoGo on July 7th, 2011:

“We want to let you know that the funding campaign, The TranceLight Project, has completed funding. They raised $1,831 of their $5,000 goal, thanks to your contribution. Isabella Valentine should be in touch shortly, with an update on the campaign and to fulfill any perks you are owed.

Cheers!

The IndieGoGo Team”

Why did it take Ms. Valentine so long to address the collected funds?  Where did the extra $631 go?  I see only two alternatives.  Either Isabella has completely misappropriated it, or she has given refunds to herself and closely known donors on the sly.  If we overlook one third of her raised funds disappearing magically and follow along with Isabella's posts she goes ahead and suggests where the remaining money should go.

Once more I quote from her own January 19th, 2013 post as she offers five alternatives:

1) Donate none of it to TKI [The Kinsey Institute]; let Inraptured use 100% of donated funds for site upgrades 
2) Keep $400 so Maurice can hire coders to help upgrade Inraptured with a new "Like" button and other features and donate $800 to TKI [The Kinsey Institute]
3) Keep $800 so Maurice can hire coders to help upgrade Inraptured with a new "Like" button, "Block" button, and other features and donate $400 to TKI [The Kinsey Institute]
4) Donate 100% of it to TKI and inquire about creating an erotic hypnosis endowment fund so anyone can donate into it.
5) Split the profit 50/50. Half to Inraptured. Half to TKI. [The Kinsey Institute]

At this point I feel it is important to point out that NONE of these suggestions involve refunding the donations to people that gave her money in good faith to fund a specific project.  Also, as far as creating an "erotic hypnosis endowment fund" at The Kinsey Institute... they've heard nothing of this suggestion and at press time were not even sure such a thing would be possible at their academic institution.  None of these suggestions even remotely resemble the project for which the money was raised.  This isn't a slight change in the direction of the Trancelight Project.  That idea has been completely discarded and money raised under its description is now being directed elsewhere.

Worse still, Ms. Valentine isn’t even entertaining discussion about whether or not it is right to redirect her ill-gotten gains.  When a member of her site pointed out on January 29th, 2013: “I would imagine the actual lesson here for the future was to make sure all parties are aware and agree on the terms of the fundraise and whatnot... especially the party that is supposed to receive the money”, Ms Valentine replied not with apologies, or an admittance of error, but with anger and indignity.

“I'm slightly annoyed that I'm topless and mad and you want to talk to ME about lessons. Really? The money wasn't for them, the gift of a jukebox was. They refused it. We already made our official apologies to them in the board room. Again the point is being missed. It's not about pointing at the spilled milk and blaming the victim for spilling it (and really, on Inraptured to a Mistress is really snarky) - it's about figuring out what we do with the bottle of milk. You really think I'm an asshole don't you?

I reject the lesson that we always need approval to send people gifts. That's bullshit. But apparently if the person receiving the gift is a non-profit with a board of directors, then yes, yes you do. I asked them 3 days after the fundraiser started and ended it upon receiving their first request to end it. So it wasn't like we never asked them. I was impulsive. Thanks for pointing that out as if I didn't know I made a mistake already. ^^

Thank you to everyone who is keeping this thread on point so we can get a group consensus.

So far the majority appears to be saying we want to keep this money and use it for site upgrades.” (January 31st, 2013 @ 10:59:01pm EST)

Is this the voice of someone who is showing any remorse?  Is it the right of a “Mistress” to steal money and then blame others?  She “rejects the lesson”?  The lesson here is that real scientific and academic institutions do not need, nor want, help from a second rate (though apparently proud) sex worker.  According to one source at Indiana University (home of the Kinsey Institute), no credible university can be associated with someone admittedly in the sex trade.  (Let us not forget fact that Ms. Valentine, very publically admitted to being suspended from attending a local Community College recently for distributing pornographic material.) Welcome to the real world Ms. Valentine.  This isn’t your little Inraptured empire where you rule with impunity.  This is the real world,  a place where actions have repercussions.  

I would also like to point out here that once more Ms. Valentine is lying to us.  She did not contact The Kinsey Institute three days after the IndieGoGo project went live.  As late as two weeks after the project was posted, the Institute had never heard of it when they were contacted to verify the legitimacy of the fundraising!

I leave it to all of you to draw your own deductions about what Isabella's intentions and motives were with this project, but I for one want to know what exactly she intends to do to make this right.  Can any of us trust her with our minds and hearts if we can't trust her with our money?