AN AGEING and unprepossesing Tokyo fortune teller who kept a harem of ten women in their twenties for years may have used hypnosis to hold them in his thrall.

Police searching the three-storey home where Hirohito Shibuya, 57, kept the women say that they discovered “how-to” guides on group hypnosis and believe that he used other mind-control techniques under the guise of fortune telling.

Mr Shibuya, who was arrested last week on suspicion of threatening to turn one of his harem members into mincemeat if she left, went to extraordinary lengths to avoid breaching polygamy laws.

Japanese records show that he was married twelve times to ten women between 1999 and August 2004. He divorced one woman and married another in the same day eight times.

“Although it’s illegal in Japan, I’m virtually a polygamist,” he said. “I contacted my ward office, and officials there said it was not illegal to repeatedly marry and divorce, although they did say it was unprecedented.”

Mr Shibuya somehow managed to keep all his former wives under the same roof. He said that they all worked in shops while he stayed at home avoiding strenuous work because of a heart condition.

Although psychologists say it is possible that Mr Shibuya used hypnosis to secure his harem’s loyalty, he claims that he learnt in a dream of a magic “love charm”. He has refused to share it with the world, but says that “if you chant it, even unattractive men find themselves popular with women”.

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