UP ON THE stage, the band is playing "Feeling Alright" while people file into the auditorium. One look at the band-I guess it's wrong to call them a band, maybe combo is the proper word. because they all do dance steps and all wear ties-one look at them and you know that they know that this is it. the Big Time. right here and live on the Hayden Hall stage, real Show Biz. They play with a studied boredom because they know people are not there to see rock musicians. They are just filler-in the Show Biz tradition-to keep the marks quiet until the start of the big act. Shawn Masters, the world's Greatest Hypnotist.

There are more than 500 people crowded into the auditorium at B. U. tonight. I am up front, and seated

I don't know what I was expecting when I went to see the World's Greatest Hypnotist: Evil Eye Fleagle, Mandrake, Dr. Strange. I'd seen his handbills: A long shot of him standing on a girl who was stretched, entranced, between two chairs. "The Man-The Legend," it said. Everyone must be disappointed when they meet the World's Greatest. He's just a human being: no two-tone eyebrows, no electricity oozing from the fingertips.

But once you accept that he is human, Shawn Masters is about right to be a hypnotist. Fleshy and self-assured, he has something of the same air that a photogenic politician or male movie star has when seen in person: the slightly artificial, larger-than-life appearance of a man who has been weathered by thousands of eyes. He's the sort of guy about whom people say, "He looks just like his pictures." just close enough and they'll go home satisfied. Tonight Shawn Masters is going to give both to the crowd-almost. And he's going to use the audience itself as his gladiators and dancing girls.

After a few minutes, the crowd is seated and the combo stops. An officer from Theta Chi-the Tufts Fraternity that brought Masters to Boston-makes an introduction, the band swings into the theme from "The Johnny Carson Show," and he comes in. He is wearing a royal blue dinner jacket, black cummerbund and tie, dazzling white shirt. One look and you know-Mr. Show Business.

He's done the act a thousand times-on the road for eight years, doing concerts like this one up and down the East Coast, then doing nightclubs for twelve years-breaking all the Show Biz records out there, running longer than Phyllis Diller, the runner-up. Held over for seven and a half months in Puerto Rico. He's got more than a hundred stunts, pre-tested for audience appeal. So there's no uncertainty about him when he sizes up the crowd. After a little opening spiel-"Hypnosis is a science and it is a fact" -he steps back, waves his hand, and says, "Won't you come up and join me?"

The marks almost tear each other to pieces. Arlene vaults two rows of chairs and jumps on the stage. Donna and her date run up the aisle. About sixty people are fighting for the twenty chairs. Masters sorts them all out, getting an even number of boys and girls, and sends the rest back. He keeps Arlene, but sends Donna and her date back to reclaim their seats. Telling anyone in the audience who wants to be hypnotized to watch the lights and listen to his voice, he turns to his volunteers and proceeds to the real stuff of the show.

THE hypnotization is eerie enough. There is no swinging pendulum. Masters tells the volunteers to watch his eyes, to sit comfortably, and to react naturally; if they feel that they want to close their eyes, they should. By the time he counts to ten, he says, they will all be asleep.

He counts to ten and talks about sleep in a sing song voice: "ONE You-feel-very-relaxed TWO You-are-fall-ing-to-sleep THREE ..." As he reaches the higher numbers, he begins to do a weird little dance, waving his arms like an albatross taking off, and lapsing into a chant: " Dee -perr and dee -perr."

And by about four, sure enough, the heads are beginning to wobble, the eyes are beginning to close, and-it's for real-Dr. Strange is entrancing his victims, fans, before your astonished eyes.

At seven, there is a clunk behind me. Charlie has gone under and is zonked out on the floor. Donna is also snoozing by this time. On stage, almost everyone is gone by now. Arlene is oblivious, her head nestled on the shoulder of the guy next to her. Masters counts ten.

Well, he's got them, and he puts them through a lot of tests to sort out the best subjects. Some of them he sends back, and he takes others from the audience who seem promising. The real act can begin.

The victims are sitting on stage in a semicircle. He walks around and shakes hands with each one, and as he does so-Cushlamochree. he's doing it again-they sleep again. Then he turns to the audience and smiles broadly. We know what's going to happen. don't we? But they-our sleeping innocents-don't know what they're about to go through.

But they find out soon enough. Masters tells them they're drunk, and they are-happy drunk. He tells them they itch, and they scratch uncontrollably. He tells them the people next to them smell terrible. They sniff disgustedly.

And the weird thing is that Donna, who is still sitting next to me, is going through the same changes. No one is giving her orders. but she does whatever the people on stage are doing. And she doesn't know why. All she remembers, she told me, is looking up at the light. She doesn't think she was really hypnotized.