Indeed, there are lots of stories about the effect of eye contact in human behavior, charisma and persuasion. Sam Harris has a few stories about this, and [writes a bit in this post](https://samharris.org/look-into-my-eyes/). Try to catch Osho, the guru in the video, blinking. He doesn't, he barely moves his eyelids 1/4 of the way down once a minute or so. It's fascinating.