What is your view of hypnosis?

What is your view of hypnosis?

  • hypnosis is of the devil!

    Votes: 3 15.8%
  • it is a helpful tool if used properly

    Votes: 5 26.3%
  • I don't know, but it gives me the creeps

    Votes: 1 5.3%
  • other

    Votes: 10 52.6%

  • Total voters
    19

nikolai_42

Well-known member
I will add that my view of hypnosis isn't quite as extreme as saying "It is of the devil" but it seems to me to be right up there with necromancy in that it messes with things God never explained to us and never intended us to get into. Where does one draw the line between (for example) hypnosis and possession?
 

musterion

Well-known member
That had always seemed to me to be a too physical explanation for something that had a very spiritual connotation

A fair point, but something that's been running through my mind in recent weeks is that we don't even know what we truly are. We've got the pat mind/soul/spirit formula, but many disagree with it as the end-all, be-all description of how God actually made us and what we actually are. I suspect there's a much closer connection between "mind/soul/spirit" and our physical forms than we realize. But no one knows for sure, so no one can really know how they all tie in to one another. God simply hasn't told us.

That said, the followup question was where one could draw the line. What drug isn't "mind-altering"? Isn't that the very definition of a drug? That it changes your brain chemistry?
Well, psychoactive drugs, yes. Another fair point.
 

nikolai_42

Well-known member
A fair point, but something that's been running through my mind in recent weeks is that we don't even know what we truly are. We've got the pat mind/soul/spirit formula, but many disagree with it as the end-all, be-all description of how God actually made us and what we actually are. I suspect there's a much closer connection between "mind/soul/spirit" and our physical forms than we realize. But no one knows for sure, so no one can really know how they all tie in to one another. God simply hasn't told us.

Well, psychoactive drugs, yes. Another fair point.

Interesting, too, that our word for pharmacy and the Greek word often used for witchcraft have the same root...

I suppose that goes to the fact that many people sought out mind-altering experiences using certain substances and treated them as spiritual (Oracle at Delphi and Native Indian use of peyote are two examples that come to mind).
 

musterion

Well-known member
Yes. I knew something was up with my drug use (brief as it was) long before I learned what pharmakeia means. It makes perfect sense that it's a form of sorcery.
 

elohiym

Well-known member
What is your view of hypnosis?

It works, and it's useful. One example:

The so-called "Mother of Anesthesia," Alice Magaw, the anesthetist for the famous Dr. W.J. Mayo, wrote about using suggestion to reduce anesthesia in an article that was published in the Journal of Surgery, Gynecology and Obstetrics in 1906 titled, A review of over fourteen thousand surgical anesthesias. She wrote:

Suggestion is a great aid in producing a comfortable narcosis. The anesthetist must be able to inspire confidence in the patient and a great deal depends on the manner of approach. One must be quick to notice the temperament and decide which mode of suggestion will be the most effective in the particular case the abrupt crude and very firm or the reasonable sensible and natural. The latter mode is far the best in the majority of cases. The subconscious or secondary self is particularly susceptible to suggestive influence therefore during the administration the anesthetist should make those suggestions that will be most pleasing to this particular subject. Patients should be prepared for each stage of the anesthesia with an explanation of just how the anesthetic is expected to affect him: "talk him to sleep," with the addition of as little ether as possible.​

If you want to learn more about hypnosis, I suggest reading Dave Elman's book Hypnotherapy. He taught many dentists and doctors how to hypnotize patients. Most of the opinions you've already received on this thread are based on misconceptions about hypnosis. Elman's book dispels those misconceptions.
 

elohiym

Well-known member
I will add that my view of hypnosis isn't quite as extreme as saying "It is of the devil" but it seems to me to be right up there with necromancy in that it messes with things God never explained to us and never intended us to get into. Where does one draw the line between (for example) hypnosis and possession?

Hypnosis has nothing to do with possession.
 

elohiym

Well-known member
I've been told that hypnosis cannot make you do something that you don't want to do or are morally opposed to doing. So, I guess, in cases of smoking cessation or dieting, it would be a good thing. But, in other cases (such as recovering forgotten memories), I'm iffy. I've heard too many scary stories to try this myself (to see if things I've been dreaming about are repressed memories of my childhood).

When dealing with past traumas and phobias there is a risk of what's called abreaction. A friend of mind dabbling in hypnosis tried to help a friend overcome a spider phobia. He never practice hypnotherapy again after that because her abreaction was so traumatic to the both of them. He wasn't a psychologist or professional hypnotherapist.
 

User Name

Greatest poster ever
Banned
Hypnotism is the practice of putting a person into a trance for the purpose of planting suggestions. Hypnotism reduces self-determinism by entering the commands of another below the analytical level of an individual’s mind.
 

elohiym

Well-known member
Hypnotism is the practice of putting a person into a trance for the purpose of planting suggestions. Hypnotism reduces self-determinism by entering the commands of another below the analytical level of an individual’s mind.

Hypnosis is an artificially induced state of relaxation and concentration that does not reduce self-determinism. A person can come out of the hypnotic state at will, and only a willing participant can be hypnotized.
 
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