Contenidos

This brings us to the fifth myth, that a hypnotized person subjects their mind or gives their will over to the control of another person. This is not true. The Svengali-esq mystical, all-powerful quality attached to hypnosis originally came about from the 1894 novel Trilby, by George Du Maurier, which interestingly enough has been called the first 'Best Seller.' Du Maurier died two years later but his characters, the evil stage hypnotist Svengali and his abused love Trilby, still live on today, having been recreated by Hollywood an impressive twelve times between 1896 and 1983, and the book was republished again in 1994.

Admittedly, some stage hypnotists like to be perceived as having magical powers because it makes for good showmanship; that is their chosen performance persona, their stage presence approach, even though it is not a scientific reality. Again, hypnosis is a proven safe, natural and effective process that harnesses natural abilities, God-given abilities, if you believe that way, which already reside within us. And because of this fact, I cannot think of any religion that wouldn’t want us to use our mind to the highest level of potential, or 53

any religion that has a belief system contra-indicated by hypnotic process.

The only reason a person would believe that religious rules prohibit hypnosis is because they have a misunderstanding about the true nature of hypnosis; they believe it to be an altered state of consciousness, or perhaps a form of meditation that is opposed to their accepted form of meditation, when others would say that hypnosis is really the opposite of meditation. Personally, my theory is that if the devil can climb inside a person's mind that easily, he probably doesn’t need a hypnotic process to do so. However, the reality of Christian ideology is an entirely separate debate, and one which we will now leave to dinner parties and theologians.

A hypnotized person does not yield control and does not do anything in a hypnotic state that they would be opposed to doing in a waking state. Certainly people are more suggestible to ideas and new behaviors that are based on truth, but they are not suggestible to the point that they will violate their personal moral beliefs or the rules of society. The CIA and the KGB spent a lot of time and money in the 1950’s and 60’s trying to figure out how to use hypnosis to create the perfect drone, the human without a conscience. Obviously, had they succeeded, our world would likely be a far different place.

The original Manchurian Candidate movie with Frank Sinatra in 1963, however, had better success and was able to use hypnosis to create the perfect drone Presidential assassin. Hollywood likes to play the mind-control card because it makes good theater, but the reality is people maintain total control during hypnosis, always possessing the ability to accept or reject any suggestions they receive from the hypnotist. Hypnosis is simply a lot more interesting and entertaining when portrayed as something sinister or comedic. Likewise, the average soccer mom driving her sedan down a city street is rather boring to witness when compared to a high-speed Maserati-driving drug-dealer police chase on the freeway.

Further proof about the lack of mind-control can actually be found at the occasional bad stage hypnosis show. People like to have fun and feel good, and when a hypnotist begins to disrespect the subjects or give negative suggestions, they will be rejected. I attended a show at a comedy club once and it was pretty good – the subjects were quite responsive and everyone was having a good time – until about half way through the show. I don't know what happened, but

the hypnotist's mood changed or maybe he decided on the spot to experiment a bit, and it all went downhill from there.

He was giving post-hypnotic suggestions with keywords, and unlike the tone of the previous skits, these were all negative. For example, he actually said, “The person I am touching now, when I say the word Blue, you will feel as if someone has kicked you in the balls.” And then, moving on to the next person, he actually said, “The person I'm touching now, when I say the word Candida, you will feel as if someone has goosed you, you know, poked their finger right up in your ass hole and gave it a good twist.” (Yes, he really said this.)

As a general rule, when keywords are used like this in a stage show they are attached to humorous behaviors, like, “Any time I say the color Blue, you will jump up and sing Blue Suede Shoes and dance like Elvis.” Most anyone can and would happily respond to this silly suggestion, but no one likes to feel as if they've been blind-sided with a kick in the groin, or elsewhere.

This hypnotist went on to give seven subjects seven different keywords, all with these kinds of terribly negative suggestions. Let me just state again that this was not a good show! Who would want to experience those kinds of things? Where is the humor in this? Even members of the audience were taken aback. These people volunteered to go up on stage because they were told it was going to be fun and they would feel good, but now the hypnotist is handing out non- pleasurable, non-amusing suggestions. Unlike the first 20 or 30 minutes of the show when things were going well and everyone was laughing and having a great time, the subjects now appeared a little confused and nervous, likely wondering if they could still trust the hypnotist. Not good.

He then went on with his patter or script where he uses the keywords and the subject responds accordingly. He said, “Well, I went outside my hotel today and boy was it pretty out! I looked up at the clear blue sky…” And the blue keyword subject just sat there. He didn’t respond. The hypnotist was clearly a little surprised, so he moved on to the next keyword, “So I was talking to my friend Candida… and Candida said...” Again, there was no response from the selected subject, and now the hypnotist was even more rattled. He quickly went through all seven of his keywords and only one out of the seven participants responded, but without much excitement. Obviously relieved to be done with that part of the act, the hypnotist 55

then went into a deepening skit and came back with more typical types of silly skits, but the subjects never again responded quite as enthusiastically as they had during the beginning of the show.

So again, when we are hypnotized, we do not yield control to another person, we simply become more suggestible in regards to accepting true and beneficial patterns of thinking.