Our mind is like an iceberg: only 1/10th is above the surface — the conscious mind; the other 9/10ths is below — the subconscious mind.
Brief History
This section provides a brief history of hypnosis and hypnotherapy, and also introduces some concepts on how we influence the mind / body connection that science is now verifying has such an impact on our physical health.
The mind/body connection lies in the immune system and the endocrine system, and more and more studies are now verifying this. Hypnosis can directly influence the immune system, and bioenergy treatments (such as Reiki and Therapeutic Touch) can influence the endocrine system via the body's chakra or energy systems, each of which is associated with an endocrine gland. I'll write more in detail on the endocrine system and chakras later since that is more properly addressed when talking about bioenergy therapies. If you can't wait, please visit the Luna Wellness Center for more information. I address it in detail on the energy healing page.
The reason for providing this brief history is to help alleviate any fears that may be lingering out there about hypnosis. You know the ones: "Is it mind control?" "Will I lose control?" "Will I cluck like a chicken?" "Isn't it the devil's work?" "And what about those Dracula movies? Didn't he hypnotize his victims?"
During hypnotherapy and hypnosis you are in absolute control at all times. You're the one doing the work, not the hypnotist. You're the one that allows the hypnotherapist to guide you through your own subconscious to the part that's been troubling you or causing you problems. The subconscious is where we can get at those monsters under the bed or in the closet, and finally confront and destroy them so you can SET YOURSELF FREE.
First Story Tellers, First Medicine People, First Hypnotists
All those fears and stigmas and stories and myths that have come to be associated with hypnosis and hypnotherapy over the years. And it has been many, many years. The history of hypnosis and hypnotherapy goes back to long before Mesmer in the 18th Century to those first story tellers and medicine people who helped others sitting around the fires night after night after long days full of the physical exertion of hunting and gathering.
Many shamanistic techniques such as chanting, drumming, and dancing are really techniques designed to induce a hypnotic trance state; an altered state of consciousness. These techniques allow the mind to drop into automatic, and once this occurs, the subconscious comes to fore.
Listening to an excellent story-teller by the fire after a long day of physical exertion allows the mind to drop into the subconscious and the trance state. The combination of physical exhaustion and repetition allows one to slip into the trance state, then accessing the subconscious mind is easily accomplished with the dancing words of the story teller --- the ebb and flow inside, hypnotically luring and easing us, penetrating our deepest subconscious depths. Even the rock paintings, so beautiful and simple and elegant could also be used as a way to induce a trance state. You've seen the Hitchock classic thriller Vertigo haven't you? Spinning circles tire the eyes, and tiring the eyes is yet another way to induce a trance state. Just imagine how those rock paintings looked when the only light available was the fire in the middle of the cave . . .
Hypnotic techniques are used by all good speakers, preachers, teachers, story-tellers, helpers, and healers of all kinds, whether they are aware of it or not. (And to answer your question about our 44th President, yes he definitely uses hypnotic techniques in prepared speeches (pacing, repetition, and of course establishing very good rapport --- the "I'm like you and you can trust me" feeling while also only giving broad brush strokes instead of details on policies and plans, allowing our subconscious minds to fill in the details. So of course, the details are different for each of us until they are actually written on paper somewhere.) And you can also bet your butt, the advertising firms on Madison Avenue know about trace states and they use it very well when you plop down in front of the TV at night after a long day of work and are exhausted. They use the trance state induced by the flickering light of the TV to sell you things, make you think you need things (that are really just wants), and they and they use it very, very, very well. (Remember, Hollywood tested a more subliminal form of these types of suggestions back in the 50s, and it pushed popcorn and soda sales through the roof!)
In the Beginning . . .
As far back as 3,000 BC, the Egyptians had knowledge of and were using hypnotism, which is proven by hieroglyphics found on tombs of that period. The hieroglyphics show a person apparently asleep in a sitting position with others gathered about. The Greeks also understood it, as well as the Maya of South America. It was also used by Hindu Fakirs, the Chinese Teachers of Religion, the Persian Magi, the Celtic Druids, and African Witch Doctors. Rituals around the world handed down since the dawn of time incorporate the trance state.
Some believe that hypnosis was spontaneously discovered in each civilization of the world as its history unfolded, and that it will become known by any group of people in any setting. In all likelihood, the first hypnotists soon became the first witch doctors, wise men, shamen, and medicine people, and the art of hypnosis was jealously guarded by shrouding it in mysticism and religion. So, is it any wonder then that it has taken so long for it to gain widespread recognition and acceptance? Absolutely not, because its secrets were kept secret from the average human for millenia.
Another reason for the general lack of knowledge of hypnotism is even more inherent in humans because of our natural tendency to fear and ridicule what we don't understand. Fear of the unknown is a basic human fear found in all cultures of the world. However, every science of the world, and hypnosis is a science as well as an art, has traveled the same path from disbelief, to fear, to common acceptance.
Even the Wall Street Journal recently ran an article on how the traditional medical community is now doing studies that show if the doctor is upbeat and positive about a new drug or therapy they prescribe for their patients, the patients respond better and faster to the treatment. That's hypnosis because for many, many years our Western society viewed (and some still do) medical doctors as nearly Gods, not body mechanics. And the medical doctors' belief in the treatment heavily influences the patients' belief and faith in the treatment. Today, more and more scientific studies come to light expanding on the interaction between the mind and the body. Hypnosis uses this connection between the mind and the body to accomplish what some describe as waving a magic wand.
More and more studies are coming to pinpoint the mind / body connection as lying in the immune system and the endocrine system. The immune system is easily impacted by our core thoughts and beliefs. This is why creative visualization (we have many names for hypnosis that seem more palatable somehow) and viewing your white blood cells as PacMen eating cancer cells or "bad" cells is so effective.
The endocrine system we'll address more in an entry discussing bioenergy treatments because each endocrine gland is associated with a major chakra (energy center) in the body.
Today, hypnosis is recognized as both an art and a science: The art comes from the hypnotist or hypnotherapist and the techniques and tools they use to help anyone who wants to reach the hypnotic trance state. The science comes from the numerous studies done on the various states of mind and brainwave patterns found in those different states of mind, as well as the numerous studies on the mind-body connection. (Suffice it to say that we ALL pass through a hypnotic state at least twice a day --- when we wake up and when we go to sleep, and if you're driving very far, chances are you're entering a light trance state during the ride as well (when you slide into "automatic.")
The hypnotic pioneers fall generally into four categories: (1) Early, Unscientific Group, (2) Semi-Scientific Group, (3) Scientific Group, and (4) Modern Groups. Hypnosis has become more recognized by the scientific community because increasing numbers of its proponents are more scientific in their approaches. Thousands have contributed to the advancement of hypnotism and those recognized by the scientific community are those who took a more scientific, as opposed to anecdotal, approach.
Early Unscientific Group
This group includes most of those who experimented with hypnosis without knowing it by that particular name. The word itself is a misnomer derived from the Greek word Hypnos, meaning sleep. But hypnosis is not a state of sleep; it is instead an altered state of conscious awareness that each and every one of us enters at least twice a day: When we wake up, and when we go to sleep. That half-awake, half-asleep state we pass through where we are aware of our surroundings, but really don't want to elicit the effort to open our eyes and see what's going one.
Those in this group share in common that they generally misunderstood the things they were accomplishing, and instead accredited their achievements to magic, or magnetism, divine power, or some other outside force. Those in this group include Genghis Kahn, who used group suggestion to create hallucinations. Albertus Magnum, Roger Bacon, Raymond Lully, Pico della Mirandola, Paracelsus, Holinotius, Robert Fludd, Father Kirchner, Maxwell, Burcq, and Father Hell, as well as many others whose names never made it into the history books. This group also includes the Seers and Sages of Ancient Greece, the leaders in self-hypnosis, as well as the Ancient Egyptians, and all those other story tellers and medicine persons dating back to the dawn of time. Some even believe Jesus used hypnosis as part of his healings.
Semi-Scientific Group
This group started experimenting and researching hypnotism as a science, although some of them never heard the term "hypnosis" during their lifetime. Probably the most famous pioneer of the hypnotic trance state was Anton Mesmer, who most call the "Father of Hypnosis." Others include Father Gassner, the Marquis De Puysegur, as well as James Martin Charcot.
Scientific Group
This group includes those who first removed hypnosis from the realms of "mysticism" and started experimenting with what hypnosis could actually do. Elliotson, Braid, and Esdaile made much progress towards establishing its use in medicine, ending the first dark age of hypnosis. (The American Medical Association has recognized hypnosis as effective treatment to stop smoking since 1958.) Other scientific pioneers include Liebeault, Bernheim, Brewer, and Freud.
Freud
At this point the mention of Freud deserves some clarification. According to many accounts, Freud took up hypnotism before fathering psychoanalysis. The story is that he was just so very bad at hypnosis that he went back to cognitive talk therapy and started using many hypnotic techniques. This combination of talk therapy and hypnotic techniques birthed what the world came to know as Psychoanalysis. Unfortunately, Freud also became responsible for another dark age of hypnosis, and we can only speculate on why he started bad-mouthing it.
Modern Group
This group includes those who teach and promote hypnotherapy as an art and profession of its own, as well as those who research it as a science. Unfortunately, there seems to be a chasm between the scientific community and those many dedicated full-time hypnotherapists who are and have been successfully helping their clients change their lives. You could legitimately divide this group into the modern scientific group and the modern artistic group.
Probably the most famous and brilliant 20th-Century scientific researcher is recognized as Milton Erickson, MD. Trained as a psychiatrist, Erickson's metaphorical stories and techniques are legendary in the hypnosis community. It is said that he could place folks in trance without formal inductions, just by talking to them and telling them stories. Stories rich in metaphor that the subconscious mind latches onto and where it recognizes itself and its own behavior. Many recognize Erickson as the Grandfather of Hypnotherapy and the Father of Counseling Hypnotherapy.
The interesting thing about Erickson is that those with advanced degrees and / or medical backgrounds look at Erickson's work analytically, trying to analyze why he did things the way he did. From the other end of the spectrum, practicing, professional hypnotherapists, those practicing it as an art, consider Erickson a master who worked intuitively.
In my humble opinion, I believe Erickson combined the best of both worlds, analyzing himself and what he did after he did it, but also going with the flow and listening to his intuition while in session with those he helped. Erickson could reach people when no other had been able to. There are stories of those in institutions no one could reach, no one could calm, and yet Erickson the Master was able to reach them and calm them and do therapy with them, and the way he did it was by using hypnotic techniques to enter the patient's world. Once there, he established rapport, because only after this is established --- only after the connection and the trust is established --- could he then begin therapy that could help.
If you look at scientific research historically, if you look at the brilliant minds of history, they all combined this analytical side of themselves with their intuition. Following what they could logically and analytically, and then when they had to or needed to, following their instinct and intuition. If I remember the Myers-Briggs correctly, that type of logical thinking followed by an intuitive jump is less than 2% of the population.
The modern artistic group is what the scientific community refers to as "lay hypnotism" because although the practitioners may have been doing it for 40 or 50 years, and although many in the scientific community have actually learned their techniques from those "lay hypnotists," they do not have medical certifications or doctorates of psychology or psychiatry. These are the ones recognized as Masters of the Art of Hypnosis. Names like Ormond McGill, Charles Tebbetts, Roy Hunter, Gerald Kein, and Gil Boyne. Some of these have formed professional hypnosis associations, some of them came up through the stage hypnotist ranks. All have dedicated themselves to helping people using the arts of hypnosis and hypnotherapy.
Please understand that there is an overlap between these two modern groups because some of the 20th Century researchers did not obtain the usual advanced degrees common to today's scientific researchers. Likewise, some with outstanding credentials and degrees have also recognized hypnosis as an art and have accepted the validity of hypnotherapists who are competent artists even though they might lack advanced academic degrees.
* Much of this information is discussed in detail in The Art of Hypnosis and The Art of Hypnotherapy by Roy Hunter.
Additional books on the ancient history of hypnosis:
- Trance: A Natural History of Altered States of Mind by Brian Inglis
- Jesus the Healer: Possession, Trance, and the Origins of Christianity by Stevan L. Davies
- Shamans of Prehistory: Trance and Magic in the Painted Caves by Jean Clottes
- Trance: from Magic to Technology by Dennis R. Wier
- The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art by David Lewis-Williams
- The Mayo Clinic, information on hypnosis: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/hypnosis/SA00084
- The National Library of Medicine and
- The National Institues of Health has a wealth of information on hypnosis and hypnotherapy.
Copyright 2003-2013
Melodie Hawkins
