hypnosis. Many things should, but don’t ever get labeled hypnosis. We are going to use the most accurate definition of hypnosis to be found. It is born out of Dave Elman’s insights and Jerry’s mind model. Hypnosis is the bypass of the critical faculty of the conscious mind, and the establishment of selective thinking. Again, here’s the model. This time we see the bypass of the critical faculty...
When the critical faculty is willing to sit off to the side, uninvolved with the flow of data into the subconscious goal-achieving mind, we have hypnosis. When the critical faculty is stopping and judging incoming suggestions, we don’t. When we have bypass of the critical faculty amazing things happen.
Let’s look into the world of the stage-show hypnotists and see how the mind works for them. To answer your first question, Yes, it’s real! We’ll discuss the details of how the stage-show hypnotist gets people into the state where those wild things happen later on. For now we’ll just start at the point where bypass of the critical factor has been attained. Once a straight path has been gained to the subconscious mind, the stage-show hypnotist might give the suggestion that the person is about to be given a ripe, delicious apple, and they’re free to eat away. The audience next sees the hypnotist hand the person a peeled yellow onion. The audience watches in horror as the subject crunches away with a big smile, totally believing the onion’s a tasty apple. It’s stunning to watch and hard to believe, but real. Once that suggestion got to the subconscious, goal-achieving mind, the most powerful agency known to man accepted it as fact and made it real.
After ten years working with this stuff, it still blows me away when I see these types of things happen right before my eyes! Is there anything socially redeeming to the old “onion’s an apple” gig? I don’t think so. But look at what the stage-show hypnotist has been able to get the mind to do. Using the onion-to-apple example, how long would it take a psychologist to logic a person into that kind of a belief system shift? Well, it would take six sessions to develop rapport ... and then another eight sessions to assess current condition ... not very entertaining . . . and worse yet, not in ten years of weekly visits would the person start to think the onion was an apple! The stage-show hypnotist can accomplish this in a matter of minutes. If you want to talk about changing perceptions, who’s going to want to compete with these stage-show hypnotists!!
Now, am I recommending that you go to a stage-show hypnotist for healing? No. But learning and applying what they know about the mind is precious to healing. I too see no value in making a person believe that an onion is an apple, but how many people can be helped if changing perceptions of self-worth happens with the same ease?
For the record, I would never do a stage show routine. And my feelings toward these performers as professionals are mixed. For the thousands of hours that I have had to spend dispelling the fears and misconceptions created by these people prior to starting the real work in my office, I could choose some less than positive thoughts. But for the rapid and instantaneous induction techniques they have created, I thank them. For their gutsiness in proving the reliability of the subconscious mind’s usable power and influence over what we thought was non-manageable, I am indebted forever.
What have we learned so far? If you want to change a perception, don’t waste an ounce of energy creating change at a conscious level. Instead, work in harmony with the mind’s mechanics. Bypass the critical faculty and reprogram the subconscious goal-achieving mind! And voila! Too easy, right? What’s wild is that sometimes it can be that simple.
7: BEYOND HYPNOSIS
Regression to cause is another discipline of hypnosis. Here there is power!
The hypnotic experience itself doesn’t necessarily call for any kind of healing. The critical faculty swings open and shut freely and frequently throughout the day and night. That’s right. All of us go in and out of the hypnotic state in varying degrees throughout a normal day. We’re usually not aware of this because it’s a very natural feeling state. We also don’t have some little fairy buzzing around our heads waving a flag saying “You’ve arrived . . . Ah, you have just left.” It doesn’t work that way. And nowhere in formal education is this understanding of the mind taught.
So now we know that we have a critical faculty that separates the conscious and subconscious minds. We know that we can bypass the critical faculty, but we now learn that there is no actual healing in the bypass itself. Then where does the healing come from? That depends on the problem we’re looking to mend and our choice of techniques. Under the umbrella of hypnosis, there are many different disciplines. For now, we’re going to focus on two techniques--direct suggestion and regression to cause. Direct suggestion attempts to erase old perceptions and fill the remaining void with positive suggestions of transformation. You can also use it in a way that actually dilutes the crud of past thoughts by rinsing the mind with repetitious healing suggestions. Direct suggestion used in either fashion can be quite effective. Regression to cause is another discipline of hypnosis. Here there is power! Here we get answers! To start explaining how “hypnotic regression to cause” aids in healing, I’d like you to think with me about a stack of cans shaped in a pyramid, as you might see in a grocery store display. Let’s look at my stack of cans. The first thing we’re going to do is invert it.
What used to be the broad base now spans the top. We’re going to see that top row of cans as individual and seemingly unrelated symptoms. Symptoms as seemingly unrelated as bursitis, asthma and nail biting. This is the realm of medical doctors. Their training makes them symptom-oriented illness managers. If there’s a pain they’re going to numb it. If there’s a tumor, they cut it out. A virus appears and they throw antibiotics at it. A medical doctor sees only this top row of cans. As cans (symptoms) pop up, the doctor’s going to somehow dig them out.
Out of the medical doctors’ ranks developed the psychologists. They stood on a foundation that said: You can’t move a finger until you “think” to move the finger. Thought must precede action. If the body’s natural tendency is toward health, then it’s the mind that holds the key to disease. Hallelujah! Right? Wrong. Unfortunately, both of the university-developed mind sciences--psychiatry and psychology--were developed from minds already conditioned to illness management. They became illness managers of the mind. Psychiatrists became manipulators of the brain’s electrochemistry. Any computer technician would be embarrassed if caught messing with the computer’s hardware when trying to fix a problem that is obviously a bug in the software. But not the medical doctors! If that wasn’t bad enough, this obsession with the chemistry of the physical plant has grown into something called genetic science. The mind model will show us reasons to be concerned over the activities of genetic science.
Psychologists became the illness managers of man’s condition. They studied and became experts at explaining why we do the things we do (diagnosis). They often tell us there’s a name for a certain tendency. And that there’s a name for the people who do such things, and the fact that we do such things makes us one of them (that’s a label)! Now they look that label up in a book. Next, they and the book tell us what we should and should not do throughout life so we won’t be called one of them any more (prescription).
If I sound a tad testy, it’s because I’ve seen a lot of people hurt by this and it wears thin. Sorry. Understand, I am saying nothing about the individual healer. A student of psychology who blends back into his or her healing work an understanding of a “whole-mind model” will do wonderful things. It’s the institutions that need to change their tune. Often the institutions’ leaders and professionals brag about being state-of-the-art, but they’re still stuck in a cul-de-sac after a wrong turn made years ago. And I guess as they themselves would label this typically paternal energy, the
