Truth: You always have the power to choose. You are always free to overtly or covertly reject suggestions that do not fit you. In stage hypnotism, the subjects make a choice of going along with the hypnotist’s suggestions because of prior consent (by volunteering to be on stage), which is why you never see any unwilling participants being dragged on stage, because it will not work!

Myth #2: Hypnotic outcomes are caused by the power of the hypnotist.

Truth: The “power” of the therapist is actually given by the client. In other words, if the client has a good therapeutic relationship and trusts the therapist, better therapy outcomes might be expected. But this is not unique to hypnosis, but is inherent in all therapies, under the banner of “common factors” of therapy. The therapist therefore is only a guide for the experience of hypnosis but what the client experiences depends on how he/she permits the role of the therapist to function.[3].

Myth #3: Not everyone can be hypnotised.

Truth: Hypnosis is a naturally occurring phenomenon. When you are driving on the highway and miss the exit because you are deep in thought about the holiday you just took, you are in a hypnotic state. Although many hypnotherapists still use formal induction techniques, these are found to be not necessary, although they can be helpful for clients whose expectations demand it. The American Psychological Association’s definition of hypnosis does not prescribe the necessity of formal induction, nor does it include the word “trance”.

Myth #4: One is asleep or unconscious during hypnosis.

Truth: Although the word hypnosis is derived from the Greek word Hypnos, meaning sleep, or the God of Sleep, hypnosis is not sleep. There is always some level of awareness of the current environment, even in deep hypnosis. Most people experience it as a relaxed state, although physical relaxation is not necessary for hypnosis to occur. They can hear the sounds of the surrounding environment, such as someone’s phone ringing next door, and so on.

Myth # 5: Hypnosis is simply relaxation.

Truth: While people are often relaxed in hypnosis, hypnosis is not just relaxation. Rather, it is an inner experience of focused attention, being absorbed, to a greater or lesser degree depending on various factors, in the therapist’s suggestions. Hypnosis can also occur in a non-relaxed state, such as with eyes open and in hyper-focus of an object, an imagination, or an event from the past. This is often called open-eye hypnosis or waking hypnosis.

Myth #6: Hypnosis cannot harm you.

Truth: Unfortunately, this also is a myth. However, the potential harm in hypnosis is not related to the hypnotic process itself, but rather, to the incompetency of the therapist, no different from any other form of psychotherapy. In any therapy, the client is in distress and in a vulnerable state, seeking help and relief of symptoms. Any inexperienced, insufficiently educated therapist may inadvertently (rarely intentionally), “misdiagnose a problem or its dynamics, offer poor advice, make grandiose promises, impose an antitherapetuic point of view, or simply waste ther person’s time and money”[4]. In these respects, hypnosis, along with any other forms of psychotherapy, can be harmful.

For Christians…

Hypnosis and God: Are They Compatible?

Some Christians confuse hypnotherapy with stage hypnotism, the former is a scientific clinical discipline that has been subjected to much research, with proven clinical results; the latter is non-therapeutic and is a form of entertainment. Anything unexplained causes people to connect with the supernatural or occult. But as we shall see,  there are explanations for stage hypnotism.

The Hypnotic State

The hypnotic state is a naturally occurring state, when the brain cycles at a somewhat lower rate than normal functioning state. This is called the alpha state. When a person is relaxed, the brain waves cycle at about  7-14 cycles per second (CPS), compared to the alert state of 14-32 CPS, the drowsy state of 4-7 CPS and the deep sleep state of approximately 3-5 CPS.

When you are driving and very relaxed and miss the exit on the highway, you are probably in the alpha or hypnotic state. The alpha state is commonly associated with closing one’s eyes, being relaxed or daydreaming, not just in hypnotherapy.

Stage Hypnotism

Stage hypnotism works on the person’s own internal motivation. The hypnotist asks for volunteers and by volunteering, the person is implicitly agreeing to be part of a show, with all the expected results of being “hypnotised”.

What is the Unconscious Mind?

Hypnotherapy teaches that what we hear, see, think of or imagine, goes into the unconscious mind before it goes into the conscious mind. This can be illustrated by someone saying “don’t think of a giraffe”, “don’t think of a lion”, and so on, and you immediately having to think of a giraffe or lion, before you try to NOT think of the animals. Suppose I ask you now to NOT think of your first high school dance, to NOT think of your fist kiss, to NOT think of your first car, you have already thought of all those things. This has now been explained in neuroscience: the brain processes thoughts in pictures and because there is no picture for the word “don’t”, you end up thinking of what you don’t want to think about.

In Scripture (1 Cor 2:11), it is shown that what we think of goes into the spirit:

For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? …

If the spirit of a man knows his thoughts, that  means every thought must go into his spirit. The unconscious mind is, I believe, simply the human spirit. In that respect, hypnosis is a spiritual process of change. Eugene Gendin, an American philosopher and psychotherapist, and his colleagues, studied hours and hours of psychotherapy tapes to  find out differences between sessions that clients  reported achieving change and sessions that did not. They found that the tapes that contained a lot of silence correlated to sessions that produced change. This “silence” occurs when  clients are  processing thoughts, feelings, sensations and imaginations, on a deeper level, similar to a hypnotic state of making new meanings and accessing clients’ own resources. This is why hypnosis is so powerful: it works on the spirit level of the human psyche.

Mind Control  and Free Will

Can anyone else control our mind? As answered in the myths above, the answer is no. The person always has a choice, and does exercise that choice. This is observed in hypnosis that if a suggestion is not congruent to the person’s will, he/she will either reject the suggestion and/or jump out of trance.  It is no doubt that the mind can be persuaded to change. In conversation every day, we persuade others to embrace our ideas, to do what we want them to do, to buy our products or to take our advice. All these changes of mind involve the free will of the other person. In hypnotherapy, only suggestions that are congruent with the person will be accepted.

Although scientists have shown that subliminal images in advertising shown to viewers who had no possibility of seeing the images consciously, do get recalled, research does NOT show that these people’s minds get changed about what brand they would actually buy! This confirms human free will functioning. God gave us free will and unless we agree with what is communicated, no one can really change our minds!