hypnolibertarian

What is hypnosis? If we are to discuss the use of hypnosis in political and other kinds of communication, you as my guest in this blog must know what I mean by hypnosis. I must warn you that my definition of hypnosis is different from anyone else of which I am aware. Nevertheless, I believe it captures what most people (and particularly most hypnotists) mean by hypnosis. Many of the most advanced hypnotists use the words trance and hypnosis interchangeably; I make a strong distinction between them (or, rather, between hypnosis and trance in general). To get at hypnosis, we must first start with trance. Trance is a mental state characterized by holistic thinking, unconscious processing, and creativity. Trance is part of the normal processing in the brain. Everyone enters trance at various times during the day. Trance (which includes dreaming) is necessary in the transfer of short term memory to long term memory, for learning, and for sheer sanity; deprive someone of trance states for a long period of time and they will go insane. Hypnosis is the deliberate use (and usually the deliberate induction) of trance. Hypnosis has the property of intentionality; someone wants to go into trance, or someone wants to put someone else in trance. To understand trance, we also need to understand the conscious and unconscious minds. Mind you, there are authorities that deny the existance of a separate “unconscious mind.” However, for the purposes of our discussions, we will characterize conscious processing as linear, aware (we are aware of what we are consciously thinking), logical thinking, and what might be called the “critical factor” — that part of ourselves that looks a gift horse in the mouth. Unconscious processes are characterized by lack of awareness (driving automatically), hollistic thinking, creativity, and a lack of that “critical factor.” In these blogs, we will be interested in the use of language, images, rhythms, or whatever can be used to induce a trance state that might be taken advantage of by someone. We must note here that lack of a “critical factor” does not make someone a robot, or guarantee a suggestion will be accepted. The suggestion must “fit in” with the patterns already in the brain. Suggestions are often refused. But the use of hypnosis and hypnotic communication has obvious advantages to the hypnotist, and we will talk about those advantages in this blog.

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