28 December 2023
For a discussion of hypnosis I will refer to this link on the Internet Archive. All you need are the first three chapters; the rest of the book gets tiresome after that. The title looks like click-bait, but the contents are actually rather tame and straightforward. The PDF version is more readable, but it's quite large print on the pages. Still, it's not a very long work, more of a booklet. It covers brainwashing, hypnosis and related topics.
What you'll learn is that there are several theories about how hypnosis works and no one is really sure. Oddly enough, different techniques based on competing theories all seem to work with some portion of subjects. I've seen several different approaches and the results tend to be about the same. The whole point seems to be that something like two-thirds of the western population can be dropped to a slightly lower condition of awareness in which they surrender to an authority, someone able to suggest things to the subject with more force than when they are fully conscious.
I've seen people in my family hypnotize themselves, listening to a vocal recording or media stream and absorb it to a depth that isn't normal. It's all based on a high level of trust in the hypnotist. If you don't trust the hypnotist, they cannot put you under.
By the way, did you catch how, in Derren Brown's TED performance, no one checked the cards he claims to have "read"? Did it occur to anyone that those people in his audience who participated were hypnotized? He had it all set up to identify people who were suggestible. He thus eliminated everyone who was not easily swayed by hypnotic techniques.
On a different angle, I'm sure you've heard about various chemical compounds that can put someone in a less than fully conscious state, but that's not hypnotism. That's simply reduced capacity; even ordinary beverage alcohol can do that. The whole point is using some substance that reduces tension and weakens full conscious control of voluntary muscle movements. If it makes you feel less pain and you lose contact with your normal social self-constraints, then you simply "under the influence".
While under the influence of some substance, nobody has full control of their physical movements, and darned few can retain their social identity. What that tells you is that very few people are themselves most of the time. Regardless how it changes you -- subdued, silly or angry -- if something like alcohol changes your personality, you are living a lie. Most people are. The more firmly you are aware of your convictions, and tend to obey them, the less likely alcohol will change you.
Enough of those substances and you will simply be asleep or comatose. This is the opposite of stimulants that wire you up so you cannot sleep, and your brain simply will not shut down. It's overstimulated to the point that you tend to act on impulses you normally hide from yourself. Again, if it changes your personality, you are living a lie. Both somnolents and stimulants tend to expose false fronts to some degree.
There is another class of substances that will interfere with parts of your mind so that you are simply unable to be yourself, fake or real. You would find yourself wholly disoriented, lacking access to certain parts of your normal awareness. This is seldom sleep-inducing, but cross-wires your mind. You really aren't there, and have no idea where you are internally.
In recent years there have been indications that some electronic equipment can mimic that sort of internal disassociation. There has also been research on sound, including frequencies we cannot normally hear. Anything that hinders normal mental processing can be used as a weapon, but it's more likely to be used in brainwashing, not hypnotism.
Hypnotism cannot induce you to do things you don't want to do. Your morals remain intact. Substances can take away your will or even change who you are.
Comments
Jay DiNitto
I've heard some ideas that very good public speakers, and people like news anchors or personalities, can hypnotize people without even intending to. I don't think they are not being deceptive in the first place. The deception, or maybe even just the willingness to distract you from something you should focus on, is the main goal, and the hypnosis is a by-product of their talents. I don't know. It seems farfetched that someone could do that on accident, but maybe if you have a willing enough viewer/listener, as you mentioned with your family, you can fall for someone's charisma in a bad way.
Anthony Probst
I'll assume it's a bug in my phone's browser app that causes your page to flicker when I tap the hamburger bars or the "Menu" button, and that you are not trying to hypnotize us!
CatRez
Heh. I have no way to control how the server and software operate on your phone. I really don't like WordPress software in the first place, but given all the factors involved, it's still the least bad of all the other bad choices.
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