[Arcanum]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

Hypnosis is a specialised way of thinking thoughts and forming & altering beliefs. In turn, "reality" is shaped, created and changed by thoughts and beliefs.

The big difficulty of changing your thoughts and altering your beliefs is that you (or people in general) tend to cling hard to pre-existing notions of what is "real". This clinging (or attachment) makes it difficult for you (or people in general) to change their minds about the various aspects of reality.

For example, Apopohis thinks that a tree is "real". Out of this concept, he builds other concepts, such as how trees ought to behave, and what they can do, and what they can't do. These concepts are so strong that trees will generally behave in ways unsurprising to Apopohis. In other words, trees will behave in a "realistic" manner, in Apopohis's reality.

One way to release some of these limits is to bear in mind that trees aren't actually "real". In fact they are mostly empty space. Like a Zen question that stuns the conceptual mind, the notion that trees aren't "real", aren't even "there", then frees you to select other thoughts and beliefs about trees - thoughts and beliefs which you would otherwise find too bizarre, unusual or ridiculous to accept.

To the extent that you can free yourself from those mental constraints, you will be able to shape your reality as you wish, through your thoughts. Here's an example from Jesus, who decides to kill a tree with his thoughts:



Admittedly, not much value in killing a poor tree like that - I wouldn't do it, even if I could.

Jesus sounds like somebody you didn't want to pi*s off.
Yes, I understand how the whole 99% space deally might jar one's preconceptions a bit, I just don't see it as particularly powerful in that regard. Just my perception.