[Alvin]

Originally Posted by Ilya

Well, I just caught myself defending hypnosis for some reason and I'm starting the post from scratch.

Yikes! I'm doing the same thing...I've been hypnotized!

Originally Posted by Ilya

First of all, I'm not talking about stage hypnosis. I'm talking about what's called Ericsonian hypnosis - the kind that does not use pendilums and direct suggestions. It can be used on stage, though.

Yup, the indirect school of Ericksonian hypnosis is the one I'm most familiar with too.

An interesting side note about stage hypnosis: Paul McKenna stated in one of his old books that the secret to stage hypnosis was to select people who wanted to let themselves go on stage, thus all the suggestibility tests done to select the participants who wanted most to follow the suggestions.

That's why he could make people cluck like chickens, because those people wanted to perform and they also knew they were safe.

Originally Posted by Ilya

Then, the argument that you can not hypnotise the people against their will is missing the point. This argument is usually used by those who practice NLP and hypnosis to defend themselves against fears and accusations, to debunk the myths. Yes, hypnosis does not work the way most people think it does, but the fears are not unsound.

My beliefs in that come from Erickson's own study in which he concluded he could not hypnotize people to do things against their own moral judgment (documented in one of his books with Rossi, I forget which).

Originally Posted by Ilya

The real question is can you do something with hypnosis to another person would regret, once they get back to the "usual" state of mind. If you do, it doesn't really matter if it is against victims "will" or not. Yes, if the person knows that he is about to be hypnotised and does not want it or is being hypnotised without permission, it is much harder to put him into a trance and achieve malicious results.

But as Brutha suggests, it is possible to put a person into altered state of consciousness and achieve results before the person knows what's happening. It is even possible to use naturally occuring trance (when reading, when commuting) to do something bad.

Hmm...that's why I threw in the caveat that a person's 'will' can be pretty hard to define.

Yes, I agree; the cultural of hypnosis is pretty deep. We go in and out of altered states all the time, and one of the most insidious and blatant forms of hypnosis are advertisements blaring out at us, telling us how we should live, what we should believe about their products.

I think this is where it's useful to draw the line between one-on-one hypnosis and the hypnosis of the masses. Perhaps in my previous posts I was too adamant on making a point, I should have been more flexible and remembered this is a subject with much leeway.

I think it is also useful to define that there are many levels of hypnosis, from the simple zoning out while riding a bus state, to the unconscious influence of an advert to make you believe without reason that one brand is better than the other, to the deep trance states where you don't feel any pain during surgery.

Originally Posted by Ilya

In Russia we have these Gypsy "fortune teller", who are trained in hypnosis from their childhood and use it to steal. I'm not being nationalist here. Obviously there is just a small number of Gypsies who do it, but no other ethnic group is known for this. I once came under attack from such "fortune -teller" in broad daylight, and my NLP training allowed me not only to avoid the attack, but also to realize what exactly was happening. So I can attest that they indeed use hypnosis for their criminal ends.

In Singapore, I once saw an interview with a woman who claimed she had been robbed by a hypnotist. She described a man coming up to her and hypnotizing her, after that she forgot everything.

The thing was, she was telling all this with a bright smile on her face!

It was obvious she was enjoying the attention; I concluded that it was because of the secondary gain she got that she allowed herself to be hypnotized.

Through that and my work with people I've come to realize that our minds are far larger and more complex than I could ever imagine. Her being robbed was akin to someone smoking; knowing that it was unhealthy didn't compare to the secondary gain of the pleasure of smoking.

I've also come to hear stories of weird things people were able to do that don't fit into my framework of Ericksonian hypnosis...there just isn't any explanation. It's made me realize that 'there are more things in heaven and earth than can be dreamed of in my philosophy', so I wouldn't rule out more fantastic ways to hypnotize someone.

Originally Posted by Ilya

So once you learn hypnosis, it brings a lot of responsibity. Is it the reason to ban hypnosis and learning it. I don't think so. I think the opposite. The people should be educated about the modern hypnosis, how to detect it, how to protect themselves from the negative effects. Why? Because it is used on us every single day. Most of it unconsciously. Potentially any phrase, a swearing, a phrase with negative meaning or just a phrase that might be understood as a negative command, an awkward pun, or something like that can be harmful. If it is said when a person is in altered state, it can trigger a subconscious response. It is used in advertising, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally, sometimes intentionally but unskillfully.

Why don't we notice it or the negative effects? We are not taught to. And the negative effects can be delayed, can be subtle, it can be just some irrational stress or fear, or poisonous belief we pick up. Most of the time we don't know where it comes from. What percentage comes from spontaneous use of hypnosis - it doesn't matter. Learning about it may reduce the possible ill effects. Using it for the bad purpose - well it takes a lot of motivation to learn this skill to the extend when one can intentionally do harm with it. There are thousands of much simpler ways to do it. If hypnosis was the biggest problem, we would be living in a much nicer world indeed.

Agreed, Ilya. Luckily for us, hypnosis is not an easily learnt skill, and there are far easier ways to get what you want out of people. That said, my training has also helped me spot moments of deliberate and in-deliberate attempts to hypnotize me by people, advertisements and artful language.