C'est alors que, tout à fait inopinément, il plonge un jeune paysan dans un état de conscience inconnu. La personnalité du patient se modifie : un autre moi surgit, qui semble surplomber sa conscience vigile ; mais il y a plus : le jeune homme prévoit à l'avance le déroulement de sa maladie, en fixe les étapes et semble capable de lire les pensées de son maître. Stupéfait, le marquis constate, en multipliant les expérience sur d'autres patients, que l'on peut assez régulièrement reproduire l'étrange état. Par analogie avec le somnambulisme naturel, connu depuis l'antiquité, il baptise cet état le somnambulisme magnétique, ou artificiel. L'année suivante, il publie ses observations, dans un mémoire qui fait l'effet d'une bombe. 

Les somnambules magnétiques se répandent dans tout le royaume, et une vaste polémique se lève, qui va traverser tout le XIXe siècle et toucher la haute culture. L'enquête de Bertrand Méheust se propose de faire la chronique et l'analyse de ce choc dans la culture, en prenant pour fil conducteur le conflit impitoyable qui a opposé, de Puységur à Charcot, le monde savant aux partisans du magnétisme animal. Dans ce premier tome, l'auteur commence par décrire les faits revendiqués par les magnétiseurs, et par restituer leurs conceptions oubliées : puis il observe la montée en puissance du magnétisme dans la première moitié du XIXe siècle, et repère les dispositifs mis en place par l'institution scientifique pour parer à cette menace. A ces fins, il suit dans le détail le déroulement des batailles académiques, entre 1826 et 1842, jusqu'à l'éviction officielle du magnétisme par l'Académie de médecine. Enfin, en étudiant la phase de réappropriation ouverte par Charcot en 1878, il montre comment la menace magnétique a été récupérée, filtrée, recalibrée. 

Tome 2: 

Alors que Charcot et ses disciples s'emploient à digérer le magnétisme animal et à réduire le somnambulisme aux vues de la science positive, les sciences psychiques se développent en Angleterre, au coeur de l'intelligentsia, dans le milieu universitaire de Cambridge et, quelques années plus tard, aux États-Unis, à l'université de Harvard, avec l'entrée en lice du philosophe William James. Les "psychistes" britanniques et américains se situent dans la voie ouverte par Puységur : tout en se réclamant de la science, ils prétendent objectiver des phénomènes susceptibles de modifier l'idée que l'homme en occident se fait de lui-même ; portés par la vague spirite, ils entreprennent d'étudier les phénomènes médiumniques en mettant en général de côté les croyances spirites.

Refusant les vues rétrospectives classiques, Bertrand Méheust reconstitue ce conflit en prenant au sérieux le discours et les travaux des métapsychistes. Il montre la fécondité heuristique de leurs recherches et analyse la signification culturelle de l'oubli "opportun" dans lequel elles sont tombées. Traversant une vaste documentation, il s'attache à montrer par quelles solutions de compromis la culture dominante a géré la menace "psychique". Enfin, il s'emploie à relever, dans l'oeuvre d'artistes, d'écrivains, de philosophes, de sociologues, de psychiatres, et jusque dans les textes de Freud, les empreintes que les recherches psychiques ont laissées dans la culture de la première moitié du vingtième siècle.

Charles Tart

M. Talbot

Telepathic Hypnotism

In my view, the most significant discovery from my research into the work of Frederic Myers (pictured above) is the concept of telepathic hypnosis. This is, I believe, the core concept in the influence of discarnate spirit entities on consciousness, and must stand out as probably the most important of all discoveries in applied experimental psychology. My own personal discovery of this phenomenon was a complete surprise and a revelation that demanded explanation. Subsequently, through research reading of the documented evidence on telepathic hypnosis, I fail to understand why such an important facet of human communication has been discarded and avoided by modern scientific enquiry. Here follows an excerpt from my book The Science of Spirit Possession 2nd ed (2014).

The concept of hypnosis at a distance, or telepathic-hypnosis, was first documented by the Marquis de Puységur, a disciple of Franz Mesmer (1785). He agreed with Mesmer that the influence of what they then perceived as “magnetic fluid” was not impeded by physical obstacles. This meant that the magnetiser could magnetise through walls and from one dwelling to another. Puységur was not content to accept the theories of others and commented:

This is the kind of thing that is impossible to prove by rational arguments and for which experience alone can provide certainty. For that reason, it is to men who are aware of this small part of their power that I now direct some recommendations about the best way to use it (Puységur 1785, p.112-113).

Puységur was aware of the possible detrimental effects of inducing somnambulism at a distance, and he records cases where some patients, whilst on their way to visit him for a consultation, actually arrived already in a somnambulistic state. Puységur was also aware of other possible dangers:

Apart from this inconvenience, there is another one very much to be feared – the risk that some extraneous factor will interfere with the effect produced at a distance. If, for example, the effect one produces is somnambulism, one must know very well how susceptible this peaceful state is to being disturbed by the least extraneous circumstance, which can then cause truly miserable confusion (Puységur, 1785, p. 113).

In other words, the somnambulist who was not being guarded or directed by the magnetiser would be vulnerable to all kinds of circumstance that could cause problems. Two important factors emerge from Puységur’s observations regarding telepathic hypnosis: the importance of experience in contrast to rational argument in determining its credibility; and the vulnerability of the unsupervised subject. The importance of experience is a recurring theme throughout this book and the foundation of a revised epistemology, and so too is the problem of vulnerability to the unprotected and uninformed in all matters concerning possession and other forms of spirit influence to the vulnerable mind.

According to Crabtree’s research, the French magnetiser, Baron Jules de Sennevoy Dupotet attempted to produce a state of somnambulism from a distance under controlled conditions in 1820 (Crabtree, 1993, p. 45). Other researchers who investigated this phenomenon in the 1880s include French psychiatrists Pierre Janet (1886b), Charles Richet (1886) and J. Hericourt (1886). Distant mesmeric effects have also been reported by English surgeons James Esdaile (1846) in India, and John Elliotson (1843) and Chauncey Hare Townsend (1844) in England.

Frederic Myers, like Puységur one hundred years before him, was not content to leave such phenomena to rationalist argument, and he sought to gather evidence to demonstrate that suggestion was not an adequate explanation for all hypnotic phenomena:

The evidence for telepathy – for psychical influence from a distance – has grown to goodly proportions, for a new form of experiment has been found possible from which the influence of suggestion can be entirely excluded. It has now, as I shall presently try to show, been actually proved that the hypnotic trance can be induced from a distance so great, and with precautions so complete, that telepathy or some similar supernormal influence is the only efficient cause which can be conceived (Myers, 1903b, p. 140).

Pierre Janet arranged for a series of experiments with his well-known subject, “Madame B” (Leonie) and the first experiments were carried out with her at Le Havre with the assistance of Dr Gibert, Leonie’s physician. These experiments are described in the Bulletins de la Societe de Psychologie Physiologique, (1886) Tome I., p. 24, and in the Revue Philosophique, August (1886).

Myers expressed his good fortune to be invited to witness the experiments of Janet with Leonie, and was impressed with the precautions taken by Janet to avoid any influences that could be attributable to the power of suggestion:

These experiments are not easy to manage, since it is essential at once to prevent the subject from suspecting that the experiment is being tried, and also to provide for his safety in the event of its success. In Dr Gibert’s experiment, for instance, it was a responsible matter to bring this elderly woman through the streets of Le Havre. It was needful to provide her with an unnoticed escort; and, in fact, several persons had to devote themselves for some hours to a single experiment (Myers, 1903b, p. 140).

Myers uses extracts from Janet’s report (1886a) to emphasise the simple fact that the subject was being hypnotized from a distance by Dr Gibert, not only with no influence from the power of direct suggestion, but against her will:

October 3, 1885. Gibert tries to put her to sleep from a distance of half a mile; Janet finds her awake; puts her to sleep; she says, “I know very well that Dr Gibert tried to put me to sleep, but when I felt him I looked for some water, and put my hands in cold water. I don’t want people to put me to sleep in that way; it puts me out, and makes me look silly.” She had in fact held her hands in water at the time when Gibert willed her to sleep. October 9. Gibert succeeds in a similar attempt; she says in trance, “Why does Dr Gibert put me to sleep from his house? I had not time to put my hands in my basin” (Myers, 1903, p. 973).

Myers was never content to depend on just one case to support his hypotheses, and he collected accounts from other reliable sources for evidence of telepathic hypnosis. He further cites an account, contributed by a Dr E. Gley that was published in Tribune Medicale in May 1875, of a 14 year-old girl that initiated a series of over one hundred experiments conducted under a variety of conditions (Myers, 1903b, p. 143).

It could be argued that had modern theorists been aware of the outcomes of these experiments, and Myers’ theories to explain them, then the course of experimental hypnosis would have taken a very different path. Furthermore, I very much doubt that the seemingly magical phenomena exhibited by professional stage hypnotists would prove so fascinating to a gullible and uninformed public. But it would appear that the evolution of the study of psychic phenomena took its path because of the difficulties of finding a theory to explain telepathy per se.

Although temporarily abandoned following Myers’ death in 1901, experiments with telepathic hypnosis did not end with Myers, Janet and Gley. In the 1920s, Inspired by the work of Myers and Janet, Leonid Leonidovich Vasiliev, Professor of Physiology at the Institute of Brain Research in the University of Leningrad, took up the challenge to find a theory to explain telepathy in the face of very difficult political circumstances (Vasiliev, 1963).

Leonid Vasiliev (1891-1966)

There were many researchers in Europe, the USA and Russia who took in interest in telepathy and in telepathic-hypnosis, and Vasiliev gives an excellent account of their input and the difficulties they had. Essentially, they all tried to find a theory to explain the transmission of thought from one person to another that fitted in with the prevailing electromagnetic and radio-wave theories at that time (from the 1920s to the 50s).

As a neurologist, Vasiliev’s interest in telepathy and hypnosis at a distance was to test the theory that telepathic communication was effected by an electromagnetic field. One of his methods of testing the efficacy of the hypnotic suggestions delivered to the percipient is based on the findings of V.V. Pravditch-Neminsky in 1925 that brain activity can be measured by the use of an Electro Encephalogram (or EEG). Right up to the present day it is acknowledged that brain waves operate at different frequencies according to the level of mental activity. In chapter one of Hartland’s Medical and Dental Hypnosis by David Waxman (1989) it states:

… with the advancement of electroencephalographic and other investigatory procedures and with the development and extension of experimental laboratories worldwide, neurophysiological and psychological research has increased and the true place for the clinical application of hypnosis has at last been found (Waxman, 1989, p.3).

The above statement by Waxman is an example of an incorrect assumption that is based on the use of technological measuring equipment. The fact that brain waves can be measured does not imply that a unique state of consciousness has been discovered. All it means is that the activity of the brain can be measured, but it does not mean that consciousness can be held in, or created by an electro-chemical impulse.

EEG research does show that the brain operates at different frequencies depending on mental activity, and this summary shows the frequency levels taken from Vasiliev’s text:

The alpha rhythm. Frequency F = 7.5 to 13 cycles per second. The amplitude of alpha is affected by age, hunger and emotional excitation. The frequency of alpha is constant over a long period of life, from the age of 20 to 70. A suppression of alpha can be obtained by increased input from sense organs. Suppression of alpha is most characteristically demonstrated by when opening the eyes causing an increase of light falling on the retina.

Beta rhythm, F = 15 to 25 cycles per second. Beta is most easily elicited when alpha is suppressed with increased sensory input.

Theta rhythm, F = 4 to 7 cycles per second. Theta is characteristically associated with the emotions. It appears in the EEGof children in temper tantrums and adults when angry and aggressive.

Delta rhythm, F = 05. To 3 cycles per second. Incidence of delta in the waking cortex signifies pathology, but is normal in sleep.

Rapid spikes, F = 500 to 1,000 cycles per second. Primarily located in the anterior temporal lobe and considered by some authors to be due to the stimulation of local nerve cells.

Waxman states that entering the alpha rhythm is the start of the hypnotic process which becomes progressively deeper with greater physical and emotional relaxation. He reports that there is a general consensus that the EEG brain activity recorded during hypnosis is the same as that recorded during wakeful relaxation and differs markedly from brain activity during normal sleep. He does suggest however, the possibility that the hypnotic trance state may show eventually that there is a ‘neurophysiological state that is particular to hypnosis’ (Waxman, 1989, p.33).

Waxman clearly lived in hope that EEG technology would eventually live up to expectations and show that the hypnotic-trance is a unique neurophysiological state.

Vasiliev and his colleagues at Leningrad University tested the theory that telepathy worked by the transmission of thoughts from one person to another by electromagnetic wave resonance. Their experiments confirmed that the effects of the suggestions delivered to a percipient by telepathy could be measured by EEG by recording differences in brain activity.

It was believed at the time that the electromagnetic waves measured by EEG were carriers of thought waves from person to person, and this provided the theory of the transmission of thoughts by telepathy. According to Vasiliev, the idea was advanced by academic P.P. Lazarev in 1920 who suggested:

We must thus consider the possibility of catching in space a thought in the shape of an electromagnetic wave; this would seem to be one of the most interesting problems in the whole of biological physics. One must of course realise the immense difficulties that stand in the way of detecting such waves. Many years of strenuous work will be required before isolating and demonstrating these phenomena, but they are inescapably forecast by the ionic theory of stimulation. The transmission of thought processes through space provides a firm basis for an explanation of the phenomena of hypnosis, and this concept is of the greatest interest both from a theoretical and a practical point of view (Vasiliev, 1963 p.8).

And so it was that scientists and academics had such faith in the new electronics of the emerging technological age that they firmly believed that the development of sensitive instruments would one day be able to capture a thought by electronic means as it was transmitted from person to person, and a great deal of effort was expended in trying to develop the technology that would one day capture a thought in transmission.

Other, more mundane methods were used to identify the effects of the telepathic suggestions; including direct observation and the use of other physical and behavioural measuring devices. In modern clinical settings, and therapeutic settings in particular, it is not necessary to use EEG to show when a person enters a trance. Clinicians can use a variety of hypnotic phenomena to confirm when a person has entered an altered state. Vasiliev was able to use such observational devices to confirm that a subject had indeed entered a trance and was able to carry out suggestions delivered by thought alone from the hypnotist. However, when it came to “catching a thought by electronic means” after extensive screening tests he (and others) began to arrive at the conclusion:

We thus once again obtained data supporting the results of previous experiments with screening by iron. Screening by iron or lead in the manner in which screening was effected by us does not prevent the diffusion of the supposed waves and radiations that transmit mental suggestion (Vasiliev, 1963, p.95).

Vasiliev acknowledges that the Society for Psychical Research based in London recorded many incidences of spontaneous telepathy over very long distances, from London to Australia for example. He recognises the work of Richet, Warcolliet and Osty, and at the Third Congress of Psychical Research in 1927 Erscollier reported experiments conducted between New York and Paris in both directions with success (ibid, p.97).

Vasiliev cites many other successful experiments carried out by the Athens Society for Psychical Research in 1925. The experiments were conducted between Athens and Paris (2101 km) Warsaw and Athens (1597 km) and Vienna and Athens (1284 km). Encouraged by the success of these and other experiments too numerous to mention here, Vasiliev conducted experiments between Leningrad and Sebastopol, which is a distance of about 1,700 km as the crow flies (ibid, p.99).

Vasiliev’s experiments produced results that were rigorously subjected to tests of statistical significance and showed that telepathically induced hypnosis over long distances was a scientific reality. He knew that hypnosis could be induced by the wilful intention of a hypnotist over long distances, and his observations of the effects of suggestions proved it. These results further reinforced the experiments conducted by others in Athens, New York and elsewhere, and there was general agreement that although the results were conclusive, they were difficult for mainstream science to acknowledge because they could not be accommodated within the prevailing scientific paradigm. The theory that thoughts are carried by electromagnetic waves was never proven.

Vasiliev notes that; “Natural obstacles such as the curvature of the earth’s surface, hills, etc., do not affect the phenomenon” (ibid, p.101). He further comments on what he believed to be the unusual nature of the factor that transmits the “telepatheme” (his name for the theoretical mental energy) from the sender’s brain to the percipient’s. “Like the usual radio waves it operates at long distances, but, as opposed to radio waves, it is not impeded by metal screening” (ibid, p.102).

The successes of Vasiliev’s and others’ experiments, and their collective failure to arrive at a theory to explain them led to increases year-on-year of more and more researchers becoming convinced of the real existence of what Vasiliev came to call “mental suggestion” and to study the various aspects of these “complex” phenomena (ibid, p.114).

In 1947 Thouless and Weisner introduced the term “psi” to identify the mysterious link, or unidentified energy form that linked people in telepathy and other psychic phenomena and debates took place during the 1950s when the term “parapsychologist” emerged to describe those who took the task on, including J.B. Rhine, head of the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University.

As an expression of the general attitude of mainstream science at this time, a Dr George Price wrote in an article entitled, Science and the Supernatural, where he writes, “…the published works on this subject are open to criticism of the experimental techniques employed”. By this time the scientific investigation into telepathic hypnosis, due to the great difficulty in arriving at the theory to explain it, had been reduced to “card guessing”, and although Rhine’s results were compelling, Price’s criticism offered only two alternative explanations. One explanation was that the methods were flawed and the other was that they were fraud.

Such debates detracted from the original observations of spontaneous telepathy over great distances and the objective of testing the findings of the early magnetisers such as Mesmer and his contemporaries that an altered state of consciousness (or trance) could be induced from a distance was lost from the scientific agenda. The practice of experimenting to find a theory to explain telepathic-hypnosis disappeared from view until it was the Russians, once again, whose experiments in psychic spying were brought to the attention of the United States Department of Defense. We take up the story again in Chapter Ten where I look at Myers concepts in relation to quantum theory and “remote viewing”.

It is by discovering that telepathic-hypnosis was acknowledged, not only by Myers, but also by a vast and impressive line-up of scientists with credentials similar to Vasiliev, as a scientifically testable reality that the wider implications of Myers’ methods and theories begin to impinge tentatively on our most commonly held beliefs about the nature of mind.

These scientific facts, although the electromagnetic theory and mechanistic framework are still unable to accommodate them, still demand that we seriously attend to our subliminal influences on each other – for good or for ill. When a spiritualist medium “listens” to those spirits that communicate through her it is called “channelling” (Neate, 1997) and could provisionally be regarded as an act of telepathic communication. When the spirit wants to take control of the medium’s faculties in order to effect a more direct communication, and the medium agrees to that and goes into a trance, then that can be described as positive or “invited” possession. In such instances, the medium’s mind “dissociates” and steps aside, so to speak, and permits the spirit entity to take control of her communication infrastructure (brain and voice box). When this is done without the knowledge or consent of the subject then it is “uninvited” possession. When the discarnate spirit wants to induce a trance in the subject without her consent then this is achieved by “telepathic hypnosis”. Thus, it is my contention that the concept of hypnosis at a distance is at the very core of possession phenomenology, and the remainder of this book The Science of Spirit Possession (2nd ed) (2014) will provide further evidence in support of this hypothesis.

Source: https://www.terencepalmer.co.uk/hypnosis-research/telepathic-hypnosis/

Self-hypnosis or autohypnosis is a form, process or result of hypnosis which is self-induced, and normally makes use of self-suggestion.[1] Self-hypnosis can make a person more yielding than normal.

Uses

Self-hypnosis is used extensively in modern hypnotherapy. It can take the form of hypnosis carried out by means of a learned routine. Hypnosis may help pain management,[2] anxiety,[3][4] depression,[5] sleep disorders,[6] obesity, asthma, and skin conditions.[7] When this practice is mastered, it can improve concentration, recall, enhance problem solving, alleviate headaches and even improve one's control of emotions.[8]

Steps commonly used for self-hypnosis

Self-hypnosis requires four distinct steps.

• 1. Motivation. Without proper motivation, an individual will find it very difficult to practice self-hypnosis

  2. Relaxation: The individual must be thoroughly relaxed and must set aside time to perform this act. Additionally, distractions should be eliminated as full attention is needed.

  3. Concentration: the individual needs to concentrate completely as progress is made each time the mind focuses on a single image.

  4. Directing: This is an option used only when the individual wants to work on a specific goal. The individual must direct their concentration on visualizing the desired result.[8]

James Braid

The English term "hypnotism" was introduced in 1841 by the Scottish physician and surgeon James Braid. According to Braid, he first employed "self-hypnotism" (as he elsewhere refers to it) two years after discovering hypnotism, first teaching it to his clients before employing it on himself: "My first experiments on this point [i.e., self-hypnosis] were instituted in the presence of some friends on the 1st May, 1843, and following days. I believe they were the first experiments of the kind which had ever been tried, and they have succeeded in every case in which I have so operated."[9]

In a later work, Observations on Trance or Human Hybernation (1850), Braid provides probably the first account of self-hypnosis by someone employing it upon themselves.

Braid's Account of Self-Hypnotism

It is commonly said that seeing is believing, but feeling is the very truth. I shall, therefore, give the result of my experience of hypnotism in my own person. In the middle of September, 1844, I suffered from a most severe attack of rheumatism, implicating the left side of the neck and chest, and the left arm. At first the pain was moderately severe, and I took some medicine to remove it; but, instead of this, it became more and more violent, and had tormented me for three days, and was so excruciating, that it entirely deprived me of sleep for three nights successively, and on the last of the three nights I could not remain in any one posture for five minutes, from the severity of the pain. 

On the forenoon of the next day, whilst visiting my patients, every jolt of the carriage I could only compare to several sharp instruments being thrust through my shoulder, neck, and chest. A full inspiration was attended with stabbing pain, such as is experienced in pleurisy. When I returned home for dinner I could neither turn my head, lift my arm, nor draw a breath, without suffering extreme pain. In this condition I resolved to try the effects of hypnotism. I requested two friends, who were present, and who both understood the system, to watch the effects, and arouse me when I had passed sufficiently into the condition; and, with their assurance that they would give strict attention to their charge, I sat down and hypnotised myself, extending the extremities. At the expiration of nine minutes they aroused me, and, to my agreeable surprise, I was quite free from pain, being able to move in any way with perfect ease. I say agreeably surprised, on this account; I had seen like results with many patients; but it is one thing to hear of pain, and another to feel it. My suffering was so exquisite that I could not imagine anyone else ever suffered so intensely as myself on that occasion; and, therefore, I merely expected a mitigation, so that I was truly agreeably surprised to find myself quite free from pain. I continued quite easy all the afternoon, slept comfortably all night, and the following morning felt a little stiffness, but no pain. A week thereafter I had a slight return, which I removed by hypnotising myself once more; and I have remained quite free from rheumatism ever since, now nearly six years.[10]

Émile Coué

Émile Coué was one of the most influential figures in the subsequent development of self-hypnosis.[11] His method of "conscious autosuggestion" became an internationally renowned self-help system at the start of the 20th century. Although Coué distanced himself from the concept of "hypnosis", he sometimes referred to what he was doing as self-hypnosis, as did his followers such as Charles Baudouin. Modern hypnotherapists regard Coué as part of their own field.

Autogenic training

Autogenic training is a relaxation technique developed by the German psychiatrist Johannes Schultz and first published in 1932. Schultz based his approach on the work of the German hypnotist Oskar Vogt. The technique involves a step-by-step progression that begins from physiological conditioning, such as muscle relaxation, breathing control and heart rate control. Then it advances to psychic conditioning through mental imagery, acoustic therapy, etc.[12]

Self-hypnosis and stress

Patients who are stressed and/or lack self-esteem can be taught self-hypnotic techniques which can induce relaxation and/or strengthen their self-esteem. Specifically, once the patient is in a self-hypnotic state the therapist can communicate messages to the patient, allowing the relaxation and strengthening process to occur.[13]

When teaching self-hypnosis, a word or phrase should be stated to the patient for them to repeat. This will not work unless the patient deliberately uses the word or phrase to hypnotize themselves.[13]:114

In addition, since stress prevents well-functioning of the immune system, researchers from the Ohio State University came to a conclusion that self hypnosis to prevent stress can also help in protecting the immune system against the negative effects of it. They proved this by showing that students who performed self-hypnosis during stressful exam weeks showed a stronger immune system when compared to those who did not learn the technique of this phenomenon.[4]

Childbirth anesthesia

Self-hypnosis can help laboring women alleviate their pain. Joseph DeLee, an obstetrician, stated in the early 20th century that hypnosis was the only risk-free childbirth anesthetic. Common self-hypnotic techniques include:[14]

• 1. Glove anesthesia: Pretending the hand is numb and placing it upon a painful region to remove the sensation there.

  2. Time distortion: Perceiving periods of time accompanied by pain as shorter in length and those free of pain as longer lasting.

  3. Imaginative transformation: Viewing the pain as a non-threatening, acceptable sensation (perhaps merely pressure) that causes no trouble.

Other uses

Self-directed thought which is based in hypnosis can be used for many other issues and behavioral problems.

Research

Reviewing the findings of three previous studies in this area, John F. Kihlstrom concluded: "Comparisons of self-hypnosis with more traditional 'hetero'-hypnosis show that they are highly correlated."[15] At the same time, Kihlstrom questions the extent to which most self-hypnosis qualitatively resembles the experience of traditional hetero-hypnosis.

See also

• Covert conditioning

• Guided meditation

References

1. "Definition of autohypnosis". Collins English Dictionary. CollinsDictionary.com. Retrieved 7 December 2012.

2. Patterson, David R. (2010). Clinical Hypnosis for Pain Control. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. ISBN 9781433807688.

3. O'Neill, Lucy M.; Barnier, Amanda J.; McConkey, Kevin (June 1999). "Treating anxiety with self-hypnosis and relaxation". Contemporary Hypnosis. 16 (2): 68–80. doi:10.1002/ch.154.

4. Holland, Earle (2001). "Hypnosis may prevent weakened immune status, improve health". Ohio State University Research News. Retrieved 4 May 2013.

5. Lynn, Steven J.; Kirsch, Irving (2006). "Depression". Essentials of Clinical Hypnosis: An Evidence-Based Approach. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. pp. 121–134. ISBN 1591473446. doi:10.1037/11365-008.

6. Graci, Gina M.; Hardie, John C. (May 2007). "Evidenced-based hypnotherapy for the management of sleep disorders". International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis. 55 (3): 288–302. PMID 17558719. doi:10.1080/00207140701338662.

7. Mendoza, M. Elena; Capafons, Antonio (2009). "Efficacy of clinical hypnosis: a summary of its empirical evidence" (PDF). Papeles del Psicólogo. 30 (2): 98–116. Retrieved 4 May 2013.

8. Moss, Vicki (April 1985). "Beating the stress connection: self-hypnosis". AORN Journal. 41 (4): 720–722. PMID 3888104. doi:10.1016/S0001-2092(07)66292-9.

9. Braid, James (1843). "Author's preface". Neurypnology; or the Rationale of Nervous Sleep Considered in Relation with Animal Magnetism. London: John Churchill.

10. Braid, James (1850). Observations on Trance or Human Hybernation. London: John Churchill.

11. See Yeates, Lindsay B. (2016a), "Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action", Australian Journal of Clinical Hypnotherapy & Hypnosis, Volume 38, No.1, (Autumn 2016), pp.3-27. [1]; (2016b), "Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion", Australian Journal of Clinical Hypnotherapy & Hypnosis, Volume 38, No.1, (Autumn 2016), pp.28-54. [2]; and (2016c), "Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way", Australian Journal of Clinical Hypnotherapy & Hypnosis, Volume 38, No.1, (Autumn 2016), pp.55-79. [3].

12. Babcock, S. Donald (December 1968). "Self hypnosis". PsycCRITIQUES. 13 (12): 638–639. doi:10.1037/008184.

13. Sachs, Bernice C. (February 1986). "Stress and self-hypnosis". Psychiatric Annals. 16 (2): 110–114.

14. Ketterhagen, D.; VandeVusse, L.; Berner, M. A. (2002). "Self-hypnosis: Alternative anesthesia for childbirth". The American Journal of Maternal Child Nursing. 27 (6): 335–340. doi:10.1097/00005721-200211000-00007.

15. Kihlstrom, John F. (2008). "The domain of hypnosis, revisited". In Nash, Michael R.; Barnier, Amanda J. The Oxford Handbook of Hypnosis: Theory, Research and Practice. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. p. 24. ISBN 9780198570097.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Self-hypnosis&oldid=798318169

Scientists are using hypnosis to understand why some people believe they’re inhabited by paranormal beings. To find out more, David Robson discovered what it’s like to lose his mind.

I am lying on my back and trapped in a gleaming white tunnel, the surface barely six inches from my nose. There is a strange mechanical rumbling in the background, and I hear footsteps padding around the room beyond. In my mounting claustrophobia, I ask myself why I am here – but there is no way out now. A few moments later, the light dims, and as the man speaks, my thoughts begin to fade.

“The engineer has developed a way of taking control of your thoughts from the inside. He does this because he is fascinated by mind control, and wants to apply the most direct method of controlling your thoughts. He is doing this to advance his research into mind control. You will soon be aware of the engineer inserting his thoughts.”

A strange serenity descends as I realise that soon, my will won’t be my own. Then the experiment begins. I am about to be possessed.

The man who will soon take control of my thoughts is Eamonn Walsh, a psychologist who uses hypnosis to investigate psychoses at the Institute of Psychiatry in London. The idea is to turn healthy subjects into ‘virtual patients’ suffering full-on delusions, such as being possessed by a paranormal entity, allowing the scientists to understand the underlying illness in a new way, and potentially find treatments

The scientists are understandably keen to distance themselves from stage hypnotists. “It’s not flaky, it’s not for entertainment – we’ve got carefully specific research goals,” says Mitul Mehta, who collaborates with Walsh on these studies. It’s a bold idea, but can it possibly work? And what does it feel like to lose total control of your mind?

I confess that I was a little nervous when I entered the lab earlier that day. Hypnosis research has a somewhat murky history; one early experiment very nearly ended in murder. The researchers in question were two of the most prominent doctors in France at the beginning of the 20th Century: Jean-Martin Charcot, now considered the “founder of modern neurology”, and Georges Gilles de la Tourette, who is most famous for the disease that bears his name. They studied cases of “hysteria” – in which patients were suddenly unable to feel or move their limbs, for instance, despite no observable injury. Both doctors believed that the disorders might share certain characteristics with hypnosis – a hypothesis they tested by showing that people with hysteria are more susceptible to suggestion than healthy subjects.

They soon veered into less reputable territory, however. At the time, newspapers reported tales of criminals “mesmerising” innocent people to carry out nefarious deeds. Despite his scepticism about the reports, Gilles de la Tourette decided to hypnotise a hysterical patient, Blanche, to see if it might be possible. Placing her in a trance, he showed Blanche a ‘poisoned’ glass of beer and asked to feed the poison to another man, known as Mr G. Blanche happily complied, kissing Mr G as she did so, before he feigned death. She later denied all knowledge of the apparent murder.

Perhaps it was this cavalier attitude that nearly cost Gilles de la Tourette his life. One day in December 1893, he was confronted at home by another one of his hospital’s patients, a 29-year-old woman named Rose Kamper-Lecoq. Claiming that her hypnosis sessions had irretrievably altered her will, she whipped out a pistol and shot at him three times. Only one of the bullets penetrated his skull, but he was well enough to write to a friend the same evening, concluding in a wonderfully blasé fashion: “quelle drôle d’histoire” – “what a funny story”.

Kamper-Lecoq’s story is all the more striking in light of today’s research. Although her violence almost certainly wasn’t caused by hypnosis, it seems to have stemmed from many of the delusions that psychologists like Walsh are now unpicking with their virtual patients. She was said to be sure that Gilles de la Tourette was in love with her – a disorder known as “erotomania” – and she also (falsely) believed that someone was controlling her mind remotely: exactly the kind of mind possession I signed up for. I just hope it doesn’t end with me putting a bullet in somebody’s skull.

Before I was possessed, I first was tested for my “hypnotisability”. The procedure usually involves some kind of guided relaxation, followed by a series of suggestions that are meant to warp your perceptions and behaviours. I was told that I could hear a fly buzzing around my head, for example; later, the researcher said that a balloon would slowly lift my arm into the air. From what I can remember, my arm felt light, as if it were filled with helium, and before I had realised it, it was already floating upwards. The buzzing of the “fly”, meanwhile, felt like the flashes of images and voices you might begin to hear if you are very tired and about to drop off to sleep – you realise they aren’t real, yet they are perceptible all the same. Based on my responses, I scored 10 out of 12 – a degree of suggestibility that puts me in the top 10% of the population.

Given the reliance on subjective reports, the authenticity of hypnotic behaviour has been a matter of debate. “Some believe that hypnosis is pure fakery, whereas others believe it is a genuinely altered state of consciousness that can produce profound changes in perception, thought, and memory,” says Rochelle Cox, a cognitive scientist at Macquarie University in Australia.

Although I didn’t feel like I was faking it, I ask Walsh whether he is ever concerned his subjects are pretending. He agrees the possibility casts an ever-present shadow over the research. “Anytime you submit a study to a journal, it’s one of the reviewers’ favourite questions,” he says. But advances in brain scanning have begun to lay those concerns to rest. While in the brain scanner, the hypnotiser might tell the subject to see a black and white photograph in colour, for instance – and you would see the areas for colour processing bursting into action as if they were actually looking at a real-life scene. Importantly, when the same subjects are simply asked to ‘pretend’ to experience, or imagine, those feelings, you don’t see the same activity. Such results have converted many sceptics.

Along the way, the researchers have edged closer to understanding what causes the hypnotic state in the first place. It seems that hypnotic induction turns something like a dimmer switch in the brain’s frontal lobes. These regions are thought to generate “higher-order thoughts” – reflective awareness of your own wants and needs and motives. Take that away, it seems, and you begin to do and feel things without realising why. That might explain why students tanked up on alcoholic drinks – the equivalent to two pints of beer – score much higher on the standard hypnotisability tests; alcohol is known to dampen frontal lobe activity, says Zoltan Dienes at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK.

Why some people naturally drop into that state, while others find it harder, is an open question, however. Twin studies suggest it can be passed through the generations, and there’s some evidence it can be inherited. Importantly, people tend to retain the same score throughout their life, so it could just be another fundamental feature of our minds like IQ.

Along these lines, much of the work so far has been devoted to studying whether hypnotic suggestion could be used in place of painkillers. Randomised controlled trials have also investigated whether hypnosis could reduce stress, help cancer patients with their fatigue during chemotherapy, treat irritable bowel syndrome, and even boost students’ learning of new skills.

Around the year 2000, however, the research began to take a more macabre turn: rather than taking the ill and making them better, psychologists used it to plant delusions in the minds of the healthy. Like Gilles de la Tourette’s studies a hundred years before, one of the first investigations was inspired by a patient suffering from ‘hysterical paralysis’ – the sensation that she could not move her left leg, even though there was no physical disability. To see if they could recreate the disorder, researchers hypnotised a subject to feel the same sensations, and placed him in a brain scanner. The results – published in the medical journal The Lancet – revealed exactly the same pattern of activity in his brain as the hysterical patient, strongly supporting the possibility that hypnosis could be used to test hypotheses about real mental conditions.

Since then, psychologists have used it to conjure many other types of delusion, including erotomania, Capgras syndrome – the sensation that your loved ones have been replaced by a doppelganger – and mirror misidentification, in which people fail to recognise their own reflections. “Patients may cover up all the mirrors in their house because they think the stranger is following them around,” explains Cox, who carried out many of the studies. Hypnosis, she says, can produce almost identical symptoms. “Both are compellingly real, believed with conviction, and resistant to rational counterargument.” It is completely reversible, the researchers reassure me – all subjects leave the labs free of delusion.

Hypnosis lets the scientist create the symptoms at will, while also manipulating the conditions to try to see what underlying cognitive processes might be misfiring in order to conjure the delusions. Eventually, you might even be able to use the hypnotised subjects to test certain kinds of therapies – before you risk them on mentally ill patients.

Needless to say, some of the researchers are sceptical of the benefits of this approach. Dienes, for instance, agrees that these virtual patients may be useful for the ‘hysteria’ disorders – like the limb paralysis. But he is sceptical that you can hypnotise somebody to experience the highly complex and terrifying psychosis of a disease like schizophrenia.

Walsh readily acknowledges that it can’t recreate every aspect of an illness, but sees hypnosis as a complementary technique that adds to the understanding gleaned from direct observations of real patients. “It’s is just another way of looking at things – you’re shining a light on the darkness from a different angle,” he says.

Before I allowed myself to be possessed, Walsh showed me two prints by the late 16th Century painter, Caravaggio, to make a point about the patients who believe they are controlled for real. One shows Saint Matthew as an “illiterate oaf”, his feet still dirty from his work in the fields. An angel is guiding his hand as he writes the gospel. In the second, “he’s been promoted” – Saint Matthew is clean and has a halo. The angel is now depicted above his head, whispering God’s words into his mind.

The two paintings, he says, perfectly depict the two different ways in which patients experience possession: either they feel that another being is controlling their movements, or that another person is directly planting thoughts into their head. Such feelings may be due to mental illnesses like schizophrenia or psychotic depression, or the result of cultural practices such as shamanism that might lead people to feel like they are channelling another spirit, which may also be triggered by a ‘dissociative’ state similar to hypnosis. I will experience both, he says.

One of the team’s biggest challenges was to create suitable hypnotic suggestions that could feasibly manifest in a delusion, without being too scary. Possession stories often reflect contemporary culture of the day – in the Industrial Revolution, people believed the factory looms were directing their behaviour; Kamper-Lecoq’s delusions were influenced by her brushes with ‘mesmerism’; and in the early 20th Century, it was thought to be radio antennae planting ideas into people’s head. So rather than creating a spiritual demon, the team told a story of an ‘engineer’ doing research into mind control – a tale that isn’t too menacing, but which neatly draws on today’s fears about privacy and individual liberty.

Walsh puts me in the shell of an old brain scanner, which is often used to test procedures before hiring the real thing. At first I feel crushingly claustrophobic, but I soon forget those feelings as he counts down from 20, leading me gently into the hypnotic state. With a pen in my hand and a sheet of paper on my lap, my task will be to hear a word and finish the sentence under three different scenarios; first Walsh tells me that the engineer is whispering the words to write directly into my brain; then that he is able to direct the movements of my hand; and finally that the engineer is in complete control of both my thoughts and movements.

The first scenario had only a minimal effect: I seem to have to wait a little before the words come suddenly, as if from nowhere, but it doesn’t feel so different to my normally sporadic mind. But when Walsh instead tells me that the engineer has now taken over my movements, it is much more noticeable: my hand seems to move in a jerky, mechanical fashion, and it feels like my fingers are dancing to their own tune. It is then that I also begin to get flashes of the engineer himself – who I picture to be a hunched man with a wide grin and a long, grey pony-tail. By the time we reach the third set of suggestions – where Walsh tells me that the engineer will now control my hand movements, and my thoughts – the engineer’s power over me becomes much more vivid. My writing becomes faster, and more intense, and I get the distinct feeling that I am watching myself, from the outside. At points it feels like I can almost hear the engineer directing his thought-control machine. It is only when Walsh ends the session, and counts back up to 20, that I fully realise how strange the sensation was: a little like the moment of lucidity once you awake from a fevered dream.

When I tell Walsh about my impressions, he says they are pretty much in-line with his other subjects. As one person put it: “I felt as if my hand had been made of metal.” While many, like me, pictured the engineer visually, others felt he was more amorphous: “Like a presence, as opposed to something that one can see”.

So far, these investigations have suggested a few networks of brain regions that might lie behind these delusions. When a person believes that their hand is being controlled by another being, you find an abnormally high connectivity between the motor areas that control movement, and regions that help us understand another’s motives and actions. Conversely, when the subjects were told that the engineer was inserting the thoughts into their mind during the writing task, they had much lower activity in the language areas of the brain – perhaps because they were less conscious of the generation of the words.

In some scenarios, they found increased activity in the areas involved in ‘error detection’. In normal everyday life, these regions normally keep track of our movements and the way they are executed, and then fire if things don’t go according to plan – like when you trip up. So it’s possible that the heightened activity reflects the subjects’ feelings that their movements were becoming more unpredictable, as if they were no longer under their own control.

If the same regions of activity continue to emerge in further studies of hypnotic subjects and real patients, it might suggest new treatments. For instance, it might be possible to find drugs that specifically alter activity in the regions in question; alternatively, non-invasive brain stimulation could help correct any abnormal circuits – preventing the ‘error network’ from going into overdrive. The team are also interested in using neurofeedback – technologies that allow patients to view their neural activity on a screen, and correct it appropriately. “We are a few steps away from doing this,” says Quinton Deeley, who has run many of the experiments. “But we are at the threshold of doing it for anxiety and attention deficit disorder, and I don’t see why they couldn’t be applied to things like delusions”.

Away from mental health, it’s possible the work might shed light on more general phenomena. It’s possible that it could relate to religious phenomena – like the feeling of ‘talking in tongues’ or the kind of mass hysteria seen in the Salem Witch Trials. And possibly even what is going on the brain when we first conceive of an idea, and how it takes hold and guides our behaviour.

My brief period of possession has certainly made me more conscious of my own thoughts, and the strange ways they can seem to pop into your head. At least, I’m pretty certain that belief is my own… or is that just the engineer, guiding my hand as I type?

Source: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140702-why-i-asked-to-be-possessed