Hypnosis

[Robert Hegwood]

Since I did not see a thread on this already I thought I would start one to see if anyone has any insights into this phenomenology. I have two questions.

1. From a patristic....saintly standard of anthropology what is it? What happens when one is hypnotized? What is this trance state? What are its potenial benefits/dangers if exercised. A number of modern therapists like to enduce hypnosis in their sessions; how advisable is it to submit to such an attempt...or if one is a psychiatrist to attempt the induction of a trance state in a patient?

2. My second question is why does it exist? Hands, eyes, the faculty of speech, etc are all pretty straightforward in their benefits/uses...but what is this hypnotic trace capactity for. What legitimate created end does it serve?

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

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Similar Threads: Orthodoxy and Hypnosis.


In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Paul Cowan]

Since I did not see a thread on this already I thought I would start one to see if anyone has any insights into this phenomenology. I have two questions.

1. From a patristic....saintly standard of anthropology what is it? What happens when one is hypnotized? What is this trance state? What are its potenial benefits/dangers if exercised. A number of modern therapists like to enduce hypnosis in their sessions; how advisable is it to submit to such an attempt...or if one is a psychiatrist to attempt the induction of a trance state in a patient?

2. My second question is why does it exist? Hands, eyes, the faculty of speech, etc are all pretty straightforward in their benefits/uses...but what is this hypnotic trace capactity for. What legitimate created end does it serve?

Fr. David will have more practical info on this. From my experience, only a person who wants to be hypnotized can be. More biofeedback than anything else. relates back to the chakra thread in breathing control and centering oneself all the while turning yourself control over to another person. Frankly, it is a charleton's way of getting more money from your insurance company.

Paul

[Effie Ganatsios]

2. My second question is why does it exist? Hands, eyes, the faculty of speech, etc are all pretty straightforward in their benefits/uses...but what is this hypnotic trace capactity for. What legitimate created end does it serve?

It does serve an end for those whose childhood memory has blocked unpleasant events.

I know this from personal experience although I have never been hypnotized.

I had a lovely childhood memory and a couple of years ago when my mother was here on holiday I told her about it.

When my mother heard me she became agitated and told me what happened at the point where my memory stopped. It had to do with my deceased father and my expectations that he was coming back to me and my disappointment when my mother introduced her new fiancé as my "new Dad". Her huge mistake was telling me beforehand that my father was coming back to me.

Listening to her gave me goosebumps. I had absolutely no memory of what she was telling me. I was 8 at the time this occurrence happened.

I often wonder, after our conversation, what other memories my child's mind has protected me from.

Surely, hypnotism can be used to revive your memory. A child's mind is unable to handle unpleasant things but an adult's mind likes to know the truth, no matter how unpleasant.

I still cannot grasp the miracle of our bodies and how our brain protects us from things that could destroy us. God is truly great.

Effie

[Father David Moser]

It does serve an end for those whose childhood memory has blocked unpleasant events....
Surely, hypnotism can be used to revive your memory. A child's mind is unable to handle unpleasant things but an adult's mind likes to know the truth, no matter how unpleasant.

I still cannot grasp the miracle of our bodies and how our brain protects us from things that could destroy us. God is truly great.

But hypnosis is not necessary (or even necessarily profitable) to recover those memories as you yourself experienced. When it was time for you to learn of that memory, God, through your mother, revealed it to you. Let us trust God to give us what we need (even our lost memories) when and where we need them, rather than to go rooting through the trash (since those memories are thrown out for a reason) to dig up stuff on our own simply to satisfy some kind of morbid curiosity.

Hypnosis - while not some spiritually altered stated or occult power - does have many dangers for any Christian and causes our mind to function in a manner that is not "normal" thereby opening doors of temptation that would otherwise remain tightly closed. I believe that this happened to me (though I can't prove it) in my own experience when studying hypnosis during my graduate program and as a result I very nearly fell into great sin (but was protected by God's intervention).

Fr David Moser

[Effie Ganatsios]

But hypnosis is not necessary (or even necessarily profitable) to recover those memories as you yourself experienced. When it was time for you to learn of that memory, God, through your mother, revealed it to you. Let us trust God to give us what we need (even our lost memories) when and where we need them, rather than to go rooting through the trash (since those memories are thrown out for a reason) to dig up stuff on our own simply to satisfy some kind of morbid curiosity.



Fr David Moser

I had not thought of it that way, Father. But I can see now that God, through my mother, did reveal this lost memory to me.

And it did me good because it proved that I remembered my father (he died when I was 4) and that I still loved him.

Thank you for your words.

Effie