Sunday Times 2

Hypnosis is a mind boggling subject for most of us as there is a gray area in society regarding the subject knowledge. It is also understood that using hypnotic inductions one may be able to get anything done using a subject human. Basically you could brainwash a person to do anything and everything. This is a total myth. These types of ideas are put into society by people who have little or no idea about this wonderful modality of hypnotherapy or hypnosis as it is rightly defined by Dr. Milton Erickson who introduced Medical Hypnosis to the world.

Let’s try to understand the history of hypnosis to understand the subject better. Franz Friedrich Anton Mesmer (23 May 1734 – 5 March 1815) was a German doctor with an interest in astronomy. He theorised that there was a natural energy transference that occurred between all animated and inanimate objects. He called this animal magnetism, sometimes later referred to as mesmerism. This was widely used by the shamans (High Spiritual Priests) in the Mayan history. A similar idea has been revived by New Age spiritualists in modern times. Mesmer’s theory attracted a wide following between about 1780 and 1850, and continued to have some influence until the end of the century. In 1843 the Scottish doctor James Braid proposed the term hypnosis for a technique derived from animal magnetism; today this is the usual meaning of mesmerism.

Sigmund Freud considered the father of psychology initially worked on hypnosis. He believed that this was an altered sense of consciousness and thus one could get in touch with the dreams of a person. As he experimented to heal the mind by interpreting the dreams, he attracted many Viennese ladies during that time. He later developed the subject psychology and introduced ‘Psycho Analysis’ to the world. Today ‘Talking Therapy’ has become the basis of counselling and thus the world of psychology emerged.

As the experiments continued, various scientists and doctors were attracted towards the subject. Thus this wonderful modality has now become a proven science which is widely used by professionals to deal with the deep mind.

The mind is the most powerful tool one can use to change himeself. Would you like to embed positive messages in to your mind that will help you achieve your goals? Would you like to overcome compulsive negative habits and deep rooted patterns that are holding you back in life? Would you like to overcome the negative effects of disturbing or traumatic past events? Well if your answer is yes, Hypnotherapy is the answer. There are psychiatrists who diagnose the case and simply get a counsellor to do the job rightly or if he is a professional with the knowledge of counselling and hypnoses uses the technique to help heal the person. I should also mention that there are certain psychiatric conditions that must be dealt with medicinal drugs to keep the patient safe and sound. The issue here is the rightful ethical diagnosis which seems to be the trick of the trade. People are not been told the truth yet been deceived and taken on a ride using fear to create a lifelong patient for the practising doctor unethically and finally the person suffers financially, mentally and physically. Thus my advice is always keep a good ethical family doctor with a harmonious relationship and he or she will never rip you off but guide you properly.

As we progress through the topic the mind according to Freud, it is like an iceberg, the conscious mind is the tip of the iceberg and the much deeper sub-conscious mind is the sunken part of the iceberg which is about 90 percent of the mind. The subconscious mind holds most of our thoughts in a readable yet inerasable format: The capacity yet unknown to the human kind. It can hold information of life time to lifetime. I present a diagram developed with my experience and theories to understand the mind. This will simply show you how and where the mind stores information and from a 2D perspective how one could imagine the mind.

The mind used wisely and properly could be the only and most powerful source to harness enormous benefits to life. ‘Mano pubbangama dhamma mano settha manomaya’ as stated in Buddhism, it is the mind that relates to everything. Mano is of course the mind.  Dhamma are the energies that the mind generates (via javana power), and those dhamma then give rise to everything in this world – whether living or inert.

Pubbangama (pubba + anga) means what comes first. The first line (in both verses) says all dhamma that give rise to everything in this world are created by the mind. The second line says, everything is prepared (setta) and is a manifestation of the mind (manomaya).

Now you may understand that mind matters most. Purified thoughts create a positive life. We are mostly indulged in negativity right along from our childhood. Rarely are people exposed to a positive environment. This lifelong training of the mind will generate negative thought patterns. This, in turn, creates negative behaviour. We get accustomed to this and will not see the difference. Thereby our entire life is spent in a negative way.

So if we train the mind positively, the vice versa will take place. The whole life becomes positively charged and the drive of life force becomes super. When you learn to have The Sammadiṭṭhi (Pali for “Right View” ‘Mindfulness’), your life becomes easy. Your interactions with others become simple and comfortable, thus reducing anxiety and stress.

Mind contains the information of all past lives and future lives you have in your karmic journey of the soul. This reasons why your thoughts are affected from the past experiences. Using hypnosis, you can access this information — provided the universal controls allow you to access — and you can make adjustments to your karma. However you cannot fully erase your karmic repercussions. Your good deeds (Kusal) will submerge your bad deeds (Akusal) up to a certain period; yet, when the time is right for it to materialize, it will.

Hypnosis allows you to explore the deep sub conscious mind as if in a journey. You will see all what you have gone through and in turn you can make the required changes to life. Lessons you have learnt will become an eyeopener. Hypnosis is scientific and hypnotherapy works well with the mind. Many conditions of the mind are related to this fact. You can now see the term ‘Mindfulness’ entering the western world thus proving the facts in Buddhism.

Hypnosis has evolved so much during the past decade. Let me conclude by saying ‘Absence of Proof is Not Proof of Absence’

(The writer is the President of
the College of Professional Hypnotherapists Sri Lanka.)

 

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