HYPNOSIS

[reasonemotion]

"Nope, as it was you that convinced you to give-up."

Nope, this session with the MD hypnotist was different. I also remember when I was lying down on the couch I could feel heat coming from his hands as he placed them above my head. I consider myself to be more cynical, than accepting every belief, all I can say is, it stopped me from smoking and I had no cravings left in my body.


I tried many times to give up on my own.

[Greylorn Ell]

Milton Erickson
Erickson is probably the most influential hypnotherapist of the 20th century and the originator of a novel and distinctive style of hypnotism, referred to as “Ericksonian.”

It [hypnosis] is a state of consciousness –not unconsciousness or sleep– a state of consciousness or awareness in which there is a marked receptiveness to ideas and understandings and an increased willingness to respond either positively or negatively to those ideas. [Collected Papers, vol. IV, 224]

Has anyone been hynotised?

I have and was surprised I was responsive to it. I am strong willed, LOL, and was surprised it was successful in my case. I had been to a friends house, lots of people there, a guy was rolling his own cigarettes, offered me one and I loved it. I smoked for three years, until I had nagging thoughts, hey, this may be bad for my health. Duh! The hynotherapist was a doctor of medicine, who specialised in quitting smoking. I walked out of his office one hour later and never smoked again. That was six years ago.

A sign of weakness?

No weakness involved.

Every book you'll find about hypnosis has a different theory for what it is and how it works, if they even agree that it is real. Although my book is about human consciousness, it explains hypnosis, because hypnosis is an interesting and controllable form of altered consciousness.

Put simply, an effective explanation of hypnosis requires the acceptance of a variation of Cartesian dualism, the old idea that soul is mind, and that it interacts with the human brain. The new version of dualism involves a different version of both soul and mind.

1. The "soul" is not some kind of mystical spirit. It is as real and as physical as are electric, magnetic, and gravitational fields.
2. The "soul" is a non-created entity that has been around since before the universe was engineered. It has been attached to a human brain so that it might develop consciousness.
3. To distinguish this modified version of soul from that of religious dogma, I call it "beon," implying a simple, primitive component of our total reality. (e.g: electron, proton, boson, meson, etc.)
4. Beon is the source of what some psychologists refer to as the "super-conscious mind." (Not all psychologists accept the validity of such a concept.) Beon is connected to a human brain (the subconscious mind). Working in concert, beon and brain produce that which we generally refer to as the "conscious mind."
5. When competently performed, hypnosis interferes with the normal brain/beon relationship. In an hypnotic state wherein the hypnosist sends beon into the same unaware state as normal sleep, the hypnotist can substitute himself for the brain's controlling beon.
   
   In this state, it is easy to reprogram brain-level glitches, eliminate false beliefs, eradicate irrational fears, etc.
   
   In this state the hypnotist can also introduce new and undesirable programming into the brain under its control.
   
   In this state, hypnosis is an excellent tool for pain suppression. Once upon a time I used it on a three year old child to "freeze" her foot while I extracted chunks of broken glass from her instep. then doused the open wound with iodine tincture. Not a twitch or whimper, and she remained conscious throughout the procedure.
6. If the hypnosis is conducted so as to diminish the focus of brain, in favor of beon, it becomes an excellent tool for past life regressions. Unfortunately, most of the hypnosists who claim to perform such regressions do not utilize the proper technique, ending up with just a brain that they program with their own past-life theories.

What "strong willed" means, for most people, is that once their brains get hold of some program of behavior or belief, they will not let loose of it, no matter how inimical the behavior might be to their survival, no matter how irrational the belief. "Strong willed" is not a positive attribute-- it is the definitive property of those whose beons are not powerful enough to override the programs that experience and teaching have installed in their brains.

By way of analogy, a "strong willed" computer would not allow the installation of a new program, and would not accept any changes to an existing program.

Here's what your excellent hypnotist did for you:

1. He got you, at beon level, to get out of the way.

2. He replaced you, who was allegedly in control of your brain, with words and intentions from his own mind, thus reprogramming your brain. I suspect that he programmed your brain with some resistance to further smoking input from you.

3. Then he put you back in control.

[Arising_uk]

Nope, this session with the MD hypnotist was different. I also remember when I was lying down on the couch I could feel heat coming from his hands as he placed them above my head. I consider myself to be more cynical, than accepting every belief, all I can say is, it stopped me from smoking and I had no cravings left in my body.

Well I'm pleased you've stopped but personally I'd say it was because this time you wished to give-up and you used this trigger to do it. After all, you went to this person with just this aim.

I tried many times to give up on my own.

What did you try? As giving-up is not trying, trying is what you do when you don't want to actually do something, just an opinion.

[reasonvemotion]

With hindsight I agree with what you say. I don't drink alcohol, I don't do drugs, it was during a stressful time in my life I began to smoke. I tried to quit "cold turkey".

One detail that surprised me, was the total absence of any cravings. That is usually the stumbling block to success or failure in "giving up".

Cessation of nicotine use is followed by a withdrawal period that may last a month or more and includes symptoms that can quickly drive people back to tobacco use. Nicotine withdrawal symptoms may begin within a few hours after the last cigarette, and include irritability, sleep disturbances, craving, cognitive and attentional deficits and increased appetite. Symptoms generally peak within the first few days and may subside within a few weeks, though for some people, they may persist for months or longer.

It is amazing what a little extra support in less than an hour can do.

[Blaggard]

I think hypnosis real, and you can actually hypnotise people. I think though the claims that are made about it seem to be sometimes at least a little far fetched. Now I am not even talking about past life regression, or anything so contentious. Just that there's something that means that people can and could be powerfully influenced by another person to the point they are if not under their control, behaving in a way that might lead to some sort of suggestive process that could lead you to think differently than you did before. That said such an art is a little dangerous. It couldn't hurt to put some rigour in the practice.

Clearly humans are very suggestible even when they are not hypnotised, and clearly when you have them in a trance like state you are bypassing a lot of the cognition that most people experience in a "waking" state. But clearly I think you aught to ask yourself if and what you are doing has really been properly researched, and in which way and by what means you can claim anything about the power of suggestion whether fully conscious or not.

One person I have a lot of time for is Derren Brown, he doesn't mince words he knows what he does is every much fooling certain ways people have evolved to act to manipulate them, into behaviours that they might not always rationally do. I think the way he goes about it is far more healthy than the modern practise of hypnosis. His is explaining how you can trick a sucker, there's is explaining how you can with the right biases lead a horse to both see the water and make it drink. Which is not that spectacular and before I disappear into too much analogies. What I mean is be careful to carefully delineiate where it is suggestion and where it could be theraputic, and where the two might meet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi-ugW6n2e4

Deren paralysises a woman who believes in Wicca. Note she is not hypnotised.

You can do this anyone can do this, this is just a trick of the mind, what is important is that we understand how we can work on people to manipulate, and whether we actually should at the end of the day, if there is a pure need to sidestep the scientific process by fraud etc, hypnosis and suggestion can become dangerous.

Now you are going to of course say this awake woman is a stooge and Derren is of course just playing a magic trick and I think you may have a point, that's of course an option.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1f_o7xgvl8

But then there is this, and then there is when he can do it on live TV, and then you think, yeah we really are just that suggestible. We've evolved to follow some very simple: visual, audible and linguistic cues that make us very easy to manipulate, society has through time made us very easy to fool by using things that are seemingly subconscious but we can pick up on. Perhaps if you take anything away from that it's, isn't that worrying?

Let's put it this way James Randi hasn't criticised Derren Brown, in fact he knows as a fellow stage hypnotist/ clever manipulator of people just what he is doing. It's still impressive even if it isn't magic and just human psychology 101.

I think the point is if something is used to help or hinder. And for all you know I could of just cherry picked, and presented something where Derren does something (guy you never heard of), and he could of staged all that and so on. So the point is, of course take no1s word for it. Go look at the other links and make your mind up for yourself, if you have doubts. It's your mind after all, even if it is a weak and fragile and easilly suggestible one. Hypnosis is real, it's a scary thought to realise that suggestion is powerful no doubt.

I suppose the irony is those who are most sketpical about the power of suggestion are in fact those who often are most easilly manipulated. If you spend your life in a fantasy world or for the most part fantasisng more than usual (assuming you are of course not just pathologically insane), more often than not, you develop a means to discriminate. If you haven't learnt the skills to recognise in yourself the differences then welcome to Derren Brown's stage. Rational, logical always questioning, then you are the one he's looking for...

And now isn't that even more worrying that those who are the most skeptical are the most easilly tricked. I think so... :S

[SpheresOfBalance]

With hindsight I agree with what you say. I don't drink alcohol, I don't do drugs, it was during a stressful time in my life I began to smoke. I tried to quit "cold turkey".

One detail that surprised me, was the total absence of any cravings. That is usually the stumbling block to success or failure in "giving up".

Cessation of nicotine use is followed by a withdrawal period that may last a month or more and includes symptoms that can quickly drive people back to tobacco use. Nicotine withdrawal symptoms may begin within a few hours after the last cigarette, and include irritability, sleep disturbances, craving, cognitive and attentional deficits and increased appetite. Symptoms generally peak within the first few days and may subside within a few weeks, though for some people, they may persist for months or longer.

It is amazing what a little extra support in less than an hour can do.

I did quit cold turkey. I had smoked for approximately 14 years, most of that time it was Marlboro Lights. It got, at worst, to 3 packs a day, then I'd get pissed at myself, working it down to 1 pack a day, and repeat to 3, etc. At the one month mark, while going cold turkey, I buckled once, and while drunk, in Sydney Australia no less, at a pub getting pissed, on something from Swan breweries, (I really didn't like Fosters much), I asked for a cigarette, I lit it, and drawed some smoke into my mouth without inhaling, tasted it's foulness, blew it out of my mouth, and put the cigarette out, and to this day I've never picked one up again. That was approximately 27 years ago. But don't get me wrong, as I tell everyone, "I smoked cigarettes for 14 years and tried quitting for 13 years." It was the only thing I've ever been addicted to.

[Greylorn Ell]

With hindsight I agree with what you say. I don't drink alcohol, I don't do drugs, it was during a stressful time in my life I began to smoke. I tried to quit "cold turkey".

One detail that surprised me, was the total absence of any cravings. That is usually the stumbling block to success or failure in "giving up".

Cessation of nicotine use is followed by a withdrawal period that may last a month or more and includes symptoms that can quickly drive people back to tobacco use. Nicotine withdrawal symptoms may begin within a few hours after the last cigarette, and include irritability, sleep disturbances, craving, cognitive and attentional deficits and increased appetite. Symptoms generally peak within the first few days and may subside within a few weeks, though for some people, they may persist for months or longer.

It is amazing what a little extra support in less than an hour can do.

I did quit cold turkey. I had smoked for approximately 14 years, most of that time it was Marlboro Lights. It got, at worst, to 3 packs a day, then I'd get pissed at myself, working it down to 1 pack a day, and repeat to 3, etc. At the one month mark, while going cold turkey, I buckled once, and while drunk, in Sydney Australia no less, at a pub getting pissed, on something from Swan breweries, (I really didn't like Fosters much), I asked for a cigarette, I lit it, and drawed some smoke into my mouth without inhaling, tasted it's foulness, blew it out of my mouth, and put the cigarette out, and to this day I've never picked one up again. That was approximately 27 years ago. But don't get me wrong, as I tell everyone, "I smoked cigarettes for 14 years and tried quitting for 13 years." It was the only thing I've ever been addicted to.

Your hypnotist used the aversion technique on you. It works quite well. By way of experimentation, I tried it on a psychic (genuine) friend who did not believe that hypnosis was real or that she could be hypnotized. So with her consent I hypnotized her to detest pizza, her favorite food. Afterward she said that she felt no different about pizza.

A few days later I got an angry call from her. She and her friends went out to a nice pizza restaurant so she could prove to them how F.O.S. I was. (I'd warned her that if she tried to eat pizza again she should get home delivery.) She had the usual wine and appetizers, a nice salad, then the pizza. She swalloed one bite. Halfway to the ladies' sandbox she barfed up everything, sharing the output with her dress, the dining room carpet, and a chihuahua that some Mexican diners had smuggled into the place.

Of course, after she graciously acknowledged that hypnosis is for real, I had her shut her eyes and listen to the deprogramming command I'd built into the original session (over the phone works) so that she could enjoy pizza once again. She did not like me at all after that go-around. Go figure?

That your hypnotist was sufficiently skillful to separate smoking from other things that it was associated with (alcohol, bars, drinking buddies) is a high testament to his skills. Nonetheless, you will be tempted to smoke when in associative environments. Do not keep testing! Don't push it. And do not try E-cigs. Next time you go to a bar or hang out with smoking and drinking friends, order some pizza.

If you have a weight problem, you can barf the pizza harmlessly later.

Greylorn

[reasonvemotion]

Guys your stories were all very interesting and I can relate to all three.

Your right Greylorn, the hypnotist used (I didn't think is was aversion), but more fear. Whilst sitting at his desk talking with him, he opened a drawer with some graphic colored pictures, I presume of some of the horrors cigarettes do to our mouths, I could feel my face filling with fear, my eyes "wide shut" at what I was about to SEE. He looked at me and then said, Mmmm, I don't think this will be necessary. Ha! All this and I had only caught a glimpse of the corner of the photograph.

Blaggard, interesting, here I was thinking, I am the rational one, wary of all, always looking for the "catch".

Spheres, Well done mate. Although the Aussie hospitality nearly cost you.

With all this in mind, I believe it was ultimately my choice, I was ready. I wanted to quit. I base this on the premise, there is not enough evidence as yet to prove or disprove the validity of hypnosis. Nevertheless thank you Sidhu Sarjit S Dr.

[SpheresOfBalance]

Guys your stories were all very interesting and I can relate to all three.

Your right Greylorn, the hypnotist used (I didn't think is was aversion), but more fear. Whilst sitting at his desk talking with him, he opened a drawer with some graphic colored pictures, I presume of some of the horrors cigarettes do to our mouths, I could feel my face filling with fear, my eyes "wide shut" at what I was about to SEE. He looked at me and then said, Mmmm, I don't think this will be necessary. Ha! All this and I had only caught a glimpse of the corner of the photograph.

Blaggard, interesting, here I was thinking, I am the rational one, wary of all, always looking for the "catch".

Spheres, Well done mate. Although the Aussie hospitality nearly cost you.

With all this in mind, I believe it was ultimately my choice, I was ready. I wanted to quit. I base this on the premise, there is not enough evidence as yet to prove or disprove the validity of hypnosis. Nevertheless thank you Sidhu Sarjit S Dr.

Yes that's what I get for being part of a group of visitors, (all Men) that allowed the locals, (all Men) to show us a good time during our stay. Oh it was a blast alright.
Before I asked for that cigarette, I had noticed that the air in the pub was a foul with cigarette smoke so thick you could almost cut it with a knife, burning my nose, I really wanted out of there, yet tied to a group in an unknown land, of singular transportation, and it annoyed me, surely having something to do with my pissed resolve, to ask for one. Can't beat them, join them? Thank god the taste, after only a month of abstinence, was more foul than the air.

I had in essence done hypnosis on myself, gradually over time. For 13 of the 14 years I smoked I wanted to quit. I used all kinds of imagery, of actual blackened lungs, excised from lung cancer victims; cussing at the brown/green sputum elimination, every morning following a good wake-up hacking; the absurdity of smoking one just before and after a 1.5 mile run, where I breathed like a choked carburetor, gasping for air, with an under 11 minute goal; the observance of others and their ridiculous posing's/gestures while inhaling tobacco smoke in a little rice paper tube, complete with filter, as a social to do, as if to say look at me, like a majorette I twirl my ember laden smoking baton with savoir faire, some looking like demented monkeys, rolling it with a puckered ooohhh look on their face, and those flamboyant hand waving's, sheesh, a reflection of me?; thoughts of not being a true leader for my children, that may cause them to accept it as a viable habit, a social crutch; and finally the kicker, when I tried to show my mates, my competition butterfly swimming abilities, where I could only muster half a lap, of maybe a 25 meter long pool, let alone a 100 meter fly, like I had done in competition, in a minute and four seconds. I ever so slowly planted, in my unconscious mind, through these observations, and anger with my continued foolishness, to such an extent, that over 13 years, I was able to finally throw them in the garbage, for the last time, them finally staying there, where I didn't grovel to the can, trying to piece them back together, with toilet paper, for a desperate fix of nicotine. I had finally reached that threshold, of reaching my subconscious mind complete, to triumph over matter, or rather chemical dependency, as I had been both physically and mentally addicted.

A professional hypnotist, can be much quicker of course, in a more relaxed and opened state, a more direct uncluttered communication channel opened, with more proper affirmations delivered. Though I've heard that some required more than one session.

How ever one gets there, it is in fact a wise man's/woman's imperative, of that, there is no doubt.

[Greylorn Ell]

Guys your stories were all very interesting and I can relate to all three.

Your right Greylorn, the hypnotist used (I didn't think is was aversion), but more fear. Whilst sitting at his desk talking with him, he opened a drawer with some graphic colored pictures, I presume of some of the horrors cigarettes do to our mouths, I could feel my face filling with fear, my eyes "wide shut" at what I was about to SEE. He looked at me and then said, Mmmm, I don't think this will be necessary. Ha! All this and I had only caught a glimpse of the corner of the photograph.

Blaggard, interesting, here I was thinking, I am the rational one, wary of all, always looking for the "catch".

Spheres, Well done mate. Although the Aussie hospitality nearly cost you.

With all this in mind, I believe it was ultimately my choice, I was ready. I wanted to quit. I base this on the premise, there is not enough evidence as yet to prove or disprove the validity of hypnosis. Nevertheless thank you Sidhu Sarjit S Dr.

It was indeed your choice. Consider it from the perspective of a Cartesian-like dualism, wherein your mind consists of two physically distinct but functionally integrated things:
1. Your entire cortical brain, a mechanism.
2. A soul-like entity to which I attribute different properties than the religious understanding of "soul," and give a different name, "beon," to distinguish it from soul.

Brain and beon together comprise the function that psychologists refer to as the conscious mind. However, consciousness is embodied in beon. Left to its own devices the brain is autonomous, but non-conscious, like the brains of critters.

Your brain picked up the smoking habit, probably when you were young, a time in which beon is just coming to consciousness and is mostly controlled by the brain. (Been there, done that!) The difficulty you experienced in quitting shows you how extremely powerful your brain is. It also shows that beon's will-- its power to demand that brain do what beon wants-- is able to override the brain's desires any given time, but insufficiently persistent to manage that job over a long period of time.

Since the brain is a machine, it comes with the persistence of a machine. If it wants nicotine, it will pester you like a whiny child demanding a candy bar at the supermarket until you, beon, get tired of saying no. So instead of hollering no, repetitively, or taking the little bugger someplace private where you can deliver a few smacks, imagine that there was a specially formulated candy bar full of sugar and chocolate and syrup of ipecac, plus other chemicals that left the kid's mouth tasting like Zest soap until the time-delayed chili-pepper reaction kicked in. One experience like that and he'd be happy to get a nice carrot next trip. Extreme aversion therapy, and yes, the point of aversion therapy is to replace a craving with fear of having that craving fulfilled.

The choice to change your brain is not the brain's choice. It is your choice, made at the beon level. That choice included the research needed to learn about the possibilities of hypnosis and then to find a proficient hypnotist. Given what I've seen of hypnotherapists, either you got lucky or your research was first-rate, or both.

BTW, you were already hypnotized when he opened the drawer. He is very, very good.

[Arising_uk]

... By way of experimentation, I tried it on a psychic (genuine) friend ...

Friend or psychic? If the latter then a poor one if she didn't see it coming.

...
Of course, after she graciously acknowledged that hypnosis is for real, I had her shut her eyes and listen to the deprogramming command I'd built into the original session (over the phone works) so that she could enjoy pizza once again. She did not like me at all after that go-around. Go figure?

Nothing to figure as you acted unethically by using such a generalised term in your hypnosis.

[Greylorn Ell]

... By way of experimentation, I tried it on a psychic (genuine) friend ...

Friend or psychic? If the latter then a poor one if she didn't see it coming.

...
Of course, after she graciously acknowledged that hypnosis is for real, I had her shut her eyes and listen to the deprogramming command I'd built into the original session (over the phone works) so that she could enjoy pizza once again. She did not like me at all after that go-around. Go figure?

Nothing to figure as you acted unethically by using such a generalised term in your hypnosis.

AUK,
What generalized term are you talking about?

It would be unethical, IMO, to reprogram someone's brain under hypnosis without insuring that you could go back inside and correct any mistakes. That is especially important if you use hypnosis for somnambulistic reprogramming.

The woman involved was both a friend and a psychic. I met her decades ago when I was experimenting with tarot card readings and evaluating their validity. She came highly recommended as a gifted tarot reader, and she was. This was because she was naturally psychic, but was unaware of her skills. She had picked up a deck of tarot cards at a party a few years back, made some remarkable correct interpretations (which she regarded as lucky guesses) and self-taught thereafter.

She was, of course, using the cards to open up her innate psychic insights. After we became friends, I taught her to utilize her psychic skills without props, via an intense hypnosis session in the Superstition Mountains, around midnight. This was simply a matter of clearing a few blocks left over from childhood, when her abilities first emerged and were suppressed, and installing some protections against adverse external input.

The conversation that later on led to the pizza incident was the result of my trying to explain to her how hypnosis worked, which she did not believe. Intuitive she was, not analytical. Our experiment was done under her full consent, and was entirely ethical. Moreover I used a style of hypnosis in which she was fully conscious throughout, hearing and recalling every word I said. Her husband was observing the entire process. While she was not happy with the outcome, her guy got a good but short-lived laugh out of it, and she later admitted that yes, she'd been warned not to test her disbelief in public.

I suspect that the attenuation of friendship was a natural outcome. Could you be friends with someone who has demonstrated that he has more control over your brain than you do? Could you enjoy a night pub-hopping with your favorite proctologist?

Hypnosis is such a powerful tool for control over the human brain that mere consent to the process by a subject is not enough, by itself, to justify any claim to ethical behavior on the part of the hypnotist. That is because few people have any idea of the power of hypnosis and do not understand to what they might be consenting. Luckily, those hypnotists who might exploit the process are insufficiently competent to do any long term damage with it.

I never accept payment for hypnosis or other healing work. This maintains my outer image of integrity. Also, I work only with friends, or if by referral, only with those whom I like. This greatly limits my clientele.

Aren't you the guy who, early in our conversations, demanded that I be civil? Then who exactly is the ignorant asshole accusing me of being unethical?

[SpheresOfBalance]

One doesn't program in so much as they actually 'suggest,' which can only affect as is 'expected,' by a highly 'motivated' subject.

[Arising_uk]

AUK,
What generalized term are you talking about?

"Detest". You had no idea how they would respond to such a term.

It would be unethical, IMO, to reprogram someone's brain under hypnosis without insuring that you could go back inside and correct any mistakes. That is especially important if you use hypnosis for somnambulistic reprogramming.

And if you'd had an accident in the meantime?

The woman involved was both a friend and a psychic. I met her decades ago when I was experimenting with tarot card readings and evaluating their validity. She came highly recommended as a gifted tarot reader, and she was. This was because she was naturally psychic, but was unaware of her skills. She had picked up a deck of tarot cards at a party a few years back, made some remarkable correct interpretations (which she regarded as lucky guesses) and self-taught thereafter.

What do you mean by 'psychic'?

What do you find 'valid' about the Tarot?

She was, of course, using the cards to open up her innate psychic insights. After we became friends, I taught her to utilize her psychic skills without props, via an intense hypnosis session in the Superstition Mountains, around midnight. This was simply a matter of clearing a few blocks left over from childhood, when her abilities first emerged and were suppressed, and installing some protections against adverse external input.

But not yours apparently.

The conversation that later on led to the pizza incident was the result of my trying to explain to her how hypnosis worked, which she did not believe. Intuitive she was, not analytical. Our experiment was done under her full consent, and was entirely ethical. Moreover I used a style of hypnosis in which she was fully conscious throughout, hearing and recalling every word I said. Her husband was observing the entire process. While she was not happy with the outcome, her guy got a good but short-lived laugh out of it, and she later admitted that yes, she'd been warned not to test her disbelief in public.

I guess you gave her all the Beon guff, if so I agree with her.

You appear to contradict yourself? As your demo was just a reiteration of the process you said did in these mystical mountains at midnight. Nice manipulation.

I suspect that the attenuation of friendship was a natural outcome. Could you be friends with someone who has demonstrated that he has more control over your brain than you do? Could you enjoy a night pub-hopping with your favorite proctologist?

Sure, as long as they don't practice whilst we're out and I could trust them not to abuse their ability.

Hypnosis is such a powerful tool for control over the human brain that mere consent to the process by a subject is not enough, by itself, to justify any claim to ethical behavior on the part of the hypnotist. That is because few people have any idea of the power of hypnosis and do not understand to what they might be consenting. Luckily, those hypnotists who might exploit the process are insufficiently competent to do any long term damage with it.

And yet you make exactly that claim above?

I never accept payment for hypnosis or other healing work. This maintains my outer image of integrity. Also, I work only with friends, or if by referral, only with those whom I like. This greatly limits my clientele.

An 'outer image'? Fraudian slip?

Aren't you the guy who, early in our conversations, demanded that I be civil? Then who exactly is the ignorant asshole accusing me of being unethical?

Nope, I demand no such thing from my interlocutors upon here as I'm not naive enough to think I can enforce such a request in this medium.

The ignorant arsehole who is accusing you is someone who has experienced and practiced NLP's version of Milton Erickson's hypnosis.

[Greylorn Ell]

One doesn't program in so much as they actually 'suggest,' which can only affect as is 'expected,' by a highly 'motivated' subject.

Thanks, SoB.

I always enjoy being corrected by someone who is completely ignorant about the subject addressed, except what he's read in a magazine article or chapter in a psych text. It is little wonder that philosophers have become such an inbred gang of assiduous readers of one another's opinions.

"Suggestion" is simply a jargon term in psychology, co-opted from standard English because psychologists lack the imagination to invent a better term, and weren't even smart enough to derive something from Greek or Latin equivalents. "Suggestion" is a poor term at that, because it is used ubiquitously.

Here is a suggestion for you: Learn how to actually do hypnosis, then put it to work fixing neuroses or doing regression work, actually changing the lives of others by correcting some adverse brain-level programming. Then, and only then, will your opinions count for anything, because you would then be sharing opinions derived from personal experience and understanding.

Can you see how that could be more valid than simply parroting the opinions of academics?

Greylorn