“I have treated some politicians, but I can’t say who. Bill Clinton was taught by an American hypnotist. He trained him a lot in some of the non-verbal, persuasion and influence skills. Somebody like Tony Blair is somewhat more of a natural at it. Margaret Thatcher underwent some training, I believe, but she’s pretty natural at it, too. You’ll find if you look at the language structures, the patterns that politicians use, and you compare them to a good salesperson or a cult leader, it’s all pretty much the same.” – Paul McKenna

I.

I’m an ardent believer in the idea that any scientific (or pseudo-scientific) idea that sparks controversy and leads to people believing in more insane things regarding Bill Clinton is something definitely worth investigating. Also, for what it’s worth, Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame (and kook fame), believes in what he calls “real hypnosis,” something which is separate from “stage hypnosis,” and which is closer to political charisma that it is to an induced zombie-like trance. According to Adams, it’s Tony Robbin’s friendship with Donald Trump that has made the latter so good at what he terms as “wizardry” (or what could be more easily explained as charm). Lastly, the long and rather disturbing list of possible mental states that hypnotism can supposedly induce, such as “glove anesthesia” and automatic writing (the latter of which is a consistent favorite of paranormal film writers), was enough to convince me that maybe I needed to revisit my childhood obsession with hypnotism, if only to reaffirm my skeptical adult biases.

II.

In “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,” which is one of the lesser-known Edgar Allan Poe works, since it contains a minimal amount of violence and bizarre imagery, was written in 1845, a whopping 66 years after the introduction of hypnotism, which was referred to at the time as “animal magnetism.” In the story, a man dying of TB is “magnetized” (read: hypnotized) right at the point of death. This leaves him in a sort of bizarre suspended animation, although at the end of the story, in typical Poe-like fashion, he begs to be put out of his misery and immediately “… his whole frame at once—within the space of a single minute, or even less, shrunk—crumbled—absolutely rotted away beneath my hands. Upon the bed, before that whole company, there lay a nearly liquid mass of loathsome—of detestable putrescence.” Apparently, Poe had been inspired to write this story by a Spiritualist who was so profoundly scientifically ignorant that he allegedly did not understand that water was composed of oxygen and hydrogen (this is not due to the time period — the molecular formula dates all the way back to 1811).

While Poe may seem like a biased jumping-off point into any exploration of the idea of hypnosis, it still fascinates me that earliest fictional reference to hypnosis so clearly set the stage for this continued cultural belief of hypnosis as some sort of dark evil that only those with a lack of moral scruples (or, perhaps, an ignorance of the apparent potential consequences that lie therein) would wield. This common thread continues with Thomas Mann’s Mario and the Magician, which compares hypnosis to fascism (or rather, fascism to hypnosis), and, of course, with The Manchurian Candidate, a book which to many modern readers might be reminiscent of 1984, considering how much it is incorrectly referenced to by people on the extremes ends of the political spectrum. Online opinions of hypnosis seem less negative, although they are incredibly polarized, and range from “Hypnosis is real, it saved my life and it can save yours too,” to “Hypnosis is the work of the devil and anyone who says otherwise is a crypto-hypnotherapist.” I think the negative perception of hypnosis will continue to grow as hypnotherapy slowly fades from existence, and positive accounts like the self-hypnosis description of James Braid (regarded as the father of hypnotism) are distanced by time:

“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.” James Braid

Before proceeding, it would be wise for me to point out that almost everything that follows is what Urban Dictionary would define as “woo.” Studies offer little in the way of a scientific justification for hypnosis, and I think that the social implications and cultural hatred of hypnosis probably have affected people’s psyches more than the act itself (although placebo effect probably prevents us from separating those two entirely). Additionally, there’s a lot that I won’t touch on in this essay that I think is definitely checking on your own time. For instance, there’s the hydrocrystalophone, which Franz Mesmer (of mesmerize fame!) was absolutely convinced was key to the process of hypnosis.

III.

Before tackling one specific type of hypnosis, I think it would be prudent to first define the different types of hypnosis:

Conversational Hypnosis, which is similar to the idea of charisma or a “magnetic personality.” Numerous presidents, such as Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, are alleged practitioners. It was invented by a man named Milton H. Erickson, who I suppose could be viewed by anti-hypnosis goons as a sort of Anti-Christ, similar to Dennis Gabor in DFW novels. Hypnotherapy, which, as previously discussed, suffers from pretty insignificant impacts on the patient. Self-hypnosis, where you hypnotize yourself. Erotic hypnosis, which various internet kooks claim is the work of Satan and which allegedly can cause DID, which fit in neatly with the next kind of hypnosis which is… Satanic Music Message hypnosis, which was the idea propagated among evangelical moms in the 1980s that heavy metal brainwashed you into Satanism using subliminal messaging. Stage hypnosis, which is the kind performed by magicians and is pretty far outside the realm of hypnotherapy or “genuine” hypnosis (although, it should be noted, I don’t think anyone should necessarily have a monopoly on the word “hypnosis”, not to mention the fact that the techniques used by magicians to hypnotize members of the audience are still rooted in psychology). Chicken Hypnotism, which Nietzsche references in Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen as “The streak of chalk bewitcheth the hen; the stroke he struck bewitched his weak reason. Madness AFTER the deed, I call this.” Apparently Al Gore and Werner Herzog are avid practitioners. Go figure. Animal Magnetism, as practiced by Franz Mesmer, which was so bizarre I can only offer this quote as proof of its absolute strangeness:

In the middle of the room is placed a vessel of about a foot and a half high which is called here a “baquet”. It is so large that twenty people can easily sit round it; near the edge of the lid which covers it, there are holes pierced corresponding to the number of persons who are to surround it; into these holes are introduced iron rods, bent at right angles outwards, and of different heights, so as to answer to the part of the body to which they are to be applied. Besides these rods, there is a rope which communicates between the baquet and one of the patients, and from him is carried to another, and so on the whole round. The most sensible effects are produced on the approach of Mesmer, who is said to convey the fluid by certain motions of his hands or eyes, without touching the person. I have talked with several who have witnessed these effects, who have convulsions occasioned and removed by a movement of the hand… Anon.

As you can tell, many of these forms of hypnosis are so strange that they merit separate posts in order to fully discuss them, so I’m just going to focus for today on one particular form — Conversational Hypnosis. It seemed the natural choice, given its controversial status, and the alleged misdeeds of its infamous creator, the aforementioned Dr. Erickson.

IV.

When Milton Hyland Erickson was 17 years old, he was at death’s door. The year was 1918, and the young Erickson had polio, resulting in almost total paralysis. Dr. Erickson claims that through sheer mind-over-matter, he was able to regain the gift of walking, although after-effects of polio haunted him his entire life. The polio story perhaps plays a part in Erickson’s claim to fame, which was the much-maligned field known as NLP (which, and this confused me for a second, is completely unrelated to natural language processing). Maybe I’m hopelessly biased (or maybe it’s the fact that papers like this one by Tomasz Witkowski take a giant and entirely convincing sh*t on the whole concept), but NLP seems to be the psychiatric equivalent, of say, the prosperity gospel within Christianity. Much like how Milton believed his polio was cured simply by overthinking the disease, NLP claimed to permanently cure things like dyslexia and Tourette syndrome via linguistic communication woo. However, NLP itself was not what I was interested in, necessarily. Instead, I wanted to see how exactly Dr. Erickson was able to hypnotize while holding a conversation, à la Ericksonian therapy.

So, here is how Dr. Erickson was able to hypnotize while holding a conversation! There are 10 different methods, as identified by Jay Haley:

Encouraging Resistance – A form of reverse psychology. You begin the session by saying something along the lines of “Tell me anything you want to about yourself, but please refrain from referencing the spaghetti incident from last winter.” This will prod the client towards referencing said spaghetti incident in defiance. Double Binding – This is a classic in child psych., especially when you want your kid to eat their veggies. The idea behind it is that instead of presenting an option and the absence of the option (“Do you want to eat your carrots or not?”), then you present two options, which “binds” the client’s brain to accepting one or the other — “Do you want to eat your carrots or your broccoli first?” Metaphors – These are akin to Mullah Nasreddin Hooja stories, where there are several layers of meaning to the metaphor, some of which might interact with the client on a conscious level, others on a subconscious level. An example of one such story is included in the P.S. Cause Relapses – Basically, encouraging failure could lead to more vulnerability in the client. Frustrate Them – This one makes no sense so I’m just going to quote it directly: “This paradoxical approach acts directly on the patient’s own resistance to change. Obese patients are asked to gain weight, or in a family therapy session, a stubbornly silent family member is ignored until the frustration obliges them to blurt out some desperate truth.” Space Hegemony – “Space Hegemony” is just what I like to call those bizarre psychological techniques that involves placing N number of empty chairs in the room, N number of pads of paper in the room, have some x distance between you and the client, etc. etc. Emphasizing the Positive – similar to “positive reformulation,” and the included example seems…a bit unethical even by Erickson’s standards? Look: “Erickson would often compliment the patient for a symptom, and would even encourage it, in very specific ways. In one amusing example, a woman whose in-laws caused her nauseous feelings in the gut every time they visited unexpectedly was “taught” to vomit spectacularly whenever the visits were especially inconvenient. Naturally the in-laws would always sympathetically help her clean up the vomit. Fairly soon, the annoying relatives started calling in advance before turning up, to see if she were “well enough” to see them.” Prescribing the Symptom and Amplifying a Deviation – This one also seems to fall under the broad Ericksonian category of “confuse the mental illness so that it doesn’t work anymore.” I’m only joking very slightly, because the description includes the puzzling example of Dr. Erickson telling a hypothetical patient with a Messiah complex to carry more and more crosses around the neighborhood until he can’t take it anymore. Idea Seeding – In brief, hinting at the existence of future events that will unfold during the course of the session. It’s like real life foreshadowing. How cool! Dismiss Exploration of the Self – Erickson pooh-pooh’d the idea of the stereotypical psychologist who delved into a patient’s past…in this sense he was quite anti-Freudian in that it seems he wanted everything externalized instead of internalized.

As you can see, while all of these guidelines and techniques certainly seem like they would be effective, they don’t exactly amount to a hypnotic trance…more like a bizarre line of questioning. Well, I guess I’m forgetting Milton’s most famous (infamous) technique, which is simply known as handshake induction. The idea is simple, and to some, genius. The handshake represents an act that is governed by the unconscious, mostly automatic part of your brain, so the idea is that if you the reader do something bizarre in the course of the handshake — the classic example is grabbing their wrist or pulling their hand closer to you (both of which seem terrifying if you’re meeting someone for the first time), then you can hack someone’s brain! Donald Trump is an acolyte of this approach, demonstrably.

Whatever the opposite of a posthumous apotheosis is, that’s basically what happened to Erickson after his death. Stories regarding his quack-ier moments (there are many) abounded, and it would be a disservice not to share some of them here. There was his enthusiastic use of straitjackets and other restraints. There was his alleged “orgasm hypnosis” of a female patient. But perhaps the most troubling allegation is the idea that he has influenced cult leaders and other swindlers. I’m not so sure of that, however, seeing as cults in various forms have existed for thousands of years, and the Ericksonian technique’s variability is more likely based on the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale than it is on the minutiae of the technique used. To put it in other words, although I understand why to some, then this idea of conversational hypnosis seems like borderline psychopathy, I would argue that Erickson’s development of the techniques was more about formalizing things that already existed and were in use in society for thousands of years, than it was about creating some secret wizard subtext that would allow Donald Trump to rule the world some 40 years later.

V.

In conclusion, my cursory reading of the most popular hypnosis materials still hasn’t satisfied my desire to find the truth behind all those “Hypnosis saved my life!” and “Hypnosis gave me DID!” accounts. However (and obviously you should take this as no more than armchair speculation), I think that the accounts of people online are skewed towards those more susceptible to hypnosis in the first place. In other words, the reason why so many “reviews” of hypnosis online are so polarized is because if you’re not easily hypnotized, you’re probably not going to see the services of a hypnotist anytime soon. Altogether, it’s once again something that is psychologically harmless to a majority of the population, but perhaps dangerous (or very helpful!) to a select few.

Post Scriptum

A friend came to visit Nasrudin at home bringing a duck, and Nasrudin had it cooked to share with him. The next week someone called by, claiming to be the cousin of the man who had brought the duck. Nasrudin fed him. The week after that someone came claiming to be the friend of the cousin of the man who had brought the duck. Nasrudin fed him too. This continued, with the connection to the friend with the duck becoming more and more remote each time. Finally, when the next friend-of-cousin-of-friend-of-man-with-duck arrived, Nasrudin heated water up in a pot and then served it to the new guest.

“What’s this?” said the man, tasting the hot water.

“This,” said Nasrudin, “is the soup of the soup of the soup of the duck.” Idries Shah

Sources:

Most of my sources are inline, except for the Erickson section, mostly taken from his Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_H._Erickson#Ericksonian_therapy