The Hypnotic Influence

Phantoms of the mind

A widower, who had been dominated by his overbearing wife, remarried but suffered from constant guilt feelings and anxious memories of his deceased spouse. One day, on a picnic with his new wife, to a place he and his dead wife often used to visit, he cried with fear that the ghost of his old wife had returned to haunt him. A photograph taken during the outing showed the dead wife's face hovering between the newly-married couple!

We have been haunted by "ghosts" throughout the ages - but they are usually merely the hallucinations of agitated minds obsessed with fear.

Normally the images of our subconscious remain within the mind, but if the mind is concentrated with fear - for instance, if one is alone in the dark, or the mind is upset by the suggestion that ghosts are often found in such places - then one may imagine a ghost, or the image of a beloved or feared person, with the subconscious mind, and project that image outside.

Indeed scientists have often photographed the ectoplasm (mental) projections of psychics such as Ted Serios, who can, like the 'haunted" man above, mentally create images at will on photographic film. Scientists call this "thoughtography."

 It primitive societies, the cleaver medicine man used to "exorcise" ghosts by trying to re-awaken the conscious minds of the hallucinating individuals, for example by beating their bodies to "cast out the evil spirits", while mumbling "magic" phases to impress the spectators. Or, like Ethiopian shamans, they spray "holy water" into the face of the "possessed" people and nervous system in this way, the conscious mind again starts to function, and the "ghost" vanishes into thin air.

The Hypnotic Influence

Nepalese street magician is surrounded by an awe-struck crowd who gaze unbelievingly as a coiled rope twists and writhes, rising slowly into the air before their eyes. But those whose minds are strong enough to resist the magician's hypnotic influence, or are beyond the range of his mental power, simply see an old rope lying coiled up on the ground, and the magician standing in front of it with his eyes closed, concentrating intently.

Actually, he is imagining the rope rising into the air, picturing the image in his subconscious mind, and with all his ectoplasm power, projecting this image into the minds of the spectators.

Hypnotism is another phenomena of the subconscious mind, in which the powerful subconscious mind of one person influences the conscious mind of another, who then perceives whatever the hypnotist's subconscious mind imagines, or does whatever the hypnotist's wills.

Hypnotism is being increasingly used in psychotherapy and in medicine and dentistry as a form of anesthesia without drugs; but although it may seem to have many immediate benefits, it is ultimately harmful. Hypnotic suggestion can only act on a weaker, passive mind. Under hypnosis one is not learning to control one's brain centers and personality by the power of one's own will, but instead allowing the mind to be stunned by the superimposition of another person's stronger mental force. Thus each time individuals are hypnotized, they lose some of their mental energy, until ultimately their minds, instead of attaining self-control lose all will force and determination.

Our aim is not that we should be transformed by another's will by the domination of another's mind, but by becoming the masters of ourselves. Only in this way will we attain freedom from all external bondages.