Hypnotism

Special issue of "Culture Unbound". Through an introduction and six original articles, the issue investigates a variety of cultural and scientific discourses and practices that in different ways are related to neuroscience and the brain.

The special issue was edited by guest editors Peter Bengtsen and Kristofer Hansson.

This is the first of a series of articles that aims to study the history and psychological significance of the “myth of the zombie” through the analysis of its allegorical and symbolic elements, based on a myth’s conceptualization extracted from the notions of Jung’s analytical psychology and Eliade’s history of religions. Here, we’ll look deeply into the symbolic genealogy that comes before and it’s inserted in zombie conception in Seabrook’s The magic island (first text where zombie appears as living dead) through a comparative analysis with the somnambulist in literature and filmography of “the dark side of animal magnetism and hypnosis” and its connection with the automaton.

[AMAZON LINK BELOW TO BOOK ITSELF -- TOC and book intro in downloadable .pdf] 
Once thought pure entertainment akin to magic acts, hypnosis is now a growing field being practiced by psychologists, psychiatrists, and medical doctors. Across all ages—from children to adults and the elderly—patients are finding professional, therapeutic hypnosis can help them recover from mental maladies ranging from addiction to depression and psychosis, and from physical illnesses from chronic pain to obesity and skin disorders. Studies show hypnosis can even speed healing from broken bones, burns, and surgery. These unprecedented volumes, including some of the best-known experts in the field hailing from Harvard, Stanford and other top universities, cover the newest research and practice in this intriguing arena. Edited by a psychologist at Harvard Medical School, this set explains developments in hypnosis, from its colorful if misguided inception with Anton Mesmer, across clinical techniques developed for health care in the 20th century, to emerging research showing new potential applications to aide mental and physical health. Chapters also highlight what psychologists, neurologists, physicians, and scientists have discovered about how personality, cognition, and brain functions affect, and are affected by, hypnosis. An appendix explains how to tell the difference between an entertainer or charlatan and a practitioner who is trained, credentialed, and practicing research-backed hypnosis. Universities with hypnotherapy programs and courses are also included.

Controlling the human is becoming a common convenient means of not only doing business over the Internet but also getting more economical ability and powered to control different societies. To hypnotize people to buy or do something is very common now a days. For instance when one goes to a supermarket to buy a single thing, he/she leaves the supermarket with a pack of huge amount of shopping. The reason is nothing but just being hypnotized. Colors have all sorts of impact on how we spend. Studies have shown that waitresses who wear red tend to get bigger tips, and red even makes us spend more online. In the same fashion voices sounds and frequencies also affect human brain. [1] The dichotic presentation of two almost equivalent pure tones but with slightly different frequencies leads to perceive fluctuations sounds which occurs as amplitude modulation generated by the two pure tones, or so-called beat, in the brain. The beat in this phenomenon is generated within the brain and is referred to as a binaural beat. The superior olivary complex is believed to be the first nucleus that receives auditory information from both sides of the ears, and binaurally activated phase-sensitive neurons are also found in the inferior colliculus (Kuwada et al. Karino et al., 2006). The fluctuation in frequency equals the difference in the two pure tones that are presented. However, a classic study reported that the maximum difference in the two tones for whi ch humans can perceive them as beat is 35 Hz; otherwise, 2 separate pure tones were perceived instead (Oster, 1973). For example, when a sinusoidal pure tone of 250 Hz is presented to the left ear and a 256 Hz is simultaneously presented to the right ear, amplitude modulation with a frequency rate of 6 Hz is perceived by the brain (Figure 1). In addition to the difference in the 2 tones, the carrier tone, which is the lower tone of the 2 tones, is also involved in the beat perception. One study measured perception of the beat on different frequency carrier tones and suggested that an intermediate frequency carrier tone of ~440 Hz facilitated the widest range of beat perception compared to lower and higher frequency carrier tones, which facilitated a narrower range (Licklider et al., 1950). The binaural beat induces an interesting effect termed the frequency following effect (Moushegian et al., 1973). This effect can induce brain activity corresponding to the perceived beat. The process of brain activity synchronization to the perceived beat is called entrainment (Wahbeh et al., 2007). Several studies have been conducted to investigate this effect and have attempted to determine the brain positions entrained by binaural beats. The brain responses to the 6-Hz binaural beat revealed in this study showed that theta activity was enhanced similar to that observed in a meditative state within just 10 min of exposure. Therefore, a 6Hz binaural beat on a 250 Hz carrier tone could be utilized as a stimulus for inducing a meditative state, as meditation has several advantages, such as stress reduction. However, achieving such effects via meditation require a deep meditative state that often takes a long period of time. With this binaural beat, a meditative state can be induced in just 10 min and may be more feasibly implemented in modern lifestyles. Hence if during the online game we deliver 6Hz different between two earphones, end user will feel good emotional sense. It means we can introduce any kind of actions, to end user as a positive emotional sense (even killing others). In this research we are going to introduce the ways we can hypnotize end user of online games. The hypnotize via internet can be achieved by understanding end users' psychological manners, required colors and frequencies during the online games and the best time to apply it. The psychological manner can be obtained by biorhythm.

Controlling the human is becoming a common convenient means of not only doing business over the Internet but also getting more economical ability and powered to control different societies. To hypnotize people to buy or do something is very common now a days. For instance when one goes to a supermarket to buy a single thing, he/she leaves the supermarket with a pack of huge amount of shopping. The reason is nothing but just being hypnotized. Colors have all sorts of impact on how we spend. Studies have shown that waitresses who wear red tend to get bigger tips, and red even makes us spend more online. In the same fashion voices sounds and frequencies also affect human brain. [1] The dichotic presentation of two almost equivalent pure tones but with slightly different frequencies leads to perceive fluctuations sounds which occurs as amplitude modulation generated by the two pure tones, or so-called beat, in the brain. The beat in this phenomenon is generated within the brain and is referred to as a binaural beat. The superior olivary complex is believed to be the first nucleus that receives auditory information from both sides of the ears, a nd binaurally activated phase-sensitive neurons are also found in the inferior colliculus (Kuwada et al. Karino et al., 2006). The fluctuation in frequency equals the difference in the two pure tones that are presented. However, a classic study reported that the maximum difference in the two tones for which humans can perceive them as beat is 35 Hz; otherwise, 2 separate pure tones were perceived instead (Oster, 1973). For example, when a sinusoidal pure tone of 250 Hz is presented to the left ear and a 256 Hz is simultaneously presented to the right ear, amplitude modulation with a frequency rate of 6 Hz is perceived by the brain (Figure 1). In addition to the difference in the 2 tones, the carrier tone, which is the lower tone of the 2 tones, is also involved in the beat perception. One study measured perception of the beat on different frequency carrier tones and suggested that an intermediate frequency carrier tone of ~440 Hz facilitated the widest range of beat perception compared to lower and higher frequency carrier tones, which facilitated a narrower range (Licklider et al., 1950). The binaural beat induces an interesting effect termed the frequency following effect (Moushegian et al., 1973). This effect can induce brain activity corresponding to the perceived beat. The process of brain activity synchronization to the perceived beat is called entrainment (Wahbeh et al., 2007). Several studies have been conducted to investigate this effect and have attempted to determine the brain positions entrained by binaural beats. The brain responses to the 6-Hz binaural beat revealed in this study showed that theta activity was enhanced similar to that observed in a meditative state within just 10 min of exposure. Therefore, a 6Hz binaural beat on a 250 Hz carrier tone could be utilized as a stimulus for inducing a meditative state, as meditation has several advantages, such as stress reduction. However, achieving such effects via meditation require a deep meditative state that often takes a long peri od of time. With this binaural beat, a meditative state can be induced in just 10 min and may be more feasibly implemented in modern lifestyles. Hence if during the online game we deliver 6Hz different between two earphones, end user will feel good emotional sense. It means we can introduce any kind of actions, to end user as a positive emotional sense (even killing others). In this research we are going to introduce the ways we can hypnotize end user of online games. The hypnotize via internet can be achieved by understanding end users' psychological manners, required colors and frequencies during the online games and the best time to apply it. The psychological manner can be obtained by biorhythm, iridology and eye scan of players. The position of computer on the table of user and biorhythm of the online game players are other important factors in our research which we describe it.

This article takes its inspiration from Wickramasekera II’s empathic involvement theory of hypnosis. That model illuminates the mutual territory of hypnosis and empathy—common to much interaction between hypnotist and subject, and to the internal process of subjects as they enact suggestions of the hypnotist. However, the present article suggests that the overlap is not as ubiquitous as the empathic involvement theory asserts. Other aspects of hypnosis involve disengagement from real persons in the environment and dissociating from other ego states of the self. Amnesia and certain uses of focused attention in the hypnotic context run counter to empathy. The fantasizer type of high hypnotizables experiences hypnosis more empathically than do the equally hypnotizable dissociater type. This article also explores the relationship of hypnosis and empathy to other related states, including meditation, dreaming, and psychedelic drugs. The conclusion is that empathy is an important component of many hypnotic phenomena, but that the relationship is as partial and complex as the manner in which other traits, such as imagery ability and dissociation, map onto hypnosis.

Academics tend to look on 'esoteric', 'occult' or 'magical' beliefs with contempt, but are usually ignorant about the religious and philosophical traditions to which these terms refer, or their relevance to intellectual history. Wouter Hanegraaff tells the neglected story of how intellectuals since the Renaissance have tried to come to terms with a cluster of 'pagan' ideas from late antiquity that challenged the foundations of biblical religion and Greek rationality. Expelled from the academy on the basis of Protestant and Enlightenment polemics, these traditions have come to be perceived as the Other by which academics define their identity to the present day. Hanegraaff grounds his discussion in a meticulous study of primary and secondary sources, taking the reader on an exciting intellectual voyage from the fifteenth century to the present day and asking what implications the forgotten history of exclusion has for established textbook narratives of religion, philosophy and science.

*** [ITALIANO] L’opera è stata pubblicata per la prima volta, in lingua francese, a Parigi nel novembre del 1819 (Chez Mme Horiac). A tutt’oggi non esiste una versione italiana di questo trattato e la ristampa della prima edizione parigina risale soltanto al 2005 (Parigi, Harmattan). Il Sonno lucido è suddiviso in XIV sedute (séances). Nella storia dell’ipnotismo questo libro occupa un posto fondamentale: l’autore è un personaggio storico di cui la leggenda popolare e la fantasia degli scrittori si sono impadroniti facendone un mito (è il personaggio del Conte di Montecristo di Alexandre Dumas padre). Con questo libro, frazionato in quattordici capitoli, l’Abate Faria ci dà conto del fenomeno dell’ipnosi – da lui definito sonno lucido – e del risultato dei suoi esperimenti condotti su oltre cinquemila individui. Si determina a smontare l’allora diffusa teoria di Mesmer del “fluido magnetico”, opinando che le improvvise “crisi magnetiche” di risa o di pianto non soltanto non servano a guarire, ma che siano perfino dannose e contravvengano al normale corso della natura. Nel rileggere i suoi predecessori come una sfida, anziché un conforto, l’approccio dell’autore è quello di tenere i propri pazienti in uno stato di calma. Secondo il suo originale punto di vista, contrastato duramente da mesmeriani e da oppositori religiosi, l’ipnosi non è dovuta al magnetismo, bensì è indotta dalle aspettative e dalla disposizione dell’epopte. In seguito a questi convincimenti, scopre in chiave moderna l’antico metodo di suggestione mediante induzione o interruzione della trance, con una semplice parola: dormite! Nel registrare e descrivere una vasta gamma di fenomeni ipnotici, oggi ben noti, fornisce una spiegazione psicologica di ciascuno di essi. Ha presupposto, per esempio, che il sonno normale e lo stato ipnotico siano di natura simile; teoria che, per quanto oggi sia considerata erronea, dopo gli studi dell’Abate Faria è stata adottata anche dalla Scuola di Nancy. *** [ENGLISH] The work was first published, in French, in Paris in November 1819 (Chez Mme Horiac). To date, no Italian version of this treatise exists and it was not until 2005 that the initial Paris edition was reprinted (Paris, Harmattan). The Sonno lucido is subdivided into XIV séances. This book occupies a strategic place in the history of hypnotism: the author is a historical personage who soon became part of popular legend and captured writers’ imagination, to the extent of becoming a myth (he features in Alexandre Dumas Père’s Le Comte de Monte-Cristo). In this book, divided into fourteen chapters, Abbé Faria illustrates the phenomenon of hypnosis – which he defines as lucid sleep – together with the results of his experiments conducted on over five thousand people. He is intent on dismantling the then widespread theory of Mesmer of “magnetic fluid”, being of the opinion that sudden “magnetic crises” of laughter or tears are not only therapeutically ineffective, but they are even detrimental and hinder the normal course of nature. In reinterpreting his predecessors in terms of a challenge, as opposed to a substantiation of his own theories, the author adopts the approach of maintaining his patients in a state of serenity. According to his original point of view – fiercely contested by the Mesmerians and by his religious opponents - hypnosis is not to be attributed to magnetism, but it is induced by the epopt’s expectations and disposition. In the light of these convictions, he unveils a modern interpretation of the ancient method of suggestion via induction or interruption of the trance, with a simple word: sleep! In recording and describing a vast range of hypnotic phenomena – currently widely known – he advances an explanation of each of these in psychological terms. He assumes, for instance, that normal sleep and the state of hypnosis partake of a similar nature. While being judged as erroneous nowadays, this theory, in the wake of Abbé Faria’s studies, has been adopted also by the School of Nancy.

Dr John Cussans (21st June, 2011) - Telemaque in marmelade: How mesmerism met Vodou in pre-revolutionary Haiti. The Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness Salon, The Institute of Ecotechnics, October Gallery, Bloomsbury, London. (Host and compère)

In this chapter, I argue that film profited from an insistent reference to hypnosis. If in early depictions, hypnotists were pointing their fingers at the subject in order to hit him or her with a shot of magnetic fluid, by the early twentieth century, subjects were induced into a hypnotic state as the hypnotist’s hand waved repeatedly in front of the eyes. This new gestural format repeatedly staged by the movies of the same period, was instrumental in mirroring and shaping in imaginary terms the film’s screening conditions and the viewer’s experience. At a moment when a nascent cinema might have been defined in a number of ways, the anachronistic figure of the hypnotist’s hand worked to establish the screen (rather than the film or the projector) as the essential element of an emerging dispositif / assemblage.

Une panoramique générale del la matière, à paraitre en version réduite dans le « Vocabulaire de l'identification dans les arts du spectacle » du Projet Idem (Identification, empathie, projection dans les arts du spectacle) https://idem.hypotheses.org/projet/le-vocabulaire, dir. Mildred Galland Szymkowiak.

After a couple of centuries being mocked and condemned as a charlatan, Dr. Mesmer is increasingly being recognized as a pioneer in the exploration of the healing properties of the mind. His experimental approach, and that of his students and their followers provided some keys to the unconscious that were explored by Freud and contributed to the continuing development of psychotherapy.

Stage hypnosis in the Third Reich: The case of Baden
The article examines the way in which state authorities in Baden confronted stage hypnosis during the Third Reich. It can be shown that officials appropriated the language of earlier decrees from the Kaiserreich period in their struggle against lay and stage hypnotists. This continuity between the 1880s and 1930s suggests that National Socialist ideology was largely absent from early concerns with the phenomenon. In the course of their campaign against stage hypnosis, National Socialists in Baden especially targeted the prominent figure of “Rolf Sylvero” (Eduard Neumann), whose career was ruined as a result. Because hypnosis was associated with occultism, hypnotists also faced persecution during the so-called “Sonderaktion Heß”. Private libraries containing works on hypnosis were confiscated. Future research on individual hypnotists might allow for a more accurate picture of the extent to which National Socialists opposed (stage) hypnosis.
Key words: Occultism, National Socialism, stage hypnosis, Rolf Sylvéro, „Sonderaktion
Heß“

This is the second of a series of articles that aims to study the history and psychological significance of the “myth of the zombie” based on a myth’s conceptualization extracted from the notions of Jung’s analytical psychology and Eliade’s history of religions. Here, starting from the hypothesis that the background of the zombie is found in the “dark side of magnetism and hypnosis” literature and filmography, we will try to show how the central mythologem and the characteristic motifs of this genealogy are assumed and developed in White Zombie, the first zombie movie in history. Through this analysis we will examine the allegorical elements of the first cinematographic works of zombie myth, whose nuclear topics are science and totalitarianism, and we will try to unveil the psychological sense of its fundamental symbolic components.

Sometimes termed “PSYCHIC ATTACK” - a survey of the underlying motivation, symptomatology, investigative approaches, remediation via practical metaphysical and hypnotherapeutic treatments. A nine part package of 15,000 words to assist the victim, hypnoanalyst and metaphysician.

মনোবিজ্ঞানের আলোকে সম্মোহন : রাজেশ দত্ত। লেখকের ‘অলৌকিক চিকিৎসায় কি রোগ সারে?’ বইটির ‘সম্মোহন’ বিষয়ক অধ্যায়। বইটির প্রকাশকাল: জানুয়ারি, ২০০১। প্রকাশক: র্যা ডিক্যাল ইম্প্রেশন, ৪৩, বেনিয়াটোলা লেন, কলকাতা-৯।
Hypnotism in the light of Psychology: An essay by Rajesh Datta. This article is an excerpt from the author’s Bengali book ALOUKIK CHIKITSAY KI ROG SARE? (Does Miracle Cure heal diseases?) published on January, 2001 by Radical Impression, Kolkata. This book written was applauded as a notable work in ‘Desh’ magazine of 18 June, 2002. To collect the book, please contact: Arun Kumar Dey, Radical Impression, Phone: 033-22416988 or mobile: 9432112933

If you are similar to me,  then your age cohorts or "peers" populate less verbal and more emoji driven websites,  if online at all. From remembering a tweet about hypnosis along with the question of the many or the few, I came to these thoughts. 

If the few, then it is the one actor like Lee Harvey Oswald  or the few , Lenin-Lennon-Christ & Associates so fanatically dedicated that they initiate a movement. Or the masses who are moved by time's currents enveloping them-the mantra of the time.

We know of or have found 'the few'-in a niche. The many are in the 'sea of mantras'. We don't want to fish the seas. We want to move the seas. We are the disturbing atmospherics that is so ambient and so pervasive a part of their every day life that our familiarity is their common knowledge. That common knowledge of our atmospherics seasons them to predisposition of the one or committed few.

In that 'hypnosis' by dealing with more than 'the choir' of our partisans, but the media of their ubiquity, we do with familiarity what rationales don't reach whims.

https://speculativedrfrankenstein.blogspot.com/2022/04/hypnotizung-mantra-in-sea-of-rhetoric.html