bboy,
You mention hypnotism as being some kind of psychic phenomena, it is not. Hypnotism is noting more than a controlled state of conscientiousness. Its like a person being in a prolonged day dream that someone else takes control of. Everyone has experienced a tiny fraction of a hypnotic state in their lives. I don't know of anyone that has not pulled up to a stop light and for a few seconds has drifted off into a momentary day dream and then has had some guy late for work honk his horn behind you to wake you up and move you on. This is a slight bit of a trance that puts you in a state of splitting your immediate active conscience and a brief state of sub-conscientious activity. Simply stated, you are in a brief dream state.
Your brain holds memories of everything you have ever seen, smelled, tasted, heard, or touched. In other words every experience you have ever had is stored in your brain. The level of the brains capacity to easily access this information has been confused with the total brain capacity thought to be used. All of your brain is in use and within the last ten years there has been more things revealed about how the brain works then in all of previous scientific history concerning the brain combined. Those who have been considered to be very intelligent just have a more refined ability to access information that is stored in their brain than those who are considered less intelligent who have not continued to develop this ability. There is a lot more to it than that but to go fully into it would take too long, so if any of you brain surgeons want to say I am only partly right and want to expand on my
comment, have at it.
Hypnotism is not a psychic ability or phenomenon. It is just the ability to take a person and put them into that day dream state and then control it. It is very similar to a person who sleep walks. Even though they seem to be sound asleep they still have the ability to see where they are walking and go through doors, hallways down stairs and alike. Their conscientiousness is being split, one part that is controlling their sleep walking state and the other is still sound asleep and unaware of their immediate actions. The sleep walker can be
carefully brought back to bed and then can be woken up. If you attempt to wake them up while they are in the middle of the sleep walk they become startled when the finally realize they are not where they thought they were it becomes a frightening experience for them. If you have ever had to put someone back to bed while they are sleep walking you can see how a person can control the sleep walker while they are in this split consciences state. If you have ever experience a person talking in their sleep it is also a very similar state if conscientiousness. You can talk to them have them answer questions and then they go right back to sleep. In the morning you tell them about it and they have no memory of the experience. The only difference between the person guiding the sleep walker and a person who can hypnotize others is the hypnotist can induce the split conscientious state and the person helping the sleep walker can not.
A person under hypnosis is in an extremely relaxed state and this allows the person controlling the hypnotic trance to help the individual access the memories in that persons brain and have them remember them and then describe them. There are several different levels of hypnotic states that you can put a person into. Depending on the level of the trance will determine whether the subject will remember anything about the hypnotic experience or not. In a hypnotic state it seems to the subject that no time has passed at all. Not everyone can be hypnotized especially those who refuse to relax or have a preconceived notion that it is all bullshit. Case in point Alan F. Alan and his wife came to visit me a few weeks ago. He had heard that I could hypnotize people and asked me to try it on him. In the process of trying to get him to relax he kept laughing. At that point I just quit, it's like asking someone to relax when you are trying to give them a massage and they keep tightening up. You can not massage a muscle unless the person meets you half way and relaxes himself. Same with hypnosis, if the person is not willing to relax and begin to let his mind drift off to a dream state you can not put them under.
As far as physic phenomenon which is the subject of this thread I keep an open mind. Offering a million dollars to prove it or disprove it is like offering a million dollars to prove the bible and or evolution is true. There is presently a million dollar prize to prove that aliens are real also. But as most people say unless one lands on the white house lawn and shakes the presidents hand on a live CNN broadcast most people won't believe it. As far as hypnotism, it is real but it does not have anything to do with physic powers, demons, spirits, the
boogie men or mysterious powers. It's just the ability to talk to someone while they are sleeping.
Dave