By Hypnotism, or Hypnosis, (Gr. hypnos, sleep). Hypnosis, is a mental state of heightened suggestibility, characterized by trance-like sleep. <br><br>It does not differ, essentially from "animal magnetism” nor from "Braidism" or “Mesmerism.”<br><br>Mesmerism is a bit of medical quackery developed in the 18th-century by Dr. Franz Anton Mesmer. It involves some social role-playing with the mesmerizer making suggestions and his clients becoming absolutely mesmerized by him. Mesmer used his extraordinary powers of suggestion to send people into frenzied convulsions or sleep-like trances.<br><br>Mesmer (1734-1815), assumed that there exists a universally diffused fluid, so continuous as to admit of no void, a fluid subtle beyond comparison and of its own nature qualified to receive, to propagate, and to communicate all the sensible effects of movement. He proposed to apply the name of animal magnetism to that property of the living body which renders it susceptible to the influence of the heavenly bodies and to the reciprocal action of those that surround it, a property which is manifested by its analogy with the magnet. "It is by means of this fluid", he says, "that we act upon nature and upon other beings like ourselves; the will gives motion to it and serves to communicate it". Mesmer came to Paris in 1778, publicly expounded his system, and soon gained name and fame. <br><br>He next set up as a healer, and obtained some successful results; the sick soon flocked to him in such numbers that he could not treat them individually, but had to group a number of them around a banquet and magnetize them all together. The magnetic banquet worked admirably. The banquet was the most famous and most popular means of producing the magnetic condition, but not the only one. Mesmer used other methods very much like those employed by hypnotizers to-day: movements of the finger or a small iron rod before the face, fixing the patient's eyes on some object application of the hands to the abdomen, etc. <br><br>Hypnosis is basic to the Eastern religions:<br><br><blockquote>[color:blue]The reader should not be confused by the supposed differences between hypnosis, Zen, Yoga and other Eastern healing methodologies. Although the ritual for each differs, they are fundamentally the same. </font color=blue><br><br>William Kroger and William Fezler, Hypnosis and Behavior Modification: Imagery Conditioning, 1976, p. 412. </blockquote> Torrey, a research psychiatrist, tells us this:<br> <br><blockquote>[color:blue]Hypnosis is one aspect of the yoga techniques of therapeutic meditation. </font color=blue><br><br>Fuller Torrey, The Mind Game, 1972, p. 70. </blockquote> Kroger explains that hypnosis is used to bring the subject to the gods of yoga.<br> <br><blockquote>[color:blue] For centuries, Zen, Buddhist, TIbetan, and Yogic methods have used a system of meditation and an altered state of consciousness similar to hypnosis. </font color=blue><br><br>William Kroger, Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis. (2nd Ed.), 1977, p. 126. </blockquote> Hypnotism is dangerous for a number of reasons not the least being that it opens the mind to believe almost anything. At the least, it hinders one's ability to discern the difference between real memories and suggested/ingrafted memories. <br><br>As one researcher put it, <br><br><blockquote>[color:blue]hypnotic induction...consists of a system of verbal and nonverbal manipulation to lead a person into a heightened state of suggestibility -- more simply, a condition in which one will believe almost anything.</blockquote></font color=blue> That Bernard Diamond, a professor of law and clinical professor of psychiatry wrote in an article for the California Law Review that people who underwent hypnotism would <br><br><blockquote>[color:blue]graft onto their memories fantasies or suggestions deliberately or unwittingly communicated by the hypnotist and that after hypnosis the subject cannot differentiate between a true recollection and a fantasy or a suggested detail. </blockquote></font color=blue> The second reason that hypnosis is dangerous because the mind loses its ability to distinguish between fact and fantasy (truth and error). Over a five year period, in the late 70's and early 80's, a massive study was done of more than 6,000 people who had undergone hypnosis. It was discovered that one-fifth of those people who had been hypnotized said that they had lived previous lives on other planets! <br><br><center>[Linked Image]</center><br><br><blockquote>[color:blue] We cannot call hypnosis a science, but we can say that it has been an integral part of the occult for thousands of years. </font color=blue><br><br>Martin and Deidra Bobgan, Hypnosis and the Christian, 1984, p. 43. </blockquote> <blockquote>[color:blue]Acts 16:16-18 And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying: The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation. And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.<br><br>1 Corinthians 6:12 All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. </blockquote></font color=blue> Numerous sources.

Reformed and Always Reforming,