Scientology and hypnosis
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The founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard studied, practised and lectured on hypnosis, and there is evidence he implemented hypnotic techniques in certain Scientology practices.
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[edit] Evidence
Researchers believe that Scientology techniques involve what is termed authoritative hypnosis. In much of Hubbard's Scientology and Dianetics writings, he would redefine common words replace them with a term he created. According to The Anderson Report, Hubbard has done this with hypnotic phenomena also. It is also believed that Hubbard has attributed spiritual significance to the results of the hypnosis. Among the terms that Hubbard has used for documented stages of unconsciousness experiences in hypnosis are:
- anaten--abbreviation for "analytical attenuation" (mental slowdown)
- boil-off--usually characterized by excessive yawning
- dope-off--going "dumb" or staring blankly
- mental image pictures (hypnotic hallucinations).Said to be eliminated by "clearing" the individual.
- exteriorization (dissociation)
[edit] Authoritative Hypnosis
At almost every stage of hypnosis, there are parallels with scientology auditing. People who desire to be hypnotized, or are expecting to be hypnotized, more readily succumb to hypnotic processes. It is not necessary that a person expects to be hypnotized. The person may not be aware of the meaning of hypnosis or of what is involved in it. It is found that the subject will readily go into hypnosis, even though he may be unaware of the technical name of the treatment he is receiving or the fact that he is, or is about to be, in hypnosis.
[edit] Requirements for authoritative hypnosis
- Subject expects to receive treatment and he makes himself ready and available to the practitioner for the treatment that is to be applied
- Subject is ready to accept direction from the practitioner and the consequences or the results of such treatment
- Subject is a willing subject and is more or less consciously under the domination of the practitioner
[edit] Scientology Auditing and Authoritative Hypnosis
There are two participants in auditing, the auditor and the preclear.
In hypnosis/hypnotherapy, the auditor would be the "hypnotist" and the preclear would be the "subject" or "patient."
As in standard hypnosis, the subject is aware that he is to be "processed", though he does not know the process. Although auditing procedures are called by non-hypnotic names, they are hypnotic processes.
[edit] Auditing and Similarities with Hypnosis
The Scientology hypnosis begins with an unvarying routine: Standard preliminary questions such as, "Is it alright if I audit you in this room?" and "Is it alright if we start the session now?"
After the subject has been relaxed by these preliminary questions, the hypnotist then commences the session with a loudly uttered, "Start of session," which is designed to impress upon the subject that the auditor had begun the really serious part of the auditing. Such a dramatic and startling procedure conditions the already expectant subject for the exercises or events which follow.
The subject is expecting to be "taken in hand" by the hypnotist. A person who is very expectant is a very ready subject for hypnosis. In future sessions, a hypnotic condition can be induced in some subjects merely by repeating the settings of a past hypnosis. In scientology, where processing goes on day after day, the return to the same hypnotist and to the same place and to the same ritual readily predisposes the expectant subject to submission to scientology's hypnotic techniques and to a return to the hypnotic state.
In scientology hypnosis, there is a bond established between the subject and the hypnotist, and scientology techniques are developed and designed to maintain this bond during the whole of the session; it is considered bad auditing if this bond is broken, and techniques are prescribed for remedying the break.
In hypnosis, a degree of dependency develops and the expert, practitioner is on guard against, and realises the potential danger of, this condition. In authoritative hypnosis this dependency is allowed to develop, often with harmful results. Scientology allows this hypnotist/subject bond to develop without restraint. It persists after the hypnosis has finished and has significance in the desire of the subject to return again and again for further "auditing". In the case of some subjects there has been a quality of almost desperate dependency on the hypnosis sessions.
[edit] Atavistic regression
Another significant characteristic of hypnosis is what is referred to as the atavistic regression of the subject, "regression" signifying the going back to some previous event or circumstance, and "atavistic" connoting and pertaining to ancestry and referring to the losing or dulling of more recently acquired biological activities, so that the subject becomes less alert, less critical, and may become almost childlike, with heightened respect for the hypnotist, the development or intensification of rapport and a desire on the part of the subject to identify himself more closely with the hypnotist. Many scientology hypnosis procedures are designed to initiate this regression.
If command hypnosis is unskilfully practised, hallucinations which have been created during hypnosis persist later as reality. Scientology calls these hypnosis-based halucinations "mental image pictures." They are experienced during an auditing (hypnosis) session and persist thereafter as reality and the subject comes to believe that the past experiences and activities conjured up during these hallucinatory periods really took place. This is why the upper "levels" of scientology are able to contain the Space Opera theories without much questioning by the members.
[edit] Hypnotic hallucinations
Frequently a subject who in auditing hypnosis has experienced hallucinations concerning murder, rape, and other criminal and disgraceful behaviour comes to believe that such behaviour actually occurred during his present lifetime. This results in feelings of anxiety, guilt and self-loathing and a desire for confession and self-abasement, all of which increase dependency on and domination of the hypnotist/auditor. Unlike traditional hypnotherapy, which helps the subject realize the unreal nature of hypnotic experiences and deal with halucinations realisticly and quickly, scientology sessions are designed to focus on hallucinations as reality and bring to light fresh ones.
One characteristic feature of hypnosis is the increased suggestibility of the subject, which the hypnotist can take advantage of. In the state of regression found in hypnosis, fantasies may be experienced which may be spontaneous or the result of suggestion. To the subject, these fantasies are apparently real and true experiences, and if authoritative hypnosis is used, these fantasies persist as reality.
Scientology hypnosis subjects are highly suggestible and readily conjure up past life experiences of a kind and along lines suggested by the auditor and by what Hubbard has written. Hubbard finds much of the material for his "research" in these hallucinations which are quite fanciful and often contain details of "past lives".
In hypnosis, it is not uncommon for the subject to experience disturbing hallucinations that relate to repressed things in his mind, such as hallucinatory homosexual experiences which a subject in his normal existence may never have experienced or entertained. Because of loss of repression, these thoughts become known to him in a hallucinatory form, and the subject is likely to experience extremely severe anxiety even to the extent of panic and self-loathing. A subject who, in passive hypnosis, has experienced these or similar thoughts and may have had feelings of revulsion while under hypnosis, may safely be brought out of hypnosis and no ill effects will follow; on the contrary, benefit may result and feelings of shame will not persist. However, if similar hallucinatory and shameful thoughts are conjured up in authoritative hypnosis there may be dangerous consequences. In scientology, subjects have frequently complained of morbid feelings of guilt and depression persisting after auditing/hypnosis.
[edit] Repetition
It is recognised in hypnosis that repetitive commands and the exercise of other hypnotic techniques are likely to induce regression in which the psychological mechanism of repression is less effective; when this relaxing or lessening of repression occurs, matters in the unconscious mind are allowed into consciousness, and the subject may be very ready to discuss quite freely many intimate and shameful matters in respect of which the subject would be greatly or entirely inhibited if not under hypnosis.
In scientology are many processes (such as the patter drill) including those which involve repetitive commands. These may lower barriers of restraint, lessen reticence, and cause a readiness to talk unreservedly about the most intimate and secret things and past shameful experiences. Some scientology techniques are designed to overcome reluctance on the part of the subject to "withhold" anything.
[edit] Hysteria
One of the features of hypnosis is that various psychological mechanisms operate in a more florid form; thus, while in ordinary life a person may show little manifestation of hysteric behaviour, under hypnosis he is far more likely to show hysteric behaviour. In scientology hypnosis it is almost standard practice for the subject to manifest some heightened hysterical features; many scientology files indicate that subjects have highly developed bouts of hysterical manifestation. (including recently documented sessions with actor Tom Cruise.)
Post hypnotic suggestion, which is an important feature of hypnosis, is the name given to the implanting during hypnosis of a command, belief or idea which is subsequently given effect to. Post hypnotic suggestions may be made in relation to ideas, beliefs, attitudes of mind and the like which the patient is to assume after coming out of hypnosis.
The Scientology hypnotist, in following the prescribed strict procedure for closing the session, inquires of the preclear whether the preclear has achieved his goals set for the session and any other gains and whether he is satisfied with the session. The hypnotist is still very much in control of the situation, for the subject, being in a state of hypnotic rapport with the hypnotist whose wishes are in effect his, is more likely to answer that the goals or some of them have been obtained and that the session has been a success. This is a form of post-hypnotic suggestion, and after the session the suggestion that the session was a success may persist.
Dangerous consequences may follow some post-hypnotic suggestions. If a post-hypnotic suggestion be given in hypnosis that the subject would not experience a particular symptom, e.g., a headache, after a session had ended, the subject might not experience a headache which normally he would have experienced, and thereby not be alerted to a possible medical condition, such as a brain tumour of which the headache would have been a warning sign.
[edit] Dissociation
In hypnosis, a condition which is described by psychiatrists as "dissociation", may be experienced by the subject: This is a feeling or sensation or belief on the part of the subject that for the time being he is outside his body. This is a complete delusion though it seems real enough to the subject who is experiencing it. If the processing is authoritative hypnosis, then the hallucination of having been outside one's body may persist after the session has concluded, and this may be dangerous to the mental health of the subject.
In scientology hypnosis, a state which the scientologists call "exteriorisation" is sometimes deliberately sought. Exercises and procedures for exteriorisation are the subject of a large part of Hubbard's instructional writings. This exteriorization, according to scientologists, is the actual departure of the thetan from the physical body to some position remote from the body. "Dissociation" and "exteriorization" are the same thing, produced by essentially the same means. Whereas in hypnosis, dissociation or exteriorization is recognised for what it is, namely, a feeling or sensation or belief on the part of the subject that he is outside his body, in scientology the subject is specifically told that the hallucination which he experienced did in fact occur as a reality and that the thetan has been exteriorized. In such circumstances the harmful effects of scientology hypnosis persist by inculcating in the mind of the preclear an entirely fallacious belief. A preoccupation with such beliefs, involving a refusal to face up to reality, may be dangerous to the mental health of the subject.
A command to "mock up" some object is a standard technique for the induction of hypnosis. Hubbard's writings, both in books and pamphlets, abound with descriptions of procedures which involve mocking up objects. A very great part of “The Creation of Human Ability” is devoted to the explanation of procedures which involve mocking up objects and/or exteriorization.
[edit] Ending of Session
Another important stage in hypnosis is the attention which both pay to the terminating of the session. A skilled hypnotist exercises great care in terminating a hypnotic session ; he has to be satisfied that the subject is ready to be returned to a normal state from the hypnotised state. Too rapid a transition from one state to the other may have harmful mental and emotional results. In scientology, there is as much strictness applied to terminating a hypnosis auditing session as there is to the starting of such a session. The hypnotist brings the subject up to "present time", usually running a "havingness" process for this purpose; he then enquires whether the session can be ended, and, when he has the subjects consent, he loudly proclaims "End of session" in much the same ritualistic way as he commenced the session.
