Practices: Hypnotism?

[Stanley N. Helton]

This morning I heard an interesting news piece. Apparently a coach has been using hypnotism to help his team focus. Now that story is perhaps not all that unusual. However, the news spokesperson felt the need to disassociate this practice from occult practices so she pointed out that it was a Church of Christ minister who was administering the hypnotism. She said, "After all, they were not using a witch doctor."

While hypnotism was not being used specifically with spiritual formation outcomes in mind, the practice was being used formatively. This practice was, nonetheless, intended to form or shape a certain kind of player. And the practice was being administered by someone who would be expected to seek the spiritual formation of others with all he does.

There is something just not quite right here. Do you agree or disagree? I would love to hear your responses to this.

[James Nored]

Very interesting, Stanley. In high school at our church and at several youth camps I attended, we had a hypnotist come and do some intertaining things. I went up as one of the volunteers to be hypnotized, and it did not work on me. So I faked the whole thing.

I really do not know much about hypnotism. I did some reading a long time ago.

As to the ethical nature of this, I guess I would want to know more about hypnosis techniques. So long as it does not involve the occult, it is probably okay for some uses. I'm just not convinced that it really works--it did not, at least, on me.

This brings up a closely related subject, however. With the spiritual void in people's lives, increasingly people are turning to the occult and spiritism. There was a new show that started this past week called "Medium."

[Stanley N. Helton]

Paul, Thanks for your well balanced answer. I think my biggest concern is that hypnotism does not grow out of a conversation with either the Bible or Christian tradition. One might be able to argue that the Desert Fathers and the monastics get very close to this when they enter a trance-like state in their journey to contemplate God.

But I'm still interested what others may say on the topic.

Paul Smith said:

There are so many angles to this story. First, as James points out, hypnotism can only work if you are willing for it to work. Second, hypnotism cannot induce behavior that is outside of the person's moral standards. In other words, you cannot hypnotize someone and then tell them to go run naked through the supermarket. What hypnotists can induce, however, is a heightened sense of perception and memory, and in some cases (with substance abuse such as smoking, or for phobias such as a fear of flying) give individuals a greater focus to achieve a goal. So, from one point of view you could say that hypnotism is no different for the mind than working out with weights is for the body. It is using the mind to enhance the capabilities of the mind for a positive end.
On the other hand I would agree that, with something as powerful and fragile as the human mind, extreme care should be taken both by the practitioner and the client. And, inherent within Stanley's question, what is role of spiritual guidance if the only methodology being used is psychic (in the clinical sense of the term, not the occult)? It would not bother me if I knew one of my members was seeing a hypnotist to overcome a moral defect (say, addiction to pornography), but I would also want to be working with that person on a spiritual level to let him or her know that it is only through the Spirit of Christ that true and lasting healing occurs.
I personally would not mind using hypnotism if I could induce certain young men to pull their pants up over their boxers, but maybe that's just me.