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Look into my eyes!

Have you ever seen those shows on TV or been at a Club or function where a stage hypnotist has a row of people in a sleep state and can make them do weird things for our hysterical enjoyment?
They dance on command, bark like a dog, go screaming down the aisle.

So cool right?

To think that the mind can be manipulated so easily.

Now that's scary.
But not all of us can be hypnotised.

Because, in the end, if we say we cant be hypnotised - we are right.
You can really only be successfully hypnotised if you agree to be so.
So all of those barking dog people have got to say they are happy to do so on subconscious level.

All of those poor bastards appearing on stage have given their permission for the hypnotist to play with their minds.

And there is usually a process whereby those not as easily put under the influence of the hypnotist are weeded out - as, of course, the deeper you go and easier and quicker, the better the stage spectacle.



But where did all of this start?
For that we have to go way, way back.

Many quirky things have started in Germany - and mesmerism was one of them.

Franz Anton Mesmer  graduated with a degree in medicine from the University of Vienna.
His thesis was about the influence of the gravitational pull of celestial bodies on the human body.

This was supposed to happen through the 'ether' which is a undetectable fluid that Issac Newton suggested might actually fill the whole universe and be what enabled the movement of light, heat  gravity and something new - magnetism.

Mesmer seemed to have a checkered reputation, as he was often reputed to steal other people's ideas But, he continued with his ideas saying that every human possessed a more spiritual form of magnetism which he called 'animal magnetism' ( from 'anima' which means the soul.)

Mesmer was actually creating an altered state, during these mesmerism sessions,by actually putting people into a trance.
Nothing more.
His results were amazing - many maybe a placebo but he was creating change in a way that seemed quite mystical and magical.

This was later streamlined by a Scottish laddie named James Braid who realised that, if you could manage to get the patient to shut their eyes through staring at something that could make their eyes tire, or through exertion, ( like watching an object move from let to right above eye level) the patient would be suggested to move into a deeper level of relaxation and move into a semi conscious state whereby suggestions could be implanted.
Just like to swinging pocket watch that we have often seeing in movies.


The problem with all of this was that these guys started to treat anything and everything with this method. It became a cure all for all illnesses.

Of course, again, you would have those that would show results by the suggestiveness that the illness had disappeared - and often it had, to a point.

One thing though that they were not bargaining on happening was the fact that during this process of hypnosis as it came to be later called, some people were having their psychic abilities awakened.

Mesmerists, all men at that early stage, were frequently finding that women were making exceptionally open subjects.


They would come back reporting unusual stories of being able to tap into the realm of souls that was not available to them prior to their treatments.

Oops...those mesmerist's had opened up a can of worms!



For, what this had done, was to, very subtly, elevate the level of women in the late 18th century. Suddenly these psychic women were being offered the opportunity to be invited to parties, gatherings and special events where they could use these new found abilities to to bridge the gap between the living and the dead. Finally women had a voice, albeit a dead one, but a voice!


Women were literally 'AT THE TABLE'!
You can just imagine the intense craziness that ensued.

Hypnotism is something that now a days is still not trusted totally by many.
Its a case of handing over the control to another and trusting that the hypnotist will not abuse that control but help whatever the need may be.

But, as someone who is a trained hypnotist, I do find that using the disassociative state can be very useful to tap into latent psychic abilities, close down over active psychic abilities, and there have even been many studies showing that some hypnotists have been able to speak to possessing entities and talk to them through the hypnotised host.

We have a long way to go to truly explore what our mind controls and if we can be manipulated by spirits.
But, insights have been made into this field for almost 250 years.
I wonder what Mesmer would have thought if he had known that he was a catalyst for the revolution in women's emancipation that commenced during his mesmerising sessions.
















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