Can hypnosis help people find themselves fully, overcome the façade of identity, and so change the world?

Dear Mark,

With hypnosis, we are able to reach the unconscious and help people with all sorts of life issues. I must ask if you have any interest in helping your clients understand the façade of identity, ego, and thought with all the suffering it brings.

It would seem to me that hypnosis offers a wonderful opportunity to help get to the actual core of the dire problems in our world. I have a great interest in Jiddu Krishnamurti, who spent most of his life trying to help people see this central human tendency.

The world needs real change. I wonder, does this resonate with you on any level? Is there a way to help people find out what love is?

With respect to you,

Julie

This question was submitted by 'Julie'

Mark says...

Dear Julie,

Thank you for your question. Indeed, it does resonate with me and certainly the world does need to change if we are going to survive long- or even short-term.

I, too, have read lots of Krishnamurti, as well as much else. You talk about the "façade of identity, ego, and thought". I think all of our work as therapists deals with such things – aspects of what has been called 'the commanding self'. It's not that this ego (or 'conditioned self') needs to be done away with, but perhaps it needs to be harnessed, as in the Sufi idea (also used by Gurdjieff) of the emotions being the 'horses' that pull the carriage under the directorship of the one in the driving seat. But we do need the horses.

But I don't see my role as a spiritual one, rather a psychological and emotional role. If my helping someone become more emotionally stable and balanced helps them to develop in some higher way, then that's wonderful. But I am not a spiritual teacher, don't have (as far as I'm aware) spiritual gifts, and therefore would need to leave that to others.

I don't see belief in such things as necessarily the same as working knowledge. I do think that humanity needs to learn the true nature of emotions and how they can be used to manipulate people into believing all kinds of things (such as extremism in all its forms, including low self-esteem, which I view as a form of extremism). But learning to control drives, still feelings, and see clearly is probably a 'lower level' activity and not something I see as sublime in any way. That said, emotional mastery is probably a step along the way to further human development.

I also don't see hypnosis as a cure-all state. It may be true that higher perceptions would be accessed through the REM state (see my father's and Joe Griffin's book Godhead: The Brain's Big Bang), but I don't think a blanket use of hypnotic REM accessing is the way to cure humanity of its disturbances, although, in a measured way, as we see every day, it can help people live better and happier day-to-day.

What I mean is, I don't see it as an off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all method of attaining enlightenment, which is a state, I think, that is beyond just beatific feelings of calm, profundity, or emotional significance, as pleasant as all these things can be. Psychology, emotion, and calm may be used (for all I know) as a means to genuine spiritual development (above mere adoption of a belief), but I think we may be in danger of settling for too little if we mistake any of these stages as the final destination.

So, probably not what you were expecting, Julie, but those are my thoughts on the matter. : )

Thanks,

Mark