Volume 3, Issue 8, page 4

Running Out the Scars of Hypnotis
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tion as a regular occurrence during his
childhood. Hypnotic suggestion, though
never'called by that name and used improperly,
is considered a normal method of instructing
children. Let us compare the actions of a parent scolding a child with the actions of a
hypnotist installing positive suggestions
under light hypnosis.
(1) The hypnotist begins by requiring fixed
attention on the part of the subject. The subject is asked to focus his attention entirely
on a fixed point, or on a light. The parent
absolutely demands the entire attention of the
child all during the scolding; otherwise the
scolding will not "sink in".
(2) To induce trance, the hypnotist frequently employs exhaustion of one of the
senses, usually the visual sense, as in asking
the subject to stare at a candle flame. The
parent frequently employs exhaustion of the
auditory sense by yelling at the child and
simultaneously requiring h i m to pay close
attention to the verbal content. This is just
as effective in inducing trance as staring at
a candle flame.
(3) The hypnotist gets the subject to agree
to carry out post-hypnotic suggestions he is
giving. The parent does not consider any scolding complete until the child has agreed verbally with whatever the parent is telling him;
particularly the child must agree to perform
in the future as the parent demands.
(4) The hypnotist repeats each suggestion
several times during a session. The parent
repeats everything he says during a scolding,
many times.
(5) The hypnotist may repeat a session several times, each time training the subject to
go a little deeper into trance and thereby insuring more complete carrying out of the posthypnotic suggestions. The parent repeats his
scoldings ad nauseum, thereby training the
child to go into trance as soon as the scolding begins.

The training of children as carried out
by means of routine hypnotic suggestion, includes detailed suggestions as to what the
child is, what he should be, what he should
want, what he should not want, how he should
feel, what and whom he should like, what his
moral values should be, what he should attempt
to do with his life, what he should think
about many, many things, and what is good and
what is bad. The continual repetition of these
hypnotic suggestions (combined with whatever
the child does to combat them), forms a completely artificial personality which the preclear mistakenly feels is his own, for as a
child he had to agree at one time or another
with most of the hypnotic suggestions he was
given. This is called the "formation of character", and is openly considered essential for
every child.

A very large proportion of every case consists of hypnotic commands and the effects of
trance. It is not only a matter of specific
scoldinns,` for once a child has been trained
to go into trance for his parents, he may do
so whenever the parents even demand his attention. No one is immune; the more intelligent
children are more suggestible than the less
intelligent. Nor is anyone immune from daily
hypnosis in school; the combination of enTl.0 AM
m By Marcia Malsman and Charles Wylie
Mest iv: 7"ance
forced boredom and enforced fixed attention
make it almost impossible for a child to stay
out of trance.

In handling the effects of hypnosis, we
begin by running trance as a condition in itself, disregarding completely all emotional
and verbal content. Trance is so damaging that
it is usually kept even more deeply repressed
than sexual feelings. For this reason, it is
usually best to start with light trance, such
as trance in school. We ask the pre-clear to
go back to his most boring class in grammar
school, and to Tick up a moment when his attention became fixed; the transition to fixed
attention can be felt clearly as a physical
sensation. Then we ask him to pick up the
feeling of trance, which we describe to him as
follows: There is a feeling of complete stopping of the mind, which can be felt all over
the body as a mental-physical phenomenon. Not
only do the thinking processes stop; it feels
as though every cell in the body has come to a
dead halt. There is a feeling of utter lack of
will.

After the pre-clear has recognized the
feeling of trance, our only instructions to
him are that he should be aware of the feeling
of trance, all over his body and especially in
his head and genitals, and that he should scan
his life for the times he felt like this.
Since the pre-clear becomes extremely groggy
and may dope off frequently, we repeat the
instructions at intervals of approximately 15
minutes. A run of this type may take three or
four hours. This is light trance.

Most persons need to experience some real
relief before they are able to run heavy
trance. Heavy trance accompanies birth, most
of the child's emotional relationships with
the parents, valence identification, and heavy
engrams. We run it at first as we do light
trance, without any particular attention to
emotional or verbal content. It feels much
heavier than light trance, and it feels very
black. The pre-clear sinks into a stupor from
which he cannot be roused; the skin is usually
very pale at first and the breathing very
heavy. If the parent of the same sex is dead,
the pre-clear will look frighteningly like a
corpse. We tell the pre-clear only to be aware
of the feeling of trance; we repeat this at
15-minute intervals whether he shows any signs
of consciousness or not. Gradually the stupor
becomes less profound; when the pre-clear is
able to come up we consider that the run is
finished. This may take three to eight hours.

It is seldom possible to bring a pre-clear
up from a real trance run feeling good. He is
more apt to feel groggy and apathetic. There
is simply too much trance on any case to be
able to handle it all in one session; furthermore, all the emotional and verbal content in
connection with trance is restimulated and
cannot be handled in the same session. Therefore we do not attempt the impossible bit
rather advise pre-clears to pick up the feelni trance after they get in bed that
as
night, and to run the feeling until they fall
eep. They generally awaken the next morning
feeling much better.

Running trance de-intensifies the entire
reactive bank. Awareness, sense of identity,
thinking, memory, and perception may all imrove. The case runs much more easily. After a
ranee e run, have your pre-clear run trance
first on incidents which he formerly could not
handle, and watch what happens.

CEMBER, 1956