Hypnosis and the Fear of Mind Control

The fear of mind control may be one of the strongest hindrances to people making free use of the various and far-reaching benefits of hypnotherapy. Ironically, the very notion of mind control is distinctly at odds with the purpose and practice of hypnotherapy.

Hypnotherapists are trained to empower people to tap their own inner resources to change their perceptions and responses to situations, for example, to change the physical sensation of pain to a feeling of coolness. In hypnotherapy, it is the client who controls his or her own mind in order to give the entire organism - the mind, the body and the ineffable sense of self - a happier experience of life. Regarding the control of one person's mind by another, hypnotherapists know as little about that as anyone, and probably much less than do government officials.

Apparently, in the 1960's, in the Soviet Union, extensive research was done on telepathic mind control, as described in the book Biological Radio Communication by the Soviet physiologist Leonid Vasiliev. The then director of Popov Institute's Bio-Information Section, Ippolit M. Kogan, believed that telepathic messages could be sent along extremely low frequency waves, and this technology became the focus of Soviet research. Before the KGB canceled the meetings, some Soviet scientists tried to share their research results with other scientists. Lynn Schroeder and Sheila Ostrander wrote Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain about their informational exchange with the Soviet biologist Eduard Naumov. In the 1960's, psi research in the U.S. was focused on remote viewing. According to Defense News, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, plans were made for the two countries to combine their knowledge, but the U.S. government remains quiet about that. (The foregoing historical information is from pages 162-165 of the Reader's Digest book Unseen World - the Science, Theories and Phenomena Behind Paranormal Events, by Rupert Matthews, Richard Emerson, Jeremy Harwood, Esther Selsdon, Victoria McCulloch and Paul Devereux.)

One might surmise that mind control of individuals by other individuals would target the politically and economically powerful. Efforts at mass mind control would be redundant, since the public mind, in its conscious and subconscious functions, is already accessed by television.

In the private sector, perhaps there are individuals who have learned how to control the mind of another, but it is unlikely that someone with an interest in gaining power in this way would enter the field of hypnotherapy. The desire to conquer the world doesn't often confine itself to easing the pain of arthritis and helping people quit smoking.

If the craving for power did send people running to hypnotherapy certification programs, and hypnotherapists were able to telepathically control others, then hypnotherapy clients would not need to be hypnotized in person or on the telephone. Hypnotherapists would spend their work days taking down individuals' names and beaming tobacco-replacing thoughts into their minds.

Hypnotherapists would enjoy the added benefit of being, as a group, much more prosperous than we are now, and our children would never get in trouble at school. But no one would really be helped, as real and permanent change comes from changing the way the thoughts, memories and habits that we already have are interacting to affect us through the mind-body connection. Skilled hypnotherapy provides ways for the client to rearrange and redirect what is already there without the intrusion of any foreign ideas or biases.