David P. Armentrout, PhD

Director, MBS HypnoClinic
3031 Tisch Way, Suite 810, San Jose CA 95128

408-378-7799
http://www.changework.com/plr
email:darmentrout@changework.com

1. What it is. Hypnosis is a method for producing a state of intense, highly selective focus of attention. Awareness of surrounding events is reduced. The mind operates at a primitive level.

Hypnosis is not a strange, bizarre nor unusual condition. We all pass through this state as we begin to wake up in the morning, deciding whether to keep on dreaming. We return through it as we go back to sleep.

Almost everyone has watched a sunset, drifted away to music, or slipped into a daydream which captured their attention so much that they became unaware of time passing, and of events going on nearby. Often they return to awareness of thre world amazed that time has passed. This is the same state as hypnosis.

People who meditate are usually familiar with the sensation of releasing their grip on the outside world as they enter their inner states. This is the same state as hypnosis, except that it is self-induced and self-guided.

a. Most people can be hypnotized. Hypnosis is a learned skill just as is meditation.

Hypnotizability is usually associated with intelligence, interest, curiosity, self determination, independence and confidence.

Conditions inhibiting hypnosis include developmental retardation, psychosis, nervousness and anxiety which prevent relaxation, numerous drugs such as "anti-depressants" like Prozac, alcohol and other agents which dull the ability of the mind.

b. Hypnotic states can be produced by drugs. This is the effect many drug users crave.

LSD, Ecstasy, Mescaline etc act by altering the inner brain chemistry (serotonic and dopaminic receptors) so as to emphasize introspective activity. This makes the world appear as we would desire. When they wear off, we return to reality, and usually discover that we have a reverse sensation.

Barbiturates, and PCP distort cognitive abilities (GABA receptors) reducing a sense of reality. This allows emotional states to become more intense and less regulated, thus a highly suggestive state.

Marijuana is steroidal in structure and probably acts through the adrenal cortex and dopaminic route, as well as GABA receptors, to distort cognitive abilities leaving emotionally based suggestibility.

Psychiatric drugs (eg Prozan, Quaalude, Valium etc) generally inhibit hypnotizability.

c. Many normal states resemble hypnosis. This are characterized by emotional traits.

Meditation is a direct substitute for psychedelic drugs. Kundalini yoga is a direct substitute for speed.

Love is a direct substitute for heroin and barbiturates.

2. Uses. Two general uses: (a) memory recall, (b) and programming thought patterns.

a. Memory. Hypnosis allows mental focus with great intensity on memory data.

Both by direct recall, and also by exclusion of outside events and other things not part of the field of focus, hypnosis is an ideal as a way to investigate memories. Even things which are painful and hard to recall become easily available to hypnotized subjects because they do not feel any need to relate the memories to the present moment in time. A painful memory is simply a memory with a memory of pain. As a result, things that are normally difficult to recall become easy to recall.

(i) Lost objects. Objects are often lost because we pay too little attention to what is going on. Some part of your mind is aware when you drop something. Some part of your awareness hears and sees it fall.

Hypnosis allows a step by step review of the activities of the day without intrusive thoughts about incidental issues. This is less successful when you have gone out of your way to get rid of something because on a deep level it represents something undesirable to you. Perhaps you recall "losing" a term paper assignment which you really didn't want to do. That is similar to repression.

(ii) Repression neurosis. Events too terrible to recall may be blocked out of awareness

Soldiers who have been terrified by battle conditions may block their recall behind intense fear. This provides temporary safety, but every association to the battlefield will recall the frightening events, triggering intense discomfort and anxiety far exceeding the intensity of the stimulus.

Children who have been molested, threatened and frightened often hide memory of the abuse behind intense fear and confusion. When questioned by police they may retreat into confusion rather than admit pain.

A similar state of mind can occur when anything is intensely frightening and the mind wishes to be protected from memories of it. Such events are sensed as ongoing external problems which are carried forward into the present as if they are still happening. This is called Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. See Figure 1.

In Repression Neuroses the trauma feels like an external object which is stuck in the psyche causing pain. In actual fact, it is only a memory which still feels like an intruder. This means that the defense mechanism of creating a buffer of confusion and side tripping is using the mind's energies against itself in an effort to not look at the problem. This is like a festering splinter which is surrounded by a buffer of inflammation and white blood cells, yet which causes pain whenever some chance event touches that area.

Hypnosis allows a replay of the past as if watching a movie. Through this replay the acute fear of past events can be reduced so that the subject can examine them in an abstract manner. Once the subject can accept the facts of the events, "owning them", they cease to be sensed as ongoing external problems, and become "old business" which can then be handled rationally. The same therapy is available through psychoanalysis, but hypnosis usually takes a few hours while psychoanalysis takes a few years.

b. Programming the mind. Hypnosis focusses attention, this allows selective perception.

A person can be directed to ignore something, to accept that something is present without questioning whether it is actually there, to think about something in a specific manner, or not to think about something at all.

When a child bumps a knee Mom can kiss it and "make it well".

We can look at clouds and "see things" in their shapes. Tea readers do this with tea leaves.

Recruits are trained to see all enemy people as dangerous and hateful, including civilians and children.

Politicians use the media to tell us to believe what we are told in spite of what we see around us.

Hypnosis uses selective perception to focus attention on some statement without side issues such as the validity of that statement coming into play. As a result, the statement is taken as an assumed truth. This is much more powerful when the subject wishes to believe what is said, and has already agreed to it in some manner.

A smoker is told to not have withdrawal from smoking, and quits with little effort.

A dieter is told that chocolate tastes like gasoline and stops eating bon-bons.

(i) Positive hallucination. Positive hallucination is a false image of presence of an object.

It requires a relatively deep trance to create visual hallucinations. However other types of hallucinations are more readily created. The process operates by stimulating associations through the selective focus of your mind on the topic as if it actually exists, and then by allowing generalizations to occur.

Think of slicing a lemon. Watch the juice pour out. Notice the sour odor. Now think of licking the sliced lemon and sucking the juice out of it. Notice that your mouth is watering slightly, even though you are only reading these words.

A familiar positive hallucination is the feeling that a tiny pimple or blemish is so big that it feels like it covers your entire face and everybody is staring at it.

False self image is believed to be the basis for anorexia nervosa, caused by seeing fat where none exists. The distorted body image leads to perpetual efforts to compensate which cause starvation.

(ii) Negative hallucination. Negative hallucination is a false image of absence of an object. Lovers who fail to notice the otherwise obvious physical flaws in one another are one case.

False perception plays a part in obesity due to refusing to perceive how much is eaten or weight gain.

False perception hides our own flaws, but allows us to detail flaws in others.

(iii) Programming. Three modes: rational, associative, reinforced.

In general, programming for a targeted concept uses a combination of selective perception to discount any alternatives, rational arguments to enhance the target conclusion, associations with favorable concepts to place the desired target in a favorable setting, and inferences of unpleasant consequences if one does otherwise, so that there is an implicit punishment in all other options which is relieved by the target choice.

3. Exotic Hypnotic Phenomena. The same basic factors cause all hypnotic phenomena.

Those who work with exotic phenomena generally believe in reincarnation as in Eastern philosophies and Western New Thought or New Age beliefs. Aside from the philosophical basis, the mechanisms by which hypnosis accesses past lives etc do not differ from the mechanisms by which selective recall of buried memories is attained. The trance is only a state of meditative suspension of active cogitation. Meditation has long been able to reach back to retrieve past lives, and the hypnotist is simply a meditation guide.

a. Rebirthing. Memory of experiences in utero is possible.

It is possible to recall experiences from early pregnancy through birth, which allows review of birth traumas.

Usual issues are a limb which was twisted at birth which is recalled as a pain in a shoulder etc, or anxiety and breathing issues which arise as memories of the umbilical cord wrapped around the neck etc.

Mom's emotional states may have affected the fetus. Hypnosis can relieve any problems.

b. Past Life Recall. Memory of the entire life experience is possible.

Experience is a collection of historical events which manifest as our nature at any instant. We can regress backwards through these to any point. The experience of past lives appears to be nothing but memories. The earlier approach to reaching these was literally to pass backwards through recall of early childhood, and then recall of prenatal uterine life, and then to whatever happened prior to that. Hypnosis makes the process faster and easier, but it still remains a guided meditative state.

People who die feeling guilty or blaming others may create later lived in which those emotions occur as emotional states. Past life therapy is similar to work with repression neuroses.

People injured in past lives may carry marks or pains forward into the present life, although these have no medical cause. Past life regression to the cause allows the pain etc to be relived.

Recalling death in past lives indicates that there is nothing to fear. The interlife is far more comfortable.

Birth seems to be more traumatic than death.

c. Spirit World Work. By recalling a prior death the Spirit World becomes accessible.

Between lifetimes, in the interlife phase, the soul is in the Light, which is the manifest form of the Cosmic Consciousness. In life we operate as individuals, in death we are part of the Cosmic Oneness. See Figure 2.

The interlife experience follows lifetimes experiences, providing what the soul desires and feels it deserves. The appearance of the Spirit World is thus in terms which the soul understands and expects.

Those who feel guilty may construct a hell, while those who are ethical may discover a heavenly state.

Typical experiences are recall of the purpose of this life, meeting spirit guides and guardians etc, planning the next life, selecting parents etc. These may be automatic responses or deliberate.

The experience of interlife is always expressed in terms appropriate to both reporter and investigator, so that what one person says may differ in many ways from what others say, yet will have a basic similarity.

A patient who had regressed to a period when he was in the Light remarked, "I feel like a drop of water in a bucket. I still have my own identity. Yet I am one with all the other water in the bucket." This is the same type of thing that meditators report when they enter a state of samadhi. There is nothing new here.

Much of the impact of LSD in the 1960-1970 period of the Haight-Ashbury was discovery (popularized by Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert) that such states could be attained faster through intense yoga practices, plus massive doses of LSD, taking about 6 months on the average to reach samadhi.

It has been discovered that awareness of the Light can be attained easily by hypnosis, without the danger of psychosis associated with psychedelic drug use. It takes about an hour with a good guide.

d. Entity Depossession. Confused spirits which are attached can be removed in trance.

Attachment of spirits is at points of similar identification of self. The spirit may be a person whose body has fallen off, or a spirit which has never had a body. Dead people are usually confused. Entities are relatively harmless, but may exert influences over the choices their hosts make. Getting rid of them means therapy on the entity, to get it to return to the Light. Once in the Light spirits no longer attach to the living.

The soul of an drunk may linger after dying in the gutter and attach to another person who is very drunk.

A beloved relative may attach to a child etc in an effort to provide protection against abuse.

Spirits who are in the Light may communicate through psychic channels.

(i) Angels. Some spirits remain part of the Light without permanent material bodies.

The nature of angels is without individuality. They perform tasks as if projected thought forms of the Cosmic Consciousness. The world of angels is composed of patterns of the Light within which they travel. The Angels see the patterns of the Light as structures which facilitate their natures.

Angel existence is based on pure existence shared with the Light, the Cosmic Consciousness.

The angel is without individual ego, and expresses the attitude of the Cosmic Consciousness.

Because they have no individuality angels do not attach to humans.

(ii) Demons. Angels who reject oneness become demons. They have no material bodies.

The nature of the Light is that it occurs within a voidness which can be sensed as limits of dark shadow. These shadows form patterns of walls, barriers and impenetrable limits, much as in the human world we live within impenetrable walls and enclosures. The patterns formed by these "dark enclosures" differ in appearance from the patterns formed by the Light and are sensed as impairments. Therefor, demons can not perceive a way to return to the Light, and identify with the dark as isolated and independent egos. Despite this, they exist within the spiritual definition of the Cosmic Consciousness, much as you sometimes have negative ideas.

Demon existence is based on separation from the Light, the Cosmic Consciousness.

Demon existence is based on ego as autonomous from the Cosmic Consciousness, hence the formation of the demon mind is said to be based on pride.

Demons fear the touch of the Light because it destroys their sense of autonomy from the Cosmic Consciousness.

Attachment by a demon occurs as a way for the demon to maintain its existence while attempting to stay out of the Light.

Depossession of demons requires that they enter the Light. Since each has the essence of the Light within, as the real part of the core of being, this means expanding the inner Light. The demons is returned to the nature of an angel and merges into the Light.

(iii) Nature Spirits and Humans. The third class of entities have material bodies.

Shamanic practices, paganism and wicca deal with natural spirit forms which attach to the material world. In theory, any complex process which operates under feedback has the potential to become self reflexive and thus to develop rudimentary intelligence. Some scientists believe that the Earth is alive in this manner. The biggest problem with material bodies is that they seem to be the reality, while the true nature of the intelligence within the material embodiment exists as an abstract information structure. It is this tendency to associate reality with material conditions which leads us to seek material gratification, as opposed to the far greater potentialities available through extension of awareness into our entire being as both spiritual and material.

(iv) Spirit Guides. Some spirits spend their time guiding and assisting humans

Interpretation of various reports suggests that one value of being a spirit guide is that you get to live vicariously without the direct need to put on a body. Other interpretations are possible. Shamanic practices seek these guides, and many healers rely upon them.

4. Hypnotherapy. This is a parallel to psychotherapy and to spiritual therapies.

The many techniques of hypnosis can perform therapy in several ways. The most common approaches alter everyday attitudes by adjusting the way things are perceived, by changing patterns of responding to events, and by altering the definitions of the world and events around us.

Freud initially employed hypnosis with psychoanalysis. Later he discarded hypnosis as unnecessary, but retained evocative procedures. Evocative hypnotherapy obtains results in days, as opposed to years, but the basic ideas and theoretical concepts remain very similar.

NLP is a collection of techniques for changing attitudes and beliefs by association and inference. It is the easiest of all hypnotic methods to apply.

Milton Erikson employed metaphors and stories to make suggestions of a hypnotic nature.

One of the problems with neuroses is that many people feel helpless, worthless, depressed, guilty, incompetent, stupid or other self demeaning emotions when they realize that they have an emotional problem, or when they recognize that they have experienced abuse. This is about as smart as being embarrassed because you once had measles. Hypnotherapy works with these feelings as well as with the problem itself.

a. Suggestive therapy. Direct suggestion gives direct relief.

The problem with direct suggestion is that it eventually wears off. If the problem still remains, then the discomfort which it causes will return.

Suggesting to an accident victim, "Lie still. Relax. Have confidence that help is coming," is a valuable technique for saving lives.

Some EMT's tell accident victims that, "You have bled enough to cleanse your wounds. It is OK if you stop bleeding now, so allow your bleeding to stop." The result is greater survivability

Telling a burn victim, "Relax now and keep thinking Cool and Comfortable," has been found to reduce burn trauma and shock, reduce scarring, and greatly increase the rate of healing.

Pairing stimulii can help with direct suggestion. A person with severe heartburn was told, "Recall the way you feel when you have taken an antacid. Create that feeling now." The heartburn subsided.

Progressive approximation is a phobia therapy. The patient is told, "Think of he phobic object as close to you as you can tolerate it. - - Now allow yourself to relax. - - Now move the phobic object a little bit closer to you. - - Now allow yourself to relax. ... " Eventually they can see the object very close. After several repetitions the phobic reaction is gone.

b. Regression therapy. Going back to causes eliminates them.

Neuroses caused by repressed traumas prevent people from making decisions which might restimulate the buried fears. That means that "talking therapy" has problems getting to them, and behavioral methods are useless.. Because these traumas cannot be reached otherwise, either regression methods must be used, or the patient must be given drugs which dull the mind so that the problem cannot be sensed.

Until we "own" experiences they feel like external forces acting in real time.

The basic regression procedure is to return to review the events while looking for the parts which are hardest to accept. This is like watching an unpleasant movie. When the events have been reviewed and accepted as experiences their power to cause problems has been eliminated, and they are simply information from which the mind can make decisions.

Regression is especially effective with dialog methods in which the patient talks with the various parts of the problem. A vicious dog might be asked, "Why did you bite me?" Then the patient takes the part of the dog and responds. Eventually the process becomes more natural and it becomes evident that the vicious dog was only real at a brief moment in the past and the "dog" which is now in the mind is simply an internal image to which the patient has attached an intense emotional reaction.

(i) Abuse. This is the most common problem of our society.

Such neuroses are the usual result of child sexual and physical abuse which affects 25% of all females, 18% of all males. The results vary, but usually include low self esteem, poor social relationships and anxiety.

If you are a victim of sexual abuse, including any touching, viewing or exposure which you do not desire, you may feel fearful to talk to anyone because it may place you in danger or harm your family etc. Notice, in particular, that therapy by a physician, psychiatrist, psychologist or hypnotherapist never involves sexual interaction. There are safe options for victims. In the same way, if you experience physical abuse, any blow which causes bleeding, leaves a scar, a welt, a bruise, a broken bone or torn tissue, you may be afraid to seek help because you fear further abuse or worry about harming some member of your family. There are options which will protect you. Among these are regression therapies. There are also a large number of social service agencies which are established specifically for the purpose of supporting those who suffer physical and sexual abuse.

Regression to the various experiences of abuse is possible with hypnosis because it allows reviewing those occasions without feeling strong emotions. At the same time, emotions and other feelings can be sorted out which makes the experiences less confusing or threatening.

The image of the abuser is usually huge and threatening. After examining the event and holding a dialog with the perpetrator the image usually has shrunk to realistic size and is no longer threatening.

(ii) Phobias. These are often caused by one or two extreme experiences.

Frightening events usually begin with an initial trauma, a second sensitizing event and a third event to which there is a significant reaction. Events in early childhood often lead to later phobias.

Agoraphobia is a generalization by association of a traumatic event with other things

(iii) Growing up issues. Few childhoods are perfect. This may leave problems.

Issues arising from parents who are overly critical, hostile, who are rejecting or who abandon their children are often subtle and not readily observed by the victims. What people might feel is that they were never "good enough" because their parents always criticized and never praised. This is not always seen as unusual, and many people simply go around feeling gloomy without realizing that they may be superior. The general solution is to return to childhood and spend some time reviewing issues which were unresolved.

c. Past life therapy. This works for issues which have no this-life causes.

Most of the problems are this-life problems which have this-life causes and which require this-life solutions. However, once people have solved all the this-life problems and still discover that issues remain, a past life therapist may help. Past life work is most effective for things that nothing else can solve.

The International Board for Regression Therapy certifies as Past Life Therapist - Level I, any person who has basic training and experience in past life work. The International Board for Regression Therapy will certify as Past Life Therapist - Level II, any person who has extensive training and experience in past life work, plus a background in psychology and a college degree or the equivalent.

A patient complained of nightmares involving barbed wire, dogs, death and great evil. She was easily regressed to her past life and eventually told a story of being gassed in a WW II death camp.

A patient complained of fears of being killed and terrible nightmares about being involved in evil activities. He regressed to a past life in which he told of being in a helicopter watching US soldiers killing a town of Vietnamese civilians. He was helpless and blamed himself for his inability to stop the slaughter. When he realized that his horror was appropriate, but that he was not guilty of any misdeed because he could not save the townspeople he relaxed and the nightmares ceased.

A man complained of feeling peculiar compulsions. He eventually yielded a number of entities.

A woman who practiced Santeria and Candomble felt that she was still possessed by some of the spirits of her last activities. She yielded about a dozen assorted entities in a matter of about half an hour.

A young woman whose parents forced her to participate in a Satanic ritual in Mexico where infants were killed said she willingly "gave myself to Satan" in order to stop the murders. She then felt intense fear and guilt. The entity she carried eventually agreed that to give up her own soul to save others was a saintly act, and that he had no power over her. He then found his own core of Light, was converted and went into the Light.

By regressing through a past life into the Light, it is possible to enter the Spirit World. (See Figure 3)

5. Hypnosis as a career. The best advice is "Don't quit your day job!"

Hypnotherapy is a wonderful skill to develop so that you can help your friends handle headaches, improve study habits and visualize things in more than three dimensions. Hypnosis is not a magic bullet, nor is it well accepted by all healing arts professionals. For those who wish to be hypnotherapists or past life therapists for their primary vocational choice, the best advice is to make certain that there is always a second source of income.

Hypnosis is not a lucrative field unless you handle people like sheep, in which case it becomes tedious rather quickly. It is a great second career for a housewife, a part time teacher, or for a retired social scientist.

If you are planning to enter the licensed healing arts you will find that hypnosis skills can be a tremendous adjunct to your orthodox skills. However most places will not allow you to use hypnosis.

For those who plan to do massage, nursing, psychology, counseling etc this is an interesting adjunct which will prove useful for patients who require long term care. HMO's will generally not pay for hypnosis.

Philosophers and prospective yogis will find hypnosis useful, and those who wish to learn meditation for other purposes will also find hypnotic skills to be useful.

If you plan dentistry or work as a dental assistant you will find hypnosis to be useful to prepare patients to tolerate pain and to tolerate anxiety, and to forget about past unpleasant experiences.

If you plan to work as a hands-on medical technologist hypnosis training will help develop ways to keep your patients relaxed and comfortable while you probe and palpate them.

Operating room technologists will find that hypnotic preparation is useful to reduce side effects, and will enhance patient pre-op attitudes, post-op recovery rates, and general comfort and survival.

6. Getting Trained. First decide what you are interested in.

Hypnosis training includes a wide range of topics. NLP gives basic cognitive skills, useful for everything from sales to interviewing; basic hypnosis skills are useful for general applications, such as improving your owen study habits, meditation etc, as well as helping friends; hypnotherapy skills provide adjunctive abilities for those in the other healing arts, and offers a vocation which is extremely rewarding; regression therapy allows deeper work in association with cognitive and behavioral therapies, it is the fastest way to change a humdrum practice into a therapeutic dynamo; past life regression allows looking into the past, the process of death and interlife, and the spirit world; and past life therapy heals both the living and the dead, as well as dumping unwanted entities.

Under the auspices of the Crown of Life Fellowship of San Jose, MBS offers a Past Life Therapist Level-I trining. This requires 40 classroom hours and costs $600. This is a very practical program for basic past life therapists who need fundamental capabilities with everyday issues. The PLT-I program was designed for the Crown of Life Fellowship in order to train spiritual ministers. The program provides basic hypnosis skills, basic past life skills, a brief review of important topics in philosophy and psychology, and a lot of practice. MBS has submitted the PLT-I course outline to IBRT for Board certification.

MBS HypnoClinic trains in past life and hypnotherapy under an IBRT Board certified program for Past Life Therapist, Level II, The Level II program provides 800 classroom hours and also includes 1 year of free casework seminars. The cost is very reasonable at $6000. This program was designed to provide approximately the same traning as would an Associate degree at a community college. There is no formal academic credit or degree available for this course. The material spans hypnosis, regression, past life work, philosophy, science and psychology. Due to its great breadth and depth, this is the most comprehensive training available in the world. For those who are serious about past life work, this is probably the best there is. The PLT-II course is available to Crown of Life Ministers as advanced ministerial training, and is also offered to the public.

Other levels of training are often available through workshops and seminars. If you want to be informed, make sure that you leave your e-mail address for future information.

email:darmentrout@changework.com