The question of how hypnosis works is something that in my opinion no one completely understands. It is a subject with lots of different theories and has been practiced in various forms for millennia.
I have written extensively on hypnosis and its use in cults and can refer you to several blog posts on the topic but must emphasize that it really takes a lot of study to get even a little understanding in my opinion, generally any description that has simple one size fits all rules regarding hypnosis is in my opinion something that is not supported by scientific evidence.
Margaret Singer wrote Cults In Our Midst and I wrote an extensive blog post on her book and Scientology. The quotes below are from her book.
On occasion, recruits are even put into brief trance states. Most people don't realize that a person can be hypnotized in simple and subtle ways, without the spectacular commands used by hypnotists who perform onstage. Someone can get you to totally concentrate on something such as an imaginary scene while he or she softly repeats subtle suggestions. Soon you will pretty much eliminate critical thinking and fall into a mild temporary trance...Through a specific, deliberate program, cult recruits and members at times can be put or fall into changed states of consciousness, which contribute to their gradually becoming restricted in their thinking. ( 118 )
In this regard Scientology is truly outstanding, perhaps unique and unrivalled. Hubbard extensively studied hypnosis and covert hypnosis in particular. Auditing is extensively taken from hypnotic methods he found in books on the subject. He even recommended several including Hypnotism Comes of Age. I read that and found it revealed several seemingly innocent auditing methods to be hypnosis repackaged. The method of using imagery through story telling or "therapies" in which a patient recalls or creates images in their mind has long been known to be vulnerable to transference phenomena that can give the therapist hypnotic influence or dominion over the unsuspecting patient. In fact the inventor of the E-meter himself Volney Mathison warned against this in his book Creative Image Therapy .
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Don't be tricked by any faker, whether he claims to be holy, "illuminated", or "scientific". There are charlatans who promise--even through the U. S. mails, so stupidly reck less are they--to heal or transform you for large sums of money--some by esoteric "teachings", others by their mere presence or by their invoking some mysterious Power. The Power they claim to invoke is genuine--but it functions only within each of us. It was, is, and probably always will be here, unlimited.
The faker who hypnotizes you out of your money is not himself a sane, whole, and happy man--he is usually operating, puppet-like, on some deep, uncleared set of sub conscious image patterns as brutal as those of some stray killer shark." End Quote
Hubbard additionally used his study tech indoctrination which itself includes several forms of hypnosis and trance induction including self hypnosis in using his barriers to study methods. And extensive mind altering drills on his TRs courses. The Scientology trance is intended to be automatic and to activate for the student and the recipient of auditing. As the student becomes an auditor they are intended to have the heavily drilled procedures generate a trance as well. The auditor , patient , course supervisor and other staff and Scientologists are intended to have merely thinking trigger the trance and thoughts, emotions and behaviors Hubbard laid in through his doctrine over hundreds of hours on course and in auditing.
Perhaps no other group ever has used hypnotism based methods as extensively to influence and control its own members. What is often short term and temporary in other groups is meant by Hubbard to be a frequently repeated and habitually retriggered state in Scientology.
I could write several books alone detailing methods of hypnosis in Scientology and the methods of members being conditioned to reenter the trances again and again.
Reflective, critical, evaluative thought, especially that critical of the cult, becomes aversive and avoided. The member will appear as you or I do, and will function well in ordinary tasks, but the cult lectures and procedures tend to gradually induce members to experience anxiety whenever they critically evaluate the cult. Soon they are conditioned to avoid critical thinking, especially about the cult, because doing so becomes associated with pangs of anxiety and guilt. ( page 118 )
This gradual process helps to make conformity to Hubbard's doctrine emotionally feel much more comfortable than disobeying, considering or doubting it. They don't understand the "certainty" Hubbard claims proves knowledge is in reality fool's gold. He persuades victims to hold deep faith, often blind unreasoning fanatical zealotry, which is as persuasive as deeply seated long held personal convictions despite being implanted by another. And asserting one's own judgment or observations against Hubbard's can produce tremendous anxiety, confusion and mental discomfort. Once this level of influence is attained it is usually quite difficult to overcome. But not impossible.
As new members are gradually exposed to the series of classes, events, and/or experiences that will, one step at a time, cut them off from their pasts and the world as they knew it and change them so gradually they won't notice, they are often kept awake for long periods doing their assignments, studying, listening to lectures, meditating, chanting, and so on...Before long,recruits immersed in this new environment are, without realizing it, beginning to think in a new way. ( page 116 )
These methods are used on staff members who may work eighty or more hours per week in addition to spending additional time off post studying and drilling. Many Sea Org members get very little rest, reports of four hours a day of rest or on the RPF shifts of thirty hours on three hours off are sadly common.
Even more guilt is induced as recruits are set up to believe that if they ever leave the group all their ancestors and descendants will be damned or they themselves will die a pitiful death or become losers or lost souls...Through this kind of manipulation, they are convinced that they can be saved only if they stay within the group. ( page 119 )
Again and again through repetition and variation Hubbard creates the lie and illusion of eternal spiritual degradation for all who have lived in the past, live now in the present or will live in the future if Scientology is not entirely submitted to by all of mankind.
He portrays a future of eternal unrelenting existence as a disembodied undying spirit that remains blind, deaf, in endless pain with accompanying amnesia to not even know why this state exists or to be able to even think of any other as the inescapable destiny of all without Scientology as their savior.
In contrast he promises Godhood with dominion over one's own universe, as a supreme being in a realm of equal size to the entire physical universe. This is portrayed as an eternal state of limitless power and knowledge. It is meant to exceed any desire a Scientologist can dream of and evoke absolute loyalty.
They may quit their jobs or go about them in a humdrum, distracted manner, losing all interest in prior careers or life goals. ( page 119 )
After becoming convinced they have found a compelling, worry free route to enlightenment and transcendence it is quite understandable why the mundane matters are beneath their interest. It has actually been intensely focused on Scientology as the entire outside world is simultaneously condemned. This results in emotional flatness regarding other activities. Which the Scientology trance seems to alleviate.
Bible cults and groups that offer eternal life also appeal to older persons. ( page 120 )
This is noteworthy as I have met several middle-aged and elderly Scientologists upon facing their impending mortality have entirely committed themselves and several million dollars to Scientology. Especially if they already sacrificed decades to the cult.
Although different in content, most cults resemble each other in many ways. They are especially similar in their use of powerful social and psychological pressures that include isolating individuals from their pasts, denigrating their current sense of self, and making them give up and forget their former lives in order to stay with the group. ( page 124 )
Hubbard cruelly in his doctrine and auditing focused on condemning the past as shameful, evil and full of pain as he sought to destroy all old loyalties and gain limitless submission from his victims.
In general, cult leaders combine two methods of persuasion:
Inducing predictable physiological responses by subjecting followers to certain planned experiences and exercises, and then interpreting those responses in ways favorable to the leader's interests.
Eliciting certain behavioral and emotional responses by subjecting followers to psychological pressures and manipulations, then exploiting those responses to induce further dependence on the cult. ( page 126 )
The process of positive reinterpretation, sometimes called proof through reframing, is a persuasion technique commonly used by cults. ( page 128 )
In this Scientology excels. Hubbard through redefenitions casts hypnotic phenomena as indicating "barriers to study" in his indoctrination. Signs such as a not there feeling, doping off, and not remembering what one just read actually can indicate trance states. And the confusion, reelingness, exasperation, anxiety and mental blankness Hubbard attributes to these "barriers" are signs of cognitive dissonance, as students constantly encounter contradictions in Hubbard's doctrine. Sometimes merely his statement that certain phenomena always indicate "misunderstood words" and certainty that a student actually understood the materials create this contradiction with accompanying confusion, exasperation, and mental blankness with uncertainty on how to proceed. In this moment of blankness vulnerability to suggestion is extreme and repeatedly taken advantage of and exploited by commands within Hubbard's doctrine that vary in some degree but always have one crucial common factor: they require submission to Hubbard's will. Through repetition this submission is reframed as the only acceptable response - it is "standard tech".
By consciously reframing, or relabeling, the effects, thus confounding individuals' gut-level reactions that something unpleasant has happened, leaders turn a frightening state into a supposedly positive one... ( page 129 )
The anxiety, heightened fear and confusion that accompany cognitive dissonance normally serve as a warning that something is not right and warrants reflection and examination using independent and critical thinking but Hubbard has made those triggers to blindly follow his directions. Additionally in auditing oneis taught "the way out is the way through" so as anxiety, fear and other negative emotions increase the auditor and their victim both have these traumatic effects from Scientology reframed as signs Scientology is working !
Hypnosis is classed as a psychological rather than a physiological method because it is essentially a form of highly focused mental concentration in which one person allows another to structure the object of the concentration and simultaneously suspends critical judgment and peripheral awareness. When this method is used in a cultic environment, it becomes a form of psychological manipulation and coercion because the cult leader implants suggestions aimed at his own agenda while the person is in a vulnerable state. ( page 151)
Hypnosis is quite different than the stage magician with a swinging watch. That is only a minuscule part of what hypnosis as a subject contains.
A trance is a phenomenon in which our consciousness or awareness is modified. Our awareness seems to split as our active critical-evaluative thinking dims, and we slip from an active into a passive-receptive mode of mental processing. We listen or look without reflection or evaluation. We suspend rational analysis, independent judgment, and conscious decision making about what we are hearing or taking in. We lose the boundaries between what we wish were true and what is factual. Imagination and reality intertwine, and our self and the selves of others seem more like one self. Our mental gears shift into receptivity, leaving active mental processing in neutral. ( page 151)
This is essential to understanding Scientology.
Trancelike states can occur during hypnosis, during complete absorption in reading or hearing stories, and during marked concentration. They are sometimes referred to as altered states of consciousness. While in an altered state, for the most part we experience an absence of our generalized reality orientation (GRO)- that is, we are not actively noticing or aware of our environment and our part in it. ( page 152 )
This is why Hubbard chose methods like guided imagery in auditing and listening to stories in lectures and written materials. With vivid imagery to become absorbed in his victims become much more vulnerable. He never in my opinion intended to help anyone, his methods were always fraudulent and intended to enslave.
In normal waking life, our GRO is our frame of reference, serving as background to our ongoing conscious experiences, our awareness. Our GRO shapes a context within which we interpret what is going on. This frame of reference can fade away under certain circumstances: hypnosis, meditation, guided imagery, drug use, fatigue, and sensory deprivation. When our GRO is weakened, we become both more suggestible to outside influences and more influenced by inner fantasies. ( page 152 )
Many of Hubbard's methods are only seen as successful if they knock out the GRO and produce a deep trance state, under Hubbard's influence.
A number of cults use techniques that put people into an altered state of consciousness, making them more compliant. I am not saying that cult members walk around mesmerized, tranced out, and hypnotized for years on end. ( page 152 )
Scientology epitomizes this . And seeks to return the victims to trance again and again and via language as a trigger to reactivate the trance thousands of times in the future.
The most common procedure used is known as naturalistic trance induction, and many cults have relied on this technique. ( page 152 )
Naturalistic trance induction is also the model for some of the maneuvers used by cult leaders to change the attitudes and behaviors of their followers. ( page 153 )
Sometimes the induction method is speech filled with paradox and discrepancy-that is, the message is not logical and you are unable to follow it, but it is presented as though it were logical. Trying to follow what is being said can actually detach the listener from reality. ( page 155)
Hubbard fully understood confusion via contradiction blinds subservient minds and creates the detachment from reality which opens their minds to influence.
...words commonly lose meaning through banal repetition. ( page 156 )
Repetition of catchphrases and slogans through drilling and extreme repeated uses in doctrine reduce their meaning to virtually nothing other than cult approved sayings and word salad. Clearing the planet comes to mean anything done for the cult. Suppressive comes to mean anything disagreeing with absolute blind unyielding faith in Scientology. An entirely closed system of thought ensues.
Indirect trance induction also grows out of storytelling and other verbal experiences. Cult leaders often speak repetitively, rhythmically, in hard-to-follow ways, and combine with these features the telling of tales and parables that are highly visualizable. They use words to create mental imagery, commonly called guided imagery. ( page 156 )
This is exactly what Volney Mathison warned the world of, but unfortunately was unheeded.
For many persons, entering a trance state is pleasurable. ( page 157 )
The extreme contrast between the worry free euphoria in the Scientology trance and the immense mental discomfort with anxiety, fear, shame and confusion as cognitive dissonance is generated by leaving the trance strongly encourages submission.
From
Here are several links on the subject:
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