🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <254.3473.uupcb@synapse.org> steve.crabtree@synapse.org (Steve Crabtree)  writes:
>
>This raises the point another poster made about the equivalence of
>different forms of trance. From the little I've read about Cayce, his
>trances seemed more like those of the spiritualist mediums of the time,
>spontaneous events rather than specifically induced ones? I'll check out
>whether the book is in my local library. Thanks for the suggestion.
>   

	I suspect that the kind of trance state that is developed by
hypnosis,  meditation and similar techniques is actually very strongly
metaprogrammed.  That is,  the person's experience and structuring of
the trance state will depend upon what he believes about hypnosis,  what
he's read about hypnosis,  what he's seen on TV about it and what the
hypnotist did in the induction.

	This is probably pretty similar to the kind of metaprogramming that
is involved with psychedelic drugs such as LSD.  When Albert Hoffmann took
LSD for the first time,  he had no reason not to believe that the experience
was going to kill him.  So,  he had a bad trip,  at least until he came to
believe that his survival as an individual unit wasn't all that relevant
to the cosmic flow and that he was probably going to make it anyway.  Today,
a person who takes LSD expects weird things to happen and brings in his
own metaprogamming that will control the experience and it's interpretation.
Monkeys universally have bad trips after eating psychedelic mushrooms,  as
evidenced by the fact that they will often get violent if you show them
mushrooms of any kind after they have been exposed to psylocybin-containing
species.  The point is that these substances were biologically evolved as
aversive agents against animals with nervous systems less sophisticated
than ours.  People can bring in metaprogramming that makes it a pleasant
experience.

-- 

steve.crabtree@synapse.org (Steve Crabtree)  writes:
> radinsky@spot.Colorado.EDU (Wayne Radinsky)  writes:
>WR> steve.crabtree@synapse.org (Steve Crabtree)  writes:
>WR>> What puzzles me is that so little work seems to be done these days
>WR>> exploring the possible links between hypnosis and parapsychology
>WR>> with a view to exploring the nature of humankind.
> 
>WR> You might be interested in "Venture Inward" by Hugh Lynn Cayce (our
>WR> library has it).  It's about the work of Edgar Cayce, who I would
>WR> say does link hypnosis and parapsychology (as well as explore the
>WR> "nature of humankind").
> 
> This raises the point another poster made about the equivalence of
> different forms of trance. From the little I've read about Cayce, his
> trances seemed more like those of the spiritualist mediums of the time,
> spontaneous events rather than specifically induced ones? 

They were deliberately induced twice a day for something like 20
years.  There were about 14,000 such "readings" (as they were called)
when he died in 1945.

> Does anyone have any experience with apparent psi phenomena cropping up
> spontaneously with hetero or self hypnosis?

I'd also like to hear some experiences.

Wayne.