for Christians are medical and scientific. These
words not only provide prestige, but also a feeling of
safety. When the word medical comes up, the guard
goes down. Any practice labeled medical, and therefore
scientific, is an “open sesame” to the saints. Those
who encourage hypnosis for Christians rely upon this
questionable label of science to support its use. However,
Donald Hebb says in “Psychology Today/The State
of the Science” that “hypnosis has persistently lacked
satisfactory explanation.”
At the present time there
is no agreed-upon scientific explanation of exactly what
hypnosis is. Psychiatry professor Thomas Szasz
describes hypnosis as the therapy of “a fake science.”2
We cannot call hypnosis a science, but we can say that
it has been an integral part of the occult for thousands
of years.
E. Fuller Torrey, a research psychiatrist, aligns
hypnotic techniques with witchcraft. He also says,
“Hypnosis is one aspect of the yoga techniques of therapeutic
meditation.”3
Medical doctor William Kroger states, “The fundamental
principles of Yoga are, in many respects, similar
to those of hypnosis.”4
To protect the scientific label
for hypnosis he declares, “Yoga is not considered a
religion, but rather a ‘science’ to achieve mastery of
the mind and cure physical and emotional sickness.”
Then he makes a strange confession, “There are many
systems to Yoga, but the central aim—union with
God—is common to all of them and is the method by
which it achieves cure.”5
Many medical doctors use the energy centers of yoga
to alleviate physical diseases. Kroger and William
Fezler say:
The reader should not be confused by the supposed
differences between hypnosis, Zen, Yoga and other
Eastern healing methodologies. Although the
ritual for each differs, they are fundamentally the
same.6
Thus, the word “medical” may include much more
than one might suppose. Nevertheless, some in the
church have advocated hypnosis as long as it is in the
hands of a trained professional, especially a medical
doctor. A person who desperately needs help for some
long-term difficult problem and has tried other cures
is vulnerable. He may grab at any implied or direct
promise for help that comes along, and especially from
88 Hypnosis
a medical doctor. This is the very predicament in which
many Christians find themselves.
Few people realize that medical hypnosis is any
hypnosis used for medical purposes. Medical doctors
use both hypnotic regression and deep hypnosis. At
what point in hypnotic regression and at what depth
in hypnosis should a Christian discontinue hypnotic
treatment? Some medical doctors use a medical
hypnosis which encourages a type of dissociation. The
individual becomes an observer of his own body and
helps in diagnosis and treatment. They have “the
hypnotized patient mentally ‘go into’ the appropriate
area of the body to do repairs, to help medicine be
effective or to see the healing process at work.”7
Would
this type of medical hypnosis be acceptable to a Christian?
The following is a description of Jack Schwartz, who
has conducted experiments at the Menninger Foundation
using a visualization technique (equivalent to
hypnosis) to heal a cut hand:
First, he instructs, use your mind to see yourself
sitting there. Look at your hand (in your mind).
Separate the hand from the body, and let it move
away from you, growing larger and larger.
Then, in your mind, rise and walk toward it. Halfway
there, look back at your body in the chair. Tell
it to do a task, like crossing its legs. If it complies,
face the hand. Move toward it, entering it through
a door. Visualize yourself inside, looking at the cut.
See yourself repairing the cut with glue or tape.
Continue working—visually—until the cut is
repaired.
Medical, Scientific, or Occultic? 89
Come out, and walk back to your body. When
you look at the large mind-body hand off in the
distance, you see it is healed. It moves toward you
and slips back into place, ending the visualization.
Thank your body, and picture it as a whole and
full of joy.8
We raise the following questions about the use of
hypnosis by a medical doctor: How can one tell the longrange
spiritual effect of even a well-meaning medical
doctor’s use of hypnosis on a Christian patient? Would
an M.D. with an anti-Christian or occult bias in any
way affect a Christian through trance treatment? How
about the use of a medical hypnotherapist who belongs
to the Satanist church? What about an M.D.
hypnotherapist who uses past or future lives therapy
as a means of mental-emotional or physical relief?
These and other questions need to be answered before
subjecting oneself to such treatment, even in the hands
of a medical doctor or psychologist.
We wrote to Professor Ernest Hilgard, one of the
most-respected, leading authorities on hypnosis, at
Stanford University and asked two questions in our
quest for information:
1. Have any follow-up studies been done five years
or more after hypnosis has been used to relieve
pain, change behavior, etc.? We are particularly
interested in finding out if the results are long
lasting.
2. What is the difference between hypnosis as used
by a trained practitioner and that used by
shamans or witch doctors?9
90 Hypnosis
Hilgard’s reply to the first question was:
Long term studies are scarce, but the results of
hypnotic treatment are commonly made more permanent
through the teaching of self-hypnosis.10
However, long term studies of those using selfhypnosis
are also scarce. Therefore we have little to no
valid information about the long term effects on the
individual as the result of hypnosis. We particularly
have no information we could find on the long term
spiritual effect on Christians who submit themselves
to this treatment.
In reply to the second question, Hilgard wrote:
Trained practitioners know a great deal about
contemporary psychotherapy and hypnosis is
merely adjuvant. In this they differ from those
whose practices are essentially magical.11
In short, the difference between a shaman and a
trained practitioner of hypnosis is that the trained
practitioner will use hypnosis with psychotherapy.
Notice that Hilgard does not distinguish the hypnosis
used by the hypnotherapist from that of the shaman
except that the hypnotherapist uses hypnosis with
psychotherapy.
Hypno-Psycho-Religious Synthesis
Joseph Palotta, a professing Christian who is also a
psychiatrist and hypnotherapist, combines the worst
of two evils into a practice that he calls “hypnoanalysis.”
His system is an amalgamation of hypnosis and
the Freudian psychosexual states of development. His
Medical, Scientific, or Occultic? 91
book The Robot Psychiatrist is filled with unproven
Freudian concepts, such as subconscious determinants,
abreaction and the supposed determinism of early life
experiences. He says that his book contains “extremely
rapid systems of treatment for emotional disorders.”
He promises, “These methods bring about definite
therapeutic change of the underlying emotional problem.”12
Palotta is completely sold on the Oedipus complex.
He, like Freud, claims that this is “a universal experience
in the emotional development of every person.”13
The Oedipus Complex states that every child is filled
with a desire for incest and homicide, every child
desires sexual intercourse with the parent of the
opposite sex, every child wants the like-sex parent to
die, and every child is confronted with castration anxiety.
Palotta says:
The universal conclusion that little boys and little
girls make is that somehow the little girls have
lost their penises and have nothing.14
He goes on to describe how “little girls feel that they
have been castrated, that their penises have somehow
been cut off” and that little boys “fear that they will
lose their penises.” He says, “The little girls develop
what is termed penis envy.” According to Freud, every
girl is merely a mutilated male who resolves her
castration anxiety by wishing for the male sex organ.
As Freud’s theories are unveiled, we see lust, incest,
castration anxiety, and for a woman penis envy. Freud
was convinced that all of these are psychologically
determined by age five or six. Can you think of a more
92 Hypnosis
macabre, twisted and demonic explanation for human
problems?
The Oedipus Complex is based on the Greek play
Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. Thomas Szasz, a psychiatrist
who is well trained in Freudian ideas and well
aware of their origins, says, “By dint of his rhetorical
skill and persistence, Freud managed to transform an
Athenian myth into an Austrian madness.” He calls
this “Freud’s transformation of the saga of Oedipus
from legend to lunacy.”15 So, the first evil is Freudian
psychology at its worst, and the second evil is the use
of hypnosis.
Palotta attempts to support his system of hypnosis
and psychoanalysis through describing certain individual
cases, which he claims “are typical of experiences
with hypnoanalysis in the practice of Christian
psychiatry.”16 Palotta is educated enough to know that
using his cases to prove success are invalid because
there are no third party experts checking him out.
Nevertheless he uses these cases to support his
hypnoanalytic practice. Palotta describes a case of a
25-year-old mother who experienced anxiety and fear.
Palotta says:
Analysis of her fear under hypnosis revealed that
at age four she witnessed her father in a drunken
rage, fighting with her mother, and then coming
toward the patient with a knife in his hand. Her
next memory was fainting, then getting out of bed,
kneeling, and praying to God to take her then, to
remove her from that awful environment. When
God didn’t take her, she decided, “I hate God.”
She was then re-educated under hypnosis to
correct the error that she had to die to be okay.17
Medical, Scientific, or Occultic? 93
Palotta claims to have helped this woman through
hypnosis and psychoanalysis because “it provided the
insight necessary for her to begin a course of emotional
and spiritual healing.” Personal, unsubstantiated
claims by Palotta and others with no means of checking
and no long term follow up tell us nothing of value
about his system. We have numerous claims by a variety
of hypnotherapists who say they have cured such
illnesses as:
1. Migraine headaches.
2. Obsessive eating and obesity.
3. Bulemia.
4. Stuttering.
5. Parkinson’s syndrome.
6. Chronic stiff neck.
7. Chronic jaw pain.
8. Arthritis.18
One hypnotherapist claims to have enlarged
women’s breasts and even to have dissolved a kidney
stone.19 Should we accept all these unverified cases by
these hypnotherapists without proof?
Palotta promises much from his hypno-psychoanalytical
merger. However, recent writings from both
in and out of the psychiatric profession indicate that
the Freudian concepts are in question because of their
tainted origins and because their tarnished history
predicts a tenuous future for them. The major Freudian
ideas have neither stood the test of time nor withstood
the scrutiny of research. Palotta provides a prime
example of one who has combined the fallacies of Freud
with the hypocrisy of hypnosis. He attempts to
94 Hypnosis
synthesize his theories and to synchronize them with
Scripture, but it is a false alchemy.
Hypnosis and the Occult in Medicine
Szasz laments the fact that “hypnosis enjoys periodic
revivals as a ‘medical treatment.’”20 We are presently
in such a revival and some individuals in the church
have already opened wide the door to “medical”
hypnotherapy. However, medical doctors also prescribe
holistic health practices such as meditation, visual
imagery, and biofeedback. Systems or techniques used
by medical doctors are not automatically medical or
scientific, despite their labels. Brain/Mind bulletin
describes a new approach to improving personal
performance called sophrology:
Sophrology combines exercises in relaxation,
breathing, body-awareness, visualization, selfhypnosis
and autogenics (control of automatic body
functions). The exercises aim to enhance attention,
perception, concentration, precision of movement,
efficiency and control of posture.
This report says that sophrology is a combining of
principles “of Eastern and Western mind and body
disciplines.” There are now over 5,000 physicians who
have been trained in this Eastern-Western approach
which includes “Raja yoga, Zen, and Tibetan practices.”21
Just because this approach is being used by
medical doctors should not assure us that it is either
scientific or acceptable to the Christian in need of help.
In their book Psychic Healing, John Weldon and Zola
Levitt observe, “The current trend is moving toward
more professionals (scientists, physicians, psycholoMedical,
Scientific, or Occultic? 95
gists, etc.) and lay health professionals seeking to
develop occult abilities.”22 They say:
An increasing number of practitioners in the healing
profession (M.D.’s nurses, chiropractors, etc.)
are being swayed by psychic philosophies and
practices, largely due to the influence of parapsychology,
psychic healing, and the holistic health
movements.
They warn:
Patients can no longer afford the luxury of failing
to determine the spiritual status of those who treat
them. Failure to ascertain that may be more costly
than a yearly medical bill. Practices that look
entirely innocent . . . can become the means of
occult bondage.23
The integration of Eastern mystical and Eastern
medical traditions into Western medicine requires
great discernment as to what is medical and what is
mystical. Medical doctor Arthur Deikman says, “I now
regard mysticism as a type of science. . . . A mystic’s
motive for behaving virtuously differs sharply from
that of a religious devotee. . . . This distinction shows
mysticism to be a psychological science rather than a
belief system.”24
Transcendental Meditation, also known as TM, is a
combination of religion and psychotherapy. Many medical
doctors now use TM for healing numerous psychological
and physical problems. TM is sometimes
referred to as the “Science of Creative Intelligence.”
But TM is not medicine and it is not science. According
96 Hypnosis
to a judge in New Jersey, it is a religion and cannot be
taught in public schools because of the guaranteed
separation of church and state.25
The label of science is misapplied to all of the above
and to hypnotism as well. In addition to sophrology,
yoga, and TM, some therapists use astrology, the I
Ching, Tantra, Tarot, alchemy and Actualism, all of
which are occult practices.26 This confusion of science
with the occult is very evident in hypnotism.
Compounding the word hypnosis with the word
therapy does not lift the practice from the occult to the
scientific, nor is hypnotherapy any more dignified than
hypnosis as practiced by witchdoctors. The white coat
may be a more respectable uniform than feathers and
face paint, but the basics are the same. Hypnosis is
hypnosis whether it is called medical hypnosis, hypnotherapy,
autosuggestion, or anything else. Hypnosis
in the hands of a medical doctor is as scientific as a
dowsing rod in the hands of a civil engineer.
Newsweek magazine reports on hypnosis in hospital
settings:
At Walter Reed and other hospitals, hypnosis has
been used as the principle or only anesthetic for
such procedures as Caesarean sections, and the
literature documents gallbladder and prostate
surgery, appendectomies, thyroidectomies, minor
amputations and skin grafts also done under
hypnosis.27
The Dallas Morning News reported on the fragmentation
theory, which is supposedly behind why hypnosis
works in such situations:
Medical, Scientific, or Occultic? 97
The fragmentation theory is supported by studies
of highly hypnosis-susceptible individuals. When
subjected to pain during a trance, they often have
what is known as a “hidden observer” that metaphorically
records the amount of pain experienced
but does not let the pain come to consciousness.
The hidden observer was discovered in the 1970s
when subjects were asked to have the “part” of
themselves that experienced the pain write down
how much pain they experienced through a number
scale while simultaneously having the other
part verbally tell the hypnotist what they felt.
Many subjects wrote that they experienced a high
degree of pain at some level while telling the hypnotist
they felt nothing.28
Ernest R. Hilgard explains how the fragmentation
theory works in simpler terms. He says, “Some hidden
part of the mind registers things that are going on,
while another part is occupied with something else and
is unaware of what’s going on.” He says it is as if “part
of you is on this stage and part of you is out in the
wings watching.”29
What is the long term effect of this dichotomy of the
person explained by the fragmentation theory? Since
the “hidden observer” is a more widespread phenomena
than just cases of hypnosis associated with pain,
what effect might this type of dissociation have on the
individual’s personality? We could find no research to
address these questions.
Open Door of Pragmatism
Some people use pragmatism to support the practice
of hypnotism. They say that since it works it must
98 Hypnosis
be good. The pain may disappear, sleep may be attained,
and sex life may improve. Who can criticize such a
procedure? However, does the end justify the means?
Many witchdoctors and shamans have higher cure
rates than hypnotherapists. Results should not be the
evidence for promoting and utilizing hypnotism.
Immediate positive results from hypnotism should
especially be dismissed as evidence for validity of the
practice, since many who gain initial victory over problems
later suffer defeat. The pain which was “cured”
may return, the sleep turns again into sleeplessness,
and the temporarily improved sex life deteriorates. In
spite of numerous claims and testimonials, research
has not demonstrated that hypnosis is any more effective
for chronic pain than a placebo. After examining
the research, two researchers confess:
Despite a vast amount of excellent research on
the effects of hypnosis on experimentally induced
pain, there is virtually no reliable evidence from
controlled clinical studies to show that it is effective
for any form of chronic pain.30
Besides this possibility of the quick cure, short-term
change with later failure, there is the possibility of
symptom substitution. For example, those who are
relieved of migraine headaches through hypnosis may
end up with ulcers. A study conducted at the famous
Diamond Headache Clinic in Chicago revealed the
strong possibility of symptom substitution. They found
that of those migraine patients who had learned to
control headaches through biofeedback, “two-thirds
reported the development of new psychosomatic symptoms
within five years.”31
Medical, Scientific, or Occultic? 99
If indeed hypnosis may result in occult healing, there
are potential serious consequences to consider. Weldon
and Levitt say, “We would expect that most if not all of
those who are occultly healed are likely to suffer either
psychologically or spiritually in some way.”32 Kurt Koch,
in his book Demonology: Past and Present, says that in
occult forms of healing:
The original organic illness is shifted higher into
the psychical realm, with the result that while the
physical illness disappears, new disorders appear
in the mental and emotional life of the person
concerned, disorders which are in fact far more
difficult to treat and cure. Magical healings are
therefore not really healings at all, but merely
transferences from the organic to the psychical
level.33
Koch believes that the power behind occult healing
is demonic, that such healing serves as an impediment
to a person’s spiritual life, and that the damage is
immense. Weldon and Levitt also point out that occult
practices do provide healing but that the cure is often
worse than the original illness. They say:
In conclusion, psychic healing is not a part of the
natural or latent capacities of man. It is a distinctly
supernatural, spiritistic power and carries grave
consequences both for those who practice it and
for those healed by it. Those who practice it may
have no indication that spirit entities are the real
source of their power, but that does not reduce their
own responsibility for the spiritual and psychological
destruction of those they heal. There is
100 Hypnosis
always a high price to pay when contacting forces
alien to God.34
Koch says:
Although certain Christian workers believe that
some types of healing mesmerism [a form of
hypnotism] are dependent on neutral rather than
mediumistic powers, I would say that I have
personally hardly ever come across a neutral form.
Many years of experience in this field have shown
me that even in the case of Christian mesmerisers
the basic mediumship has always come to the
surface in the end.35
In his book Occult ABC Koch says:
We must distinguish between the hypnosis used
by doctors for diagnosis and treatment and magically
based hypnosis, which is clearly occult in
character. But I must not neglect to add, that I
reject even the kind of hypnosis used by doctors.36
A fact rarely mentioned by hypnotists is that whatever
physical healing is accomplished with hypnosis
can also be accomplished without it. The Modern Synopsis
of Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry/II
states, “Everything done in psychotherapy with
hypnosis can also be done without hypnosis.”37 We
believe that it is not only unnecessary to use hypnosis
but potentially dangerous. Even though hypnosis may
currently be used by medical doctors, it originated from
and is still practiced by witch doctors. Even medical
hypnosis practiced by a Christian may be a disguised
Medical, Scientific, or Occultic? 101
doorway and subtle enticement into the demonic realm.
It may not be as obvious an entree to evil as occult
hypnosis, and therefore it could be even more dangerous
for an unsuspecting Christian who would otherwise
avoid the occult.
Are people in the church being enticed to enter the
twilight zone of the occult because hypnosis is now
called “science” and “medicine”? Let those who call the
occult “science” tell us what the difference is between
medical and occultic hypnosis. And let those Christians
who call it “scientific” explain why they also recommend
that it be performed only by a Christian. If
hypnosis is science indeed, why the added requirement
of Christianity for the practitioner? There is a scarcity
of adequate long-term studies of those who have been
hypnotized. And there have been none which have
examined the effect on the individual’s resulting faith
or interest in the occult.
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