A Practical History of Western Trance and Hypnosis in relation to the State Akin to Sleep and my unique method of Mastering Trance
Everything that is new is a product of what went before it. I remember when I was at school, it was compulsory to see a careers officer who would listen to your goals, check if they were realistic and map out the required academic course. Even back then, I wanted to be a hypnotherapist. I had a basic overview of the way altered states of consciousness worked, and found it fascinating, theoretically but also because I was developing various phobias and problems unsupported. Now, as an old man, with a lifetime of study and practice (I ended up graduating in psychology) I have a unique method to teach, which can work to transform your state of health (I have a chronic, genetic condition I manage) and create your reality. My background is a lifetime of Buddhist practice, so what I am presenting is also a form of spiritual practice, which isn’t the norm in the West but Eastern spiritual practice is more esoteric in nature. To present the method it helps to go over the development of trance in the East and West as it will be easier to explain my rationale and practice.
Prescience
As altered states of consciousness (moving between the different brain waves) is a natural part of human experience and something we all do every day, then knowledge and use of this subject has always existed, although for some reason in the west it rarely was a standard practice of orthodox spirituality. Religious practices tended to be praying and reading, voluntary poverty etc. People also sing as an act of worship, which is interesting as the tradition was originally a chanting practice. I think outside of Christianity, there were uses, possibly involving hallucinogenics, but the conscious use of trance with an objective footing didn’t really begin until Franz Mesmer.
Franz Mesmer
I think this is a very interesting start for the scientific study of the application of trance because Mesmer’s ideas seemed to be rooted half in spiritual thinking and half in scientific. Mesmer had the idea of ‘animal magnetism’, that all living beings have a kind of energy, and it can flow from one person to another, and done with intention this can cause a kind of trance where a person becomes highly suggestible and able to cure their own illnesses. History suggests he was a very charismatic showman and the hypnotism events were often held as mass workshops in expensive hotels. It didn’t work out well for him though. Firstly, a famous case where he claimed to have cured blindness in a well-known singer turned out to be false, her family reported she deludedly believed she was cured after treatment but was still actually blind. Secondly, a royal commission set out to measure any energy being transmitted between participant during the trance sessions, and found no evidence for ‘animal magnetism’.
History doesn’t look kindly on Mesmer, but I think he was onto something. My own lifelong study and practice of this subject make me think it is about energy in a way, as I previously explained, and that during a trance, what is happening is that you are raising extra energy in the etheric body and switching consciousness to it. I think this happens also in sleep but you are learning to control this and keep enough consciousness awake to direct the experience, until fully ‘crossing the threshold’ into unconsciousness and ‘taking your wishes to the demigod’ (more on this later).
The techniques of Mesmer were also not self-contained. There was a person inducing a trance in another. It wasn’t considered to be a self-contained and self-directed practice.
James Braid
The next development in the Western understanding of trance was also not yet self-directed. James Braid was an eminent eye doctor who started experimenting after a patient in his waiting room spontaneously entered a trance.
The results of his experiments were a consistent method of entering trance based on restricting eye movements and monoideaism. Basically, you keep the eyes on a single spot without moving and still the mind. That’s it. This does, in itself work, because remember how the brain works. It is constantly looking for ways to preserve energy and use the minimal resources needed. When you restrict eye movement, the visual field and thinking processes, it is able to start closing down unneeded parts of itself and so enter the alpha, and beyond state.
Braid’s work on trance, and hypnosis (a phrase he coined) entered the mainstream because he was an eminent doctor and wrote various scientific papers, thus adding a degree of respectability to the subject.
There were various other players after Braid, though my interest, and the focus of this current discussion, is reality creating. I think that this method, of eye fixation, is likely something Neville Goddard was doing when he was utilizing what he called the State Akin to Sleep. He talks about entering a drowsy state, but never gives any kind of method and it seems to be something he was able to do naturally. Elsewhere in his writing he is often talking about, what is very obviously, astral projecting, being in two places at once – and at one point refers to a ‘body of light’, which is an alternative occult term for the etheric body.
I think because he had these abilities naturally, he assumed other people could spontaneously develop them and so perhaps never fleshed out a specific method, other than ‘entertain the drowsy state’, and in a way this isn’t an unfair assumption. We all enter drowsy states all the time, so to watch this mindfully and do it purposely isn’t unreasonable, but perhaps he overestimated most people’s ability to enter the deeper states towards trance without some formal method.
Emile Coue
I want to just mention this one character from the history of trance/hypnosis as he’s more relevant as his focus was self-improvement, healing and possibly reality creation. His method focused on autosuggestion, with the most famous being ‘every day, in every way, I am getting better and better’. He actually ended up abandoning the specific practice of trance and the method was the suggestions alone, basically affirmations, although many people suggest this was still a trance practice and I agree, as you’ll notice the monoideaism, the mind is focused on one thing for an extended period. Coue’s ideas were successful and there are many healed illnesses attributed to him.
A History of Trance in the East
Many traditions in the East developed along more esoteric lines and included direct experience of altered states of consciousness. They can be grouped in different ways. Some are meditation based, such as Zazen meditation, which is another form of monoideasm, or restricting the minds activity (and most Zen instructions involve restricting eye movements to a single point). I bring up Zen as it’s my own practice, but there are many similar practices of meditation across the continent. Some practices involve movement, such as the Islamic (Sufi) whirling dances. I note also another category could be classed as devotional, intense worship based on silence and simplicity, and I think this would also lend itself to light trances. Something that underlies all of these methods is that, before (and during) their practice, there is a desire, an intention, to awaken (find Nirvanah, unity with the Godhead, Ascend etc.). So there seems to be a uniform practice of having an intention, and taking that intention into the altered state of consciousness to realize it, which isn’t so different to what I explained before.
Yoga Nidra
Yoga Nidra, the Yoga of Sleep, is very specific about the process of carrying an intention into altered states, and has a specific name: sankalpa. I was shocked to learn that this Yoga, as well as all Yoga, is actually a practice developed in modern times. Historically, the term Yoga Nidra does occur in ancient scripture, as a meditative practice used by Gods, the state they enter into at will, but nowhere is there any method given. The same is true of the Yoga now taught in the West, it isn’t based on any actual ancient writing. This being said, the actual practice of Yoga Nidra I learned and now incorporate in my own practice, is incredibly powerful in obtaining trances, ties in with an energetic practice I also use, and is a lot easier to master than I was led to believe.
The method of Yoga Nidra is to make a resolve three times (an affirmation, state an intention or whatever) and then rotate consciousness around the body. So you focus on the top of the head for a moment, then the forehead for a moment, then the left eye, then the right eye, all the way around, down and back up. Now that is the practice as taught. The way I’ve developed it over the years, is in conjunction with the energetic practice I teach. So as each body part is focused on for a moment, the mind is able to raise a physical sensation there. This strengthens the etheric body and so consciousness can start to inhabit it and a trance is entered. This sounds wispy, and dreamy but the best thing is to practice this and have the experience yourself and then have the experience to theorize what actually happens.