 hypnosis stories to tell your kids
VISUALIZATION
I've discovered that numerous peak performers
use the skill of mental rehearsal of visualization.
They mentally run through important events before they happen.
- Charles A. Garfield
Welcome to my website. I hope you enjoy your tour of my
many pages. My name is Stephen Poplin. Allow me tell you a little
about hypnosis and how I got interested in it.
Several lifetimes ago...I'm still talking about this
present incarnation, by the way!...I was serving in the Army Medical Corps as an
operating room technician--assisting in all sorts of surgery. One day a young
doctor scheduled an operation utilizing hypnosis as anesthesia. I was curious
but skeptical. Well, not only did the awake and talking patient
feel no discomfort or pain, but when the doctor ordered her to stop the
bleeding, to my amazement, the bleeding slowed to a tiny trickle!
Although later on "the spiritual path" led me
away from allopathic medicine, that memory stayed with me. When I got into the
holistic health field, my unorthodox use of hypnosis was centered in past
life regressions--which I've done since the late 70's. Once I studied hypnotherapy,
however, the many uses of this powerful tool greatly expanded my awareness.
Since then I've come across famous and not-so-famous people who had worked with
this fascinating art. One of them was the great Carl Jung. Below is an
interesting account from his autobiography.
Dr. Jung's Experience
"In my courses on
hypnosis I used to inquire into the personal history of the patients whom I presented to
the students. One case I still remember very well.
A middle-aged woman, apparently with a strong religious bent, appeared one day. She was
fifty-eight years old, and came on crutches, led by her maid. For seventeen years she had
been suffering from a painful paralysis of the left leg. I placed her in a comfortable
chair and asked her for her story. She began to tell it to me, and how terrible it all
was--the whole long tale of her illness came out with the greatest circumstantiality.
Finally I interrupted her and said “Well now, we have no more time for so much talk.
I am now going to hypnotize you.”
I had scarcely said the words when she closed her eyes and fell into a profound
trance--without any hypnosis at all! I wondered at this, but did not disturb her. She went
on talking without pause, and related the most remarkable dreams--dreams that represented
a fairly deep experience of the unconscious. This, however, I did not understand until
years later. At the time I assumed she was in a kind of delirium. The situation was
gradually growing rather uncomfortable for me. Here were twenty students present, to whom
I was going to demonstrate hypnosis!
After half an hour of this, I wanted to awaken the patient again. She would not wake up. I
became alarmed; it occurred to me that I might inadvertently have probed into a latent
psychosis. It took some ten minutes before I succeeded in waking her. All the while I
dared not let the students observe my nervousness. When the woman came to, she wad giddy
and confused. I said to her, “I am the doctor, and everything is all right.”
Whereupon she cried out, “But I am cured!” threw away her crutches, and was able
to walk. Flushed with embarrassment, I aid to the students, “Now you’ve seen
what can be done with hypnosis!” In fact I had not the slightest idea what had
happened.
That was one of the experiences that prompted me to abandon hypnosis. I could not
understand what had really happened, but the woman was in fact cured, and departed in the
best of spirits. I asked her to let me hear from her, since I counted on a relapse in
twenty-four hours at the latest. But her pains did not recur; in spite of my skepticism I
had to accept the fact of her cure.
Memories, Dreams, Reflections, by Carl Jung, pages 117-8, Vintage Books, NY, 1965
I understand that
Dr. Freud gave up using hypnosis; evidently he wasn't very skilled in the process and it
showed (or didn't show!) in his work.
Hypnotism
"The reward is great that follows the persistent study of
hypnotism: for it is a science that bestows upon its devotees a power that seems
almost superhuman. It overawes everyone who witnesses its indisputable facts and
its marvelous manifestations. It overthrows the theories of judges and
philosophers and theologians, and shakes the faith of material scientists in
their preconceived opinions. It supplants the physician and the surgeon and
cures the afflicted and deformed whom they pronounced beyond the hope of
recovery. It breaks the chains of demoralizing and destructive habits. It
comforts the sorrowing and brings peace of mind to those distracted by the
perplexities of life. It abolishes periods of time and extents of distance. It
causes the lame to walk and strengthens the weak. It checks the hand of death
and snatches almost from the grave the grim destroyer's victims. It loosens the
tongue of the stammerer, overcomes the self-consciousness of the socially shy
and tempers the impetuosity of the rash enthusiast. To mankind, in every walk of
life, hypnotism is a blessing--leading his innermost thoughts to higher and
nobler things: developing his powers to plan and to execute and giving him
social, financial and intellectual eminence among his fellowmen. All this, and
more is Hypnotism."
From the Introduction to Practical
Lessons in Hypnotism
by William Wesley Cook, M.D., 1901
For a fascinating read on what a competent therapist
can do with hypnosis, read "Uncommon Therapy," by Jay Haley, which is about Dr.
Milton Erickson. He was amazing.
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