Article August 19, 1985 Issue

What's wrong with hypnotism?

JEFFREY K. CLEMENTS

While I was in junior high school, prior to my learning about Christian Science, an auditorium program on hypnotism was presented to our school. I was fascinated by the apparent power and unusual characteristics that this state of consciousness seemed to exhibit. A classmate's father was a psychiatrist, and we found a book on hypnotism in his library. Before long we were experimenting with some of the techniques, and I found that I was able to hypnotize my friend. (It's interesting to note that I could never be hypnotized: I simply would not yield control of my thinking to someone else—a fact that should have alerted me to one of hypnotism's inherent problems.)

After several weeks we gradually lost interest in hypnotism. Later, as a college student, I again began experimenting with it. I used to entertain my fraternity brothers with occasional "sessions" with volunteers in the lounge of the fraternity house.

At another time I hypnotized an acquaintance at his request so that he would do well on a test. He not only passed the test, he excelled on it. I was very pleased with myself.

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