Hidden Depths: The Story of Hypnosis by Robin Waterfield Read Free Book Online

Vatican assumed), should not be used as an explanation for things that are supernatural. In other words, magnetism was fine as long as it was used as a therapy, but employing it to produce paranormal phenomena was a sin. This has remained the Vatican's position, and was reiterated by Pope Pius XII in 1956, who suggested that hypnotism should be regarded the same way a Catholic regards medicine.
    In reality, the various Churches have always tolerated a division of opinion over hypnosis (except for Christian Scientists, who unanimously condemn it). At the same time that some clerics were condemning it as satanic in the nineteenth century, others were busy practising it. A group of Catholic theologians in Germany at the start of the nineteenth century held out great hopes for the combination by priests of pastoral care and mesmerism. Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford and later of Winchester in the latter half of the century, immersed himself in the subject and could find nothing irreligious in it. In fact, he held that its very power meant that Christians should study and practise it, in case it fell into the hands of unbelievers. Since its healing powers seemed almost miraculous, even a physical healing was heralded by some priests who practised mesmerism as a spiritual event, which would help their parishioners, not condemn them to hell. The hierarchical aspect of mesmerism – the apparent imposition of one will on another – suddenly took on a spiritual dimension, as priests in mesmerizing members of their congregation claimed to be vehicles for God's will, and to be doingno more than Jesus and a number of others had done in healing the sick. But other clerics and religious philosophers only found a reason to try to distinguish mesmerism from miracles.
    Many from the fundamentalist and evangelical churches claim, in a most misinformed way, that hypnotism opens you up to the devil. It is not a new accusation. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the case was put stridently by the Abbé Wendel-Würtz, and in the middle of the century in Britain the charge of satanism from a Liverpool preacher called Hugh McNeile provoked a famous response from James Braid. Most of their arguments do not deserve the name, but are sheer rant. But if I had to guess where they're coming from, I'd point to the fact that traditional Christian practice would involve going as far as one can on one's own conscious resources, and then handing over in silence to God. But hypnotism can take one further than one's own conscious resources, and therefore seems to oust God. This is not a problem with hypnotism alone, but with psychology in general, ever since the discovery of the unconscious and methods of tapping into it – and indeed there are elements in the Christian Churches who are suspicious of psychology too.
    The idea that someone who is hypnotized has been taken over by the devil seems to me so irrational that I will not even dignify it with commentary, except to point out that interpretation of trance states has always been subjective. The dancing frenzy – St Vitus's Dance – which gripped the Low Countries and northern Italy in the fifteenth century was attributed to diabolic possession (or, in Italy, to the bite of the tarantula), despite the obvious good it did to relieve the poor of their misery. On the other hand, Shaker trances were taken to be a sign of possession by God.
    Later in the nineteenth century hypnotism was closely bound up with spiritism and other occult practices, and this might raise Christian doubts about hypnosis. But (assuming for the moment that occultism is evil) if occultists made use of hypnosis, that no more makes hypnosis bad than an evil use of a car, to injure someone, makes cars bad.
    As usual, most of the objections to hypnosis stem from a combination of ignorance and outmoded views. For instance, you hear the argument that you should submit your will only to Christ,since any other