All America, these days, is terrifically excited over the new miracles being performed by hypnotism in the fields of medicine, dentistry and psychiatry." So says Lester David in his article, "What Really Happens When You Are Hypnotized," in the August, 1956, issue of Coronet. And this is no understatement.
To Seventh-day Adventists the numerous news releases and well-written articles aimed at informing the public concerning hypnosis take on particular significance because of the clear-cut counsels given to us so many years ago by the servant of the Lord—counsels by which we may appraise these new discoveries.
In addition to the popular magazines, the technical journals also carry new and startling announcements of marvelous accomplishments employing hypnotism, and forecast the important place that hypnosis will soon have in the practice of the healing arts.
Time magazine for February 7, 1955, reports in an article, "Hypnosis for Burns," on the work of "a five-man team from the University of Texas' Southwestern Medical School," enumerating the phenomenal results in the treatment of cases of severe burns in which "hypnosis has brought six difficult test cases around." The article closes with the conclusions of Psychologist Harold Crasilneck, the coach of the team, that "as we see it now, hypnosis has a very definite, specific role in medicine."—Time, Feb. 7, 1955, pp. 48, 49.
A few months earlier Look carried a well-illustrated article, "Hypnotism the Cinderella Science," and opened with the announcement, "Without fanfare, a few doctors and dentists are practicing hypnotism."—Look, June 29, 1954, p. 32.
As the story is unfolded in picture and text, the reader is told that "in recent years, reports have been appearing in the scientific journals recounting growing success for hypnotism in medicine, surgery and dentistry. It has been used as an aid in childbirth. . . . Psychiatrists have found that hypnotism can shorten the long process of psychoanalysis. Dentists report that hypnotism is fine for children or adults who dread the dentist's chair. Rather than use hypnosis as a substitute for novocain or gas, dentists use it to relax the patient and to help him overcome his fears."Ibid., p. 35.
The reader will recall other articles, too numerous to mention here, that have appeared in the public press in the past two years, but the climax seems to have been reached in the report appearing in Newsweek of June 25, 1956, as follows:
Surgery Under Hypnosis
The first case of major lung surgery under hypnosis was described at the AMA meeting in Chicago last week by Dr. Milton J. Marmer, anesthesiologist of the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, Los Angeles. A tumor was removed from the lung of a 25-yearold woman under deep hypnosis, aided by preparatory drugs. During the two-and-a-half-hour operation, she obeyed all instructons except the command to hold her breath, so a drug had to slow down respiration. A week later, she went home in "excellent condition."
Hypnosis, observed Dr. Marmer, "is the only means of anesthesia that carries no danger for the patient." In skilled hands, the process "makes him unafraid before surgery, painless during it, and comfortable afterwards."—Page 88.
"Take away the hocus-pocus," says Lester David, "wipe off the theatrical grease paint, and hypnosis emerges at long last as a major boon to humanity."—Coronet, August, 1956, p. 79.
That hypnosis should be so highly praised and introduced to the general public as a science which is a "boon to humanity" comes as no surprise to Seventh-day Adventists. Fifty years ago and more, when hypnosis was in ill repute and had no standing in the scientific world, Ellen G. White termed it "a science" and wrote of its use in the practice of medicine as a "science" that "may appear to be something beautiful," something "very valuable." (See Medical Ministry, pp. ill, 112.) In other statements she designated it as a "so-called science" (The Ministry of Healing, p. 242).
But it is not alone in this advanced appraisal of hypnotism as "a science," or "so-called science," that these counsels in the form of solemn warnings are of outstanding significance to Seventh-day Adventists. These counsels found in her first book and her last, and in many in between, constitute safe guidance in our present relationship to hypnosis from the standpoint of both the medical practitioner and the layman.
Let us begin with the first reference to it in the Ellen G. White writings, which takes us back to 1845. We need hardly mention that what we today term hypnotism was then known as mesmerism.
A physician who was a celebrated mesmerizer told me that my views were mesmerism, that I was a very easy subject, and that he could mesmerize me and give me a vision. I told him that the Lord had shown me in vision that mesmerism was from the devil, from the bottomless pit, and that it would soon go there, with those who continued to use it. I then gave him liberty to mesmerize me if he could. He tried for more than half an hour, resorting to different operations, and then gave it up. By faith in God I was able to resist his influence, so that it did not affect me in the least.—Early Writings, p. 21.
The contest in this experience was over the control of Mrs. White's mind by the operator. She resisted his attempts, and so she was not affected. In the successful employment of hypnotism, the essential factor recognized both in secular literature today and in the writings of Ellen White is the cooperative submission of the subject to the hypnotist.
A number of careful -writers have attempted to define what takes place when a subject is hypnotized.
Norman Carlisle sums it up this way:
Being hypotized has the effect of putting your subconscious mind in control without interference from your conscious mind, which usually monitors your thoughts and actions. Then, instead of receiving orders from your conscious mind, you take them from the hypnotist. For some reason, however, your mind does not know that instructions are now coming from outside.—"What Is Hypnotism?" Coronet, December, 1954, p. 151.
And Lester David says of hypnotism:
Put briefly, it is the ability of one individual to place another in a kind of trance during which the subject is incapable of doing anything except under the direction of the hypnotist.—Coronet, August, 1956, p. 75.
John Pfeiffer in his New York Times Magazine article condensed in Science Digest of September, 1956, explains:
The brain tends to perform as much as possible automatically, and it takes an act of will to concentrate. If our will-power is weakened, as in hypnosis, this tendency has free play. The monotony of repeated suggestions . . . produces a kind of half-sleep or trance during which we may become high-grade robots.—Pages 43, 44.
In another way this same basic factor to successful hypnosis is expressed in a recent Newsweek article in question-and-answer form:
Can a subject be hypnotized against his will?
No one can be hypnotized unless he (1) wishes to be and (2) cooperates fully with the hypnotist's suggestions.—April 9, 1956, p. 110.
It is in the light of this basic principle of absolute submission of the subject to the practitioner that the Ellen G. White counsels take on particular importance. Note this pointed warning sounded in a Sabbath morning sermon at one of our sanitariums in 1901:
No individual should be permitted to take control of another person's mind, thinking that in so doing he is causing him to receive great benefit. The mind cure is one of the most dangerous deceptions which can be practiced upon any individual. Temporary relief may be felt, but the mind of the one thus controlled is never again so strong and reliable. . . . It is not God's design for any human being to yield his mind to another human being. The risen Christ, who is now set down on the throne at the right hand of the Father, is the mighty Healer. Look to Him for healing power. Through Him alone can sinners come to God just as they are. Never can they come through any man's mind.—E. G. White manuscript 105, 1901 (Medical Ministry, pp. 115, 116).
Lest there be any question as to just what she referred to when she spoke of one person taking control of another person's mind, we turn to another warning sounded a few years later in a communication addressed to leading workers of the denomination in which she employs the terms "mesmerism" and "hypnotism."
Men and women are not to study the science of how to take captive the minds of those who associate with them. This is the science that Satan teaches. We are to resist everything of the kind. We are not to tamper with mesmerism and hypnotism,—the science of the one who lost his first estate, and was cast out of the heavenly courts.—Medical Ministry, pp. 110, 111.
In The Ministry of Healing published the same year, 1905, after writing of true "mind cure," Ellen White delineates the hazards of mind controlling mind as follows:
There is, however, a form of mind cure that is one of the most effective agencies for evil. Through this so-called science, one mind is brought under the control of another so that the individuality of the weaker is merged in that of the stronger mind. One person acts out the will of another. Thus it is claimed that the tenor of the thoughts may be changed, that health-giving impulses may be imparted, and patients may be enabled to resist and overcome disease.
This method of cure has been employed by persons who were ignorant of its real nature and tendency, and who believed it to be a means of benefit to the sick. But the so-called science is based upon false principles. It is foreign to the nature and spirit of Christ. It does not lead to Him who is life and salvation. The one who attracts minds to himself leads them to separate from the true Source of their strength.
It is not God's purpose that any human being should yield his mind and will to the control of another, becoming a passive instrument in his hands. No one is to merge his individuality in that of another. He is not to look to any human being as the source of healing. His dependence must be in God. In the dignity of his God-given manhood he is to be controlled by God Himself, not by any human intelligence.—The Ministry of Healing, p. 242.
Explaining the basic principles more fully in a warning sent to the medical superintendent of one of our large sanitariums, Ellen White wrote, and we quote at considerable length:
I am so weighed down in your case that I must continue to write to you, lest in your blindness you will not see where you need to reform. I am instructed that you are entertaining ideas with which God has forbidden you to deal. I will name these as a species of mind cure. You suppose that you can use this mind cure in your professional work as a physician. In tones of earnest warning the words were spoken: Beware, beware where your feet are placed and your mind is carried. God has not appointed you this work. The theory of mind controlling mind is originated by Satan to introduce himself as the chief worker, to put human philosophy where divine philosophy should be.
No man or woman should exercise his or her will to control the senses or reason of another, so that the mind of the person is rendered passively subject to the will of the one who is exercising the control. This science may appear to be something beautiful, but it is a science which you are in no case to handle. . . . There is something better for you to engage in than the control of human nature over human nature.
I lift the danger signal. The only safe and true mind cure covers much. The physician must educate the people to look from the human to the divine. He who has made man's mind knows precisely what the mind needs.
In taking up the science you have begun to advocate, you are giving an education which is not safe for you or for those you teach. It is dangerous to tinge minds with the science of mind cure.
This science may appear to you to be very valuable; but to you and to others it is a fallacy prepared by Satan. It is the charm of the serpent which stings to spiritual death. It covers much that seems wonderful, but it is foreign to the nature and Spirit of Christ. This science does not lead to Him who is life and salvation....
Dabble not in those things which now appear to you so attractive, but which do not lead to Christ. Let your ambition ascend higher, to pure, true fellowship with Him in whom you may safely glory. Then your religion will be a power for good. You will not then communicate that which will prove a snare unto death.—E. G. White letter 121, 1901 (Medical Ministry, pp. 111, 112).
So concerned was Ellen White over the case of this physician as it was revealed to her that she emphasized the essential points somewhat by repetition and by a recital of past experiences. We present more of the communication as it reflects the matter in its great importance:
At the beginning of my work I had the mind cure science to contend with. I was sent from place to place to declare the falseness of this science, into which many were entering. The mind cure was entered upon very innocently—to relieve the tension upon the minds of nervous invalids. But, oh, how sad were the results! God sent me from place to place to rebuke everything pertaining to this science. I wish to speak plainly to you. You have entered upon a work which has no place in the work of a Christian physician, and which must find no place in our health institutions. Innocent though it may appear, this mind cure, if exercised upon the patients, will in its development be for their destruction, not their restoration. The third chapter of Second Timothy describes persons who accept error, such as one mind exercising complete control over another mind. God forbids any such thing. The mind cure is one of Satan's greatest sciences, and it is important that our physicians see clearly the real character of this science; for through it great temptations will come to them. This science must not be allowed a particle of standing room in our sanitariums.
God has not given one ray of light or encouragement for our physicians to take up the work of having one mind completely control the mind of another, so that one acts out the will of another. Let us learn the ways and purposes of God. Let not the enemy gain the least advantage over you. Let him not lead you to dare to endeavor to control another mind until it becomes a machine in your hands. This is the science of Satan's working.—/bid., pp. 113, 114.
Another interesting phase of this study is the shift that is observed in the declarations concerning the extent to which a person under hypnosis may be led to perform a wrong act. The Newsweek article deals with this question as follows:
Can a hypnotized person be forced to perform criminal acts?
No. A hypnotic subject will never do or say anything that conflicts with his moral or ethical code.— Newsweek, April 9, 1956, p. 110.
On this point John Pfeiffer disagrees, for he writes:
It is commonly believed that a person will not commit crimes under hypnosis, that he will perform only those acts which do not run counter to his standards of lawfulness. But this notion is not entirely true. In fact, experiments have been conducted by Syracuse University and Brooklyn College which indicate that moral judgment may be suspended.—Science Digest, September, 1956, p. 44.
Lester David also asserts that "experiments have shown that hypnotized persons may perform a wrongful act that is actually in conflict with their personality."—Coronet, August, 1956, p. 78.
But Seventh-day Adventists were informed half a century ago:
Fearful is the power thus given to evil-minded men and women. What opportunities it affords to those who live by taking advantage of other's weaknesses or follies! How many, through control of minds feeble or diseased, will find a means of gratifying lustful passion or greed of gain!—The Ministry of Healing, p. 243.
Noteworthy as it is that Ellen White wrote many years ago depicting what we see clearly today in the revival of hypnosis and sounding a clear-cut warning that gives safe guidance in what would otherwise be a very perplexing situation, it is equally remarkable that many decades in advance of scientific research she also set before us affirmatively the proper place of psychosomatic medicine. Writing in 1872 the messenger of the Lord declared—and the words are seen to have much greater significance today than they did eight decades ago:
To deal with men and women whose minds as well as bodies are diseased is a nice work. Great wisdom is needed by the physicians at the Institute [Battle Creek Sanitarium] in order to cure the body through the mind. But few realize the power that the mind has over the body. A great deal of the sickness which afflicts humanity has its origin in the mind and can only be cured by restoring the mind to health.—Testimonies, vol. 3, p. 184.
And again in The Ministry of Healing we find the counsel published in 1905:
In the treatment of the sick the effect of mental influence should not be overlooked. Rightly used, this influence affords one of the most effective agencies for combating disease.—Page 241.
As it is not the purpose of this article to deal with the positive side of this question, we will but refer the reader to the chapter "Mind Cure" in The Ministry of Healing, pages 241-258, and Section Six of Medical Ministry, "True and False Systems of Mind Cure," pages 105-117.
Satan skillfully uses this knowledge of the laws that govern the operation of the human mind. Writing of this, Ellen White penned in an article published in 1884:
In many cases the imagination is captivated by scientific research, and men are flattered through the consciousness of their own powers. The sciences which treat of the human mind are very much exalted. They are good in their place; but they are seized upon by Satan as his powerful agents to deceive and destroy souls.—The Signs of the Times, Nov. 6, 1884.
The advantage he [Satan] takes of the sciences, sciences which pertain to the human mind, is tremendous. Here, serpent-like, he imperceptibly creeps in to corrupt the work of God.
This entering in of Satan through the sciences is well devised. Through the channel of phrenology, psychology, and mesmerism, he comes more directly to the people of this generation, and works with that power which is to characterize his efforts near the close of probation. The minds of thousands have thus been poisoned, and led into infidelity. While it is believed that one human mind so wonderfully affects another, Satan, who is ready to press every advantage, insinuates himself, and works on the right hand and on the left. And while those who are devoted to these sciences, laud them to the heavens because of the great and good works which they affirm are wrought by them, they little know what a power for evil they are cherishing; but it is a power which will yet work with all signs and lying wonders,—with all deceivableness of unrighteousness. Mark the influence of these sciences, dear reader; for the conflict between Christ and Satan is not yet ended.—Ibid.
(End of Series)
