Self-hypnotism And Its Use In Ceremonial Styled Magick/trance Work Options

The Golden Dawn make a fuss about the use of Hypnotism due to their having to fend off charlatans in the form of illusionists and 'telepaths' perhaps in much the same way Harry Potter and stage magic derides western spiritual practice (ie: ''Magick'') today but its obvious that this has been a mistake and that its usefulness has been neglected. Poke Runyon hints at a slightly more underhanded purpose for dissuading people from its practice and suggests that a practitioner develop themselves in order to make use of it in both Golden Dawn styled magick as well as the older Ceremonic styled Goetic art.

Suppose in truth the Golden Dawn speaks out against the use of hypnotism but does not make mention of self-hypnotism specifically, the idea of having someone delve into your mind to plant suggestions is abhorrent to someone who intends to use that mind to forge and create their own realities and redefine themselves IMO. But its use on oneself has too much value to be put aside without a valid reason for doing so, sigil work for example is a form of self-hypnosis planting suggestions within the mind for them to react and effect reality and in the same way when understood it can be seen that ones own subjective reality is based on the same principle as in Feng Sui we are surrounded by a mesmerism both seen and unseen.

Anyway, does anyone here use self-hypnotism to engage in Ceremonial work or Trance work in general? How has it worked for you?

Peace
M

I have neat software that uses brainwave entrainment to get me into a trance state, and then plays pre-recorded scripts to me. All-in-all, I would say that standard hypnotism with affirmations or auto-suggestions for personal change is not that effective. The claims are often overblown by enthusiastic people that use it, as well as the companies that try to sell something to you. You can change certain aspects of yourself if you're diligent and keep at it constantly until the change you want has occurred, but it can easily take weeks to months, depending on your goal.

The problem with a trance induced by brainwave entrainment is you snap out of it the moment you open your eyes or even move a limb, so you can't really use it in ceremonial work. However, there is a sweet spot in the alpha/theta range that greatly enhances the vividness and depth of your imagination. So if you're interested in that sort of thing, you would need to find the frequency at which you experience vivid imagination, then create a track with a script that could work as a guided visualization. If you don't have brainwave entrainment software, you could still create a script and visualize as it guides you; magic is perfectly possible this way, you just need to get really creative with the script.

I haven't used hypnotism strictly for magic, only for personal changes (although it can be argued that it's still magic I suppose). A while back I came up with a visualization to try and increase my intelligence by using the placebo effect. I would basically visualize myself in my doctor's room, and imagine him giving me a hundred injections of NZT-48 (from the Limitless film if you've seen it). The idea was based on research done on the placebo effect. We believe what figures of authority have to say, hence the doctor. People view injections as more effective than pills, and the actual colour of the pill / substance also affects the patient, so I imagined it as a red substance, which tends to have an energizing effect, whereas blue has a calming effect. And of course, repetition always impresses the mind, hence the hundred injections. I have a really strong auditory and kinesthetic imagination (in other words I can really hear and feel stuff using my imagination), so I would hear my doctor's voice talking me through the procedure, through every injection. I would feel the needle going into my arm, feel the substance entering and spreading through my body. This particular technique had a huge effect on me, to the extent that I got scared of it and stopped doing it altogether. (I did get a substantial increase in IQ, but also bad headaches.) I am still in awe at how powerful some of this stuff is, particularly with visualization.

If you're going to get into hypnosis, I recommend that you learn how to use anchors and triggers. And instead of using just affirmations or auto-suggestions, include visualization as much as you can. Also, do not, I repeat, do not use visualization to motivate yourself. There is research which shows that when you visualize the end result of your goal, you greatly reduce your motivation to experience that goal, because in a sense, you've already experienced it in your imagination, and so a kind of drive reduction occurs. For example, visualizing myself getting an A in an exam will probably reduce my motivation to study. Think carefully about the nature of presupposition when doing these kinds of things. However, experiment long enough and you're bound to come up with some mind-bending results.

Good luck

This post has been edited by Green Lantern: Dec 17 2013, 02:08 PM

This is a very interesting subject.

Do you have any suggestions on brainwave entrainment software to try out?

This has really piked my interest after learning about The Monroe Institute in Virgina. When I have the available funds ($1800) I want to go take their week long course of inner-exploration.

But until then if I can do something at home to being, that would be awesome. With technologies such as smartphones, we can download anything to it, including software for brainwave entrainment and then upload it into our brains via a really high quality set of headphones. (anyone have any suggestions on headphones?)

Green, I assume you did these 100 injections over 100 days correct? Not 100 injections in one sitting? I love the detail you put into this ritual, really makes things go deeper into our sub-conscious & then shine through to our consciousness.

Go deeper into why you stopped, what did you begin to notice that freaked you out? Can you go into more detail into your ritual?

Thanks.

This post has been edited by JohnnyScience: Dec 17 2013, 02:41 PM

Do you have any suggestions on brainwave entrainment software to try out?

I use Neuro-Programmer 3 from Transparent. It's very flexible software and can do everything I need. They have a free trial that you can check out. Also, the help documentation is very useful, they explain a lot about how you can use affirmations and visualization along with entrainment.

When I have the available funds ($1800) I want to go take their week long course of inner-exploration.

Wow. $1800 sounds like a lot of money for 'inner exploration'. Just sayin.

Green, I assume you did these 100 injections over 100 days correct? Not 100 injections in one sitting? Go deeper into why you stopped, what did you begin to notice that freaked you out? Can you go into more detail into your ritual?

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) No I did it in one sitting, and I did multiple sittings; I really wanted a powerful improvement. Like I said, I got pretty bad headaches, that's the main reason I stopped. But I should say, I've developed a kind of unconscious resistance to using this idea. Not sure exactly why. It may have to do with the fact that I used NZT as the 'causal force'. If you've seen Limitless, you'll remember that NZT is actually a dangerous substance that can damage health, so maybe I'm worried about the safety of this technique. I suppose there is a way around this problem; I could just use a different substance that is deemed to be 'safe'. But even so, I don't feel any kind of need to do it again. There's also the feeling that I'm "smart enough", and I need to worry about my problems now. Perhaps it's just my karma to have the level of intelligence I have now ... who knows.

This post has been edited by Green Lantern: Dec 18 2013, 03:38 AM

Have bought several books on self-hypnotism and intend to study them, although I'm unsure of how P.Runyon is going about things in his working as he speaks about being active while in Trance? Perhaps its me getting my GD mindset in the way of his Goetic practice, he recommends trance work for both but I fail to see how someone can work an active ritual in that state might have been talking about working astrally.

Have you tried marrying your practice with self-hypnotism with the use of sigils Green Lantern?

Have you tried marrying your practice with self-hypnotism with the use of sigils Green Lantern?

No. I do use brainwave entrainment to get myself into a trance from which I can then launch sigils; it's my primary method of working with sigils. The state of mind the entrainment takes me into is essentially the same as being hypnotized; it has the same characteristics such as a sleep-like drowsiness, relaxation, no awareness of my environment and eventually no awareness of myself. I have a small manual on something called autogenic training by KH Welz; it teaches how to get yourself into a state of deep relaxation using suggestions. Once you're in that state you should be able to launch a sigil, but I haven't tried it yet.

although I'm unsure of how P.Runyon is going about things in his working as he speaks about being active while in Trance?

I'm afraid I don't know either. I know that if you can get yourself into a trance state you can create something called an anchor. Let's say you get yourself into a deeply relaxed state and you make an unusual hand sign such as touching your left hand's wrist with your right hand's pinkie. Your unconscious mind will then remember the unusual sign with the state you're in. If you've then sufficiently anchored the state with that sign, you should be able to get yourself back into that state at any time by making the sign. Unfortunately, if you're in a ritual with eyes open, movements, words, you'll probably snap out of the state very quickly, and possibly ruin the anchor as well.

I remember seeing a Derren Brown show called the assassin, in which he hypnotized a guy to completely forget whatever he was experiencing whenever there was a polka dot style pattern in his visual field, and it worked. If at any point in his vision there was just a small cloth with the pattern on it, he would completely forget whatever he was experiencing. This suggests that you might be able to get into a trance state and stay in it by using an external symbol, but I don't know how to go about doing this so that it works reliably.

Do you practice GD style magic? I often go into a light trance automatically by practicing banishing rituals. (It's like a light sense of excitement with a hint of sexual arousal.) Try this: the next time you practice your rituals, be as aware as you can of how you feel, while holding the expectation that the rituals themselves should alter your state of consciousness. If any change occurs in how you feel while you practice, then you are in fact in a slightly altered state of consciousness.

If it's possible to go into strongly altered states of consciousness and practice rituals without the use of entheogens, I would love to hear about it.

This post has been edited by Green Lantern: Dec 25 2013, 01:55 AM

Yeah, very much into GD styled practice. Enter a trance like state once a ritual is established in the mind where it and can be done without having to think about the procedure. Is often that time lapses occur when a state is entered, can finish and realize it had only taken a short time or alternately had taken a much longer time that you had thought. Can be haphazard at times as a practice can become a habit and be tough to break with if or when it needs changing. Many books make the mistake of allowing for convenience when people are starting out for example, 'no need for a dedicated temple space' and so on, establishing that within them only to later state that it would be good to have a temple space and several props .lol. If you've spent years without a cubed alter in the center of your space it would prove hard to make one and reprogram ones muscle memory to work around/behind it in daily practice. Was a bit peeved when this one hit me as I had long become used to an Eastern Style more floor based practice for parts. The concern with some is that the GD style stuff works to impress, imprint symbols onto the astral through the use of imagination and props rather than establish them in ones awareness the other way round.

This is what has me thrown...

Most Tibetan magick is done from the inert, seated asana position
whereas much of Solomon's magick is performed standing up and
even moving. Our hypnotic trance allows us a unique mobility and a
remarkable capacity to operate in the subconscious and conscious
mind simultaneously. This enables the operator to ask the receiver,
"Do you have a presence?" or "Would you like it stronger?" without
disrupting the trance state. In a solo working the operator can question
his own spirit manifestation directly, going back and forth between his
own rational mind and the manifestation from his subconscious as normally
as he would carry on a conversation with another person. The
reason for this is implicit in the dialog nature of hypnotic induction and
especially the self-directed dialog developed in self-hypnosis
training. _ P.Runyon.

Will have to read through the book and get to grips with Self-Hypnosis some more.