Letter sent to below on August 29, 2000:
State Senator Beverly Gard
State Representative Bob Cherry
Governor Frank O'Bannon
Editor, The Indianapolis Star
Editor, Daily Reporter
Good morning everyone,
I just finished reading the attached news report from the Associated Press (Associated Press, August 28, 2000) about Indiana's licensing requirement for hypnotists. If I weren't so appalled about the stupidity of passing such a law, I would be rolling on the floor laughing. I say this without knowing or caring about how you voted on the bill as it really doesn't matter at this point because it already the law.
This bill has been floating around the state in some form or the other at least since the late 60s when the "Indiana Society for Ethical Hypnotists" and other fought successfully to stop it. Over the years various do-gooder groups, who haven't the foggiest idea what hypnosis is, have tried to get bills passed without success and so this sort of caught me by surprise.
Starting with the part of the news story, "Indiana currently recognizes only one in-state hypnotism school,...", I couldn't believe what I was reading. Now I don't want you to think I'm just ranting for no reason here. In the late 60s, when I first studied hypnosis under Roger and Alberta Perry, and into the mid 70s I was considered somewhat of an expert hypnotist. I was president of the Indiana Society of Ethical Hypnotists for 2 years and a member until we hung it up about 1975. I have taught hypnosis, have written a home study course, and have used hypnosis on a couple of video and audio tapes to help people with self improvement.
Although I haven't publicly practiced hypnosis for a number of years, I still maintain information about the subject.
With all that said, let me point out that even all those 30 years ago, surrounded by doctors, nurses, and many regular people like myself, our group used to argue over whether there was such a thing as hypnosis. The Amazing Kreskin has a great hypnosis bit for his act but used to say that hypnosis doesn't exist. There was a wonderful and very poplular book in the 60s called "Psycho-Cybernetics", by Maxwell Maltz that taught mental visualization for success in life. Had he called his book "Self Hypnosis For A Better Life", he wouldn't have sold 10 copies. But all the techniques he used to get to the visualization was nothing but what we learned as self hypnosis. Movies and books often misuse hypnosis to fill weak points in a plot therefore perpetuating the monumental amount of misinformation that is out there.
At one time I used to appear before church groups and give talks about meditation. Most of the people were terrified about hypnosis but always welcomed a great spiritual experience from the study of meditation. Guess what. It's the same thing. The only difference between hypnosis and meditation is you inject the word God a few times and talk about taking a spiritual journey instead of a restful nap. In the study of the paranormal, we take mental journeys but rarely call it hypnosis.
How do you enforce such a law about spoken words or a state of mind? That's all it is. "Hypnosis" is nothing but a state of mind brought on by the individual believing (anticipation) that something is going to happen and only he or she can make it happen, not the hypnotist. It is a gently spoken sequence of words (patter) that helps someone relax. No one has control over another's mind or any such nonsense as that.
When I teach someone self relaxation I try to avoid using the word hypnosis because it changes the mentality of the student. If I don't call it hypnosis, is it hypnosis? If I call it meditation, is it hypnosis? I have produced video and audio tapes to sell on the internet for self relaxation and increasing psychic power. Does that mean I'm hypnotizing someone out there in the world and need to be regulated? Who would you ever find in the world to make such a judgment and what kind of power then would this person or group have over the spoken word?
Avoiding the broader discussion of the regulation of the spoken word, let's just say that with this kind of law banning the use of a word or sequence of words, we have opened the door to 1984 and no one even saw it coming.
Thanks for listening.
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