Hypnosis is a very powerful tool and we cannot pretend that we know everything about its effects or possibilities. He has a somewhat gloomy reputation in official psychological circles - behind him is a trail of notoriety. And, I must admit, this is a lot of contributing to the touring hypnotists, who are involved in show business rather than therapy.
But many psychotherapists continue, very carefully, to use hypnosis as a tool to access deeper layers of buried memory. And just during the sessions of hypnosis, used for such purposes, some psychotherapists noted very strange phenomena.
From the depths of the patients' subconscious, memories emerged that had no obvious roots in their lives; it was like a memory of a past life.
American psychotherapist Dr. Edith Fiore described how she first encountered such reminiscences from a past life using the example of one of her patients.
“He turned to me,” she wrote, “in connection with excruciating psychological pressure in the sexual sphere. When I asked him, while he was under hypnosis, to return to the roots of his problems, he said, "Two or three lifetimes ago I was a Catholic priest."
This came as a complete surprise to her. But professionalism spoke to her, and she helped him restore the picture of what he described as the life of a priest in seventeenth century Italy. At the next meeting, the patient reported that he was free of his problems.
Of course, she was not the first to discover that hypnosis has the distinct ability to awaken the memory of past existence. The first significant case to intrigue the public was the sensational Bridey Murphy case in the United States in the 1950s, which dealt with the preceding nineteenth century existence in Ireland.
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Bridey Murphy is the name of a 19th century Irish woman in Cork who allegedly began speaking through Virginia Ty, who was in a state of hypnosis. It happened in Pueblo, Colorado, in 1952, when local businessman and amateur hypnotist Morey Bernstein managed to induce a past life regression in Virginia.
Bernstein has performed sessions with Ty many times. And she, under hypnosis, sang Irish songs and told Irish stories in provincial dialect, while always calling herself by the name of Bridey Murphy.
Hypnotist Bernstein with Virginia Ty
In England, a similar barrage of support and criticism was fueled by the hypnotist Arnall Bloxham, whose patients with past lives became famous when the BBC made a documentary about them.
Such cases are undoubtedly fascinating, with subjects reporting a ton of very bizarre and intimate details about their previous lives. It is also true that they have become the subject of close scrutiny and criticism.
Perhaps Bloxham's most famous patient was a man who, under hypnosis, recalled serving as a gunner on a British frigate with thirty-two guns under the command of Captain Pierce in the eighteenth century.
The ship, it seems, bore an ornate and difficult to pronounce name; the sailors, according to the patient, nicknamed him "Aggie." He could not remember its real name. Perhaps the sailor of those days did not know how to read or pronounce it. Perhaps this nickname was an abbreviation for Agamemnon or something like that.
During his memories, he used a large number of old-fashioned phrases and special nautical terms familiar only to sailors of that era. He gave many details from the life of the sailors in those days: the stench, the food swarming with worms, the linen clothes and flogging - which, he said, he avoided, because he knew how to "lay the cannon."
His first - and only - hypnosis session ended with the dramatic events of the sea battle. He described, with passion and vivid detail, a battle with a French ship near the port of Calais. They waited for many hours near the shore, hiding in the morning fog.
All the guns were ready, the fuses inserted. The igniters waved the smoldering pieces of pitch-soaked cord to keep them from going out, ready to bring up the wick at any moment. The ship cruised back and forth in anticipation of the arrival of the French vessel. When he finally appeared, the English gunners were ready to fight.
He described this fight. The ships began to move towards each other. Less experienced gunners were impatient, eager to open fire. He continued his story:
“Stop, stop! Wait for the order - calmly, guys, calmly - quietly, it's not time yet - wait for the order, without the order you can't - swing the fuse, there is, sir - don't stand at the back - now come on. Now come on - fry! - (shouts of jubilation at the beginning of the firing). Well done, guys - give them heat, give them what you should - hit them in the front end - (heart-rending screams) - drag him away, drag him - carry him to the cockpit - but carry him - and now give them heat - give them the first number !. …
Charge the core - the ramrod - hammer it, hammer it, you fool, hammer it first - load it, charge the core - live, number four, keep up - load, hammer it properly - insert the fuses - swing the fuse - yes, sir - get ready!..
Load, guys - as we gave them - live, live - point the gun - ugh, damn you - how are you laying the cannon - God, they hooked old Pierce, they hooked old Pierce - {sudden terrible scream) - damn leg - {involuntarily screams and groans) - leg - my leg!"
The patient awoke so shocked that he never again hypnotized himself.
This tale was so extraordinary and so convincing that Prince Philip and Earl of Mountbatten, both serving in the Royal Navy, demanded tape recordings of this, very similar to memories of a past life, narration.
They tasked the historians of the British Admiral with the task of establishing the ship, the captain, and the battle. Unfortunately, despite all the abundance of details, they never got it. So this is not a genuine case of reminiscences of a past existence? Is it just a fantasy, colored with fragments from books, films and radio broadcasts?
The verdict is still pending.
Should you believe hypnotized memories?
It is not denied by anyone that hypnosis is a useful therapeutic tool, but do statements made under hypnosis about past existences correspond to objective reality? Dr. Fiore, for example, makes no attempt to confirm the historical accuracy of what her patients have to say. She is interested in psychological, not historical truth.
She is only interested in helping the patient heal. If the patient's psychological disorders are cured or alleviated by understanding the causes of the problem in terms of reincarnation, then that alone is enough for her to take it seriously. This approach closely resembles the search for the Dalai Lama; it's all captivating, compelling, and compelling - but hardly scientific.
Psychiatrist Ian Stevenson has long recognized this difficulty. In his own research on reincarnation, he refrained from using hypnosis. He frankly admitted that its application was attractive; it seems to provide an opportunity to create laboratory conditions for control and verification.
But, as he explained, this is an illusion. It is always impossible to control the subject's previous experience of acquaintance with the details encountered in recalling "past lives" - such as novels, plays, feature films or documentaries.
He explained that these apparent past existences appear to arise from several sources: they contain fragments of the subject's own personality, along with fantasy material gleaned from a variety of sources, print or cinematic. They are also greatly influenced by what the patient thinks that the hypnotist would like to hear from him. In other words, the patient wants to please the specialist by giving him the "correct" information.
Stevenson added that an element of the paranormal is also possible here, referring to clairvoyance, telepathy, some kind of out-of-body existence, or to the phenomenon of genuine reincarnation. But all these sources can be present at the same time, collectively forming such a "recall". This combination would give a coherent and exciting story, but not one that is entirely a memory of a past life.
And yet we cannot completely discard memories - for all their unreliability - evoked in a state of hypnosis. Who knows, maybe some genuine memories of past lives attract all the associated material that the mind has been collecting and accumulating for years.
It is possible that in some way, being in a state of hypnosis, the subject turns out to be unable to distinguish the line between these sources and therefore presents all the information he has, combined into a convincing whole.
Death of a knight
But some of the statements, some of these memories, have a calm dignity, a sense of authenticity devoid of a touch of drama. They are not easy to reject and write off completely.
One such example from the archives of Dr. Fiore concerns a man who spoke of his participation in a knightly tournament in England in 486 - a tournament that personally ended very badly for him.
"I am sitting in armor on my horse … I - I'm a little worried … and I'm kind of a little … kind of sick."
In a state of hypnosis, the patient described to Dr. Fiore the moments that preceded his entry into the arena in a knightly contest in England during the reign of King Henry VII.
After describing how he nervously waited for his turn, he eventually spoke of his exit. Suddenly his body jerked violently. He said that the enemy had just knocked him off his horse. Dr. Fiore asked if he was lying on the ground.
"No, I sort of … got up … I'm more ashamed than scared, but … everything floats before my eyes … I think I have a wound in my stomach."
His opponent, still on horseback, meanwhile circled, waiting for an opportunity to finish off the fallen knight with a mace. The patient described the difficulties he faced: armed only with an ax, no matter how hard he tried, he could not inflict much injury on an equestrian enemy.
Suddenly, the knight moved his horse towards him. As he did so, he swung his mace - a chain with a cannonball at the end studded with thorns - inflicting a fatal blow on the head of his dismounted opponent.
The patient's face, Dr. Fiore, twisted into a grimace of agony. She asked him where he was. In a weakening voice, he replied: “I am lying on the grass … I do not feel anything … just something warm … and red blood … warm blood flows from my body … and it seems to me that it was as if … I saw a white light and … I kind of took off …"
He later described his death further:
“I lay face down and then began to rise into the air, still face down … I climbed higher and … at first it was as if three feet … and then I began to climb straight up … and just flew … A feeling of warmth in my whole body and complete release … I can see the whole area below me. I can see everything."