Mass Hypnosis

Mini-series title: Conscious Self-Persuasion: Beyond Hypnosis and the Waking Sleep

Introduction
Following Neville, we want to be self-persuaded in a new state of ourselves. Prior discussion of affirmations (see Ch. 4 ) implies harnessing the power of self suggestion. But if control of the subconscious is the key, then why not just hire a hypnotherapist?

This calls for a look into the nature of hypnosis and self hypnosis (or autosuggestion). We first review collective and individual forms of hypnosis and acknowledge their effects. Deficiencies in the scientific account come to light, as hypnosis is neither uniformly defined nor adequately explained.

New standpoints are needed. To start, the commonly accepted distinction of “conscious” and “subconscious” is rejected by Neville and others. This accords with the new understanding of conscious awareness we acquired in Ch.1. We find that Neville’s premises (that we live in a mental universe, and that belief has a creative imperative) have explanatory power. We are able then to deconstruct what we usually call “hypnosis” and explain conscious self persuasion for self change, as Neville advises.

Mass sleep
Society at large is characterized, from various perspectives, as being in a state of hypnotic sleep:

We spend most of our lives in a state of spontaneous hypnotic sleep... (Dr. R. Alexander, Creative Realism, p.84);

‘A modern man lives in sleep, in sleep he is born and in sleep he dies.’ (ref. Ouspensky, p.66);

According to the Scriptures, we sleep with Adam and wake with Christ. That is, we sleep collectively and wake individually. (~Neville, Seedtime and Harvest).

This sort of waking sleep has disastrous consequences.

The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace... to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures... (Chomsky N.; Herman E.);

During a mass psychosis, madness becomes the norm in a society and delusionary beliefs spread like a contagion. (“The Manufacturing of a Mass Psychosis – Can Sanity Return to an Insane World?” academyofideas.com, 24 April, 2021)

In sum: “Sleep” is the default mental condition. It leaves people open to inculcation in elite-directed belief systems. For example, social engineering uses fear to induce mass psychoses to support wars and other absurd political agendas.

How are people made to accept a new program of generalized obedience? We could review scores of instances of mass propagandizing to destructive ends, even when the duplicity of prior campaigns had already come to light. Various power elites have discovered the truisms of mind control: it plays chiefly upon the feelings of debilitation, dependency, fear and isolation.

Check the rest of the argument: podcast S02E13 audio or transcript.