Heath Lambert: Should Christians be hypnotized? That’s the question we are answering on the podcast this week. We’ve received questions about this from you, our listeners, and we want to talk about it this week. It’s an important issue because a lot of people engage in the practice of hypnotism, usually for entertainment value, but often to address the kinds of problems we’re concerned about in counseling. If hypnotism is a bad practice, then it is a competitor for the kind of change we’re concerned about in biblical counseling. If hypnotism is a good practice and we ignore it, then we are leaving off a helpful intervention that people need when they’re struggling with difficulties. Before we can answer whether Christians should be hypnotized, we have to understand what hypnotism is.
The American Psychological Association gives a description of that. They say, “a hypnotic procedure is used to encourage and evaluate responses to suggestions. When using hypnosis, the subject is guided by the hypnotist to respond to suggestions for changes in subjective experiences, alterations and perception, sensation, emotion, thought and behavior.” Now there’s a lot going on here but when you boil all of that down what it says, is that hypnosis is used to bring about change —the kind of change we’re concerned about in counseling, the kind of change we’re concerned about when we’re experiencing difficulty. Hypnosis is used to bring about change. People pursue hypnosis for a lot of different reasons. They use it to leave off undesirable behaviors like habits —smoking, eating problems, that kind of thing. They use it to address anxiety and sorrow and that kind of suffering, and some use it to pursue the relief of pain. So, there’s a number of different reasons why a person might pursue hypnosis for a number of different problems that they would want to address. But regardless, it’s always about change. There’s something going on that they would like to be different. Hypnosis works in two different aspects —there’s sort of two sides of the hypnosis coin.
First, there is the hypnotic state. A person needs to be placed into a hypnotic state by a hypnotist where they are in a state of unique focus and concentration. In that hypnotic state, the second aspect of hypnosis happens and that is where they respond to the suggestions of the hypnotist. So, the hypnotist will speak suggestions to them about their behavior —what they should do, what they should not do, what they should think, what they should not think —and those suggestions are supposed to take root and take effect once the hypnotic state —the trance-like state—has ended.That’s how hypnosis works and that is some of the problems that it seeks to resolve.
Another question we can ask and answer, as we try to understand hypnosis is, what is going on? When a person goes into a hypnotic state, when a person receives the suggestions of a hypnotist for the purpose of change, what is going on? How can we understand that reality? Well, one person that helps us to answer this question is Dr. Amir Roz. He is a professor in the department of psychiatry at McGill University and he has done a lot of research on hypnosis and what is happening in the human brain when that procedure goes on. He has sought to show the effects of suggestion on the brain during hypnosis using neuroimaging methodologies, functional magnetic resonance imaging, or functional MRI, and event-related potentials or ERP. What those are doing is they’re taking pictures of the brain. What he found using that very sophisticated technology is that hypnosis actually turns off certain portions of the brain. There are portions of the brain that are lit up and active when a person is not in a hypnotic state, and those regions of the brain are put to sleep, so to speak, when a person is under a hypnotic state. So, it does seem that at least in some folks, hypnotism actually affects a change at the level of brain activity. There’s a lot we don’t know about what that means but that is some of the facts that we possess from certain professionals in the field.
Now, the question is, what should Christians think about that? And, in particular, should Christians use hypnosis? Should we be hypnotized? Should we hypnotize people, or should we recommend to folks that they be hypnotized? Well, there are a couple of things we need to say about that. First of all, only about 15 percent of the population are highly hypnotizable. That means we’re talking about a small minority of people for whom this procedure is actually going to work anyway. You’ve got to be able to get into the hypnotic state in order to receive the suggestions in a way that will work in order to turn off those regions of the brain, and not very many people are going to be hypnotizable, in that sense. So we’re talking about a very limited group of people in the first instance. Second, this is still understood to be alternative medicine. This is not a widely regarded practice. And so we need to understand that even the secular community has a lot of reservations about this practice. But of course, as biblically minded Christians what we are concerned about is the testimony of Scripture. When we come to the Bible, we come to a book, we come to God’s Word to us that has serious concerns about the practice of hypnotism. Not because there’s places in the Bible where it says, “Thou shalt not be hypnotized”. The teaching of Scripture predates the practice of hypnotism. So the word hypnotism does not come up in the Bible, but the ideas of hypnotism do come up.
In the Bible, we have a book that is all about the change process. The Bible is a book that tells us how God wants us to change. And it’s very interesting that the Bible never ever recommends that when it’s time for people to change, when there is a need for them to change, that we should turn off our brains that we should become passive and open to the suggestions of an outside person in a way that is not reflective. In fact, the Bible teaches the opposite of that. In Romans chapter 12:1-2. It says, “I urge you brethren by the mercies of God, to present your bodies, a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” This is a text about change. It’s a text about transformation and it says that Christians should pursue transformation. Not as we become passive and as we absorb the suggestions of some other person, but as we prove what the will of God is as our minds are transformed by renewal from Holy Spirit and by the Word of God. So what the Bible encourages us to here is activity, activity in studying the Bible, activity in taking our thoughts captive to Christ. Another idea that the Bible uses to address this and to express concern about the principle of hypnotism is a text, like, 1 Peter 4:7. The Bible says, “The end of all things is near therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer.” The Bible here is encouraging us to soundness and sobriety in our thinking. It’s not encouraging us to passivity. It’s not encouraging us to be open to the thoughts and interpretations of some hypnotist, whose standard of behavior might be different than the Bible’s. You know, in Acts 17, the Bible talks about the residents of Berea, who considered daily whether what they were hearing from the apostles was biblical. Even when they heard apostolic preaching and teaching, they compared it to the Scriptures.
People who are committed to biblical counseling share the same interest in change that any person interested in hypnotism would. God is interested in change and that’s why God gave us a book, the Bible, that’s all about change and God knows how people need to change in a way that honors Him. If God thought we needed hypnotism to do that, He would have told us about hypnotism in the Bible. But since He didn’t, we can trust that what He gave us is what we really need to be different. And so, this is about the sufficiency of Scripture for our problems in living. This is about God loving His people and us trusting His care to do what He says we need to do when we know we need to change, and not trusting the suggestions of an outside person who wants us to place our minds in a passive state.
