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Suggestion and Hypnotism

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 8, 1915

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 92, No. 34.

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Suggestion and Hypnotism

By GEO. D. BALLOU

Mind Cure—No. 4

Suggestion and Hypnotism

GEO. D. BALLOU
Any statement, expression, or assurance designed to restore favorable mental conditions is properly classed as suggestion. Recently suggestion has been put forth as a distinctly modern discovery. It is coupled with occultism and hypnotism, and the effort constantly seems to be to clothe the subject with mystery.
The truth is that suggestion is as old as the world. Satan used it when he told the woman she would be like God if only she would take the forbidden fruit. This was an entirely illegitimate use of suggestion, for it was based on two falsehoods: “Ye shall not surely die” and “Ye shall be as God.”
When man lost his confidence, and doubt and fear prevailed, the Creator spoke words of hope and cheer to lighten the gloom that settled over his soul. God has ever since been using suggestion in the gospel as a cure for man’s mental ills. Every promise of good things to come is suggestion pure and simple. The Bible, in short, is the encyclopedia of suggestion. Every human effort at suggestive therapeutics is an imitation, a modification, or a perversion of the Creator’s suggestions. Any legitimate assurance will help permanently to restore confidence, hope, courage, and joyful expectation. Other assurance based on false promises may temporarily restore the normal mental conditions, but nothing lasting will result unless the foundations are sound and permanent.
Adverse suggestions are those statements which put evil notions into human minds. Object lessons in crime, such as the modern fiction, the modern theater, and the motion pictures present, are full of adverse suggestion to the mind that has strong evil tendencies. There is more evil suggestion than good today in the sayings and doings of men. This makes it all the more important that we emphasize the gospel of Jesus Christ in life as well as in word.
Perhaps one of the greatest of all frauds worked on mankind is hypnotism in its various phases. This is a procedure in which by far the principal part of the transaction is the yielding of one mind to the suggestions of another. It is by no means at first a forceful conquest of one mind over another. The mind of the subject must be willing. The thing accomplished is through the yielding of one will to another. It may be carried to that degree that the bodily functions may be nearly suspended and the subjectlie in a state of comatose rigidity for many hours. Many of the advocates of and apologists for hypnotism claim that it is all purely the application of natural law. There are phenomena outside the scope of natural law in connection with this phase of hypnotism. When a human body suspended only at the neck and feet is made to sustain a thousand-pound weight on the abdomen, there is a manifestation of phenomena that cannot be accounted for on any known natural principles.
When God the Creator asks man to give his heart and will to him, and the man submits and gives up his will to God, that man’s self-control is greatly multiplied, and his responsibility immeasurably increased. If he continues in this state of yielding, he is able eventually to bring “every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” 2 Cor. 10: 5. Thus yielding to the divine strengthens self-control and increases responsibility.
When a man yields to the hypnotic suggestion, instantly his self-control and responsibility are gone, and his mind and body become the sport of another will. This form of control surely does not belong to the same class as the other. Those who desire to be self-controlled with the aid of the divine mind, will not tamper with this hypnotic procedure, even though they do sometimes after a long process see some men cured of their old habits of thought and action by hypnotic treatment.
In our times the enemy of God and men is working to make men fail to see and appreciate the Creator, and the relationship he is trying to reestablish with them.