Occultism and Hypnotism

Scientists and medical practitioners have studied hypnotism and even applied it in various situations. They raise some doubts due to studies that did not completely follow the highest double-blind standards used in medical research; nevertheless, hypnotism has been found to have some very clear practical uses and benefits and is utilized in a variety of situations including treatment of anxiety, stress, helping to overcome addictions such as smoking, sleep disorders and chronic pain, as well as providing benefits to reduce pain in acute situations. Given the serious potential side effects of pharmaceutical drugs for pain relief, such as the use of highly addictive opioids, more practitioners in fact are turning to the use of hypnosis in an increasing number of situations to reduce or avoid the need for opioids.

Hypnosis provides insight into the link between the mind and the body, and the ability to gain a measure of control over the body and its functions, including some of its autonomic functions, through use of non-physical techniques. A state related to trance is created in which the active control exercised by the conscious mind is reduced, the individual becomes more suggestible and is able to dissociate himself from anxiety, pain or fear reactions that otherwise would have a great impact on him.

We know that certain yogins in the state of samadhi, a spiritual trance state, are not actively attending to the circumstances in the external world. They are able in some cases to pass days at a time without experiencing hunger or thirst. They can sit on beds of nails, or walk across nails or hot coals without any sensation of pain. Legend has it that some ancient yogic practitioners would sit in such a deep state of samadhi that they had anthills grow up on and around them without noticing! They have successfully moved their conscious awareness away from the body, vital being and mind into an entirely different realm of awareness.

The experience of yogic practitioners in samadhi sheds some light on the experience of individuals undergoing treatment with hypnotism. A similar state of separation from the external body and its senses, and the nervous system reactions and the response of the active mentality takes place. We are normally aware of and involved in the events and circumstances in the world around us and our reactions to them. In the hypnotic state, the awareness must be withdrawn from active reaction and response to such things. The interactive functioning of the senses, the nervous system and the mind must be suspended, and the patient must be in a state where suggestions can be made that operate on certain parts of the brain without first being filtered through the analysing and deciding parts of the mental consciousness. Most people have had an experience where they were so deeply absorbed in something that they lost track of the passage of time, did not feel hunger or thirst or any discomfort at all. This is a brief taste of the deeper status of hypnotic immersion or yogic trance.

The Mother notes: “Now they are finding out that they can replace anaesthetics by hypnotism with infinitely better results. Well, hypnotism is a form — a form modernised in its expresssion — of occultism; a very limited, very small form of a very tiny power compared with occult power, but still it is a form of occultism which has been put in modern terms to make the thing modern. And I don’t know if you have heard about these things, but they are very interesting from a certain point of view: for instance, this process of hypnotism has been tried on someone who had to have a skin-graft on a wound. I don’t remember all the details now, but the arm had to remain attached to the leg for a fortnight…. If the person were immobilised by plaster and bandages and all sorts of things, at the end of the fortnight he wouldn’t be able to move — everything would become stiff and he would need weeks of treatment to recover the free use of his arm. In this case, nothing was tied up, nothing was physically immobilised — no plaster, no bandages, nothing — the person was just hypnotised and told to keep his arm in that position. He kept it for a fortnight, without any effort, any difficulty, without any intervention from his will: it was the will of the hypnotiser which intervened. It was perfectly successful, the arm remained in the required position, and when the fortnight was over and the hypnotism removed, and the person was told, ‘Now you may move’, he began to move! Well, that’s a step forward.”

“They are soon going to meet — it will be nothing more than a question of words — then, if they are not too rigid, they can agree on the value given to the words!”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch. 5 Occult Forces, pp 107-108

Science and Occultism

Scientists study the hidden, let’s admit, the occult powers of the material world and of our lives. While they clothe their study in words that imply a process that would distinguish what they do from the general term of ‘occultism’, if we reflect carefully we can see that science is essentially a subset or branch of the larger field of occultism that does not restrict itself solely to material energies or material laws of development, but which delves into the nature of existence and the operation of unseen forces across multiple aspects and planes of our existence.

The path followed by the seeker in the Taittiriya Upanishad who started with an investigation of Matter and moved through a review of the plane of life energy, the plane of mind, the plane of the causal power of creation and the plane of pure existence-consciousness-bliss is virtually identical to the path followed by scientists who, while they start from Matter, eventually wind up looking at energy, mind, and causality in the form of universal consciousness.

The first forms of knowledge are steps along the path, but not a final knowledge, and the further they go, the more they begin to appreciate that there are forces and powers at work far beyond the limits of human perception; and they also recognize that what they thought were universal laws turn out to only apply in certain limited circumstances. The opening up of the field of quantum mechanics has finally forced scientists to begin to acknowledge that the mechanical laws of Newtonian physics do not apply in all ways and at all times. Thus, we now have scientists talking about multiple universes, infinite possibilities carried out in infinite worlds where different choices are made and different formulations of existence and awareness apply.

Albert Einstein declared: “Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter. Time does not exist — we invented it. Time is what the clock says. Time and space are not conditions in which we live, but modes by which we think. The more I learn of physics, the more I am drawn to metaphysics. I’m not an atheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books.”

Nikola Tesla declared “The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”

And thus, we see scientists acknowledging and embracing the science of occultism.

A disciple asks: “Mother, can physical science by its progress open to occultism?”

The Mother responds: “It does not call it ‘occultism’, that’s all. It is only a question of words…. They are making sensational discoveries which people with occult knowledge already knew thousands of years ago! They have made a long circuit and come to the same thing.”

“With the most recent discoveries in medicine, in the applied sciences, for instance, they are contacting in this way, with a wonder-struck interest, things which were known to certain sages a very, very long time ago. And then they present all this before you as new marvels — but indeed they are rather old, their marvels!”

“They will end up by practising occultism without knowing that they are doing so! For, in fact, as soon as one draws close, however slightly, to the truth of things and when one is sincere in one’s search, not satisfied by mere appearances, when one really wants to find something and goes deep, penetrates behind appearances, then one begins to advance towards the truth of things, and as one comes closer to it, well, one finds again the same knowledge that others who began by going within have brought back from their inner discoveries.”

“Only the method and the path are different but the thing discovered will be the same, because there are not two things to be found, there is only one. It will necessarily be the same. It all depends on the path one follows; some go fast, others slowly, some go straight, others, as I said, go a long way round — and what labour! How they have laboured!… Besides, it is very respectable.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch. 5 Occult Forces, pp 106-107