by Gary Bates
The hypnotic state is an experience that belongs to the subject, derives from the subject’s own accumulated learnings and memories, not necessarily consciously recognized, but possible of manifestations in a special state of non waking awareness.[11]
There are also instant inductions (see later).
{See Is hypnosis always wrong?}
Once this relaxed state is reached and the focus is on the hypnotizer, he can instruct, make recommendations using open or subliminal communication, even with touch or gestures to reinforce positive or negative aspects that are being assigned to memory in order to get the patient to do whatever the hypnotizer wants. At the time of the session this may be done intentionally (the way fallen angels can), inadvertently by the hypnotist, or even by the surroundings or setting that accompanies the session. This idea that hypnosis can achieve so much may seem too simplistic or too amazing for some reading this, but a little realistic research will reveal this to be the truth, and as with many aspects to this phenomenon I have often found the simplest explanations to be the best. The reason they are not often believed and accepted is due to the overlay of misinformation by those desiring strange phenomena to be real aliens (see chapter 6).
With subliminal suggestion it is not always necessary for a person to be hypnotized. I have seen experiments where visitors to shopping malls were subject to subliminal words or commands played over the public broadcast system along with the usual piped music one can usually hear in such venues. In each and every case, the overall majority of the shoppers obeyed commands when instructed that they were not even aware had been conveyed to them.[12]
A well-known British hypnotist by the name of Derren Brown regularly creates a whole range of different scenarios for his television program to show how people are easily suggestible and can be manipulated. In one episode, prior to a meeting with famous British celebrity Simon Pegg (and all filmed under the camera’s glare), the celebrity was asked to secretly write down on a sealed card his all-time favorite gift—i.e. the one gift he always wanted to receive. No one else was privy to what he had written down. After 10 minutes of conversation with Brown he stated that he always wanted a red bicycle. However, when he was invited to open the sealed card it revealed that he had earlier written down a leather jacket! He was confused and disoriented as to how this could occur. Brown revealed how he achieved this by lacing and overlaying the conversation with stories that provided commonalities between the past and present and included words like red, handlebar, wheels and bicycle. Also, when one took a closer look at the room the interview was conducted in, it also contained many items and colours to aid in the planting of a false memory (one can watch a replay of the interview to see this).[13] But the key was this: in order to get the celebrity to change his choice of a favorite gift, Brown had to create a false memory in the person. Brown often comments that in such scenarios his “victims” really have no choice in the matter, because he stacks the odds so much in his favor by inserting so much subliminal information. This indicates what power these methods can have. In short, the real memory of writing down a leather jacket was replaced or manipulated.
What seems more amazing is that before Pegg opened the card, he had created and explained a whole imaginary scenario about being deprived in his childhood of a bicycle to explain his choice of a red bicycle. No wonder he was confused and disoriented when he opened his own card. This aptly demonstrates how once the message, memory or image is implanted, the imagination can “fill in the blanks.” When the false memory is created, it is effectively a false history, and as such, the mind can create a whole array of visual imagery to support the “new” memory. This shows how a form of self delusion or self reinforcement about the imagined event can actually occur. The methods that professional hypnotists like Brown use are the NLP or Erickson methods referred to earlier. The stories they tell contain “Process Instructions” or “Embedded Commands” hidden in the stories. Sometimes “NLP Anchoring” is used where triggers or memories of the past are used to associate new memories or even to disassociate other memories.
An acquaintance of mine (let’s call him Eric), a medical doctor, also revealed that while a student on call at a maternity hospital, card games were often played by the students to pass the time. During one session, the subject of hypnosis came up in discussion. Eric had studied psychology and explained to one of his fellow medical students that it was possible to hypnotize him, and get him to carry out post-hypnotic suggestions This student (let’s call him Bill) strongly scoffed at the whole idea that he would even “go under,” but agreed to play along. Eric very quickly managed to get him into a trance state. He then said that after waking, upon being given a cue word, Bill would hurl an empty can of sliced pineapple (that was sitting on the window-ledge) out of the first floor window, but he would forget having been given this command while “under.” Given that there were parked cars below, this was something Bill would not normally have dreamt of doing.
After being woken from the trance, Bill confidently claimed that he had not been hypnotized, and was just playing along. But he offered no recollection of the suggestion about the pineapple can. Then Eric uttered the cue word (the so-called “trigger”). Bill immediately became restless, glancing over at the hapless can repeatedly. Finally he got up, and started to move towards the can, muttering all the while about how shoddy it looked, how it irritated him, and so on. When he had inched close enough, he picked it up, continuing to denigrate the poor can. Maintaining his invective, he moved gradually closer to the open window while seeming to avoid the appearance of doing so purposely. When he was up close, he said he had had enough, the can irked him so much that he didn’t want to see it anymore—and, stepping up to the open window, he hurled it into the outer darkness.
It was as if, once the implanted idea was awoken by the key word, the impulse to do this rather irrational thing had to be rationalized somehow, the mind creating a cover story, as it were, which involved the can’s unworthiness to share the same room with him. The cover story or rationale had to paint the can as sufficiently repugnant to warrant not merely being placed in the trash, but thrown out the window. Afterwards, he seemed somewhat dazed and confused, as if wrestling with the thought, “Why did I do that?” There were subsequent instances, too, in which Eric’s post-hypnotic suggestions to Bill demonstrated even more clearly how Bill’s mind was creating additional realities—a cover or justification for an impulse to certain behaviour, the impulse generated from an idea that had already been implanted previously.
“Nothing new under the sun”
The Bible indicates that the wisest man ever to live was the Israelite King Solomon. In Ecclesiastes 1:9–10, he said:
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.
Hypnosis is actually just a label that has been applied to avery broad,imperfectly understood set of mind phenomena.[14] However, the phenomenon of hypnosis is not new. When it comes to deceiving mankind, fallen angels do not need to “reinvent the wheel,” and the Bible also indicates that man is only ever tempted by what is common to him (1 Corinthians 10:13).
When it comes to trying to unravel abduction episodes, there are many hypotheses percolating among the UFO community, with most resorting to unknown forces and even bizarre spiritual explanations to explain what we cannot be sure is actually occurring anyway. None of these elegant hypotheses have any experimental or empirical basis to them, and often no Scriptural support either. There is a distinct lack of physical evidence in these episodes, and there are rarely any non-abductee eyewitnesses to abduction events, for example. Even if there were people who claimed to have seen what happened, this hypothesis could explain why they, too, believed something they “saw.” While my own hypnosis theory is hypothetical, it appeals to mechanisms we know exist, to things that we kno
w can actually be done via hypnosis. In mentioning some of these experiences earlier (and there are more below), I am pointing out that hypnosis is a known quantity that can be used to explain what is occurring during alleged alien abductions. Using the Ockham’s Razor approach (see chapter 4), I am suggesting that many of the details of abduction episodes are an illusory spiritual deception that is being planted into the minds of experiencers to create the “reality”—a false memory in effect. This not only fits the instances where individuals are concerned. In the case of the Allagash Four, too, the hypnosis theory fits the circumstances perfectly. Mass hypnosis episodes can also occur, and subliminal messages can be imposed on entire groups as shown earlier in the description of the shopping mall experiments.
So how can the appearance of a UFO in the sky lead to missing time and a recollection of being abducted by an alien?
Firstly, as we have shown, UFOs have changed their shapes over the years. They seem able to morph into a form that is culturally acceptable to the victim. This can help to create an openness to further suggestion. In the past, UFOs appeared as flying canoes, and today they appear as spaceships, which automatically evokes the idea that they are piloted by extraterrestrial spacemen (and thus creates the opening for the alien abduction scenario). Jaques Vallée showed that the abductors have morphed over the years too. Anything from fairies and elves to ETs—whatever seems culturally acceptable to the population. Hypnotherapy is almost always done with relaxation and relativelygradual induction with a soft, soothing voice. But these are not even necessary with about 20% of the population (or well prepared subjects).[15] Modern hypnotists also use lights and sounds to stimulate people to make them susceptible to suggestion. This is a characteristic also often used in sightings prior to abductions. Hypnotists can paralyze people—even when the patient is fully conscious. A clinical hypnotherapist confirmed to me:
Sleeping people do not usually transition into hypnosis,and are not subliminally suggestible, but waking up from an REM stage with shock and surprise would provide the perfect brainwave transition ... to induce an immediatedeep state in “suggestible”subjects.
This was a common device in brainwashing techniques... though usually with brutal shock and confusion. The gently repeated, soothing whispers “you’re alright” or something similar would have less trauma, but should be very effective in leaving a “trigger” imprint in the subject’s spirit that could be harnessed at a later time.[16]
This method of waking people occurs commonly in alien abduction scenarios. Similarly, when entities appear in a room, many claim that they feel compelled to look into the entity’s eyes—another method used by hypnotists. Once they are in this controlled state they are very prone to further suggestion. The idea that the entities communicate telepathically is also a common belief—something that fits no known scientific observations. But this could easily be believed if messages to that effect were being placed while under hypnosis.
There is also another pattern amongst abductees that I have discovered alongside of any pre-belief or openness to the idea of ETs, and it is that there seems to be an additional “entry point,” so to speak. People who have unresolved trauma or issues in their past seem to be particularly vulnerable to alien abductions and False Memory Syndrome in general. This is something recognized by many medical experts operating outside of the UFOlogical area. In addition, those suffering from current problems such as alcoholism or drug addiction also seem to be susceptible. I have seen on occasions where people suffering with mental disabilities have had similar experiences as identified using the CAS categorization. Unfortunately, when these folks talk about their experiences they are largely ignored and the claims are passed off as the fruit of their illnesses. Of course, no amount of personal frailty can, by itself, explain such things as the seemingly shared experiences of the Allagash Four, for example. It seems that the master deceiver and enemy of God (the devil/Lucifer/Satan) and his cohorts (other fallen angels) are no respecter of persons, and seem to be largely opportunists.
Missing time
The missing time aspect is a fundamental key to understanding the methods used by these angelic beings. Earlier in the book we detailed the characteristics of angels. They are inter-dimensional, immensely powerful and intelligent sentient beings, and often appear physically in our earthly dimensions(Genesis 19:1–29). If human beings can easily perform such deeds on their fellows, it cannot be any more difficult for angels to perform the same. Being able to appear instantly in a room would ensure anybody’s attention, and once entities become the focus of the victim, most methods of hypnosis would become readily available. Experiencers usually only consciously remember the initial sighting of a UFO or an entity they believe to be alien. They then wake up several hours later with no conscious recollection of anything occurring during the missing time. However, when regressed, the victims are able to recount seeming events with incredible detail. Let’s remember that all these entities have to do is to paint a picture to the unconscious victim—stories about cold metallic inspection tables, crude instruments, video screens—the works!
{See UK Daily Mail reports: Trainee hypnotist puts himself in a trance for 5 hours}
To those who have experienced alien abduction scenarios you may be thinking, “No, you are wrong. I know it happened—I felt it, I know it happened.” Yes, you did feel it. But even when you genuinely feel something like a hard bench under you (a real one, I mean), your perception is ultimately a sensation in the brain. So it’s not hard to understand, as experts have pointed out and hypnotists have repeatedly demonstrated, that the imagination (the mind) can easily create the illusion of a physical sensation without the physical event actually happening. For example, the majority of people reading this will have experienced a falling dream while they have been asleep, and you can probably even now recall the physical sensation of falling through the air—yet it never actually happened.
Once again, I am not saying that there are no physical aspects to these experiences. It is possible that people are being interfered with, being scratched, or the triangle marks are being imprinted upon the skin. But all this is being added to try to give weight to, and enhance, the overriding illusion of glorious spacemen benevolently overseeing the human race. After all, when appearances of angels are recorded in the Bible, they appear physical and can even kill humans. The Bible forbids “going after” (following, worshiping) such beings because of the very fact people can be deceived by them (they were described as the “host of heaven” or “starry host” (2 Kings 21:3).[17]
People who claim out of body experiencies (OBEs) and who claim to “astral travel” similarly record physical sensations of flying. In the same way, people can be hypnotized and told that a hot iron is being placed on their arm. The sensation they have is completely the same, i.e., just as “real” as if a real hot iron were there. The mind and body can even create a physical response in the area that thinks it was burned.
In Derren Brown’s TV show Trick or Treat, contestants stand the chance of winning a sizeable prize (the treat), but it is at the risk of being on the receiving end of one of Brown’s “tricks.” In one episode Brown entered a family’s home at night (the family was complicit in the ruse) and hypnotized a contestant while he was in his bed.
The contestant’s eyes can even be seen to be wide open. Triggers and anchoring techniques were used to stimulate responses that would be used in the future. These (triggers and anchors) are known as Post Hypnotic Re-Induction Cues, where a post-hypnotic suggestion will enable the person to reenter a trance at the command of the hypnotist later on. This could also be the method used to account for ongoing abduction scenarios. The anchor could immediately take control of a person, regress someone back to the false memory, which could then be further embellished and exploited. The anchor could be as simple as a key word, or even a snapping of the fingers as often done by
stage hypnotists.
The contestant was told to visit a photo booth
to take passport photos as part of his “treat”—an overseas holiday. When in the booth, lights flashed, music played and key words were repeated that re-induced the unconscious state. While unconscious the contestant was then removed and flown from England to a market in Marrakesh, Morocco, and placed back into the photo booth that had also been taken along. The time taken to do this was 14 hours. He was then awoken with more keywords. Hidden cameras recorded the man’s reaction. To him, one minute ago he was in a photo booth in England, and now he is in a completely different country place with no record of travelling there. His passport had even been stamped by the Moroccan immigration department. This was actually a form of abduction. Such real-life recorded events once again demonstrate the potential of hypnosis to explain practically every detail of the abduction phenomenon. The missing time aspect is the strongest clue that many of these experiences are being induced hypnotically.
In addition, physical responses can be suppressed while under hypnosis. I have seen patients undergoing open abdominal surgery painlessly while under hypnosis, and with no other form of anesthesia. This method was clinically used because of the patient’s adverse reaction to anesthetic. I have seen stage performers hypnotize participants into thinking the large onions they were holding were in fact the juiciest apples they had ever tasted. With eyes open, the victims ate the onions, devouring them as if they could not get enough, and at the same time telling the rest of the studio audience how nice the “apples” were. No tears, either. This could simply not be faked, and upon the word of the hypnotist, reality kicked in and they then had the normal reactions one would expect devouring large quantities of raw onion—eyes watering, spitting out the foul substance, including an impromptu vomit on stage. In the same show, anchors were used to put people into and out of a trance at will. It really happens!