Why Hypnosis Is NOT Government Mind Control

Have you ever heard of project MKUltra? The chances are that you have but don't recognize the name. You have only heard that the government conducted secret experiments on people in order to learn how to control them and the masses. You may have heard that people developed a sixth sense in the process and that the government trained soldiers to use this sense to spy on the Soviets.

MKUltra was officially started in 1953 by order of CIA Director Allen Dulles and was created to develop techniques for manipulating mental states and brain function. It often used subjects without their consent and continued until 1973. Research included various drugs, sensory deprivation, and hypnosis.

In truth, the government did gain valuable information from these experiments. They learned that certain techniques, although inconsistent, could induce amnesia, alter perception, and heighten suggestibility. They further learned that chemical and psychological manipulation was too unstable for predicting behavior.

So why don't you see rotating black and white spiral wheels playing on your television screen?

Hypnosis utterly failed to produce the results the government was looking for. There were no zombies for the taking, and there was no "perfect truth serum." They learned that the best form for mind control is disinformation (false information spread with the intent to deceive) and propaganda (the deliberate dissemination of information—often biased, misleading, or emotional—to influence, shape, or promote an agenda). For decades the news and government have been using media, slogans, and selective facts to manipulate viewpoints.

But hypnosis is not a mind control tool. Hypnosis is free-willed. Despite decades of urban legends and Cold War-era conspiracy theories, hypnosis is a psychological state that is voluntary, not an induced weapon for government control. If the government were to simply try to hypnotize you without your consent, it wouldn't work. A certain rapport and cooperation has to exist for hypnosis to work. A hypnotist cannot make you enter a trance when you are resistant or suspicious.

One of the biggest myths in hypnosis is that you are a passive puppy. The truth is it doesn't take away your motor control. Your brain's executive function, that part of you that deals with motor control, doesn't shut off; it just shifts focus. MKUltra found that they couldn't reliably program a human being to carry out complex, involuntary tasks even with confusion or memory gaps. In hypnosis, you can carry out complex and only voluntary tasks, such as walking, talking, eating, lifting huge cars, and also freezing in place, even with confusion or memory gaps. Speaking of being frozen in place, have you ever seen a hypnotist throw a hundred dollar bill on the floor and ask a person to pick it up, only they couldn't? Did you wonder what was keeping them glued to the floor? While hypnotists like to play with beliefs, hypnotherapists work to unblock them.

On stage, there is a certain type the hypnotist likes to work with. These are the ones who, you could say, are extremely focused. So focused that in a snap of a finger, a belief can be changed instantly. Others can take longer to work with. Hypnotherapists work with all types. My level one course goes deeper into this, so you can know what to expect. You can also book a session, where I do assessments to have a better idea of how to work with you.

You are safe with trained professionals on stage and off stage. If a hypnotist or hypnotherapist were to ask you to do something dangerous or against your will, you would snap out of it because your moral compass stays intact and because you can hear everything being said. Even during deep states of trance people hear everything. Some may feel detached and feel as if they are in two places at once. Others may lose track of time and recall very little of what was said, similar to forgetting a dream. But even in stage hypnosis, a person has to hear in order to respond.

Stage hypnosis often plays into the "mind control" narrative. It uses theatrical tricks and voluntary participants who WANT to be silly, or... they snap out of it. Clinical hypnotherapy is a focused, ethical, and safe treatment used to help with issues like weight loss, anxiety, and smoking cessation. It helps you reach your goals with less resistance and greater ease. It gives you greater control. Anything less and you'd reject it.

If you feel comfortable with hypnosis and want to learn how it can help you with a specific problem, then the only thing missing now is your next step. You can book a consultation or choose to learn more and sign up for my level one course, where you discover the crossroads between reality and imagination, where reality claims that you are not broken, merely layered in conditioning, and where your imagination can take you to new heights.