35. The Crime Of Hypnotism
Strange! Twenty years ago, people were still raging against the claim that hypnosis really exists, with many medical practitioners leading the way. They did not shy away from labelling hypnosis as humbug and a hoax, just as they had done shortly before with healing by magnetism, which today has become a great blessing for so many. Practitioners were attacked in the harshest terms, called tricksters and swindlers.
Today, it is the medical profession that has largely adopted hypnosis. What was denied in the strongest terms just twenty years ago is now being advocated by doctors.
This can be judged from two sides. Anyone who took a completely objective view of the bitter battle at that time can of course not help smiling today when he has to observe how the hostile zealots of that time are now trying to use hypnosis, which they disdained so much, with even greater zeal. On the other side, it must be acknowledged that such an almost grotesque turn of events deserves respect. It takes a certain amount of courage to expose oneself to the danger of ridicule, which is very obvious in this case. One must recognize in it the seriousness that really wants to benefit humanity and for this reason does not shy away from accepting such danger.
It is only regrettable that lessons have not been learnt from this for the future and that people have not been more careful with their judgements and - let's just say it - hostility when it comes to things that belong in the same field as hypnosis. Unfortunately, despite all experience, many other subjects in the same field are being treated in exactly the same way today, almost worse. Nevertheless, the same spectacle will have to be repeated in the end, that without any transition, something is suddenly advocated with zeal that so far has been so stubbornly denied up to now. Even more so that one tries to get so much into one's own hands by all means possible, the search for and finding of which was first carefully left to others, mostly so-called “laymen”, under constant hostility. Whether this can still be described as a merit and a courageous act remains to be seen. On the contrary, it is much more likely that these eternal repetitions can also put the acts already mentioned as merits in a different light. So much for the result of a superficial judgement.
But it becomes much more worrying when the effects of the use of hypnosis are properly recognized. It is good that the existence of hypnosis has finally been recognized and confirmed and that the verbose attacks of science, which based on current experience only betray ignorance, have thus ceased. But the fact that its use has become so widespread under the supportive protection of the former opponents who have suddenly become those with knowledge, shows that these knowledgeable people are much further removed from actual understanding than the much maligned laymen who were initially searching.
It is shocking to realize the harm that is caused by the fact that today thousands of people trustingly place themselves in so-called professional hands to undergo hypnosis voluntarily, are persuaded to do so or, most reprehensibly, are subjected to it without their knowledge. Even if it is all done with the best of intentions to do good, this does not change the fact that this practice causes immeasurable harm in every case! It is not those who called to do so that use hypnosis. Only someone who is fully versed in the field to which everything he applies belongs can be called. In the case of hypnosis, that would be the Ethereal World! And anyone who really knows this, without merely presumptuously imagining it, will never use hypnosis as long as he wants the best for his neighbour. Unless, that is, he intends to do him serious harm with full knowledge. Therefore, sin is committed on all sides wherever hypnosis is used, regardless of whether they are laymen or not! There is not a single exception!
Even if one tries to think logically in all simplicity, one must come to the conclusion that it is in reality gross recklessness to work with something, the consequences of which can only be grasped in the very narrowest stages and whose final effects are not yet known. The fact that such recklessness in matters concerning the welfare and well-being of fellow human beings not only causes harm to the person concerned but also brings a double burden of responsibility, for the practitioner does not provide any reassurance. People should not be so trusting of something they are not thoroughly familiar with. If it is done without their knowledge and will, such an action is a downright crime anyway, even if it is carried out by so-called appointed hands.
Since it cannot be assumed that those working with hypnosis all have the intention of harming their fellow human beings, the only thing that remains to be established is that they are completely ignorant of the nature of hypnosis and have a complete lack of understanding of the consequences of their own activity. There is not the slightest doubt about this; for either the one or the other can only come into consideration. Therefore, the lack of understanding is the only thing that exists.
When a person uses hypnosis on a fellow human being, he binds his spirit to himself! This binding in itself is a spiritual offence or crime. This does not excuse the use of hypnosis to cure a physical illness or as a means of improving the soul. Nor can it be put forward as a defence that if thereby psychic changes for the better come about, the will of the person concerned has also improved, so that the person treated with hypnosis has benefited by it. To live and act in such a belief is self-deception; for only what a spirit does out of completely free and uninfluenced volition can bring him the gain he needs for a real ascent. Everything else is outward appearances that can only bring it a temporary benefit or harm. Every binding of the spirit, no matter for what purpose it is done, remains an absolute hinderance to the possibility of necessary progress. Quite apart from the fact that such a binding brings with it far more dangers than advantages. A spirit that is bound in this way is not only open to influence by the hypnotist, but also remains defenceless to a certain extent to other ethereal influences despite any prohibition by the hypnotist, since in its bondage it lacks the necessary protection against them, which only complete freedom of movement can offer. The fact that people are unaware of these constant struggles, the attacks and their own successful or unsuccessful defences does not exclude their animation in the ethereal world and their own involvement in it.
Anyone who has been subjected to effective hypnosis has therefore been inhibited in their deeper spiritual core to a greater or lesser extent in their real progress. The external circumstances, whether they have only become even less favourable as a result, or seem to have been temporarily beneficial, only play a secondary role at best and should therefore not be decisive for an assessment. The spirit must remain free in any case, because in the end it is the only thing that matters!
Assuming that there is an outwardly recognizable improvement, which is what those practising hypnotism like to rely on, the person concerned does not actually benefit from it. His bound spirit cannot work in the same way in the Ethereal World as a completely free spirit. The ethereal forms produced by his bound or constrained volition are powerless, because they are only formed second-hand, and wither very soon in the Ethereal World. Therefore, even if his volition has improved reciprocally, it cannot bring him the benefit that can be expected in the formations of the free spirit. It is the same, of course, when a bound spirit wills and carries out evil on behalf of its hypnotist. Because of the powerlessness of the ethereal forms, these will soon pass away or be absorbed by others of the same nature, despite evil gross material actions, so that an ethereal-reciprocal action cannot occur at all, as a result of which the person therefore compelled can certainly be held earthly responsible, but not spiritually responsible. The process is exactly the same with the insane. In this, again, one sees the Creator's Perfect Justice, which is carried out in the Ethereal World through the Living Laws that are unalterable in their perfection. One who is therefore compelled in this way cannot, in spite of his evil actions, incur guilt through another person’s will, nor can he receive any blessing, because his best actions are done by a foreign will, in which he, as an independent “ego”, has no part.
But something else happens instead: the forcible binding of the spirit through hypnosis simultaneously binds the hypnotist to his victim, as if with strong chains. It will not release him again until he has helped the person forcibly restrained in his own free evolution to progress as far as he would have had to if he had not carried out the binding. After his earthly departure he must go where the spirit bound by him goes, even to the deepest depths. It is therefore easy to imagine what happens to people who are much concerned with the use of hypnosis. When they awaken after their earthly departure, they will be horrified to discover how many chains are pulling at them, from those who have already passed away as well as from those who still walk the earth. Not one of them can be released from them. Link by link he must sever them, even if it takes him thousands of years. It is probable, however, that he will not be able to come to the end of it completely, but will be drawn into the disintegration that destroys the personality of his own “ego; for he has sinned grievously against the spirit!
