For sleepingirl's PSYCHOSPIRITUAL Hypnokink/Spirituality Essay Jam
I probably walked past the shop in Central Square with CRYSTALS AND BOOKS in the window a hundred times, but this time I went in. Even though I was only looking for shiny objects for hypnotic fixations, I could already feel a divergence in my path, possibilities opening, a relief of not being that teen who proudly bought an issue of The Skeptical Inquirer with paper route money.
After looking at a few crystals and prisms, I had a thought and asked the owner, “Do you have any books on trance?” He immediately said, “Right over here!”
There were a lot of titles, and now ones that my eyes might have glazed right past, like Mind Games: The Guide to Inner Space, were super interesting to me. Something changed.
Thanks to my experiences with hypnosis, both hypnotizing and being hypnotized, I think that there is something inside everyone that can be labelled the spirit, and that it can be communicated with—just not with facts and logic. Hypnotists know how, but so do religions and new age practitioners.
It’s not very effective to tell someone just, “calm down”. But to help someone settle their breathing, guide their attention to a peaceful or fascinating sensory image, or let them give themselves over to a guiding force for awhile, that can touch the spirit profoundly. It’s hard to admit that, like everyone, my mind is a restless animal that must be approached the right way, and what I have called “rationality” is often just hypervigilance, neither representing who I “really” am nor the highest possible thing to aspire to. But hypnosis and BDSM have taught me that surrender and transcending the self are just as valid, and usually more powerful.
I think we’re most conscious of the spirit when something is out of whack, a set of deeply human concerns. How we feel about the future. How much the past weighs on us. Whether we feel aligned with our surroundings, including the community of people around us. How in control of our lives and minds we feel. Whether we feel a sense of growth and progression. How we deal with anger and various types of frustration. Whether we feel that we are a good person, and putting our energy into the right place. How we feel about the way the world is going. How much of the time we are free of distress. These are all what I would call spiritual matters.
Once I missed my flight at the Montreal airport and shared a meal at the airport hotel with two other stranded passengers, a middle aged native craftsman and an elderly catholic priest. They began discussing their respective spiritual practices, the native guy talking about how ritual work had helped him overcome addiction, and the priest discussing how he uses a brief ritual with daubing annointed oil on people at the hospital and rehab clinics he works at in Brockton. Another time I was contacted out of the blue on Fetlife by someone involved in shamanism in Boston, and we had a fascinating coffee talking about the differences and similarities between hypnosis and shamanic ritual. I can now easily see a function for every part of a rietual, starting from the in-depth work that the recipient does with the shaman to craft it.
For myself, until the age of 12 I went to a church in a lukewarm branch of christianity called Anglicanism. I left it behind without little to no hesitation, but in recent years, as khatsha and I have started attending Unitarian services at the church on the Boston commons once or twice a year, I notice how standing and sitting, speaking and singing together, and being aligned with other people in a beautiful solemn space can have a calming and regulating effect on the animal of my mind.
There’s so much to be learned, in both directions: from spirituality to hypnosis, and from hypnosis to spirituality.
I don’t seek to do therapy or healing with hypnosis—I’m really in it for the sexy times—but sometimes it happens anyway, and as the hypnotist I’ve seen profoundly spiritual experiences close up. They’re too private to share, but two experiences are so vivid in my memory, one in a cemetery and one in an art gallery, both of which led to my trance partner bursting into tears and feeling as if something had powerfully shifted. I’m also reminded of Enscenic and Ellie Copter’s Musical Hypnotic Journeys, guided by a playlist and group suggestions, where everyone I’ve talked to who did it has described going through revelations and emotional breakthroughs.
Finally, in my forties, I’m open and curious about all forms of spirituality, and though I’ve started reading—and greatly look forward to the results of sleepingirl’s hypnosis and spirituality jam—I’m aware that I’m barely a beginner. But the older I get the more important I think it is to be able to talk to the spirit: spiritual health is directly tied to every kind of health. I know that when I'm lonely, or hopeless, or freaking out about something, all my other problems seem worse, and may actually get worse. When I feel cared for, hopeful, calm, and connected to something bigger than me, it's the opposite.
