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Shipboard Hypnosis My own journey began when I was a lad of 15 years of age. As a deck boy on a tramp steamer trading around the Near and Far East, I was always on the lookout for books to read during the long weeks at sea. In a second-hand bookshop in Calcutta, I came across a book on hypnotism. Within a few weeks I was hypnotising my shipmates at the drop of a hat. We were on a "dry" ship - no alcohol allowed on board - so I began regular sessions wherein I would hypnotise ten or more people at one time, and tell them that they were in possession of several glasses of their liquor of choice. The "drunken" parties were hilarious, particularly as the skipper was convinced that I was running an illicit still, causing him to inaugurate several fruitless searches for the source of our morale booster.With the passage of time, the parties palled, and I looked for other uses for this strange art. At his own request, an Ordinary Seaman grew a fine mat of hair on his chest. An Able Seaman found that his eyesight improved to the point that he gave up wearing glasses. Midshipmen developed incredible memories that allowed them to sail through regular examinations. |
Pyramids and the Golden Dawn Being of an impressionable age, I was soon delving into all manner of odd belief systems. I wasted far too much time in areas of the occult before realising that it was a shallow power game that demanded all, but gave nothing of worth in return. Then came the, then, authorative figures in the field. Blavatsky, Ouspensky, Gurdjief, et al. In the early 1960's I returned to England to study at a school set up by J.G. Bennett at Surbiton.Strange and interesting things happened during my time there, but it was not what I was looking for. It seemed much concerned with man's place within the universe, whereas I was searching for man's place within himself. Also, it seemed to me, that the language and thought patterns of these people were redolent of Victorian thinking; that with the increase in understanding of the mechanics of the human mind, they were being left behind. There was no gainsaying that they did magnificent work, but newer knowledge needed a newer approach. |
Degree by decree So I took my degree in psychology, only to find that many of my tutors were hidebound relics of outdated theories, each school defending its boundaries with egoistic ferocity. One tutor went into an angry frenzy when I questioned him about the then latest developments in the Split Brain theory, even going so far as threatening to have me banished from the classes if I persisted. I later found that my hard-worked for degree was about as much use to me as the writings of Aleister Crowley. Then in the 1960's, coincidental with LSD and Marijuana becoming the drugs of choice on many campuses, the study and exploration of the relationship between the Brains, the Minds, and our physical bodies, blossomed like the desert after the rain. It was a time when hard facts competed with New Age fantasies of the "I am more aware than you" genre. Then came Watson and Crick, leading me into a greater understanding of Charles Darwin and what our evolution really means to us. So the Charisma Files are built upon of the works of explorers of the human condition, from Carl Jung to Mahatma Ghandi, from Buddha to Candice Pert, from Joseph Campbell to Carl Sagan.I doubt that any of the thinkers and writers who have added to my education will whole-heartedly agree with everything I say. Fair enough, it is a two-way street. I only ask you to approach the files with an open mind. If you use them, they will work for you. |
Their opinions and attitudes become outdated, referenced to that era, becoming out of step with times that sweep past them. A collection of mental programs that run in a closed loop. Virtual fossils in the layers of time. It is not easy to change oneself. To carry out that constant updating of one's mindset in the light of new knowledge. Our entire evolutionary history as a species, has drummed into us that change is a threat to our well-being. But like a parachute, the mind works best once it is opened. |
| Our habits, our conditioned responses, that allow us to function without the necessity of relearning all that we do on a day to day basis, are essential to our existence. Unfortunately, they are also our biggest stumbling blocks. This can be demonstrated quite easily if we each begin by examining one of our minor, physical habits. Many of these are so ingrained that they become invisible to us, although they are the main means by which others identify us. As so many of our physical habits require the use of our hands, so there is no better way to start than by watching our own hands as we go about routine tasks. In doing so, I noticed that, when serving up a meal, I invariably laid out the vegetables to the left of the plate and the meat or fish to the right. A minor habit, but a good place to start. I resolved that from then on I would reverse the procedure. Easier said than done. Find a similar, petty habit in your own routine and set out to alter it. |
| Make a note of the date on which you commence the trial. Now watch your progress. How many times do you revert to the old habit? How frustrating do you find the process when your hands automatically go into their established routine despite your intellectual decision to alter it? How long before the new habit has replaced the old? How often do you find that, when you thought you had it licked, the older habit re-emerged when you are in hurry or under some other form of stress? Try altering three or four similarly small habits all on a day to day basis. We are a vast collection of such small conditioned responses, many of them so deeply buried that they enact themselves without us having an inkling of conscious awareness of them. Habits require neither thought nor feeling. It is only when we are baulked in the enactment of a habit that we become, to a varying degree, emotional. |
| Habits are a threat to our well-being. When we are fully involved with life, we operate on the physical, mental and emotional levels in varying percentages of each. Habits are hardwired programs that require almost no emotional nor intellectual input. To all intents and purposes, our personality is taken over by robotic behaviour. The more that our lives are habituated, the greater the time that we spend in waking sleep. Our entire evolutionary history as a species, has drummed into us that change is a threat to our well-being. It is embodied in the saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."Would you fly with an airline that adopted that as its motto? Of course not. Common sense tells us that all machinery needs regular maintenance and overhaul; and we are the most complicated bio-electrical-organic machines in the known universe. |