de-conversion

My Fall From Grace (Jehovah’s Witnesses)

“Something’s not right.”

That was what I thought as I read about hypnosis on the Skeptic’s Dictionary (SD). Wasn’t hypnosis putting somebody under a spell, a trance? It might have appeared fun when I was quite young watching Paul McKenna, but since then it had been explained to me that hypnosis was wrong, an unholy use of power, and ultimately could open a window to demons.

But the SD explained what hypnosis was and what it wasn’t, and how it worked by purely natural explanations. It didn’t reference anything supernatural. It just explained in common sense terms what was going on. After reading a lot of convoluted far-fetched explanations of hypnosis and coming across offers of “Buy this book and you will be hypnotising someone to forget their own name in 5 minutes!”, this explanation was quite refreshing.

I was raised a Jehovah’s Witness (JW). The view of hypnosis as dangerous and wrong was just one of the things I was told. But, if the SD was correct, and it certainly presented a better explanation that literally putting someone into a trance, didn’t the organisation know this?! Couldn’t they have really done the research themselves?! Wasn’t it a bit close-minded to give their own explanation, when, surely they weren’t actually scientists themselves? It just smacked of propaganda to me…

Continue Reading August 23, 2007 at 2:07 pm evanescent 7 comments