Hypnotism hijacks our mind
God can sometimes place His people into a trance or hypnotic state in order to convey very specific and important instructions. Two examples are apostles Peter and Paul. They each went into a hypnotic state while they were praying and received life-changing messages from God. Hypnotism can re-wire our minds because it bypasses the analytical side of one’s brain where value judgements are made, and taps into one’s subconscious mind, which has no ability to judge or censor suggestions. In essence, hypnotism hijacks our minds, which is a part of our souls. We should never allow any person to hijack our soul, that is God’s domain.
(See Chinese versions: 简体中文 > 催眠术劫持了我们的思想 | 繁體中文 > 催眠術劫持了我們的思想)
Acts 10:9-11 ESV … Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray…. he fell into a trance and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth.
Acts 22:17-18,22 ESV “When I had returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance and saw him saying to me, ‘Make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about me.’ … And he said to me, ‘Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’”
Hypnosis is an ungodly spiritual practice that hijacks our minds
Early spiritual rituals and practices in Hindu vedas and magical texts from ancient Egypt depict people who were placed into hypnotic trances to communicate with the “gods” and spirits. American historian and philosopher, Will Durant, stated that hypnotism for healing seemed to only appear later with “the Hindus of ancient India, who often took their sick to the temples to be cured by hypnotic suggestion or “temple sleep,” a practice of staying at night at a temple for meditational self-observance and communication with the gods, called Nidra in India.” Hypnotism then began to be adopted by Western scientists around the 1770’s, when Franz Mesmer (1734–1815), a physician from Austria, started investigating an effect he called “animal magnetism” or “mesmerism”, according to the history of hypnosis in Wikipedia.
Today, anecdotal evidence suggests that hypnotherapy helps patients in suppressing their phobias, addictions and chronic pain. A cautionary note is that while studies have shown hypnotism to have an effect, scientists are unable to explain how it works.
On the other hand, shamans, spiritists and mediums who practice witchcraft through hypnotic trances will explain that it is the spirits they worship that control them when they block out their conscious minds. The dictionary defines a trance as a “temporary state in which a medium, with suspension of personal consciousness, is controlled by an intelligence from without and used as a means of communication, as from the dead.”
When we are hypnotised, our conscious minds are switched off and so is our ability to judge or censor anything. We effectively lose control and are neither alert nor sober-minded – and hence are unable to guard our minds against Satan who is free to hijack our motivations, memories, interests and thought processes.
1 Peter 5:8 NIV Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
Modern healthcare practitioners, including some professing Christians, can not deny the pagan origins of hypnotherapy’s psychic suggestions and mystical experiences, but yet still choose to use it because it seems to “work” and they want to “help” their patients. The Bible sends us clear warnings about this though. We are not to pick up any practices that are related to witchcraft or spiritualism because we become defiled when we turn to pagan practices. We “must no longer walk as the Gentiles do.
Deuteronomy 18:10 NIV Let no one be found among you who … practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft.
Ephesians 4:17 ESV Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.
People receive powerful suggestions in hypnotic trances
Research has proven that hypnotised subjects are very susceptible to implanted suggestions that they may be unaware of and that they will act on these suggestions subconsciously.
An example is posthypnotic amnesia (PHA), where a hypnotist suggests to a hypnotized person that he or she will forget particular things until he receives a “cancellation” from the hypnotist. Scientific American reports that “High hypnotizable people with PHA typically show impaired explicit memory, or difficulty consciously recalling events or material targeted by the suggestion, and a dissociation between implicit and explicit memory, so that even though they can’t recall the forgotten information it continues to influence their behavior, thoughts and actions. The forgetting is reversible—when the suggestion is cancelled, their memories come flooding back. These last two features—the dissociation and reversibility—confirm that PHA is not the result of poor encoding of the memories or of normal forgetting, because the memories return as soon as PHA is cancelled. Rather, PHA reflects a temporary inability to retrieve information that is safely stored in memory.”
According to the page on hypnosis in Wikipedia, hypnotic music “became an important part in the development of a ‘physiological psychology’ that regarded the hypnotic state as an ‘automatic’ phenomenon that links to physical reflex… It was clear that music can be a potential threat to oneself, in which it create susceptibility to external stimuli and therefore as a danger to self-control and the sanity of an individual.” Hypnosis can also result in memory hardening, which increases the confidence in false memories. There have been troubling accounts of people who underwent hypnotic music therapies by psychologists who recall false memories and became suicidal afterwards.
Cutting off the effects of ungodly hypnotic trances
1. Turn to Jesus completely and cut ungodly spiritual ties
If we have ever allowed ourselves to undergo any form of hypnotism, whether it was intentional or not, professional or amateur, we must repent before God and submit our subconscious minds fully to the Holy Spirit once again. It is also important to declare out loud that we cut all ungodly spiritual ties with the hypnotists, psychology clinics and new age philosophies.
Romans 8:2 ESV For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
2. Invite the Holy Spirit to restore us
We should invite the Holy Spirit to reveal what ungodly suggestions which we unknowingly accepted through hypnosis and ask Him to restore our minds to perfect peace and fullness in Jesus Christ.
Isaiah 26:3 ESV You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.
Over and over again, the Bible points to God’s Spirit as the source of our mental health, wisdom and healing. The Holy Spirit:
- Sets our oppressed minds free | Luke 4:18 ESV
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
- Counsels us | Isaiah 11:2 ESV And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
- Helps us understand things | Job 32:8 ESV But it is the spirit in man, the breath of the Almighty, that makes him understand.
- Guides us to God’s truths | John 16:13 ESV When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
- Teaches us what to do | John 14:26 ESV But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
- Gives us peace of mind and self control | Galatians 5:22-23 ESV But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
3. Renounce any foothold to Satan
Next, we must revoke any footholds we had unknowingly given Satan through hynoptic trances in Jesus’ name.
Ephesians 4:27 NIV and do not give the devil a foothold.
4. Learn to submit to God in all circumstances
People subject themselves to hypnotherapy with the hope to deal with all sorts of ailments and addictions; from depression, anxiety, sleep disorders and post traumatic stress to compulsive behaviours, addictions and pain. Yet these are the very things that Jesus has come to set us free from through the Holy Spirit. When we truly step into our identity as God’s children, it won’t be impossible to continue as slaves to such spiritual strongholds.
Galatians 4:6-7 ESV And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
Moving forward, we need to learn to submit ourselves to our Father in heaven in all situations through “prayer and supplication with thanksgiving”, and let Him take charge of whatever difficulties or sufferings we may be going through. Let us consciously train our minds to seek God’s will and fix our thoughts on things of God.
Philippians 4:6-7 ESV do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Colossians 3:2 ESV Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
5. Praise God for His mercy and grace
Remember to keep praising God. Once Jesus sets us free, we are free indeed!
John 8:35-36 ESV The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
Testimony: Healing from anxiety and spiritual blocks by receiving baptism by the Holy Spirit
“For the past ten years, I had always struggled with anxiety and fear.
Sometimes, it would be so serious I would have panic attacks. I also couldn’t sleep well at night and relied on sleeping pills. Instead of looking to God to cure my problems, I always went to people. I saw different types of doctors, including psychiatrists, psychologists, a kinseologist and many different Chinese doctors. I also went through different types of new age healing including mindfulness training and hypnotism.
But no matter who I consulted, no one could help me.
My friends always suggested I should go to church with them, but something in me would tell me if I truly believed in God, why do I need to go to church? After all, it’s about the relationship between me and God. And every time when I did go, I would find myself falling asleep. I also couldn’t concentrate on reading the Bible.
But after I got baptised by the Holy Spirit, things began to change significantly.
I slept every single night and it was also deep sleep as well. I also had the urge to always listen to worship music and read the Bible. It was my source of comfort.”
May this sharing be a blessing to you as you seek to love God with all your heart and repent and turn from hypnotism.