Let’s examine human development again from a slightly different angle. Let’s put it like this. All the damage or good is done between the ages of conception and four years old. That’s right! Not birth, but conception through four years old. You see, by the age of four, children hear enough repetitious labeling as to who they are and what they’re worth from the parents’ point of view to totally saturate their subconscious mind with a “parent-painted” image of self. At this point the self-image has officially been formed. If worth was mostly installed in these key years, then the critical faculty will form to protect that feeling of worth. From there out, good things are compounded and negativity is rejected. Even if a person experiences hard times, he will be one of those people who rise to the occasion and turn things around. If worthlessness is installed first, then the critical faculty will form to protect the feelings of worthlessness. This person becomes a magnet for disaster. And even when goodness comes his way, the goodness often finds a way to quickly go sour. The critical faculty is just as happy when protecting feelings of worthlessness and rejecting anything positive.
So as we grow, the critical faculty develops in bits and splotches behind each new perception gained. By the age of four, the developing pieces of critical thought form a somewhat solid band around all perceptions of self. And by the age of 12, we’ve heard something on just about everything. That’s when we know more than just about anyone else. For the most part, though, we’re smarter than Mom and Dad.
At this point the critical faculty forms a complete shell around the subconscious, and we are willing to defy anything to prove our knowingness. There’s a problem, though. That knowingness is derived from perceptions that are often out of line with truth. From here kids pretty much crash themselves headlong into the rocks, willing to defy every stated universal law if it conflicts with the shortcuts and leniencies they, and we ourselves as teens, hope to scam from life. We have a name for this time where we lack respect for the law of cause and effect: youth.
We now find ourselves on the other side of the generation gap, sounding like our parents. Hopefully, at some time we learned that those early perceptions we were banking on as real truth are no such thing. Now we want those old perceptions out in exchange for a new set. This has come to be known as habit change.
Ah, but habit change is tough. The critical faculty stops the newfound conscious desire for change and compares it to the inner perceptions. Of course they aren’t in harmony! The intent of change guarantees that there will be a difference between the new and the old. Because of that lack of harmony, the critical faculty turns into a mirror and rejects the new perception. This happens even though a person consciously wants the change! So let’s look at the model again and see how reason, will, logic and the critical faculty line up and interact.
People will consciously decide that they have a program running inside of them that they don’t like. Usually we will start by getting smart on the subject. We quickly find out that knowledge alone doesn’t get change. For instance, the smoker learns about all the toxins and poisons in the cigarette smoke, but still smokes. The overeater learns the nutritional content of food and how it should be arranged into a healthy diet, but still overeats. Next we’re taught to muster will. The smoker says, “I’ve got to stop smoking. These things are killing me.” Well, that thought is generated through will. Look where will is. It’s outside the critical faculty. Though the thought is generated, it’s stopped by the critical faculty. The thought to stop smoking is compared to all the inner perceptions held on the subject, and a voice from the inside says something like, “Hey, all I know is that when you take a drag on that cigarette, life gets a little closer to okay. Don’t even think about stopping smoking ... In fact, you’re making me nervous. Light one up!” Smokers will tell you. They want a cigarette worse than ever the minute they decide to quit. In the same way, overeaters will tell you they crave food the worst the moment that they decide to go on a diet. The diet is a direct threat to the subconscious mind’s source of secure feelings. This is why talk therapy seems ridiculous to a good hypnotist. When we extend the line of the critical faculty, we see that reason, will and logic are outside the line. Before a client ever walks into my office, that client already knows consciously, rationally and analytically what it is he or she is feeling that is unpleasant. Clients know what feelings they would like to be feeling. And they have already worked their hearts out trying to bring about the change before coming to me. Why in the world would I try to resell the part of the mind that lies outside the critical faculty? That part already agrees. Until there is some kind of bypass of the critical faculty, there will be no internal change. Despite all the efforts of the illness managers and talk therapists, people will remain sick no matter how their symptoms are treated, as long as a calling for self-mutilation exists in the subconscious mind of the patient.
This will become incredibly evident as we continue.
6: DID I HEAR YOU SAY HYPNOSIS?
When we have a bypass of the critical faculty amazing things happen.
The mind model that we are using was organized and best explained by Jerry Kein. Jerry studied, among the works of many others, the techniques of Dave Elman. Dave Elman was a hypnotist. Jerry is a hypnotist. My healing work started as pure hypnotism. So that’s where we’ll start. First, let’s clear something up about labels. I don’t like labels. I do like removing labels, though, and getting to what’s real. This hypnotism thing is a label that I’m familiar with. So let’s talk about it--a little now, a lot later. Many things fall under the umbrella of hypnosis. Many things should, but don’t ever get labeled hypnosis. We are going to use the most accurate definition of hypnosis to be found. It is born out of Dave Elman’s insights and Jerry’s mind model. Hypnosis is the bypass of the critical faculty of the conscious mind, and the establishment of selective thinking. Again, here’s the model. This time we see the bypass of the critical faculty...
When the critical faculty is willing to sit off to the side, uninvolved with the flow of data into the subconscious goal-achieving mind, we have hypnosis. When the critical faculty is stopping and judging incoming suggestions, we don’t. When we have bypass of the critical faculty amazing things happen.
Let’s look into the world of the stage-show hypnotists and see how the mind works for them. To answer your first question, Yes, it’s real! We’ll discuss the details of how the stage-show hypnotist gets people into the state where those wild things happen later on. For now we’ll just start at the point where bypass of the critical factor has been attained. Once a straight path has been gained to the subconscious mind, the stage-show hypnotist might give the suggestion that the person is about to be given a ripe, delicious apple, and they’re free to eat away. The audience next sees the hypnotist hand the person a peeled yellow onion. The audience watches in horror as the subject crunches away with a big smile, totally believing the onion’s a tasty apple. It’s stunning to watch and hard to believe, but real. Once that suggestion got to the subconscious, goal-achieving mind, the most powerful agency known to man accepted it as fact and made it real.
After ten years working with this stuff, it still blows me away when I see these types of things happen right before my eyes! Is there anything socially redeeming to the old “onion’s an apple” gig? I don’t think so. But look at what the stage-show hypnotist has been able to get the mind to do. Using the onion-to-apple example, how long would it take a psychologist to logic a person into that kind of a belief system