FT: America must manage its decline

Published as a column on www.ft.com on October 17, 2011 at 8:35 pm

By Gideon Rachman

Original source link here.

Recently I met a retired British diplomat who claimed with some pride that he was the man who had invented the phrase, “the management of decline”, to describe the central task of British foreign policy after 1945. “I got criticised,” he said, “but I think it was an accurate description of our task and I think we did it pretty well.”

No modern American diplomat – let alone politician – could ever risk making a similar statement. That is a shame. If America were able openly to acknowledge that its global power is in decline, it would be much easier to have a rational debate about what to do about it. Denial is not a strategy.

President Barack Obama has said that his goal is to ensure that America remains number one. Even so, he has been excoriated by his opponents for “declinism”. Charles Krauthammer, a conservative columnist, has accused the president of embracing American weakness: “Decline is not a condition,” he declared. “Decline is a choice.” The stern rejection of “declinism” is not confined to the rabid right. Joseph Nye, a Harvard professor and doyen of US foreign policy analysts, regards talk of American decline as an intellectual fad – comparable to earlier paranoia about the US being overtaken by Japan. Thomas Friedman, a New York Times columnist, has just published a book that is subtitled, “What went wrong with America – and how it can come back”.

What is not permissible, in mainstream debate, is to suggest that there may be no “coming back” – and that the decline of American power is neither a fad nor a choice but a fact.

Admittedly, America’s relative decline is likely to be much less abrupt than the falling-off experienced by Britain after 1945. The US is still the world’s largest economy and is easily its pre-eminent military and diplomatic power. However, the moment at which China becomes the world’s largest economy is coming into view – the end of the decade seems a likely passing point. Of course, it is true that China has its own grave political and economic problems. Yet the fact that there are roughly four times as many Chinese as Americans means that – even allowing for a sharp slowdown in Chinese growth – at some point, China will become “number one”.

Even after the US has ceded its economic dominance, America’s military, diplomatic, cultural and technological prowess will ensure that the US remains the world’s dominant political power – for a while. But although economic and political power are not the same thing, they are surely closely related. As China and other powers rise economically, they will inevitably constrain America’s ability to get its way in the world.

That is why America needs to have a rational debate about what “relative decline” means – and why the British experience, although very different, may still hold some valuable lessons.

What the UK discovered after 1945 is that a decline in national power is perfectly compatible with an improvement in living standards for ordinary people, and with the maintenance of national security. Decline need not mean the end of peace and prosperity. But it does mean making choices and forging alliances. In an era of massive budget deficits, and rising Chinese power, the US will have to think harder about its priorities. Last week, Hillary Clinton insisted that America will remain a major power in Asia – with all the military expenditure that this implies. Very well. But what does that mean for spending at home? Few politicians are prepared to have that discussion. Instead, particularly among Republicans, they fall back on feel-good slogans about American “greatness”.

Those who refuse to entertain any discussion of decline actually risk accelerating the process. A realistic acknowledgement that America’s position in the world is under threat should be a spur to determined action on everything from educational reform to the budget deficit. The endless politicking in Washington reflects a certain complacency – a belief that America’s position as number one is so impregnable that it can afford self-indulgent episodes such as the summer’s near-debt default.

The failure to have a proper discussion of relative decline also risks leaving American public opinion unprepared for a new era. As a result, the public reaction to setbacks at home and abroad is less likely to be calm and determined and more likely to be angry and irrational – feeding what the historian Richard Hofstadter famously called “the paranoid style in American politics”.

For the fact is that management of decline is as much to do with psychology, as to do with politics and economics. In 1945, the British task was made much easier by the afterglow of victory in the second world war. Britain’s adjustment was also helped by the fact that the new global hegemon was the US – a country tied to Britain by language, blood and shared political ideas. It will be tougher for America to cede power to China – although the transition will also be much less stark than the one faced by Britain.

These days the British have learnt almost to revel in failure. They buy volumes with titles like the “Book of Heroic Failures” in large numbers. It is quite common for the supporters of a losing English soccer team to chant, “We’re shit and we know we are.” This is not a habit I can see catching on in the US. When it comes to managing decline, self-abasement is optional.

Internet Reformation

By The Daily Bell
Retrieved 9 October 2011

The Internet Reformation is the culmination of the power and glory of Western civil society and free-market thinking. It is the apogee of all that is best in a sweep of history that began with the ancient Greeks and has culminated in the hearts and minds of millions of young men and women who industriously add to its impact every day via additional code, non-mainstream news or fundamental scientific commentary.

It is NOT an "Internet Revolution." The Internet Revolution is a standard "pat" phrase of the powers-that-be about the so-called empowering effects of technology. The Internet Reformation is a much more deeply disruptive concept. It is truly a revolutionary one, affecting every aspect of human society and human relationships with modern elites. It is focused around the insights generated by the Internet itself.

This concept is based on what happened during the era of the Gutenberg press. Almost from the beginning, the Gutenberg press was a revolutionary technology. As soon as people used the press to print Bibles, readers began to discover that the Holy Word differed considerably from what they'd been taught by the Catholic Church.

Until then, Bibles had been fairly rare. They were printed in Latin or Greek, and copied down by hand with elaborate engravings. The Catholic Church and its important functionaries and bureaucrats possessed Bibles. Priests performed Mass with their back to the congregation. The ceremony was a highly Romanized one, as the West had come to conceive of Rome within its most corrupt and centralizing phase, and highly controlled.

But printing Bibles in moveable type changed the power relationship entirely. Now, anyone could own a Bible and they were easily reproduced and increasingly inexpensive. Almost immediately, then Bibles began to be translated into "vulgate" and eventually the King James Version (English) would become a dominant variant. But in the meantime, the damage was done. First came the Renaissance and then the Reformation and finally the Age of Enlightenment, three powerful rolling waves of free-thinking that transformed the face of human society, first in the West and then around the world.

The changes ushered in by the Gutenberg press were fundamental. The Renaissance began the reconfiguration by allowing for the rediscovery of the scientific orientation of Greece and Rome. This set in motion a series of events that has not yet ceased to reverberate.

The fundamental motivating force of the Renaissance was to emphasize natural observation, and this can be seen in the obsession with great artists such as Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci who returned to the original source of knowledge whenever possible. This led both artists to dissect corpses rather than to rely on the standard anatomy books of the day, such as they were. Da Vinci's great scientific speculations were based on first-hand observation not sterile theory argued in debating halls.

The Reformation launched a second wave of attacks on the West's business as usual. But it actually involved the same animation. The Gutenberg press allowed readers to examine source material by making the sources available. This was the revolutionary act. The Renaissance emphasized conclusions derived from that fundamental inspiration. The Reformation in its way emphasized sources too. It sought, in its most radical incarnations, to strip out the interpretative layer of Church doctrine by emphasizing the Word of the Bible itself.

Martin Luther began this process in 1517 by publishing his Ninety-Five Theses attacking much of the ecclesiastical structure of Catholic Church. Interestingly, the Reformation's initial phase is seen as ending in 1648 with the Treaty of Westphalia that put a stop to the religious wars by emphasizing the primacy of the nation state. The Treaty of Westphalia was overturned by the Security Council of the United Nations in 2005, when that body adopted R2P, which mandates that the "West" in aggregate interfere with a nation's sovereignty to "protect" citizens. The powers-that-be have therefore launched a counterattack on national sovereignty even as the Internet Reformation begins to gather power and undermines business as usual.

The Reformation was also known as the Protestant Reformation because despite its formal end-date of 1648, its ripples continue to spread and ultimately gave rise to the establishment of the New World, and the American and French Revolutions. Each wave of the so-called Protestant Revolt further deconstructed the formalized church and suggested doctrine that brought man closer in touch with God.

This process eventually led to the most radical sects such as the Quakers and "Shakers" that did away with Church trappings entirely and simply allowed the individual worshipper to communicate with God as he or she saw fit. The Quakers sometimes used to shed their clothes and worship nakedly in a penultimate effort to remove barriers to the spiritual conversation.

All across the world, the modern Internet Reformation is beginning to reshape the way people relate to power in the modern age. While it is not so obvious as during the era of the Gutenberg press, there is formal doctrine accepted by Western societies that is beginning to shatter. That formal doctrine may be termed regulatory democracy and it has been leavened with numerous assumptions that on closer inspection turn out not to be true. It is the Internet itself that allows for information to spread that undermines the various precepts of regulatory democracy.

Every social order needs a formal elite to organize and animate it. In the high Middle Ages, the hierarchy consisted of the Catholic Church leaders along with Royal families throughout Europe, as well as powerful merchants and bankers. In the modern era, the hierarchy is much less obvious and consists, from available evidence of the great banking, modern banking families led by the Rothschilds based in the City of London along with attendant Zionist influences and abetted by corporate interests and the so-called Dark Nobility and Dark Church.

It is this hierarchy that promulgates regulatory democracy and its various dominant social themes – the fear-based promotions that the Western power elite uses to control the conversation and to further centralize power and authority worldwide. Just as the Catholic church leaders dreamed of one Pax Romana around the world, so does today's power elite dream of one world order driven by regulatory democracy.

The fear-based themes are many and include many scarcity memes among them. The world is commonly held to be running out of food, water, oil and energy. It is in imminent danger of plagues, unusual weather and asteroid strikes. In these and many other instances, the solutions that are heralded are focused directly on additional governmental agencies, preferably global ones. An entire global infrastructure is gradually being erected that includes an international court, a global legislature (UN), a global military (NATO) and various international agencies to adjudicate trade disputes and the like.

At the center of the new global order is central bank itself, printing money-from-nothing, perpetually devastating the economies of nation states through monetary (and price inflation) and through its ruin, creating the necessity for a global currency and a single global central bank, presumably the IMF. Within this latter meme, gold and silver are held to be barbaric elements, not needed anymore in a fiat money world.

In fact, what the Internet is increasingly showing us is a way to return to basic freedoms. The Internet in its various incarnations has already distributed information showing many of the precepts of regulatory democracy to be false. There is likely plenty of oil and gas around the world and it may be abiotic and reoccurring as well; its availability has simply been manipulated by the powers that be. Alternative sources of energy have likely been suppressed, but over the next decades may become available. Global warming has been shown to be another elite promotion and does not exist as popularly promulgated. Food and water, also supposedly in short supply, are being manipulated by the power elite within its highly controlled global markets. The War on Terror that the elites have begun is an evident and obvious falsity and the Internet reveals this in various ways every day.

Like the radical information that spawned from the Gutenberg press, the impact of the information available to counteract elite modern memes is not immediately visible but over time has a devastating effect. Human beings do have a kind of Hive Mind (via intimate communications between families and friends and various cultural exchanges) and once additional information is made available, that Mind incorporates it.

There are downsides. The power elite profits from the centralizing effects of technology. Spymasters and dictators profit from aspects of technology as they always have. And yet the positive elements are likely unstoppable as well. There is little possibility at this point of the Internet being shut down as simplistic formulations might have it. Instead, as with the Reformation itself, the Internet Reformation will continue to advance, undermining the memes of the powers-that-be and even creating, perhaps, a critical mass of decentralizing influences.

It is decentralization that the modern power elite fears most because decentralized spheres of influence are impossible to control. Unfortunately the Renaissance and Reformation were all about the decentralization of control built on the availability of real knowledge and a return to primary sources that undermined the "experts" of church and state.

The same process is occurring today. It may not be that any one Martin Luther emerges to create a formal Reformation but the larger evolution continues. (There is apparently some evidence that Luther himself was sponsored by a Venetian banking faction of the day to split the power of the church.) Essentially, however the power of the information being unleashed is what will carry the day in numerous manifestations. It is impossible for power elite memes to stand against the availability of information now presented online. It is beyond control, beyond collecting, beyond dampening.

Tomorrow's knowledge base may look much different than todays – and in fundamental ways. Ironically, the 20th century so celebrated by the centralizers must at least to some degree give way to a decentralized Renaissance in the 21st. Yes, the powers-that-be will fight back as they already are via wars and social chaos, just as the Catholic Church responded with its Counter-Reformation; but eventually they may be forced to take a step back as they have before.

Ironically, the proverbial dye was likely cast when America's DARPA dark-technologists invented the Internet but did not foresee, apparently, the evolution of the personal computer that would utilize it to allow average individuals to gain access to all the knowledge of the world. This may stand as one of the great miscalculations of the modern elite. It helped create a second wave of modern information technology that has already begun to undo a myriad of world-centralizing plans.

A new city (predicted in ancient Indian prophecies) has been discovered underwater off the coast of India – though the news has been much suppressed. Humankind is thousands of years older than the Western powers-that-be maintain. The current apogee of human achievement may not be the current one and certainly not the best-of-all-possible worlds. As the underlying certainties crumble, so do the building blocks of the modern elite themes – and the certainty of ongoing centralization.

In fact, the European Union is failing, various serial wars of conquest are not going well, the fear-based memes of the elite are continually being debunked by an Internet that adds more to humankind's real knowledge base every day. It will take decades if not centuries to control the damage that has already been done (from an elite standpoint), and what has been done cannot be undone.

There is a new Reformation taking place throughout the world, led by electronic communication technology. It is not being commented on by the nightly news, nor written about in the mainstream medial. But if you understand the trends and look closely, you can see it playing out every day in every part of human culture. It is already convulsing the world. Out of these labor pains a new and freer society is being born.

A new enlightenment is taking place – a fundamental reforming of societies' knowledge base. It is far more important and fundamental than a "technology revolution." It is rewriting the basic relationship that human beings have with their knowledge base and with its impact on their lives. The centralizing architecture erected by the Anglo-American elites is even now being undermined. The darkness is lifting as it lifted long ago during the Renaissance. An Internet Reformation is coming. It will have numerous unpredictable ramifications. In fact, its dawn is already here.

NDW: A Dream Of Your Own Creation

I stole the following article authored by Neale Donald Walsch from a blog post by Christopher OV that he put up on October 15, 2009 at 10:51am here.



A Dream Of Your Own Creation 
By Neale Donald Walsch

You are living in a dream of your own creation. Let it be the dream of a lifetime, for that is exactly what it is.

Dream of a world in which the God and Goddess in you is never denied, and in which you never again deny the God and the Goddess in another. Let your greeting, both now and forevermore, be Namastè.

Dream of a world in which love is the answer to every question, the solution to every problem, the response to every situation, the experience in every moment.

Dream of a world in which Life, and that which supports Life, is the highest value, receives the highest honor, and has its highest expression.

Dream of a world in which freedom becomes the highest expression of life, in which no one who claims to love another seeks to restrict another, and in which all are allowed to express the glory of their being in measure full and true.

Dream of a world in which equal opportunity is granted to all, and equal resources are available to all, and equal dignity is accorded to all, so that all may experience equally the unequalled wonder of Life.

Dream of a world in which judgment is never again visited by one upon another, in which conditions are never again laid down before love is offered, and in which fear is never again seen as a means of respect.

Dream of a world in which differences do not produce divisions, individual expression does not produce separation, and the greatness of The Whole is reflected in the greatness of Its parts.

Dream of a world in which there is always enough, in which the simple gift of sharing leads to that awareness-and creates it, and in which every action supports it.

Dream of a world in which suffering is never again ignored, in which intolerance is never again expressed, and in which hatred is never again experienced by anyone.

Dream of a world in which ego is relinquished, in which superiority is abolished, and in which ignorance is eliminated from everyone's reality, reduced to the Illusion that it is.

Dream of a world in which mistakes lead not to shame, regrets lead not to guilt, and judgment leads not to condemnation.

Dream of these things, and more.

Do you choose them?

Then dream them into being.

With the might of your dreams end the nightmare of your imagined reality.

You can choose this.

Or, you can choose The Illusion.

I have said to you before, through the words of poets and leaders and philosophers: There are those who see things as they are, and say, "Why?" And there are those who dream of things that never were and say, "Why not?"

What do you say?

Michael Newton's Life-Between-Lives hypno-therapy

Based on the descriptions of Life Between Lives from various clients, Michael Newton has compiled a collection of ideas to explain the reoccurring phenomena of The Spirit World and The Soul. This is essential reading for the study of Michael Newton’s Life Between Life therapy.

Source

The Spirit World

Our physical universe appears to coexist with other physical and mental dimensions. These alternative dimensions of consciousness may be layered within our own physical space, parallel to our space, or linked by unknown designs around our dimensions. Contained within our universe are energy waves that appear to be guided both by design and wisdom from a higher consciousness. Our dimension is inhabited by the vibrational energy of immortal beings we call Souls who evolve by gaining knowledge and acquiring wisdom. Souls exist multi-dimensionally, both within and beyond linear time and space. The natural domain of Souls who come to earth is the non-physical dimension that we call the "spirit world" where Souls go between their incarnations. The spirit world is a place of love, kindness and compassion as well as one of order, planning and direction. It is possible that a higher space of perfection (beyond the spirit world) may exist which is not accessible to Souls still incarnating in the human body. Our human reality is a three-dimensional material universe that includes movement and, therefore, a passage of time with the aging of all things physical. Time exists as an expression of change. However, in the spirit world Souls exist in a Now time, which is not on one timeline and is not absolute. The spirit world is characterized by the forces of creative energy, universal thought, and support for spiritual enlightenment designed for the apparent purpose of training and growth in all Souls' evolution toward perfection. At the same time the spirit world offers a space of quiet contemplation and reflection between lives. The human body and physical brain contain the spiritual mind of an immortal Soul. Conscious thought consists of ideas generated by the human and Soul mind in association with each other. Indications are that unconscious intuition, insight and conscience are influences of the Soul. Each Soul is part of a decision-making process in choosing a body for the next life to experience certain karmic lessons as an outgrowth of former lives. All information and experiences accrued through human bodies is retained by the Soul. The reservoir of these Soul memories and accumulated wisdom derived from experience is referred to as the Superconscious mind. The Soul's prior history is retained in higher consciousness, the Superconscious mind, and may be released into human consciousness through various means, one of which is hypnotic regression. However, pre-existing amnesia may be a partial or complete blocking agent for some which may limit recovery of past life and between life information. While Soul memory may be hidden from the level of conscious awareness, thought patterns of the Soul influencing the human brain may induce motivations for certain actions. We do not know the degree to which human choices or actions are influenced by the Soul since this variable is different with each person. Reincarnation, or the transmigration of the Soul, is designed to advance Soul development through the choice of a specific body that will be involved in certain timeline events. This choice is governed by the special needs of the Soul to advance from lower to higher levels of learning based upon performance and desire, as well as karmic issues from former lives. During physical incarnations on earth various possibilities and probabilities arising from karmic influences and Soul contracts are subject to the free will of the Soul. Thus, humans are not bound to a predetermined existence. The meaning behind the existence of each individual has been planned in advance to allow all Souls to come into their physical incarnations with a purpose. Goals are originated, in part, by karmic patterns from former lives and, in part, by specific lessons relating to the ambitions of that Soul. These objectives are established in concert with a Soul's spiritual peers, personal guide(s) and a Council of enlightened spiritual Elders. A new age of spiritual enlightenment has ushered in a period of human history where, with increasing frequency, people are seeking different approaches to exposing their immortal minds. A significant catalyst in this process is Life Between Lives Spiritual Regression utilizing hypnosis.

The Soul

The soul can not be defined because it has no limits that are perceived about its creation. The most consistent reports of its demonstrated essence is that the soul represents intelligent energy which is immortal and manifested by vibrational waves of light and color. All human beings have one soul that remains attached to its chosen physical body until death. Souls play a part in the selection of their next physical body during their reincarnation cycles. The soul typically joins its physical body after conception between the fourth month and birth. Each soul has a unique immortal character. When joined with the human brain this character is melded with the emotional temperament, or human ego, of that brain to produce one personality for one lifetime. Souls reincarnate with human beings for countless lifetimes to advance through levels of development by addressing karmic tasks from former lifetimes. Souls grow in knowledge and wisdom through this learning process while pondering their thoughts and deeds in past lives with peers under the direction of teachers. At the moment of physical death the soul returns to the spirit world, the source of its creation. Since part of a soul's energy essence has never left the spirit world during incarnation, the returning soul rejoins with that essence of itself. This, spiritual learning never ceases for the soul. The spirit world also offers souls the opportunity for rest and reflection between lives. Souls appear to be members of specific spirit cluster groups to whom they have been assigned since their creation. The teachers of each group are the personal spirit guides of members of that group. Members of these groups reincarnate with the soul and assume meaningful roles during a soul's life on earth. Rather than being defined as a place of ultimate non-action, or Nirvana, the spirit world appears to be a space of soul transition into higher forms of energy with capabilities for creation with advancement. The spirit world has an area of influence which is undefined except that it includes our universe and nearby dimensions. No earthly religious deities are seen in the spirit world by returning souls. A soul's closest connection with the divine is with their personal spirit guide and members of a council of benevolent counselors who monitor the affairs of each soul. Souls from earth feel and sense the presence of a God-like Oversoul or Source emanating from above their counselors. The spirit world is composed of highly advanced non-reincarnating soul specialists who regulate the work of advancement for the souls in their care. When incarnating souls develop to a high level of experience, performance and wisdom they will cease to incarnate and become advanced beings themselves who assist the still-incarnating souls. The ultimate goal of all souls appears to be the desire to seek perfection and conjoin with the Source that created them.

NDW: The Spirit of Living Well

Neale Donald Walsch on how every one of us is a psychic.

Initially published on NDW's BeliefNet blog on Saturday December 6, 2008

Are psychics an avenue to greater understanding, to answers for which we yearn, to insights about ourselves and our future?

Let me say this about that. Every one of us in a "psychic." That's because every single one of us possesses so-called "psychic powers." So, can a person tell us things about ourselves that could be useful to us? Yes, I believe other people can do that. Do we need to go to a professional psychic if we want such answers? No.

I was telling you yesterday about a wonderful lady, Lauren Simon, who is a licensed therapist working with people suffering from sexual abuse. Yet that is not the only field in which this remarkable person is involved. She also knows how to tap into your own intuitive power, and get the answers that can only come from you.

She will be sharing that information with you in a special class that she is giving, and that you can take in the comfort of your den or living room.

Lauren says, "There is never any real need for you to go to another individual for a psychic reading, ever. I agree it's fun, exciting and it can be educational. It also can be dangerous, upsetting and harmful if you go to someone inexperienced or even worse, some phony who is all to eager to cash in on the spiritual movement."

Well, I agree with Lauren completely on this. That's why I'm excited about her class. It's called Connecting To Spirit , and it's an exciting, fun, fast paced Tele-Workshop, held once a week for four weeks, with each session designed to enhance your natural intuitive abilities and empower you to use them.

During the sessions Lauren shares her simple process and the events in her own life that opened her to trusting and receiving. She then gently guides you to do the same.

"Each week we'll be joined by a fascinating special guest, who will be sharing with you what Connecting to Spirit means to them and what their own personal process is," Lauren says on her website (www.spiritoflivingwell.com).
What Lauren aims to do is to teach you how to trust what you "receive" during your own intuitive "hits"...and how to, as she puts it, "strengthen those intuitive muscles on your own."

All of the Connecting to Spirit sessions will be simulcast and recorded, and you can join them either by phone or through a special live webcast. If for any reason you have to miss a session or if you simply want to experience the call again, the recording will be available afterward.

Lauren tells me that the next workshop begins on February 5 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. (Pacific) and will continue on the 12th, 19th and 26th. I can tell you, this is something that you don't want to miss if you have the least little bit of curiosity about your own psychic sense and how to use it. Or, for that matter, if you just want a little "lift" right now as to try to get into the spirit of living well during these very challenging times.

For more info, and to sign up for the teleclass, just go to www.spiritoflivingwell.com

I have always been fascinated by physic abilities -- my own, and others'. How about you? Have you ever had any astonishing (or just plain incredibly useful) experiences with a physic? Or with your own psychic abilities and your own intuitions? I'd really love to hear about them.

Filed Under: Conversations with God, intuition, Lauren Simon, Neale Donald Walsch, psychics,spirit of living well
posted by Neale Donald Walsch @11:59am

NY Times: This Is Your Brain Under Hypnosis

November 22, 2005
By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
Source

Hypnosis, with its long and checkered history in medicine and entertainment, is receiving some new respect from neuroscientists. Recent brain studies of people who are susceptible to suggestion indicate that when they act on the suggestions their brains show profound changes in how they process information. The suggestions, researchers report, literally change what people see, hear, feel and believe to be true.

The new experiments, which used brain imaging, found that people who were hypnotized "saw" colors where there were none. Others lost the ability to make simple decisions. Some people looked at common English words and thought that they were gibberish.

"The idea that perceptions can be manipulated by expectations" is fundamental to the study of cognition, said Michael I. Posner, an emeritus professor of neuroscience at the University of Oregon and expert on attention. "But now we're really getting at the mechanisms."

Even with little understanding of how it works, hypnosis has been used in medicine since the 1950's to treat pain and, more recently, as a treatment for anxiety, depression, trauma, irritable bowel syndrome and eating disorders.

There is, however, still disagreement about what exactly the hypnotic state is or, indeed, whether it is anything more than an effort to please the hypnotist or a natural form of extreme concentration where people become oblivious to their surroundings while lost in thought.

Hypnosis had a false start in the 18th century when a German physician, Dr. Franz Mesmer, devised a miraculous cure for people suffering all manner of unexplained medical problems. Amid dim lights and ethereal music played on a glass harmonica, he infused them with an invisible "magnetic fluid" that only he was able to muster. Thus mesmerized, clients were cured.

Although Dr. Mesmer was eventually discredited, he was the first person to show that the mind could be manipulated by suggestion to affect the body, historians say. This central finding was resurrected by Dr. James Braid, an English ophthalmologist who in 1842 coined the word hypnosis after the Greek word for sleep.

Braid reportedly put people into trances by staring at them intently, but he did not have a clue as to how it worked. In this vacuum, hypnosis was adopted by spiritualists and stage magicians who used dangling gold watches to induce hypnotic states in volunteers from the audience, and make them dance, sing or pretend to be someone else, only to awaken at a hand clap and laughter from the crowd.

In medical hands, hypnosis was no laughing matter. In the 19th century, physicians in India successfully used hypnosis as anesthesia, even for limb amputations. The practice fell from favor only when ether was discovered.

Now, Dr. Posner and others said, new research on hypnosis and suggestion is providing a new view into the cogs and wheels of normal brain function.

One area that it may have illuminated is the processing of sensory data. Information from the eyes, ears and body is carried to primary sensory regions in the brain. From there, it is carried to so-called higher regions where interpretation occurs.

For example, photons bouncing off a flower first reach the eye, where they are turned into a pattern that is sent to the primary visual cortex. There, the rough shape of the flower is recognized. The pattern is next sent to a higher - in terms of function - region, where color is recognized, and then to a higher region, where the flower's identity is encoded along with other knowledge about the particular bloom.

The same processing stream, from lower to higher regions, exists for sounds, touch and other sensory information. Researchers call this direction of flow feedforward. As raw sensory data is carried to a part of the brain that creates a comprehensible, conscious impression, the data is moving from bottom to top.

Bundles of nerve cells dedicated to each sense carry sensory information. The surprise is the amount of traffic the other way, from top to bottom, called feedback. There are 10 times as many nerve fibers carrying information down as there are carrying it up.

These extensive feedback circuits mean that consciousness, what people see, hear, feel and believe, is based on what neuroscientists call "top down processing." What you see is not always what you get, because what you see depends on a framework built by experience that stands ready to interpret the raw information - as a flower or a hammer or a face.

The top-down structure explains a lot. If the construction of reality has so much top-down processing, that would make sense of the powers of placebos (a sugar pill will make you feel better), nocebos (a witch doctor will make you ill), talk therapy and meditation. If the top is convinced, the bottom level of data will be overruled.

This brain structure would also explain hypnosis, which is all about creating such formidable top-down processing that suggestions overcome reality.

According to decades of research, 10 to 15 percent of adults are highly hypnotizable, said Dr. David Spiegel, a psychiatrist at Stanford who studies the clinical uses of hypnosis. Up to age 12, however, before top-down circuits mature, 80 to 85 percent of children are highly hypnotizable.

One adult in five is flat out resistant to hypnosis, Dr. Spiegel said. The rest are in between, he said.

In some of the most recent work, Dr. Amir Raz, an assistant professor of clinical neuroscience at Columbia, chose to study highly hypnotizable people with the help of a standard psychological test that probes conflict in the brain. As a professional magician who became a scientist to understand better the slippery nature of attention, Dr. Raz said that he "wanted to do something really impressive" that other neuroscientists could not ignore.

The probe, called the Stroop test, presents words in block letters in the colors red, blue, green and yellow. The subject has to press a button identifying the color of the letters. The difficulty is that sometimes the word RED is colored green. Or the word YELLOW is colored blue.

For people who are literate, reading is so deeply ingrained that it invariably takes them a little bit longer to override the automatic reading of a word like RED and press a button that says green. This is called the Stroop effect.

Sixteen people, half highly hypnotizable and half resistant, went into Dr. Raz's lab after having been covertly tested for hypnotizability. The purpose of the study, they were told, was to investigate the effects of suggestion on cognitive performance. After each person underwent a hypnotic induction, Dr. Raz said:

"Very soon you will be playing a computer game inside a brain scanner. Every time you hear my voice over the intercom, you will immediately realize that meaningless symbols are going to appear in the middle of the screen. They will feel like characters in a foreign language that you do not know, and you will not attempt to attribute any meaning to them.

"This gibberish will be printed in one of four ink colors: red, blue, green or yellow. Although you will only attend to color, you will see all the scrambled signs crisply. Your job is to quickly and accurately depress the key that corresponds to the color shown. You can play this game effortlessly. As soon as the scanning noise stops, you will relax back to your regular reading self."

Dr. Raz then ended the hypnosis session, leaving each person with what is called a posthypnotic suggestion, an instruction to carry out an action while not hypnotized.

Days later, the subjects entered the brain scanner.

In highly hypnotizables, when Dr. Raz's instructions came over the intercom, the Stroop effect was obliterated, he said. The subjects saw English words as gibberish and named colors instantly. But for those who were resistant to hypnosis, the Stroop effect prevailed, rendering them significantly slower in naming the colors.

When the brain scans of the two groups were compared, a distinct pattern appeared. Among the hypnotizables, Dr. Raz said, the visual area of the brain that usually decodes written words did not become active. And a region in the front of the brain that usually detects conflict was similarly dampened.

Top-down processes overrode brain circuits devoted to reading and detecting conflict, Dr. Raz said, although he did not know exactly how that happened. Those results appeared in July in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A number of other recent studies of brain imaging point to similar top-down brain mechanisms under the influence of suggestion. Highly hypnotizable people were able to "drain" color from a colorful abstract drawing or "add" color to the same drawing rendered in gray tones. In each case, the parts of their brains involved in color perception were differently activated.

Brain scans show that the control mechanisms for deciding what to do in the face of conflict become uncoupled when people are hypnotized. Top-down processes override sensory, or bottom-up information, said Dr. Stephen M. Kosslyn, a neuroscientist at Harvard. People think that sights, sounds and touch from the outside world constitute reality. But the brain constructs what it perceives based on past experience, Dr. Kosslyn said.

Most of the time bottom-up information matches top-down expectation, Dr. Spiegel said. But hypnosis is interesting because it creates a mismatch. "We imagine something different, so it is different," he said.

NY Times: The Possibilities in Hypnosis, Where the Patient Has the Power

Here is an article published in the NY Times in 2008 about the possibilities of hypnosis.

By JANE E. BRODY
Published: November 3, 2008

Source.

My husband, Richard, smoked cigarettes for 50 years, having failed several attempts to quit on his own. When a friend told him in August 1994 that hypnosis had enabled her to quit, he decided to give it a try.

“It didn’t work; I wasn’t hypnotized,” he declared after his one and only session. But it did work; since that day, he has not taken one puff of a cigarette.

Gloria Kanter of Boynton Beach, Fla., thought her attempt in 1985 to use hypnosis to overcome her fear of flying had failed. “When the therapist brought me out, I said it didn’t work,” she recalled in an interview. “I told her, ‘I heard everything you said.’ ”

Nonetheless, the next time she and her husband headed for the airport, she was not drenched in sweat and paralyzed with fear. “I was just fine,” she said, “and I’ve been fine ever since.”

Like many others whose knowledge of hypnotism comes from movies and stage shows, my husband and Mrs. Kanter misunderstood what hypnosis is all about. While in a hypnotic trance, you are neither unconscious nor asleep, but rather in a deeply relaxed state that renders the mind highly focused and ready to accept suggestions to help you accomplish your goals.

Hypnosis has been mired in controversy for two centuries, and its benefits are often overstated. It does not help everyone who wants to quit smoking, for example; then again, neither do other kinds of treatments.

And the patient’s attitude is critical. In the words of Brian Alman, a psychologist who practices hypnosis in San Diego, “The power of hypnosis actually resides in the patient and not in the doctor.”

Roberta Temes, a clinical hypnotist in Scotch Plains, N.J., insists that hypnosis cannot make people do anything they don’t want to do. Hypnosis can succeed only in helping people make changes they desire, she said in an interview.

In her book “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Hypnosis,” Dr. Temes points out that success in achieving your goal is the best proof that you were really hypnotized. She also suggests a second or third session if you didn’t quite reach your goal after the first try.

What Hypnosis Can Do

In effect, hypnosis is the epitome of mind-body medicine. It can enable the mind to tell the body how to react, and modify the messages that the body sends to the mind. It has been used to counter the nausea of pregnancy and chemotherapy; dental and test-taking anxiety; pain associated with surgery, root canal treatment and childbirth; fear of flying and public speaking; compulsive hair-pulling; and intractable hiccups, among many other troublesome health problems.

Writing in The Permanente Journal in 2001, Dr. Alman said that “useful potential” for benefiting from hypnosis “exists within each patient.” “The goal of modern medical hypnosis,” he said, “is to help patients use this unconscious potential.”

Dr. Alman described a 65-year-old concentration camp survivor who repeatedly choked when she tried to swallow, though examinations of her esophagus revealed no obstruction. After three hypnotherapy sessions, her problem was solved. “I was liberated from my esophagus,” the patient said.

You may not even have to be face to face with a hypnotist to benefit medically. Dr. Temes said hypnosis could be helpful even if done with a cassette tape or CD, or by telephone, which she offers as part of her practice. She said many helpful CD’s could be found through the Web site www.hypnosisnetwork.com.

Ellen Fineman, a physical therapist in Portland, Ore., had had five surgeries to repair a retina that kept detaching. Hoping that a sixth attempt would hold, she used a hypnosis tape prepared by Dr. Temes for patients undergoing surgery.

The hypnosis tape “was very calming and reassuring,” Ms. Fineman said in an interview.

“It told me that I would be in the hands of professionals who would take good care of me and that I’d have minimal swelling,” she said. “This time the surgery went superbly — no inflammation, no swelling and no more detachment. The surgeon was amazed and asked what I had done differently this time.”

While not everyone is easily hypnotized, nearly everyone can slip into a therapeutic trance, Dr. Temes maintains. Another of her patients, Dr. Susan Clarvit, a New York psychiatrist, thought she could not be hypnotized — she was too scientific, too rational a person, she said.

“But I was desperate,” Dr. Clarvit said in an interview. “I was pregnant with my second child and too nauseated to be alive. Dr. Temes asked me what I held most often, and I said a pen. She hypnotized me so that when I held a pen I had an overall feeling of wellness. I held a pen all the time, even while driving, and didn’t feel nauseated.”

Under hypnosis, Dr. Clarvit was given a posthypnotic suggestion that linked holding a pen to feeling well. Such suggestions enable people to practice a new, desired behavior after being brought out of the trance.

Someone trying to overcome snacking on sweets might be told, “When you are hungry, you will eat vegetables.” The suggestion to a smoker might be “you will drink water when you want a cigarette,” and someone terrified of public speaking might be told “you will do deep breathing when you feel scared.”

Many patients are also taught to practice self-hypnosis to reinforce the new behavior. Dr. Karen N. Olness, a professor of pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University who is the president of the International Society of Hypnosis, said that “self-hypnosis training in children is an effective and practical strategy to prevent migraine episodes.”

Indirect Benefits

Sometimes patients with well-established illnesses can benefit indirectly from hypnosis.

Dr. Alman told of a woman with multiple sclerosis who was treated with hypnosis for depression that had failed to improve with antidepressants. Almost immediately, he reported, not only did the woman’s depression ease, but her gait and speech improved markedly.

He explained that for many patients the medical problem is so complex that specific directions and commands may be ineffective. The benefit from hypnosis may rely more on unleashing unconscious processes within the patient. He suggested that there exists “a wealth of material in the patient’s unconscious that can be used in healing” but lamented the fact that although medical hypnosis can often produce rapid change even in difficult cases, it is “underutilized as a therapeutic tool.”

As with any other profession, some hypnotherapists are more talented than others. Dr. Temes suggests that word of mouth may be the best way to find someone practiced in hypnosis for the kind of problem you’re trying to solve. Also helpful is the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis, at www.asch.net, which maintains a referral list of therapists, both certified and not, by location and specialty.