A reader writes:
I was wondering if you have any information about hypnosis and Catholics. As a fairly recent convert, I have areas of my faith that are still informed by my protestant background, and I like to shine the light of Catholic truth upon them when possible. It has been my belief that participating in hypnosis, by opening up the subconcious mind, may allow demons access to the soul that our concious mind would otherwise suppress. What do you think?
The Church does not have an official position on this matter, so what follows represents my personal opinion. I have done quite a bit of thinking about hypnosis from a scientific and moral perspective over the years, so I hope you will find what follows to be an informed opinion.
Unfortunately, there’s no standard answer to what hypnosis even is. If you read the American Psychological Association’s "definition and description" of hypnosis, you’ll find that it’s all description and no definition because people in the field can’t even agree on basic questions like whether hypnosis represents an altered state of consciousness or not.
Let’s suppose, though, that something like what might be called the "classic" model is correct. According to this model, hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness ("a trance") in which a person is relaxed, mentally focused on certain things (either the hypnotist’s voice or what the hypnotist tells the patient to focus on), and has a heightened suggestibility (i.e., they’re more willing to follow the hypnotist’s instructions than they would be if not hypnotized).
On it’s face, there’s nothing supernatural about any of this, and that would make me wary of claims that one is opening oneself to the demonic.
I tend to take whether someone is open or closed to the demonic at face value: You’re not inviting demons to influence you unless you’re inviting demons to influence you. Since there is nothing overtly demonic about hypnosis (e.g., each hypnotic session does not begin with a prayer to a demon) there is no overt invitation to demons to influence you through it.
What about covert demonic influence? Demons do sometimes play unseen roles in influencing things around us, but when they do so it is in order to corrupt faith or morals or at least to cause suffering. Could a demon be involved in a particular case of hypnosis?
Well, if the hypnotist is trying to induce beliefs in you that are contrary to the faith, like the idea that you have lived past lives, then I suppose that the answer is yes. But then you don’t have to posit the existence of a demon to explain that. There are all kinds of evils in the world that aren’t directly produced by the activity of a demon. The hypnotist may just believe in reincarnation and use his role as a hypnotist to foist this belief on others.
And there’s nothing unique about hypnosis here. There’s nothing intrinsically occult about hypnosis in the classical model described above, and demons can have unseen involvement (or non-involvement) in all kinds of evils in the world, not just hypnosis.
There is a tendency in many Christian circles (both Protestant and Catholic) to give too much credit to demons in my opinion. While the devil was responsible for unleashing evil in the human community, this does not mean that one of his agents is involved in every particular evil that we encounter.
The classical model of hypnosis is not supernatural, it does not address supernatural forces, and it does not attribute supernatural powers to the hypnotist.
Neither do the individual components of the classical model have obvious supernatural significance: You may relax in hypnosis but you do not thereby open yourself to demons. Relaxing is a normal thing that humans do all the time.
As part of hypnosis, you may focus your attention on the hypnotist’s voice or the fact that your legs feel limp and heavy (because you just relaxed them! duh!), but we focus our attention on our bodily states and on other people’s voices all the time (ever try listening to someone in a crowded, noisy environment?). Focusing your attention is a normal human activity that does not open us to the demonic as long as what we’re focusing on isn’t demonic in nature.
Then there’s the heightened suggestibility, and here’s where we hit a significant problem–not in regard to the demonic but in regard to hypnosis in general.
To explain, I’m afraid that I’m going to have to say what I personally believe–or at least suspect–about hypnosis.
I don’t subscribe to the classical model. I don’t think that a person is really going into "a trance" in hypnosis. I don’t think that the state of consciousness a person is in during hypnosis is substantially different from any other relaxed, focused state of consciousness we experience.
I think that hypnosis is–or is likely to be–a social construct.
In other words, I think that there is a certain social role that people are expected to play when they are "hypnotized" and that they adjust their behavior to play this role. They know from film and TV and books that a hypnotized person is supposed to relax and act sleepy and then do or imagine what the hypnotist tells them, and that’s exactly what happens: They relax, they act sleepy, and they do or imagine what the hypnotist tells them.
Or at least the "hypnotizable" people do (the ones willing to play the role and then attribute their actions to the hypnosis).
Other people either don’t play the role or, if they play it, they are aware that they’re just playing a role and that "I’m realling doing all this myself" and so they are considered poor subjects for hypnotism or even "unhypnotizable."
MORE ON THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCT THEORY OF HYPNOTISM HERE.
So there is a big question in my mind about whether there is any "heightened suggestibility" in hypnosis or whether it’s just a person’s willingness to go along with the hypnotist because he’s playing an expected social role.
The fact that you supposedly can’t get a hypnotized person to do anything fundamentally contrary to his will would suggest the latter.
However that may be, the fact is that people who are hypnotized or who are playing the social role of a hypnotized person do respond to the suggestions of their hypnotists.
The moral evaluation of their actions would depend on the moral content of the suggestion they have been given. The suggestions "Cluck like a chicken" or "Raise your left arm" would seem to be morally neutral. "Stop smoking" or "Don’t eat so much" would be positive for a person who has been smoking or eating in excess. "Tell me about your past life" or "Try to remember who it was that sexually abused you (when in fact you were sexually abused by no one)" would be evil.
In none of these cases, though, do I see any opening of oneself to demons–unless the hypnotist directly suggests that you do so.
What we are "open" to is determined by our wills. If our wills are closed to the devil then we are closed to the devil.
A person undergoing hypnosis could thus say, "When I get hypnotized, I’m opening myself up to what the hypnotist wants me to do, but opening myself up to the hypnotist is simply not the same thing as opening myself to the devil. My will still remains firmly against what the devil wants me to do. I’m just letting the hypnotist give me a sleepy pep talk to help me stop smoking or something."
Even when the hypnotist does do evil, as with encouraging people to believe in past lives, that’s still him abusing his role as a moral agent and it does not involve inviting the devil to influence you.
You’re inviting the hypnotist to influence you, but since the hypnotist is an external natural influence any evil that the hypnotist does would be ascribed to "the world" rather than "the devil."
Scripture speaks of evils being produced by "the world, the flesh, and
the devil," and the devil is only one of three sources of evil in that
reckoning. Much of the time we are dealing with evils whose immediate
cause is external natural influence ("the world") or internal natural temptation ("the flesh"). It is only on occasion that we encounter an evil whose immediate cause is supernatural ("the devil").
I therefore don’t think that we should rush to attribute evils that we
encounter to the agency of demons. Sometimes they are caused by that,
but only sometimes. If we have evidence in a particular case (as in the
case of a possession) that evils are being caused by demons then it is
reasonable to attribute that case to a demonic cause, but if we don’t
have such evidence (as in the vast majority of cases) then I think we
do better not assigning a demonic cause to it.
If we allow ourselves to go too far in labelling things "demonic" that
do not have any obvious connection to a demon then we induce a kind of
paranoia that will lead to a cultural scrupulosity and personal
paralysis that is morally and psychologically unhealthy.
We should live life positively, trusting in God and his victory in
Christ, not looking over our shoulders (or under rocks) worrying about
demons. God is stronger than the devil, and we can trust him to take
care of us without having to worry about whether every little evil we
encounter had a supernatural cause or not.
This hesitancy to ascribe things to supernaturally evil causes seems to
be reflected in the Church’s policy of only performing exorcisms in
cases where other causes (like mental illness) have been ruled out first and there is no remaining natural explanation for the events that are transpiring.
We’ll simply be healthier and happier if we keep our focus on God and
trying to please him and only attribute things to the agency of the devil when his
involvement is undeniable.
