I am crossposting this from the Hypnosis Technique Exchange after having been offline for a number of days (we had been thinking about switching ISPs so one thing led to another and we made the switch earlier than we had originally anticipated . . . this does mean some good things within the next couple months).

Anyhow . . . recently, on Hypno Taiwan there was some discussion about a fuss at the NGH Taiwan Chapter discussion groups which has been described by one participant in the discussion as a controversy around one leading NGH member who he says has claimed she can use hypnosis to guide people to see the future, to see their own death or the death of a spouse, or any other future event.  This is supposedly not an imagined future but the "real" future or actual visions of what is to come.  Well, having checked with friends who do frequent the NGH Taiwan discussion boards (I am a member, but I cannot read the Chinese posts), the boards have been alive of late with quite a bit of bickering and anonymous attacks at one another (look for changes in how the boards allow posting very soon to help combat this).  In my understanding, the arguing is partly based upon issues and partly based upon simple turf wars as more folks have been certified as trainers while others have been respected in the past but are finding their own market share shrinking and so some folks who should know better are battling it out to be king expert on the hill.  Don’t get me wrong, I am just describing it.  I do not participate in it as my own market share is rather niche oriented right now.  Eventually, the NGH will have to deal with those issues within its ranks or face dissatisfaction and organizational level splits . . . problems not unique to my area of the globe.

Be that as it may . . . the really interesting issue is the current excuse for all that bickering . . . it has been described as an NLP Timeline method but really, as it has been described, it is more to do with New Age Hypnosis than NLP.

This is called Progression or Age Progression.  It is basically a reverse idea of standard Regression or Age Regression therapy (which is a technique I am rather positive on).  It is a simple method to use and works on the level of metaphor.  There are also folks who work with Future Life Progression (the flip-side of Past Life Regression) where you progress a person to a future lifetime where the problem resides.  I believe that these are most usefully considered metaphoric techniques.  However, there are a number of folks who use them and teach them as "real" methods for "real" experiences.  This is very spurious as there currently is no objective convincing proof that the experience is real . . . albeit, if one does simple close-to-present progressions, one could actually test the results by recording events, comparing the projected events to the ones that actually occur but even then we have to take into account the phenomenon of self-fulfilling prophecy.  However, as it is often used, just like with Past Life Regression, we enter the area of faith rather than therapy.  If used as a metaphor for unconscious energies, it can be very helpful.  To discuss it as real, we cross over into faith and spiritual beliefs which can never really be disputed one way or another as it’s beyond the ken of science.  We cross into Spiritualism rather than hypnotic craft . . . and that is okay to some degree . . . as hypnotists, we should be using the client’s frame of reference as appropriate anyway.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s NOTHING wrong with using hypnosis as an adjunct to spiritual belief and practice.  I use it for that quite a bit.  However, I prefer to keep my spiritual beliefs within the spiritual realm and not to project them onto the reality or beliefs of others.  Just as I do not want folks projecting their religious ideas onto my life, craft, or science.  I certainly understand that while I may find it useful and helpful to periodically have discourse with my animal spirit guides (Wolf and Bear to anyone who is curious) or to travel in noncorporeal form to the Temples of Eris Discordia in astral journeys that are very real in context of my spiritual experience, that even though the experience for me is very very real, it doesn’t mean it is an objectively real experience that is true for everyone.  The actual process is non-spiritual and can be discussed and understood free from any spiritual baggage so that those of different faiths can adapt and apply it to their own needs.  You keep your deep trance identification with the guy in agony nailed to a tree to yourself and I will keep my Dionysian raptures to myself but we can still discuss what the common process is to get to the experiences.

Since I don’t know the specifics of the original discussion which was referenced, I can’t respond beyond saying that some folks use progression  as metaphor and they find it helpful in reframing energy paths and some folks say it’s all factual and real which I BELIEVE is more phantasy and confabulation than what is objectively demonstrable.  That is, of course, my personal bias, so I find rather than getting into the level of bias, we should look at the techniques and see what they can actually yield.

The method is very easy.  I find it an interesting "idea" but am skeptical of the so-called science associated with it by many practitioners.  It is certainly quite "interesting."

Age Progression or Progression can be quite helpful in cases where someone is quite concerned about or in dread of a future event (presentation, interview, marriage, whatever) to the point that a lot of negative energy gets locked into it . . . self-fulfilling prophecies start occurring . . . so a progression to the event and freeing up the energy by associating positive outcomes and emotions to it can be very very worthwhile.  Nothing new age or spiritualist to it at all.  Simple positive work on a person’s timeline.

Most folks I know of who use Progression, Future Life Progression, or Parallel Life Connections couch it in the idea that there are possible frequencies for the future so that there are possiblities beyond what you see within the session.  Most will progress to the key event which serves as the metaphor for where the energy associated with the problem is trapped.  They run that sequence and unblock the energy by then taking the person back to the present where they use "higher knowledge" type ideas to change the frequency (or, choices) so that a new more positive outcome occurs and then runs the person through that new better sequence where the negative energy has been replaced.  The key is to then lock that new positive sequence in.  It’s not really the same thing as Timeline as it is usually taught, but there are enough similarities (although, I certainly haven’t read everything on the subject and won’t be reading certain authors at all).

For those who are in Taipei, if you go to Page One bookstore in Taipei 101, they carry a book that outlines the method (written by a NGH member) . . . New Age Hypnosis (or click on the link to get it at Amazon).  The book is written by Dr. Bruce Goldberg (the same guy was featured on an episode of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit program in an episode on alien abduction hypnotherapy and currently claims many alien abductions are actually cases of people being abducted by people from the future . . . cue Twilight Zone music . . . P&T were not kind to him at all (as they often aren’t to their subjects) . . . I have found the book to be difficult reading as I find SO MUCH that I disagree with, but I am pushing on with it as I have found a couple bits that I find new and interesting and probably worth adapting to my own needs and uses – compartmentalize what you read and use what you can whild disregarding what you can’t).  If you can get through all the faulty thinking and very often just plain weird belief systems that have nothing to do with hypnosis, the technique is very easy to use but I BELIEVE the new age gobbledygook that colors it is just that . . . gobbledygook.

If you’ve never done progression work, it is worth giving a go . . . particularly when working with someone in somnambulism, with all the bells and whistles of vivication where everything feels "full-on real" . . . perhaps for experimental or recreational reasons.  I am wary of using the method for therapy as I find other techniques much more valid and useful for me.  Before I saw the post that sent me off on this, I was thinking of doing a playful experimental session on new age techniques of that type for my experimental workshop (Taipei Experimental Hypnosis Workshop). Now that I have seen the post and thought about it a bit, I most definitely will do a session on it.

Some folks concerned with the technique worry of dangers that a client may see the imagined future as locked in as something that truly is and has to happen.  This is only possible if the client sees it as a locked-in scenario with no positive outs.  However, as metaphor it can be useful.  An interesting note is that there are some Amerinidian cultures for whom many young warriors will go on a spirit journey which includes facing one’s death.  The understanding being that by seeing one’s death, one is freed from worrying about it.  Personally, I’d rather keep my death distant . . . but then, if that is the case, doesn’t it mean it has power over us?  There was a discussion of this sort of visualization exericise – pros and cons – on the Marknosis yahoogroup fairy recently so it can easily be found in the archives there.

This idea of feeling locked into a negative future and then taking very rash and very negative actions to escape summons up images of the recent film Minority Report for some.  I think we do need to keep in mind that there is a difference between fact and fantasy.  Minority Report was an interesting film (many of Philip K. Dick’s novels and short stories deal with the nature of reality and of ethical responsibility with the expansion of identity and the understanding of the soul . . . albeit the films are never quite what the original stories were . . . see the films and the original literary pieces for Minority Report, Paycheck , and Bladerunner).

While a few hypnotists on the Taiwan boards have said that progression techniques are fine for recreation or experimentation but unethical for therapy, I don’t buy the argument.  If they’re okay for experimentation, then they’re okay to be used with clients . . . the key is how you use them and that they should be couched in language and context that make them appropriate and maximize the good for the client.  This isn’t just true of age progression, future life progression, or parallel lives progression but of all techniques.  We should be playful and open in our discovery and experimentation as well as respectful and ethically resourceful.  Techniques are clean of ethical baggage or context sensitivity.  Any technique can be used safely and with good results in any context – educational, recreational, entertainment, or therapeutically.  The test is in the serving, not in the pudding.

Often progression techniques do not lock into one future as critics may suggest.  Rather, they build upon the idea that there are possible futures and allowing the client to choose one that does not have negativity attached to it . . . to jump from one track to another.  The key is to expend the trapped energy by sending the person into a new path – with appropriate resources – that resonates with positive energy.  You help them lock into a positive future with real benefits and without negative action (so the idea of someone killing his wife is only fantasy as the technique is used to find good alternatives and the like – perhaps having the strength to leave an abusive spouse or, better yet, to communicate openly and fix whatever is broken, or something else that leaves a positive outcome for everyone).  You don’t just visualize the future and then leave it at that.

Interestingly, at least one of the critics of the technique stated that he knew it would not work as he had been trying it for years to see the lottery numbers with no success.  He needs to read up about energy systems, synchronicity, and abundance manifestation.  He’ll get better results if his visualizations are positive rather than simply greedy.  He then goes on to say that the method is unethical and so no one should use it with clients . . . even though it does not work.  I am certain it was not intended to seem this way but . . . to me, this really looks like "I have been trying to do this but can’t get it right so if you can do it you must be lying. besides it’s unethical."

At this point, it really is NOT an ethical question.  It is only a question of "real" versus "phantasy" and how useful it is for therapy or life.  The ethics come in when you discuss how it is used with clients . . . a bunch of folks trying to convince themselves that they can see lottery numbers is a utilitarian question, one that is rather spurious at that as the ethics involved are aimed at these self-same hypnotists who criticize others for the unlikely event of putting a fictional client at risk with the intent of helping the client when they attempt the same method in order to gain unfair advantage in the lottery (yes, looking at the numbers in the future would be cheating) . . . of course, here in Taiwan, hundreds of folks go to temple every week here in order to pray to the gods for the numbers as well . . . asking their gods to cheat for them too.  Hmmm.  Mr. Pot says, "Hello, Kettle, you look Black today."

Perhaps these folks would do just as well to read Richard Matheson’s Somewhere in Time and start using hypnosis to physically travel through time to plunder for locations of secret treasures and the like or to find lost loves among their ancestors . . . but they would do very well to read the last chapter very carefully . . . the chapter that does not appear in the movie.  The same author wrote Stir of Echoes so perhaps these folks will want to use hypnosis to see ghosts and the like as well.

Literature, fiction, is kool.  I love fiction.  I teach literature.  However, fiction is not the same as reality.  Just because a novelist says it’s so, that does not mean it is.  Fiction and fantasy are not the same as real, hypnosis or not, and we shouldn’t be hypnotizing ourselves or our subjects to believe it isn’t.  Playing around with a construct but understanding it is fantasy is fine, but keep it that way.  In my opinion.  If we’re not sure if it’s fact or fiction, then get objective data and don’t rely on subjective experience.  I’ve had folks sitting in my "hypnosis chair" with baby purple fairy dragons resting in the palms of their hands that they could see and feel with all senses completely and as real.  A person from Missouri might be convinced (the "show me State") but I know that our experience of reality is affected very powerfully by suggestion.  We need other proof than testimonial evidence.

It may or may not be real.  The caveat is always there.  We cannot prove a negative.  There could always be an exception.  Now, the thing is . . . can enough people do it that it can be reliably reproduced by others, and if so, then how?

Perhaps there really is a way to peer across the real void . . . hmmm.  Objective tests are simple enough to design for this.  They’re also simple enough to cheat.  See Steve Shaw’s notes on the time he was being studied by academics as a real psyhcic.  He was certified by reputable researchers as the real deal.  When they found out he was working with the Amazing Randi to expose faulty testing and the like, they didn’t appreciate the help.  Steve now works under the name Banachek and his psychokinetic time effect is still used by many so-called psychics to fool others (Banachek exposes frauds while working as a real mentalist and entertainer, some of his psychological effects are wonderful – professional entertainment hypnotists would do well to see his material, like material by Derren Brown there is quite a bit of psychological force involved with the trickery – those interested in such combinations of NLP, waking suggestion, and magic should also definately check out Kenton Kenppers material on the subject).

I am told that a vocal proponent of the belief that hypnotic future progressions are real time-travel events, states that as a true NLPer, she believes that anything is possible, and she pities skeptics for their lack of imagination and close-minded attitude.  Hmmm.  Even NLP has limits in this regard.  Being open minded, does NOT mean being gullible.  Being suggestible is not the same as being ingenuous.  However, being open-minded does mean giving something a go to see what happens and to be open to new results when doing so.

In any case, it is certainly an interesting technique . . . reality or fantasy.  Well worth a play-with or few.

All the best,
Brian