Hypnospirituality can be described as using the hypnotic state to explore or transform a person's spiritual beliefs, experiences, and sense of connection to something greater than the self.
Traditional therapy with hypnosis generally aims at outcomes such as coping better with mental health issues, improving management of pain or other physical symptoms, or modifying unwanted behaviors. Hypnospirituality helps recognize a spiritual dimension, including:
- Exploring a person's sense of connection with God or the sacred
- Using spiritual imagery or prayer during hypnosis
- Exploring existential questions about meaning and purpose
- Helping someone experience forgiveness, compassion, gratitude, or acceptance
- Using the subconscious as a means of exploring personally meaningful spiritual questions
- Helping patients draw upon spiritual resources that they already consider authentic
Since spiritual experiences generally are subjective in nature, they cannot be used to scientifically define objective truths, such as about the nature of supernatural phenomena. Nonetheless, as I discussed in a previous post, clinicians can validate a patient’s experience without needing to confirm its veracity.
Spiritual material often comes up during my interactions with patients, perhaps because I am open to helping patients work through their spiritual experiences. I have written several blog posts in Psychology Today about such patients, including:
- An 11-year-old boy who explored his transcendent thoughts with hypnosis
- A 12-year-old girl who interacted with a ghost
- A 13-year-old girl who interacted with the serpent from the Garden of Eden
- A 14-year-old boy who interacted with a demon
- A 20-year-old woman whose subconscious showed her a life-changing vision of the universe
- A 25-year-old man who explored the meaning of the universe after a THC-induced psychotic break
Here is an additional story illustrating hypnospirituality from my patient files:
A Lost Murderer
Eli, one of my 15-year-old patients, was so good at not remembering what his subconscious thought that his conscious and subconscious used to play poker with each other.
One day, Eli asked me, “Can someone have two subconsciouses?”
“I don’t think so,” I replied.
“I think another subconscious came into me last night,” he said.
“Why do you say that?”
“I hear him, and I know what he’s thinking.”
“What is that?”
“He is a criminal who used to work for Stalin. He murdered lots of people. He’s looking for his family, but he can’t find them. So, he came into me.”
Eli didn’t look particularly distressed by this supposed invasion, but I did not like the sound of it at all. We needed to deal with this.
I improvised, “It seems to me that we need to get that subconscious to leave you.”
“Yeah, maybe,” he said. “I don’t really want him around.”
“I have an idea,” I said. “Let’s sit on the floor.”
We sat cross-legged across from one another.
“Now, let’s chant,” I said, and I led Eli, who is Jewish like me, in a Jewish kaddish prayer that praises God.
He who makes peace in his high holy places, the prayer concludes, may He bring peace upon us.
“Now,” I said, “let’s invite the criminal’s family to come from the heavens so that they can retrieve him.”
We recited the kaddish again, and I asked Eli to let me know when the family arrived.
A few moments later, he nodded.
“Now,” I said, “let him go.” I showed him how to raise his arms to do so.
Eli raised his arms above him, palms open and fingers splayed toward the sky.
And that was it. He no longer heard his second subconscious.
A metaphorical explanation for this encounter could be that Eli was working out how he could let go of hatred he harbored toward someone he felt had wronged him.
Or, perhaps, he really had become, briefly, a vessel for the soul of a bad man.
A Possible Origin of Spiritual Experiences
In all the aforementioned cases, the patients or their subconscious spontaneously reported their spiritual experiences rather than being prompted by a question I might have posed. The common feature among them is that they had learned how to allow their subconscious to express itself through their therapy.
These patients’ propensity to report spiritual experiences may be related to their concept of the subconscious relationship with the soul and higher powers.
When I have asked patients’ subconscious about this relationship, they generally responded that either they are the soul or deeply connected to it. Some said their soul regularly communes with God, describing God as the living network that connects all beings.
The input my patients have given about their subconscious-prompted spiritual experiences brings to mind a quote associated with the Oracle at Delphi: "Bidden or unbidden, God is present." Psychiatrist Carl Jung, who studied the subconscious and its relationship to spiritual experiences in depth, carved the Latin version of this quote above the entrance to his home.
Takeaway
Learning how to interact with the subconscious through hypnosis can open the door to life-changing spiritual experiences.
To find a therapist, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.