Hypnosis and telepathy
On page 107 the young Lobsang Rampas teacher is describing the nature of hypnosis.
….”Come in!” said my Guide as I approached his door. “I thought you had gone back to sleep.” “Sir!” I said, “I have come to you for instruction. I am anxious to know the nature of hypnotism.” “Lobsang,” said my Guide, “you have to learn much more than that. You have to learn the basis for hypnotism first. otherwise you do not know exactly what you do. Sit down.” I sat, cross legged of course, upon the floor. My Guide sat opposite me. For a time he seemed lost in thought, and then said: “By now you should have realized that everything is vibration, electricity. The body has many different chemicals in its composition. Certain of those chemicals are conveyed to the brain by the blood stream. The brain, you know, has the best supply of blood and its contained chemicals. Those ingredients, potassium, manganese, carbon, and many others, form the brain tissue. Interaction between them makes a peculiar oscillation of molecules which we term an ‘electric current’. When one thinks one sets in motion a chain of circumstances which results in the formation of this electric current and, hence, ‘brain waves.
I pondered the whole matter; I could not see all this. If there were ‘electric currents‘ in my brain, why did I not feel the shock? That boy who was flying a kite, I recalled, had been doing so in a thunderstorm. I remembered the vivid blue flash as lightning traveled along his wet kite line; I remembered, with a shudder, how he had fallen to the ground as a dried-up, fried crisp of flesh. And once I too had had a shock from the same source, a mere tingle compared to the other, but “tingle” enough to throw me a dozen feet.
“Honorable Lama!” I expostulated, “how can there be electricity in the brain? It would drive a man mad with the pain!” My Guide sat and laughed at me. “Lobsang!” he chuckled, “the shock you once had has given you a wholly incorrect idea of electricity. The amount of electricity in the brain is of a very, small order indeed. Delicate instruments can measure it and can actually chart the variations as one thinks or undertakes some physical action.” The thought of one man measuring another man’s voltage was almost too much for me, I started to laugh. My Guide merely smiled and said: “Let us this afternoon walk over to the Potala. The Inmost One has there a device which will enable us to talk more easily on this electrical subject. Go now and entertain yourself – have a meal, put on your best robe and meet me here when the sun is at noon.” I rose to my feet, bowed, and went out.
Some pages ahead the problem is more discussed:
….eventually, the fading light caused us to desist from our experiments and to return to the Lama’s room. First there was the evening service again, our life in Tibet seemed to be completely circumscribed by the needs for religious observance. With the service behind us we returned once again to my Guide the Lama Mingyar Dondup’s apartment, here we sat in our usual cross legged attitude upon the floor with the little table, perhaps fourteen inches high, between us.
“Now Lobsang,” said my guide, “we have to get down to this matter of hypnotism, but first of all we have to decide upon the operation of the human brain. I have shown you – I hope! – That there can be the passage of an electric current without one experiencing pain or discomfort therefrom. Now, I want you to consider that when a person thinks he generates an electric current. We need not go into the matter of how an electric current stimulates muscle fibre and causes reaction, our whole interest for the moment is the electric current – the brain waves, which have been so clearly measured and charted by Western medical science. I confess that I found this to be of some interest to me because in my small and humble way it had already occurred to me that thought had force, because I remembered that parchment roughly perforated cylinder which I had used at times in the Lamasery, and which I had caused to rotate by thought power alone.
“Your attention is wandering, Lobsang!” said my Guide. “I am sorry, Honorable Master,” I replied, “I was merely reflecting upon the undoubted nature of thought waves, and considering the amusement I derived from that cylinder to which you introduced me some months ago.”
My Guide looked at me and said, “You are an entity, an individual, and you have your own thoughts. You may consider that you will do some course of action, such as lift that rosary. Even in considering an action your brain causes electricity to flow from its chemical constituents, and the wave from the electricity prepares our muscle for the impending action. If a greater electrical force should occur in your brain, then your original intention of lifting that rosary would be thwarted. It is easy to see that if I can persuade you that you cannot lift that rosary, then your brain – being beyond your immediate control – will generate and send out an opposing wave. You will then be unable to lift the rosary or do the contemplated action.”
I looked at him, and thought of the affair, and it really did not make much sense to me, for how could he influence how much electricity my brain was generating? I thought about it, and looked at him, and wondered if I should voice my doubt. There was no necessity to, however, for he divined it and hastened to set my mind at rest. “I can assure you, Lobsang, that what I say is demonstrable fact, and in a Western country we should be able to prove all this under a piece of apparatus which would chart the three basic brain waves, here however, we have no such facilities and we can only debate the matter. The brain generates electricity, it generates waves, and if you decide to lift your arm then your brain generates waves on the intention of your decision. If I can – in rather technical words – feed a negative charge into your brain, then your original intention would be frustrated. In other words, you would be hypnotized!”
This really did begin to make sense; I had seen that Wimshurst Machine, and I had seen various demonstrations conducted (ledet..) with its assistance, and I had seen how it was possible to alter the polarity of a current and so cause it to flow in the opposite direction. “Honorable Lama,” I exclaimed, “how is it possible for you to feed a current into my brain? You cannot take off’ the top of my head and put some electricity inside, how then may it be done?” “My dear Lobsang,” said my Guide, “it is not necessary to get into your head because I do not have to generate any electricity and put into you, I can make appropriate suggestions whereby you will be convinced of the accuracy of my statement or suggestions, and you will then – without any voluntary control on your part – generate that negative current yourself.”
He looked at me and said, “I am most unwilling to hypnotize anyone against their will except in a case of medical or surgical necessity, but I think that with your co-operation it might be a good idea to demonstrate a simple little matter of hypnotism.” I exclaimed hastily, “Oh yes, I should love to experience hypnotism!” He rather smiled at my impetuosity and asked, “Now, Lobsang, what would you be unwilling to do, normally? I ask you that because I want to hypnotise you into doing something that you would not willingly do so that you personally can be assured that in doing this thing you are acting under in-voluntary influence.” I thought for a moment, and really I hardly knew what to say, there were so many things that I did not want to do! I was saved further thought on this matter by my Guide, who exclaimed, “I know! You were not at all anxious to read that rather involved passage in the fifth volume of the Kangyur. You were, I believe, rather afraid that some of the terms used would betray you, and betray the fact that on that particular subject you had not studied so assiduously as desired by your tutor!”
I felt rather gloomy about that; and I confess I also felt my cheeks redden with some embarrassment(forlegenhet). It was perfectly true, there was a particularly difficult passage in The Book which caused me extreme difficulty, however, in the interests of science I was quite prepared to be persuaded to read it. Actually I had almost a phobia against reading that particular passage! My Guide smiled and said, “The Book is over there just to the side of the window, bring it here, turn to that passage and read it aloud, and if you will try not to read it – if you will try to mess up the whole thing – then that will be a much better test.” I reluctantly went across and fetched The Book, and unwillingly turned over the pages. Our Tibetan pages are much bigger – much heavier – than Western books. I fumbled and fumbled, and made the thing as long-drawn-out as possible. In the end, though I turned to the appropriate passage, and I confess (tilstår) that this particular passage, because of some earlier incident with a tutor, really did make me feel almost physically sick.
I stood there with The Book in front of me, and try as I might I could not articulate those words, it may seem strange but it is a fact that because I had been so ill-used by an un-understanding tutor I had developed a real hatred for those sacred sentences. My Guide looked at me – nothing more – just looked at me, and then something seemed to click inside my head, and I found to my very considerable surprise that I was reading, not just “reading” but reading fluently, easily – without a trace of hesitation. As I reached the end of the paragraph I had the most inexplicable sensation. I put down The Book and I went to the middle of the room and I stood on my head! “I’m going crazy!” I thought. “Whatever will my Guide think of me for behaving in this utterly foolish manner?” Then it occurred to me, that my Guide was making me influencing me – to behave thus. Quickly I jumped to my feet, and found that he was smiling most benevolently upon me. “It really is a most easy matter, Lobsang, to influence a person, there is no difficulty at all when one has mastered the basic matter. I merely thought of certain things and you picked up my thoughts telepathically, and that caused your brain to react in the manner I had anticipated. Thus certain fluctuations in your normal brain pattern were caused which produced this quite interesting result!”
“Honorable Lama!” I said, “then does it mean that if we can put an electric current into a person’s brain we can make that person do anything we want?” “No, it does not mean that at all,” said my Guide. “It means instead that if we can persuade a person to do a certain course of action, and the course of action which we desire to persuade is not contrary to that person’s belief, then he will undoubtedly do it merely because his brain waves have been altered, and no matter what his original intention, he will react as suggested by the hypnotist. In most cases a person receives suggestions from a hypnotist, there is no real influence exerted by the hypnotist other than the influence of suggestion. The hypnotist, by certain little tricks, is able to induce a course of action in the victim contrary to that which was originally contemplated.” He looked at me seriously for a moment and then added, “Of course you and I have other powers than that. You will be able to hypnotize a person instantly even against a person’s wishes, that gift is being made unto you because of the peculiar nature of your life, because of the very great hardships, because of the exceptional work which you are going to have to achieve.”
He sat back and gazed at me in order that he might determine if I had assimilated the information which he had given me, satisfied that I had, he continued, “Later – not yet – you will be taught much more about hypnotism and how to hypnotise quickly. I want to tell you that you will also have your telepathic powers increased, because when you journey from here far out into other countries you will need to keep in touch with us all the time, and the quickest and the most accurate way is by telepathy.” I felt quite gloomy over all this. I seemed the whole time to be learning something fresh, and the more I learned the less time I had for myself, it seemed to me that more and more work was being added to me but none was being lifted off!
“But, Honourable Lama!” I said, “how does telepathy work? Nothing appears to happen between us, yet you know almost everything I think especially when I do not want you to!” My Guide looked at me and laughed, and said, “It really is quite a simple matter, telepathy, one merely has to control the brain waves. Look at it in this way; you think, your brain generates electric currents which fluctuate in accordance with the variations of your thought. Normally your thoughts go to activate a muscle so that a limb (lem) may be raised or lowered, or you may be thinking of a certain subject at a distance, whatever way it is, your mental energy is broadcast – that is, the energy-force from your brain is emitted indiscrimmately in all and every direction. If there was some method whereby you could focus your thought, then it would be of a very much greater intensity in the direction in which it was focused.” I looked at him, and I remembered a little experiment which he had shown me some time before; we had been in much the same position as now, that is high up on The Peak (as we Tibetans call the Potala). The Lama, my Guide, had in the darkness of the night lighted a small candle and the light glimmered faintly around. But then he had put a magnifying glass in front of the candle, and by adjusting the distance of the magnifying glass from the flame he had been able to project upon the wall a much brighter image of the candle flame.
To increase the lesson, he had put a shiny surface behind the candle, and that, in turn, had concentrated the light more so that the image upon the wail was even greater. I mentioned this to him, and he said, “Yes! That is perfectly correct, by various tricks it is possible to focus the thought and to send it in a certain predetermined direction. Actually, every person has what we might term an individual wave-length, that is, the amount of energy on the basic wave emitted from the brain of any one person follows a precise order of oscillation, and if we could determine the rate of oscillation of the basic brain wave of another person and tune in to that basic oscillation, we should have no difficulty whatever in conveying our message by so-called telepathy, irrespective of the distance.” He gazed firmly at me, and added, “You must get it quite clear in your mind, Lobsang, that distance means nothing whatever when it comes to telepathy, telepathy can span oceans, it can even span worlds!”
I confess that I was most anxious to do more in the realm of telepathy, I could visualise myself talking to those of my fellows who were at other lamaseries, such as Sera, or even in far-off districts. It seemed to me, though, that all my efforts had to be devoted to things which would help me in the future, a future – which, according to all prophecies, would be a gloomy affair indeed.
My Guide interrupted my thoughts again, “We will go into this matter of telepathy later. We will also go into the matter of clairvoyance, for you will have abnormal powers of clairvoyance, and it will ease things for you if you are aware of the mechanics of the process. It all revolves around brain waves and interrupting the Akashic Record, but night is upon us, we must cease our discussion for the moment and prepare for sleep that we may during the night hours be refreshed in time for the first service.”
He rose to his feet, and I rose to mine. I bowed to him in the attitude of respect, and I wished that I could show more adequately the profound respect which I felt for this great man who had so befriended me.
Briefly, a fleeting smile crossed his lips, and he stepped forward and I felt his warm handclasp upon my shoulder. A gentle pat, and he said, “Goodnight, Lobsang, we must not delay any longer, or we shall be logheads again – unable to awaken when it is time for us to attend to our devotions(andakt).”
From page 128 he describes a incident where he again was forced out of his body – and the background was as he here describes:
The story continues in part 10: Link to part 10
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