As one of the early psychotherapists said, possibly Erickson “The mind knows no jokes”

@Geoffrey51 subconscious mind Mind is just like a computer it only knows what it’s programmed

So cool! I think hypnotism gets a very terrible reputation due to popular stage hypnosis. I was seeing a hypnotherapist (with a PhD in psychology) some years back and was incredibly surprised at how different it was from my idea of hypnosis. Derren brown had a special where he essentially hypnotised someone into having a deeply religious experience and then later broke the illusion by explaining all he had done to them. It's a powerful tool that is dangerous in the wrong hands but can reap real benefits from those who know how to use it. Our minds are much more malleable than we'd like to believe. Good on ya for highlighting the similarities of sermons and hypnosis. The psyche is wildly complex and mysterious. Understanding this I think helps one to have more empathy. It becomes harder to fault the religious when you begin to understand how their beliefs manifest themselves.

@Tattva Hypnosis is based on fractionation which is you invoke an emotional state then you break the state and reintroduce it. Each time you break and reintroduce it in a rapid manner it intensifies the emotion 10 to 100 to even a 1000 times depends on how many times you do it. So think of church. You go thru all sorts of emotions. Happiness, sadness, fear, hope, dread etc. multiple time throughout a short period of time. This overloads the conscious mind which drops the defenses and skepticism and allows the message to be dropped down into the subconscious as truth and unles you proactive change it then it will remain there

A skilled hypnotist can tell a patient his finger is on fire then touch their skin and a blister will appear. Of course it doesn’t work on everyone but more than likely everyone in church. I would say most atheists are by nature the category called intellectual emotional which is hardest category to hypnotize. This group questions everything and needs to know before they believe something

@TheMiddleWay I think if a person is ignorant and simple enough to be convinced by the bullshit story religion tells them, they'e more prone to accept any hypnotic suggestion with an equivalent lack of descernment. Just my opinion.

@Sgt_Spanky Pretty much the point I was making but you said it better

@TheMiddleWay Good point. I can tell you a simple way to tell how prone you are to hypnosis. Close your eyes and imagine a tree. In your mind, the bigger the picture and more color and more stuff you have in the picture the more prone you are to hypnosis. The smaller picture and less color the less prone to hypnosis. If your pic is small and in black and white you’re not prone at all. If you can’t visualize a pic then you’re not. This tests to see whether you’re more right or left brained. Right brain are more susceptible whereas left brain are more analytical and question things which is why they are not good hypnosis subjects

@TheMiddleWay Atheists who believe in astrology, magic, and reincarnation still have a lot of growing to do.

@TheMiddleWay My understanding is that a hypnotist will determine their susceptibility which has no correlation to any ideology.

You should study embedded commands. These are phrases people use to influence people and they do work

@abyers1970 If I understand it from my google search, I often do use such things in my classroom. I learned years ago that, "John is going to sit down" in a friendly tone will get John to sit down 99 times out of 100. "Sit down, John" in any tone will virtually never get John to sit down.

Years ago when I had extremely difficult classes, I would ask the class to "Get out a piece of paper", and literally no one would do anything. They just stared at me. I eventually learned to tweak that to, "We're going to get out a piece of paper," and then a pause. If I was lucky enough to have one kid start to get out a piece of paper, I would thank them profusely and positively, and instantly everyone else would move to do it also. Occasionally I cheated because one kid would only move a bit (not actually getting out paper), and I would thank them profusely for getting out a piece of paper...and then everyone would do it, never noticing that that one kid wasn't doing it to begin with. (And that one kid would feel too weird to say he wasn't getting out paper since I was being nice and everyone else was doing it by that point.)

@greyeyed123 That’s not really embedded commands. Embedded commands are kind of a sleight of hand move. They hide the fact that you are commanding someone to do it. It seems innocent but what it does is bypass conscious mind and go to subconscious.

For instance this is an embedded command.

You don’t have to take out the trash

If you read my post then you will agree with what I say

You may want to isten to what I’m saying

I don’t really know if you like my post.

See how subtle these are. What happens is the brain filters out the you don’t have to, if and then. You may want to, I don’t really know and only focuses on the other parts. It doesn’t process You don’t have to it only processes take out the trash. Very subtle and extremely effective

@abyers1970 With most psychological techniques, once you know about them, they have less effect.

Shhh, don't tell 'em.