Meditation and Hypnosis

This is a draft of a new article I am preparing for the Circle of Healing Arts newsletter, on the similarities and differences between meditation and hypnosis. Let me know what you think.

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Meditation and Hypnosis

©2014 Craig R. Lang, MS CHt

Explore with Hypnosis

Have you ever found yourself focused on something and wondered where the last two hours went? Have you ever found yourself staring at something and just gone inside of yourself? If you are a meditator, the answer to these questions is probably yes. If not, perhaps you have spontaneously experienced any of these experiences. In either case, you have experienced the gift of the mind that is hypnosis.

Hypnosis and meditation are part of our everyday life. You experience hypnosis whenever you daydream, get lost in thought or become involved in what you are doing. Any time you read a good book or get absorbed in a movie, any time you wonder - wow, did two hours pass already?, you have experienced the hypno-meditative state of consciousness.

Hypnosis is merely the selective focus on something, along with the willingness to momentarily suspend disbelief. It is a simple process, and yet it allows the mind to access many of its own deep resources for growth and healing.

The Meditative State

What's going on within the mind when you go into hypnosis or meditation? The answer to that is simple, yet it is as profound and complex as the mind, itself. We live with our minds in one of four states of consciousness: Waking, dreaming, sleeping and hypnosis/meditation. Waking state occurs when you are focused on something, aware and tracking with everything that goes on around you - analytical and in control. This is your normal state of waking consciousness, while the sleep and dream states are those within the sleep cycle that occur during the night.

The hypno-meditative state is the state you experience when your thoughts momentarily zero in on that object of focus. You tune out the background, suspending disbelief and that analytical skepticism for a short time. You  allow yourself to go into that 'zone.' That's the hypnotic or meditative state.

So, what is hypnosis and what is meditation. Are they the same? Are they different? The answer is yes to both questions. They are essentially the same state of consciousness. They both involve selective focus - allowing self to go-with/experience the flow of thought.

Yet, while the mechanism and the state of consciousness are the same, the intent of hypnosis and meditation are different. Hypnosis is purposeful, while meditation exists in its own right. It is a restful, peaceful discipline that teaches the mind to control its own self. In the words of Swami Veda of the Himalayan Tradition, meditation is simply a continuous flow of thought, existing for its own sake.
Like exercise - you don't work out to accomplish something right now. You aren't going to suddenly earn a million dollars or build your deck by going running today. You exercise to improve your body over the longer term. Each time you work out, it becomes a little easier, your physical condition is just a little bit better, you achieve a longer-term goal - that of simply being in better shape.

Similarly, we don't meditate to do something right now. You probably are not going to quit smoking or remember where you misplaced that twenty dollar bill five years ago - at least not today. Rather, like exercising to improve your body, you meditate to strengthen the mind and soul. Over time, the benefits accumulate but they are not instantaneous. Each time you meditate, it gets a little easier. Each time, you build up a little more control over your thoughts.

While the philosophy behind meditation is consistent, there are several different types of meditation. Mindfulness meditation involves focusing on the present moment - what are you actually experiencing at this instant? What does your body and mind experience right now? Mindfulness teaches the mind to control its own thoughts, grounding yourself in reality.

Somewhat different from mindfulness is mantra-based meditation. This involves focusing on a key thought - a phrase, a tone or object that allows you to go deep into your own inner space. Like mindfulness, it teaches you to control your thoughts, but in a different way. Instead of orienting the mid toward the absolute present, it teaches the mind to focus on that key thought and thereby build discipline and focus.

Somewhere beyond mantra meditation, guided meditation is a more deliberate experience. In this process, the meditator follows instructions and imagery, most often the voice of another person. The guiding voice brings them into that same internal focus, bringing about that same deep inner awareness.

Self Hypnosis

Extending the process of guided meditation another step along that same continuum we find that along with selective focus and suspension of disbelief (most often from relaxation) we can include suggestions, deliberate imagery and other forms of constructive work. We can use our time in this inner focused state to do deliberate healing work. The process remains the same, almost identical to how we go into meditation, but now the intent has now become purposeful. When doing intentional work while in the meditative state, we call the process, hypnosis.

Like meditation: hypnosis involves allowing yourself to go with the flow - zeroing in on the object of focus. Guided imagery/meditation is one of the most basic forms of self-hypnosis: simply focusing on a voice and allowing it to guide you into hypnotic/meditative state. And along with imagery, we can also include some form of suggestions, comparisons or other means of guiding the subconscious toward a goal. Hypnosis allows the mind to focus inward, accessing those parts within itself where change may be needed, and effecting change in some deliberate way.

Self-hypnosis typically does not include dialog. Most often, information only goes one way, from a recording (a self-hypnosis CD or MP3) to the mind. The listener allows the recorded voice of the hypnotist to guide his/her into state of focused thinking based upon instructions. He/she simply focuses and goes inward, perhaps allowing recorded suggestions or other subconsciou change to occur.

Hetero-hypnosis

In a way, all hypnosis is self-hypnosis: The hypnotist can give instructions, but the client needs to be willing to follow those instructions. The client simply focuses on selective thoughts, and follows them them as a guide. In all cases, whether on one's own in meditation or self-hypnosis, or with a hypnotist providing cues in real time, the listener makes the journey of the mind. The listener does the work of the mind - the self-hypnosis.

In hetero hypnosis, what we think of as a hypnosis or hypnotherapy session within my studio - I simply invite you to follow my instructions, allowing my voice to guide your mind into a deep state of inward focus. In 1:1 session, I may ask you to respond to my questions - and part of you may be right in my studio, feeling as if you could observe your own thoughts. Yet the rest of your awareness will be focused on that space deep within, that place of trance. You may experience this in a way similar to a waking dream, a daydream, or simply as waking consciousness. In any case, you will most likely find you can experience thoughts and imagery from your subconscious that you had not previously expected.


While on the surface, hypnosis and meditation may seem very different, they are, in many ways, the same thing - mantra or mindfulness, guided imagery, self-hypnosis, hypnotherapy - each is a different manifestation of the same process, accessing that fourth state of consciousness. Each allows us to go into the subconscious for reasons specific to themselves. We can learn, we can strengthen our thoughts, or we can effect deliberate change.

Whatever reason we choose, we find we can access these two gifts of consciousness - separate and distinct, yet one and the same. They are the fourth state of consciousness - the state we call meditation and hypnosis.

...

Healing Light, Forgotten Promises and a Return to Earth

The week since returning from the Ozark UFO Conference has began with brutal return to Earth. After a long weekend of dealing with the paranormal, metaphysical, the leading edge of physics and beyond, life returned to business as usual, only more so.

When I returned, it turned out that I had to intervene in a controversy involving some rather significant interpersonal issues. While I won't go into specifics, I will say that it involved politics, personalities and hurt feelings. There was a lot of drama involved. It was a a very large and unpleasant dose of business (not as usual, I hope), a stark contrast to the light I had felt the day or two before.

Moving beyond the drama, I had a wonderful weekend in Eureka Springs. I drove down there with Jerry and Carol Buchmeier - Jerry is another hypnotherapist, and Carol is a professional storyteller. We spent hours in the car in both directions, chatting and getting to know each other well. I think I found some great new friends, as well as wonderful kindred spirits.

At the conference, both Jerry and I purchased Sherry Wilde's book, Forgotten Promises. As we were driving home, we took turns reading the book aloud, the reader in the back seat, providing our organic-audio as we covered the miles from Arkansas to Minnesota. Then, yesterday (Easter Sunday), I sat down and read nearly the entire book in one sitting. It is a quick read, written in an easy conversational style. I heard her speak at the conference and her writing is just like her speaking - easy to follow and heartwarming.

What struck me most was the effect Sherry Wilde's book had on me. It brought tears to my eyes and I'm not exactly sure why. It does turn out that she grew up about twenty miles from where I did, in southern Wisconsin, close to Madison. She was having a lot of her experiences at about the time I was growing up and as I read or listened to the story, I kept marveling that these things were going on right in my back yard.

Many of her most powerful experiences occurred in the mid to late 1980s. At that time, I lived in Minneapolis, and cared little about hypnosis or about alien abduction. My life was absorbed in rock and ice climbing, as well as lots of other outdoor adventure sports. Life was all also about freedom from one marriage, meeting my new girlfriend - which a couple of years thereafter led to my present marriage. I was an engineer, a mountaineer, and having the time of my life. I had little interest in things like anomalies or close encounters. And yet it turns out that all around me, things were going on that would later capture and dominate my life.

As I read Forgotten Promises, I saw a reflection of many of the events that were going on at the time just before I crossed the event horizon. At that time, CUFOS (The J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies) was very active, and was the primary research organization involved with close encounters. At that time, I read the books Missing Time and Intruders, both by Budd Hopkins, and the book Communion, by Whitley Strieber. As I was starting grad school, these were all at the periphery my mind.

In the next few years, after finishing grad school, I took a swan dive into the anomaly world, I found myself investigating a number of close encounter cases that led me down the rabbit hole, or whatever cliche you want to use. Several of these cases appeared in my book, The Cosmic Bridge, and now, reading Forgotten Promises, I felt much of the intensity of those first cases coming back to me.

A few days after returning, moving beyond the drama, I felt the light resume. I had a number of excellent healing sessions with clients. I saw remarkable, heart-warming change in several clients I had been working with, and could only be thankful that I was allowed to be part of that change.

Now, finally, I have gotten home. I can feel both the dark and the light side of the return to Earth. And once again, the lesson returns that life is both light and dark. We have to accept both sides of business as usual. Each of us can see the healing light, but must also face the forgotten promises - all are part of the return to earth.

Day 3 - final notes from Ozark UFO Conference

Today was the wrap up of the Ozark UFO Conferene. It's been a great three days, and now, it will be good to be home.

This mornings talk was by Travis Walton, of Fire in the Sky fame. For readers who are not familiar with the story, Travis Walton was one of a logging crew who encountered a UFO, as they were heading home from a hard day's work in the forests near Snowflake Arizona. They were driving down an obscure logging road and suddenly came across a light in the trees. Hovering over the clearing, was a huge UFO. Walton got out to look more closely and suddenly was zapped by some kind of a beam. it threw him back about 20 (or so) feet, leaving him unconscious.

Thinking he was dead, his companions panicked and retreated down the road, returning a few moments later to tryand find him. They couldn't. Several days of steadily widening search still yielded noresult. Tracking dogs found his trail only up to thepoint in the clearing where he vanished. It's as if a UFO had picked him up - as apparently, it had.

The sheriff's office was convinced that the rest of the crew had murdered Walton. This all went on for several days until, about five days later, he showed up dazed, walking into town. He called his brother from a phone booth and a short time later they got him to medical attention, etc. That's the extremely short version, but you get the gist.

Walton continued the story, describing some of his experiences within the craft, those few he could actually remember. From what he described, and according to his conclusions, it appears as if he was accidentally injured by the UFO, and the occupants took him aboard in an attempt to resuscitate him. He recalled several moments where in a panicky fear-crazed state, jumped up, grabbed a metal object to use as a weapon and threatened the little beings that had been in the room with him. 

Eventually several of them managed to subdue him using some sort of mind-control technique and that was the last thing he remembered. Some time later, a couple of human(oid) beings appeared. Thinking they were humans, there to rescue him in some way, he let them accompany him out of the ship, down a ramp and into some hangar-like area where several other disk-like craft were parked.  He described the background of sunlight through translucent windows, though he thought it could have been panel lighting just as easily. 

Then once again, the human(oid) beings held up a device to his forehead (or something like that) and he lost consciousness. His next memory is of lying at the edge of the road in a nearby town....

He described his interaction with the UFO community, the government and other human agencies - bothpositive and negative. It was quite a story, a very human one. Lots more to come on that story, I'm sure.

Last up was Delores Cannon, giving her recollections of about 25 years of UFO work. I won't comment too much about that, except to say that what she said and did at this conference very much met the expectations I had previously had. 

She was largely doing Q&A, answering questions based upon her book research (nearly all from regression with experiencers - who paid a lot bucks for it), and her own conclusions. 'Nuff sed...

There are many observations possible on her work and her conclusions. I can only admire her dedication, her level of industry and her commitment to a new way of viewing our reality.

I am also fascinated with the techniques she uses - to quote her exact words, she has "reinvented hypnosis." Use your own discernment on that. Her training is pricey, yet her techniques seem to be effective. Regardless of what my views are - and they vary from day today - I still want to take her training some day.

Overall, I thought the conference was great. 

There were some fascinating dynamics throughout, a wide variety of views and many new things to consider. It only goes to remind me one again, just how vast the topic of anomalies, UFOs, and metaphysical experiences can be.

As I see it now, I will definitely be back next year

Day 2 of the Ozark UFO Conference - end of a good long day.

A great second day of the Ozark UFO Conferene. 

In the morning, Anthony Cataldo, producer of the new docudrama, 701 was the first to speak. He talked about the film, and about some of the motivations behind it. He did a screening of part of the film, discussing the 1994 Zimbabwe CE3, the 1996 Varginha, Brazil UFO crash, and other cases. It was a wonderful talk, and I'm glad to see he will be more involved in the MUFON board.

First off, he brings a lot of money, as well as business/publicity savvy to the board - something that MUFON really needs. Secondly, he brings a good sense ofleadership. I asked him if I could model a character in my novel after him. He said just fine. I think I want to make him be a high ranking figure in MUFON, but who has ties to the cover up. And his wife - ooh gorgeous - a stereotypically beautiful Scandanavian blonde. I think I will have the character in my book married to a Nordic hybrid or something like that. After all, she is an alien, of sorts… :-)

Heard Linda Moulton Howe talk this aft, then heard George Noory. Linda's talk was great. George's talk was entertaining.

Linda's talk was great. She talked a lot about Gobekli Tepi and about self-activating machines, the same thing she covered two years ago at the Paradigm symposium. I had heard most of that, and then had to go to get to the MUFON meeting. There was a lot of really good stuff at the end, that I missed, or so I learned later.

The MUFON meeting was good, as well. It was a small group - about 15 or so, from Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas - the southern heartland states, plus myself and Mike Knox from MN (Mike is also from Tennessee and Texas). Not much official stuff business, mostly more face time more than anything else.

George Noory's talk was basically a couple hours of entertainment and meet and greet. He had a bunch of Q&A, with not much A,followed by the meet & greet. I was somewhat less impressed… :-)

I went into vendor room at one point and bought Sherry Wilde's book. I later managed to corner Sherry to have her autograph the book. We ducked outof George Noory's talk and I caught a ride back to the motel Jerry and Carol and I were staying at.

Day 3 is a half-day, presumably because most of the attendees have to get back to Little Rock, or wherever their flights home are leaving. We are staying tomorrow night, then driving back on Monday. I'm having a great time, but it will be great to be home, too.

Also, I need to get a bunch of DVDs for the MN MUFON library tomorrow. In addition, I think I might try to corner a couple of people who might be great speakers at MN MUFON sometime in the future.

Eureka Springs is a wonderful place. It is an old town, back to the late 1800s, centered around health spa hot springs in the area. The streets look old, reminiscent of the old city in a European city. The place has a delightful Bohemian flavor to it - a lot of little artist's colonies, massage therapists and alternative health centers, etc. A delightfully progressive community in the middle of the Bible Belt.

Enough for now - it's the end of a great Day 2. Time to plank and get ready for day 3…

Notes from the Ozark UFO Conference -first day

A few quick notes from the first day of the Ozark UFO Conference.

A lot of very iteresting personalities here. Met a number of experiencers and a number of UFO researchers - from the skeptical to the far new age. 

The first talk was by Antonio Paris, a skeptic - not a debunker, but one who advocated more of a scientific approach. The talk was on space science, the difficulties of star travel, and what any ET visitors would have to confront. The assumption of the talk was that the visitors are nuts and bolts ETs. He also said that by temporarily throwing out the ideas of interdimensional travel, artificial gravity, etc., we get back to the real problems of space travel.

I thought his talk was really limited

The second talk was by Sherri Wilde, an abductee who grew up in southern Wisconsin. It turns out that many of her abduction events were in the area right around Madison. Sherri lived only about 20 to 30 miles from where I grew up. Her talk was diametrically opposite to Antonio Paris's talk, in that she presented the ET presence as real, largely benevolent, and undeniable.

The third presenter was Nick Pope, who talked about the coverup, and creeping disclosure. I find it fascinating that many of the countries in the western world have released a lot of their UFO files while the USA has not done much of anything. He talked about the Rendlesham/Bentwaters/Woodbridge encounters.

I found that there were a few undercurrents of politics, a few elements of conflicting beliefs and philosophies and a few moments of disagreement throughout. Nothing major, but just enough to tell us that the field is dynamic and interactive as ever.

Lots more later. Gotta bag it tonight....

The Physics Behind the Metaphysics

The last few days have been  humbling, coloring and enlightening. I've had my aura photographed, I've learned a fair amount about energy medicine and I've begun to see just how deep the theory is behind it. I've also discovered how much has changed in the theory behind quantum mechanics since I was in college (I studied physics and engineering over 35 years ago). It's been quite an interesting last few days, and I've only scratched the surface. So - what I doing and why am I doing this? Hmmmm, glad you asked...

At the last Edge expo, my booth was on the other side of the curtain from a group of aura readers. As I talked with them, the engineer within me got interested in the question of just exactly what is going on in this process. To generalize the question, what is the physics behind the metaphysics?

At another gathering I attended only a week or two ago, the presenter was talking about crystal healing, how it worked and what it did. She described a lot of things related to energy patterns, quantum processes, waves, frequencies, etc. She used a lot of physics-y language in an attempt to describe what was going on. Unfortunately for someone with a physics background, the explanation had a lot of visible flaws. It was just enough to make a sci-tech geek like me to want to run screaming from the room.

It took me a few days to recover from the "BS bath" - or so it felt at the time. But as I began to think about it, I realized that there is probably a lot to this. The ideas were intriguing, yet the actual physics concepts are poorly understood. Thus, the language of the field - the buzzwords, if you will - tend to be vastly misused. Yet they point to ideas that at their core, are valid.

When I look into metaphysical topics, right brained stuff, things are pretty coherent. Studying meditation, theology, psychology and spirituality all form a very intriguing picture. I love the path I am traveling into this new (for me) meta world. The depths of spirituality are endless.

At other times, when I look into topics such as physics, I find another, different, also nicely coherent world. Quantum physics is a fascinating field - and while the concepts are mind-bending, they still follow the rules of mathematics and logic. At least in principle, with enough mathematical understanding, one can understand even the most advanced physics. The mysteries of physics are endless. I love this path as well.

The trouble comes when we try to mix the two. Sometimes, when I hear people try to explain the physics behind spirituality, my discernment filter wants to scream for a time out. What do we mean when we talk about frequency, vibrations, energy, wave functions, etc.? A lot of terms are used, a lot of ideas are thrown about, yet overall understanding of them is limited.

Quantum physics is truly a mind-bending topic. It's very easy to get overwhelmed by both the concepts, and the mathematics involved. I recently started reading Quantum Physics for Dummies, a 'basic' primer on quantum physics. Indeed, I did feel like a dummy after starting to read it. The math is at the PhD level and counting. I've had to re-read the early chapters multiple times, and my background is in physics and engineering.

One cannot really understand quantum physics without understanding mathematics at a pretty high level.  And yet books like Quantum Reality, by Nick Herbert can give one a feel for the concepts, along with a hint of the mathematics involved - just enough to give you that first glimmer of understanding.

The book Vibrational Medicine, the #1 Handbook of Subtle Energy Therapies, by Richard Gerber, MD, does a good job of building the case for a lot of subtle healing modalities. The author does a wonderful job (the best I've seen) at explaining the concepts behind it. I have started to delve into this, and found it makes quite a lot of sense.

Part of the material I was reading last night was on homeopathic medicine and how it works. For me, the biggest conceptual hurdle in  homeopathy is the idea that water can retain the essence of whatever substance has been dissolved in it. This concept is at the core of the modality and for me, it is the sticking point - I cannot say it is false, but I need to be convinced of it. Still, the idea is intriguing. Similarly, the idea of the human aura is intriguing, yet I need to be convinced of just what it is, and how we can perceive and measure it before I can fully accept it as scientifically valid.

Much about the human energy field is speculative at best. A host of electromagnetic effects are present and measurable. Yet it is not clear what is being described in various esoteric texts. Is the human aura a field of electromagnetism? Or is it something we don't yet understand? Based upon what I've read so far, that question is not answered yet. But the gist of it is that the idea of an energy field surrounding the human body is probably valid. Healing using energy fields, frequencies, etc. has a lot of merit.


From the point of view of we physics geeks, it's fine to talk about metaphysics, spirituality, healing modalities, etc. Similarly, it's great to talk about pure hard science topics. Like the relationship between science and religion, when we try to think of one in terms of the other, when we try to explain the subtle or esoteric in terms of physics and mathematics, we venture onto conceptual thin ice.

We need to be careful to use the terms and concepts in physics correctly. If we are going to be scientific, we need to be sure the science is valid and accurate. It is very easy to get beyond the data, to stretch actual physics concepts of well beyond the breaking point. Then we are left with the dreaded "p word" so beloved of the debunkers - "pseudoscience."

We need to be sure we are sticking to the data and using the mathematics correctly. Otherwise the skeptics are right. It's the downside of the physics behind the metaphysics.

Visitors Day Invitation to my BNI Chapter

This is an invitation to any businessperson in the north Twin Cities Metro - especially around New Brighton, Minnesota - who would like to build their referral network.

My BNI chapter, Synergy BNI, will be holding a Visitors Day on Tuesday April 22, at 8AM.
We meet at the New Brighton Community Center, 400 10th St. NW, in New Brighton, MN 55112
(Old Hwy 8 and 10th St. NW, near the I35W/I694 interchange).

Bring lots of business cards and come prepared to meet a lot of other business people looking for connections and referral partners.

Please feel free to let me know if you are interested. I would love to have you there as my guest.

Thanks,
 -Craig Lang