It is often asked whether or not some [tag-tec]hypnotic[/tag-tec] phenomenon is real. Is hypnotic trance a valid phenomenon? For instance, a question is asked that indicates that failure to close the eyelids or failure to be able to open the eyelids is definitive of the light state of hypnosis. To use eyelid closure to define hypnotic states even in part seems to be as absurd as defining mobile life as the ability to move in a northerly direction, as if the direction were pertinent.

The minimum of experience in hypnosis discloses that [tag-tec]hypnotized[/tag-tec] subjects can open or close, or keep closed, the eyelids, as is also the case in the waking state. Why then, in various books on hypnosis, in various experimental studies, is there such effort to define hypnosis in terms of the presence of absence of little bits of isolated behavior, not even necessarily related to [tag-ice]hypnosis[/tag-ice]? There are whole classifications devised to show that in the light trance you find phenomena “A” and “B” and “C,” that in the medium trance there occur “D,” “E,” and “F,” and in the deep trance there develop phenomena “G,” “H,” and “I,” as if that were absolute law, as if human behavior followed rigid sequences and rigid relationships.

There are people who try to define hypnosis in terms of sequences of behavior, of selected situations, or of the interpersonal relationship (as if a tall, blue-eyed subject and
short, brown-eyed operator were important in effecting a special form of hypnosis). There are also efforts to define it in special descriptive terms to be applied to both operator and subject.

Hypnosis is also falsely defined in terms of the purposes to be achieved, as if you could have “medical” hypnosis and “dental” hypnosis and “psychological” hypnosis. This is on a par with describing anesthesia in surgery as “right kidney anesthesia,” “left kidney anesthesia” and “gastric resection anesthesia. “ Hypnosis should not be defined in terms of the operators and their interests nor in terms of special points of view. This statement is but introductory to another point of interest, and that is the discounting of hypnosis if certain phenomena are not consistently present. For example, it is dogmatically asserted that if catalepsy is not consistently present, hypnosis is to be doubted, that if posthypnotic phenomena are not consistently present, hypnosis is doubtful. In other words the assertion is too frequently made that there is good reason to doubt [tag-tec]hypnosis[/tag-tec] unless all of certain arbitrarily chosen hypnotic phenomena are present.

Comparably, it might be declared with equal credibility that since vision, hearing, and limbs are universally present in human beings, congenital absence of one or more of these would raise serious doubts in a “scientific” mind about identifying such a person as a human creature.