Research in hypnosis and the presentation of ideas about hypnosis too frequently parallel the arguments that the seven blind men offered about the elephant. They argued first with much intensity and finally they did research. One got hold of the tusk and another of the tail, another felt the flank, another, the ear; the fifth examined the trunk, etc. Then, after each had done his complete examination of his particular part of the elephant, their arguments became intensified.

So it is with [tag-tec]hypnosis[/tag-tec]. Everybody has a particular point of view, and it is necessarily a limited point of view, just as mine is. I am going to ask a critical question, therefore, to my colleagues: Why should anyone assume that hypnosis is of necessity a matter of distorting reality? Certainly such a forthright assumption is far beyond the call of any scientific duty. One could equally well and perhaps more rightly and informatively say that hypnosis is a state of readiness to utilize learnings. Why should it be viewed as a distortion of reality instead of some kind of readiness to use abilities normally?

It has also been said that “Hypnosis is an alteration in perception,” as if this were an abnormal process, an indictment of [tag-ice]hypnosis[/tag-ice]. But is it not a part of our learning experience in life, and does it make hypnosis a distortion of reality?

It is also stated that hypnosis is a state where one person takes responsibility for another. I think that is on a par with the supposedly explicit and specific statements that [tag-tec]hypnosis session[/tag-tec] involves an interpersonal relationship in which one person, the operator, restructures the perceptions and conceptions of another person, the subject. Let us examine this statement to see if it is equally applicable in other fields.

Anaesthesiology is a relationship wherein one person takes the responsibility for another. Education involves an interpersonal relationship in which one person, the teacher, restructures the perceptions and conceptions of another, the student. Eating involves an interpersonal relationship in which one person, the waitress, restructures the perceptions and conceptions of another person. In other words, these presumably specific scientific statements intended to describe hypnosis are so generally applicable as to be descriptive of the teacher, the lover, the bus driver, and so on. One does not describe hypnosis scientifically by offering with an air of profundity vague generalities that can be paraphrased in so many ways.

Science is the method by which we endeavor to achieve more and more explicit and specific understandings of phenomena, expressed in terms applicable to the phenomena
themselves and not to other unrelated things.