Quality Of Trust
Ordinarily it is thought that those persons who cannot be hypnotized are powerful. This is absolutely wrong. The stronger the person the more easily he is hypnotized. The second wrong conception is that a very intelligent person cannot be hypnotized. That too is absolutely wrong. The more stupid a person the less is the possibility of hypnotizing him. You cannot hypnotize an idiot – impossible. You cannot hypnotize a madman – impossible. The more intelligent a person the more easily he can be hypnotized.
Why? – because hypnosis needs cooperation; the basic factor is cooperation, your cooperation. The idiot cannot understand what you are demanding, what type of cooperation; the madman cannot understand what you are demanding. Only an intelligent person can cooperate, and hypnosis is possible only when you cooperate. So if you are paranoid, schizophrenic, neurotic, you cannot cooperate. If you are very much afraid, a fear complex is there, you cannot cooperate.
A person who can trust can be hypnotized easily. A person who cannot trust anybody cannot be hypnotized – because the person who is hypnotizing is not using any force on you. This is again a wrong conception, the third, that the hypnotist is using some force. No, not at all. The hypnotist has no force to use; the hypnotist is only using your force, so you have to cooperate. If you don’t cooperate nobody can hypnotize you. And cooperation needs trust, because you will be unconscious and you don’t know what this man who is hypnotizing will do to you.
A person who is guilty about something is very difficult to hypnotize, be-cause he is always afraid that when he is unconscious the thing he is hiding may come up. A person who has committed some sin, or thinks he has committed some sin and is hiding it, will be very difficult to hypnotize. Only a simple, innocent person can be hypnotized, because he has nothing to hide. You cannot bring anything out; he has no secrets. If you have secrets and you don’t want them to be exposed you cannot trust anybody – because hypnosis means that your unconscious is available to the hypnotist. He can penetrate deep down, he can bring out anything that you are hiding.
So those persons are not hypnotizable who fall into these categories. The less guilty and less afraid, and the more intelligent, trusting and cooperative a person is, the more hypnotizable. So don’t think that if you cannot be hypnotized you are something great. You may be simply ill, pathological. If you can be hypnotized you show a quality of trust and you show that you are imaginative. You show that suggestions can catch you and your imagination can work through them. You are an imaginatively creative person.
But remember that unless you cooperate nobody can hypnotize you – nobody. Even if Mesmer comes he cannot hypnotize you if you don’t cooperate. Your cooperation is needed, your total willingness is needed. And then too you are not completely in the control of the hypnotist. A part of you remains alert even then, and if the hypnotist is going to force you to do something against yourself you will suddenly come out of hypnosis.
