Hypnomania

In “Rethinking the Role of Diagnosis in Navajo Religious Healing,” Derek Milne and Wilson Howard depicts the role of diagnosis in two Navajo religious healing traditions, Traditional Navajo religion and the Native American Church (NAC).  Their study approaches to understanding the role and efficacy of diagnosis and how narrating effectively aids patients with their illness.  In both healing practices, diagnosis plays an essential role and also includes some type of ceremony or meeting which typically focuses on healing the patient.  However, there are many differences between these two religious healing.  In the traditional Navajo religion, “correct diagnosis is extremely important, because if the wrong ceremony is performed, the patient will not heal” (547).  This can create anxiety for the Navajo person.  In the NAC, morality and personal responsibility is emphasized more when diagnosing.  More importantly, “the idea of confession as cure…is emphasized much more strongly in the NAC than in the Traditional Navajo religion” (557).  The authors conclude that “the act of understanding the nature of and narrating one’s illness impacts health suggest a belief in the effective potential of language itself” (564).  Meaning, narrating their story to a healer acts as a primary role for the individual to cure their own illness.  These “magical power of words” plays an effective role of healing among both cultures. 

In Joseph S. Alter’s article called “Modern Medical Yoga: Struggling with a History of Magic, Alchemy, and Sex,” he discusses two main points: how modern yoga is modernized into the twentieth-century ideas about health and how the power of yoga as medicine relates to tenth and eleventh-century ideas about sex, magic, and alchemy (120).  This article emphasizes how the ideas about yoga have changed between various generations and how it has loss its natural nature.  Furthermore it mentioned how “[yoga] is also used effectively as a kind of preventive, health promoting therapy” (134).  In comparison to modern day science, there is no history of yoga as medicine (such as treating diseases) because the nature of yoga takes us back more than eighty years ago which does not associate to our modern science of treating diseases; however, it is still very effective in understanding the body, mind, and soul with reference to modern science and spirituality.

These articles bring up a very significant point about therapeutic healing.  They highlight how language, breathing, and meditating can be used as an effective tool for healing the mental and physical state of an individual.  For example, in the Milne and Howard article, “narration of illness experience is the process by which thought and speech are used to bring the body back to a state of health” (564-565)  Like therapy, this can help build understanding of the causes of one’s illness through analytical thinking and thought processes in one’s mind.  In addition to, meditating also applies to practicing modern day yoga.  It can effectively manipulate an individual by the popularized practice of asana (postural exercises) and pranayama (breathing exercises) as a way of promoting good health and perfection.  Language is an effective tool to manipulate the mind to the body.

Travis Fox

Video 1:

Video 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCA4jrhf2eg

In relation to both articles, language is also an effective tool in practicing of hypnosis by inducing the state of mind by words suggested by the hypnotist.  One experience I have encountered with hypnosis was at the Puyallup Fair.  There are not only rides, games, small boutiques, and food, but also entertainment such as concerts, films, and performances.  The one entertainment performance that is very popular at the fair is called Hypnomania, hosted by Dr. Travis Fox, a practitioner of hypnotism.  Hypnomania invites audience members to the stage to be hypnotize, taking hypnotism to another level aside from the traditional practice of dangling a pocket watch side to side.  It is called “Hypnomania” because the audience members can make as much noises as possible without waking up the participants (Video 2 at 1:00).  Besides being a well-known entertainer of hypnosis, he is also a mind management consultant and co-founder of the Million Minds Project that promotes his methodology of treating patients with hypnotherapy.  The Million Minds Project includes “training, guiding and teaching of the next generation of mental coaches, specifically in the field of Hypnotherapy, Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Life/Spiritual Coaching”.  According to corporations such as Honda, T-Mobile, and Wells Fargo his methodology has helped improve “energizing their sales, marketing and performances utilizing his tools for personality profiling, effective listening, and focused concentration”.  His methodology has also helped professional golf players in the GPA tour by improving their performances and scores.

His performance at the Puyallup Fair was very unique because it combines past and present skills and techniques of hypnosis in a very funny and entertaining way of inducing the mind.  I think this form of entertainment with hypnosis takes it to another level rather than what “traditional hypnosis” is like.  At the end of the show, he mentioned how his methodology can be used for treating addiction, health illnesses, or other individualistic needs.  I think this is such an interesting movement from the traditional hypnosis practice.  What is questionable about his methodology is how effective it may be on some individuals.  Last week’s article about “Medical Mimesis: Healing signs of a Cosmopolitan ‘Quack’” by Jean Langford associates to this because it illustrates whether or not his practices is effective or not.  If there was no efficacy in his practice then he would be considered a Quack among other medical practitioners. 

Although his practice is very entertaining and interesting, I wonder how society can protect traditional healing practices such as traditional healing practices in Native American culture, yoga, or hypnosis from changing from its natural form?  As time continues to flow by, we tend to modernize everything to be kept as something new and refreshing rather than old and boring.  This sort of cultural phenomena may challenge preserving traditions in our present and future lives.  Is there a respectful way to keeping these traditions sacred and protected from being transformed into something new?  My only thought is yes anything is possible, but depending on other people’s perspective and commitment to protecting traditional practices may influence how we keep such traditions as sacred and valuable.



References:

Derek Milne and Wilson Howard. 2000. “Rethinking the role of Diagnosis in Navajo Religious Healing.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 14 (4): 543-570.

Jean M. Langford, 1999. "Medical Mimesis: Healing Signs of a Cosmopolitan 'Quack'." American Ethnologist 26(1):24-46

Joseph S. Alter, 2005. “Modern Medical Yoga: Struggling with a History of Magic, Alchemy, and Sex.” Asian Medicine 1 (1):119-146.

Websites:
http://millionmindsproject.com/index.html
http://www.hypnothoughts.com/profile/DrTravisFoxPhDDCH
http://www.comediansusa.com/Travis-Fox