Category Archives: Books

BOOK REVIEW: Hypnotism for Beginners by B.V. Pattabhi Ram

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Hypnotism for Beginners: Easy Techniques to Practice HypnotismHypnotism for Beginners: Easy Techniques to Practice Hypnotism by B.V. Pattabhi Ram
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Dr. Pattabhi Ram provides a concise and accurate overview of the basics of hypnosis. There are a lot of books on hypnosis in publication, but – unfortunately – it’s a subject for which there is a lot of chaff to shift through to get to the grain. Many of the books that address the subject with scientific accuracy are dense scholarly tomes unsuitable for the average reader. And many of the books that target hypnotic neophytes are filled with erroneous statements which contribute to the perpetuation of myths. This book strikes a nice middle ground for those looking for an introduction to hypnotic trance that isn’t too dense, but yet is rooted in scientific findings on the subject.

The book consists of twelve chapters. The first two chapters examine the development of hypnosis as a subject of scientific inquiry. This isn’t to suggest that there was no application of hypnotic trance earlier, but it fell more into the realms of religion and spirituality. The first chapter considers the history of hypnotic science, focusing on major figures such as Franz Mesmer (as in “mesmerized,”) James Braid (the one who coined the term “hypnosis” and moved the subject away from the ethereal approach of Mesmer,) as well as other early influencers, namely John Elliotson and Jean Martin Charcot. The second chapter investigates the legitimization of hypnosis tied to its recognition by governments.

The third chapter explores the varying levels of hypnotic trance, dividing them into light, medium (hallucinatory), and deep (somnambulistic [sleep-walking].) Here the reader learns what differentiates varying degrees of trance.

Chapters four and five offer brief overviews of neuroses and phobias, respectively. As hypnosis is about tapping into the subconscious mind, these are domains in which the technique is particularly likely to be of assistance.

Chapter six is where skeptical readers will begin to doubt what I have said about the scientific legitimacy of this book. It is entitled, “Hypnotism and Occult,” and for one thing it inquires into the evidence that hypnosis can contribute to extra-sensory perception or other super-normal abilities. However, to be fair, the author doesn’t suggest that there is evidence of such a connection, merely that it’s a claim that has often been made. If there is truly an offense to science, it’s more in the later portion of the chapter, which deals in Freud’s ideas about dreams and their interpretation (which is generally discredited in the scientific community, though it maintains a large following among psychoanalysts.)

Chapter seven deals in another common [and controversial] claim, that hypnosis can be used to improve memory. One thing I would have liked to see a little about in a chapter on memory and hypnosis is discussion of inadvertently planted false memories as has now been well established in the literature. There have been a number of cases in which it seemed hypnosis had turned up a repressed memory, but under investigation it was discovered that the memories were false. (It should be pointed out that it needn’t require a diabolical intent for this to happen. It seems likely many of the therapists who suggested visualization in the hypnotic trance state genuinely believed they were helping, but failed to realize that a visualization can become indistinguishable from a memory under the right conditions.) At any rate, that isn’t addressed in this book. However, to be fair, the book is several years old at this point (I read a 2010 edition that I suspect wasn’t the first edition), and a lot of these findings are relatively new.

Chapters 8 and 9 form the heart of the book, teaching the reader how hypnosis is done. The first of these chapters focuses on the script and technique by which a hypnotist would induce a hypnotic trance in a subject. Chapter 9 is an overview of self-hypnosis. A truism in the field is, “All hypnosis is self-hypnosis,” and so it makes sense that this subject is addressed – especially given the self-help nature of the book.

Chapter 10 explores smoking, and how hypnosis can be used to break that addiction. This is one of the areas in which the usefulness of hypnosis has been most clearly established. The chapter is specifically geared toward smoking addiction, but an astute reader could apply the script to dealing with other addictions. The penultimate chapter explores the use of hypnosis and self-hypnosis as a means to overcome stress. This, too, is a major area in which hypnosis has shown itself to be helpful for a large number of people. The book focuses heavily on mental conditions, suggesting that hypnotism shouldn’t be considered for physical conditions. In this sense, I feel it may take too conservative a stance as it tries to avoid being accused of “hypnotic imperialism” (i.e. the suggestion that hypnosis can be used on anyone for any purpose.) Hypnosis as an analgesic (pain-reducer) is extremely well-established.

The last chapter is a bit different, and it focuses on how to do demonstrations of hypnosis. In India, where this book was published, there are laws regulating such shows in response to a lot of charlatanism. So, some of the chapter deals with legal issues that may or may not apply to you, depending upon where you reside, but it also deals with the general flow of a stage show for demonstration.

The book has black-and-white graphics (photos and drawings), but doesn’t provide much else in the way of ancillary material. Where references are made, they are in text – i.e. there is no bibliography. Footnotes are used rarely. The edition I read does have some typos here and there, but not at a distracting level.

My biggest criticism of the book would be that I couldn’t quite grasp the logic of its organization – particularly through the middle. Chapters 1, 2, and 12 make perfect sense, but the other chapters seem like they might benefit from being rejiggered with the how-to / technique chapters (8 and 9) moved closer to the front and the topics regarding afflictions and their treatments being more tightly grouped. That said, this wasn’t particularly distracting or detrimental while I was reading.

I would recommend this book for someone who is interested in learning the basics of hypnosis.

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BOOK REVIEW: Prussian Nights by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

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Prussian Nights: A PoemPrussian Nights: A Poem by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This long-form narrative poem tells a tale of inhumanity in the Soviet advance toward Germany during the Second World War. The narrator is a run-of-the-mill soldier who witnesses rape and murder by his comrades. Solzhenitsyn was a young officer in the military during the war, and it’s probable that the story of the poem draws from his real-world experience during the war. It’s said that he composed and memorized the poem while he was in the Gulag.

While the poem’s story focuses on violence and inhumanity perpetrated by some soldiers, it isn’t particularly graphic in its description. Rather, the author sets up scenes and leaves it to the reader’s imagination to fill in the blanks. It’s also true that in some cases the narrator is witnessing the aftermath of violence and not the act itself. It’s not a pretty story, but readers needn’t be concerned it will be gratuitously graphic.

While the translator chose to stick to rhyming verse, the poem is quite readable. The story is told in a straightforward fashion. Many will find this appealing because the readability is high. However, others may find the lack of metaphor and poetic approaches to language to make for unappealing poetry. There’s not a lot of symbolism and the meanings seem quite literal. That said, the imagery is often vivid and evocative, and the metered verse reads smoothly and lyrically.

The book has a feature that I like, which is the original [Russian] is on the left-hand page with the English translation, produced by Robert Conquest, on the right. The translation didn’t come in greatly useful for me. I had two years of Russian back in college, but that was a long time ago and I read Cyrillic with the unconfident stammer of a first grader. Still, it’s interesting to get a taste of the original.

I’d recommend this book, regardless of whether one is a poetry reader. The story can be read as just that, a story, and it offers insight into the ugly inhumanity too often set free in the act of warring.

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5 Literary Classics That Could Have Used an Editor

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I’ve got nothing against long novels. Some of my best friends are long novels. Sometimes a book either needs to be long, or — at least — manages to be a joy to read despite being long. However, I’m arguing here that there are some novels that could afford to have a little taken off the top.



5.) Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes: This is a funny and clever novel, but the gag goes on a bit too far. We don’t need to see every man, woman, and child in Spain kick the man of La Mancha’s butt because he hallucinates that each is a brigand or neer-do-well while he imagines himself a knight.




4.) Tale of the Genji by Lady Murasaki: To be fair, some consider this to be the first novel, and so it’s a little unreasonable to expect perfection of style and readability. (Not to mention that its target audience of 11th century Japanese courtiers are all long dead.)


3.) Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand: Irrespective of how one feels about Rand’s work as a political statement, we should all be able to agree that it doesn’t take 1,100+ pages to show us a world where entrepreneurs and capitalists go on strike.



2.) Moby Dick by Herman Melville: I realize that many consider this to be the great American novel, but I knew far too much about ambergris and whale bile ducts when I finished reading it… just sayin’.



1.) Ulysses by James Joyce: I’m aware of the stunningly beautiful language, but almost 800 pages to cover a single day in the life of one guy?

BOOK REVIEW: Behave by Robert Sapolsky

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Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and WorstBehave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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This book examines the role of biology in the best and worst of human behaviors – as well as presenting factors that compete with or complement biological explanations, as the author finds relevant. Sapolsky is neuroscientist (specifically, a neuroendocrinologist) with a unique perspective as his research cuts across species – involving not only human beings but also baboons. Sapolsky investigates why humans fight, cooperate, rape and forgive by comparing and contrasting human behavior with what is seen in the animal kingdom.

The first thing a potential reader must realize is that Sapolsky dives into the weeds more so than most scientists writing for a popular audience. This will be a plus if one’s grasp of science (biology, in particular) is strong. However, if the reader hasn’t read anything on biology since high school or freshman year of college, one is likely to find the names and descriptions of hormones and neurochemicals, brain sectors, and protein processes a bit daunting. The book has three appendices that offer primers on neuroscience, endocrinology, and proteins, respectively, to get readers up to speed on the basic science. Furthermore, Sapolsky is quick to point out what can be skipped by readers who don’t want so much detail. I don’t want to give the impression the book is boring. Sapolsky uses humor and story to good effect. It’s just that he gets into Latin names and physiological minutiae at a level that most of his counterparts don’t, and that some readers will find challenging.

While not formally divided so, the seventeen chapters of the book can readily be split in two parts. The first ten chapters discuss the types of behavior that Sapolsky is taking on, and then work back from what happens immediately before a behavior (i.e. one second before) through neuronal, hormonal, and other proximal causes to the far distant causes rooted in human evolution. The first half of these chapters take one to a point in the individual’s life at most months out from the behavior under consideration. Chapters six through eight go back to the individual’s youth, exploring the role of adolescence, infancy, and fetal development. Chapters nine and ten peer back before the birth of the individual to those who contributed indirectly to the individual’s vice or virtue, including the role of the broad run of human evolution. It should be pointed out that this first part is where the aforementioned technical depth is mostly observed.

The second part of the book changes the approach by taking a more topical approach. Said topics include: us/them discrimination, hierarchy (and the acceptance / rejection thereof), morality, empathy, metaphors and symbols that become integral to good and bad behavior, the biology of free will (or the lack thereof,) and consideration of the question of whether humanity is getting more peaceful (as Steven Pinker argues in his book “The Better Angels of Our Nature” [which is arguably one of the main competitors to Sapolsky’s book, though the focus is a little different.]) This second part gets much more into the social science perspective, and isn’t as scientifically dense as the first portion of the book.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the good, the bad, and the ugly of human behavior. With the exception of getting a little technical in spots, it’s quite readable and interestingly organized and presented. As one can’t help get into political and cultural norms in a book on human behavior, Sapolsky betrays his personal biases here and there, but is quick to admit when there is evidence against them (or no evidence at all, either way.) I felt he maintained a reasonable scientific objectiveness, but others may feel differently.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Heart’s Necessities by Jane Tyson Clement

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The Heart's Necessities: Life in PoetryThe Heart’s Necessities: Life in Poetry by Jane Tyson Clement
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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At its heart, this is a collection of the poems of Jane Tyson Clement, who lived from 1917 to 2000, but there’s more going on in the book than the poetry. As the subtitle, “A Life in Poetry,” hints, the poems range over the almost sixty-year writing career of this author and poet. Having a selection of verse that runs from Clement’s teenage years into her seventies, offers the reader an opportunity to watch the growth of this poet and to see how the dictates of life influenced the style and content of her poems. The poems cover a range of topics, including: relationships, art, and nature. I found the nature poems particularly evocative, but they are all skillfully composed and endearing. Also, it should be noted that the Prelude and commentaries were presented by a musician and songwriter, Becca Stevens, and her interest skews to the artistically oriented works. While I’ll discuss at length how these poems were spread across the life of a little known but skillful 20th century poet, I should point out that the poems don’t feel dated or obsolete. Dealing in fundamental issues of humanity, the selections have aged well.

The collection is divided into five chapters. There is a roughly chronological progression to the collection, but chronology isn’t strictly followed in favor of supporting each chapter’s theme. (Though the themes are informed by what was going on in the poet’s life during various points.) The first chapter presents poems written between 1935 and 1939 (age 18 to 22.) The second picks up in 1939 and while it ends on a poem from 1953, mostly covers a period to 1941. Chapter three includes selections from 1940 to 1953 (ages 23 to 36.) The penultimate chapter includes poems from 1954 and 1955. The last chapter is stretched out from 1955 to 1991 with much less temporal density to the poems than is seen in earlier chapters.

I said in the introductory paragraph that there was more going on than the poems. Here I’ll discuss what these ancillary additions were, ranging from what I found to be most to least beneficial to the work overall. First, there are photographs throughout the book that are warm, heavily oriented toward nautical-coastal themes, and which create a retro vibe appropriate to a book on the life of a twentieth century poet. Besides the coastal and nautical photographs, there are many that revolve around music, including photos of Stevens but also more artsy still-lifes.

Second, each chapter begins with a brief biographical statement of where Tyson Clement was at during the period in question in terms of relationships, family, religious beliefs, where she was living, and what else was occupying her time besides poetry writing. It was interesting to see what was going on with the poet as she was composing the selected works.

Finally, there are commentaries interspersed amid the poems here and there, presented as though Becca Stevens is letting the reader into her head as she ruminates on some of the poems. At this point I’ll confess my own bias. I’m not a big fan of commentaries in poetry collections. There is a famous saying by E.B. White about humor that I think equally applies to poetry: “Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.” I’m not saying that Stevens didn’t offer insight, particularly related to her life as a musical artist. She is certainly articulate and thoughtful. Still, I think commentary detracts from the poetry reading experience by overwriting what the reader takes from a piece with the commentator’s thoughts. But, your mileage may vary.

I would recommend this work for poetry readers. The poems are evocative and the language is beautiful. The poems are readable and have aged well.

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5 Readable Philosophical Novels

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There are many philosophical novels in existence. However, many of them are difficult reads either because they are complex in language or concepts (e.g. “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” or “Faust“) or because — while readily understandable — they were badly in need of an editor (e.g. “Atlas Shrugged.”) Here are a few novels with interesting philosophical lessons that aren’t killers to read.


5.) Ishmael by Daniel Quinn: A man answers an ad that begins: “Teacher seeks pupil.” The teacher he discovers and the lessons he is taught aren’t what he bargained for. The book considers the impact of modern man versus aboriginal people, and the two groups’ respective place in the world.

 

4.) Brave New World by Aldous Huxley: In a futuristic world, people are controlled and manipulated by genetic engineering, classical conditioning, sleep-teaching, not to mention heaping helpings of drugs and promiscuity. The book considers the role of technology in humanity’s trajectory, and it contrasts Orwell’s bleak vision of dystopian governance with one that is every bit as manipulatory — if a great deal more pleasant in appearance.

 

3.) The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: A young prince from a far-away land comes to Earth, and shows how wise the young can be and how absurd adults often are.

 

2.) Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse: A man who feels out of step with humanity faces events that force him to reconsider what it means to be a man in the world of men.

 

1.) The Journeys of Socrates by Dan Millman: The prequel to Millman’s acclaimed book “The Way of the Peaceful Warrior.” It blends Eastern and Western philosophy in the training of a warrior.

BOOK REVIEW: The Unlimited Dream Company by J.G. Ballard

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The Unlimited Dream CompanyThe Unlimited Dream Company by J.G. Ballard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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The protagonist, Blake, crashes a stolen small aircraft into the Thames River beside the sleepy English town of Shepperton. In short order, Blake discovers that he cannot escape Shepperton and gradually he comes to realize that he can do anything else that he can imagine. This gradual discovery is like a dream becoming lucid. At first the world seems right even though there is plenty that is odd about it, as is the case when one is dreaming and oddities and anomalies don’t trigger a response as they do when one is conscious. Despite the fact that Ballard captures the surrealism of the dream state well, and even uses the word “dream” in the title, the reader is never sure what is going on exactly until the book’s conclusion. Is Blake dreaming everything? (including the plane theft?) Or, was he knocked unconscious in the crash? Or, is something supernatural going on that is dreamlike, but not a dream. There are a cast of townsfolk who sometimes behave oddly, but who seem like they have enough depth to be more than projections of Blake’s subconscious. The unfolding of the story involves the surreal nature of Shepperton becoming more obvious as the reader — little-by-little — gets a better idea of what is going on there.

Readers with a prudish streak should be aware that references to sex are ubiquitous. It’s not that there are a lot of graphic sex scenes, but – as in a dream state, the subconscious mind is at the fore and primal urges take center-stage. Blake imagines having sexual relations with everyone in the sleepy town. He doesn’t, but he speculates about it. There is also symbolic sexual reference – e.g. flowers growing from his seed. Frequent references are made to Blake being naked, but the townsfolk not realizing it. There’s generally not graphic description, this recurring device primarily serves as a means to show how the other people in the story aren’t lucid, because Blake’s nudity doesn’t set off their weird-o-meters as it would in waking consciousness.

I enjoyed this book, and, if you like surreal and trippy stories, you should give it a read.

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BOOK REVIEW: Food: A Very Short Introduction by John Krebs

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Food: A Very Short IntroductionFood: A Very Short Introduction by John R. Krebs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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This volume in the Oxford University Press AVSI series examines human eating habits. The first chapter puts the human diet in the context of evolution, reflecting upon how we got where we did in terms of food consumption. Here one gains insight into where the Paleo-diet fad is flawed, and one learns how cooking had a huge influence on human evolution.

The second chapter delves into the issue of likes and dislikes in food. We see that there are species-wide commonalities, but there are also differences both at an individual and cultural group level. e.g. Why is spice so common in the tropics and so rare in the great white north?

The third chapter looks at the ways food can do us in and what we’ve done – besides [and including] the aforementioned cooking – to reduce the threat of food gone awry. The penultimate chapter examines nutrition and how we get what we need from food.

The last chapter takes a bit of a turn, but investigates the fascinating topic of how (and whether) we will continue to feed our species. Readers will likely remember the name Malthus from either history or economics classes. He was an economist who suggested humanity was in dire straits, vis-à-vis food. Malthus noticed that population was growing geometrically while agricultural output grew arithmetically, and he reasonably noted that this was unsustainable. Of course, Malthus failed to foresee the huge technological advances from fertilizer to mechanization. However, that doesn’t make his concerns forever moot – perhaps just tardy. It remains far from clear whether the limited land space and resources can take billions more humans – especially without killing off all the other species. (Especially, if we aren’t willing to give up eating resource-intensive foods like cow in favor of less intensive one’s like grasshopper.)

The book has some graphics as well as both a “references” and a “further reading” section.

If you’re interested in food in a general sense, I’d recommend this as a great way to take in the outline of the topic.

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BOOK REVIEW: Hidden Depths by Robin Waterfield

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Hidden Depths: The Story of HypnosisHidden Depths: The Story of Hypnosis by Robin Waterfield
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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“Hidden Depths” is a history of hypnotism in the Western world from speculative discussion of its use in the ancient world through its employment for self-improvement in the modern era. It’s a bold undertaking. For one thing, hypnotism as we know it today given the insight of modern science is a relatively new phenomenon. Historically, what we call hypnotism has existed variously in the domains of religion, spirituality, pseudo-science, entertainment, and outright fraud. For another thing, the hypnotic trance is a subjective experience and an individual’s susceptibility varies greatly, leaving some scholars to doubt to this day that a hypnotically-induced trance is a real thing. Added to all that, another aspect of confusion is that there are few activities that are so firmly wrapped in misconceptions in the popular mind as hypnosis. The hypnosis of fiction and film is different from the practice as it exists in the real world.

Waterfield takes on the aforementioned difficulties throughout the book. He tends to error on not calling any practice hypnosis unless the descriptions of it in historical documentation are quite explicit on a range of criteria we currently associate with hypnosis. I was ambivalent about this skew. On the one hand, I sometimes wished that Waterfield had more expertise in hypnosis (as a practitioner rather than as a historian) as it might have given him greater insight into hypnotic activities before that word (or its predecessor “mesmerism”) evolved. It seems dubious that all mentions of hypnotic activities are going to be described in a way that makes the state of consciousness readily identifiable to a lay reader, and some reading between the lines might be of benefit. On the other hand, I’ve read books by hypnotists who are what Waterfield (quite properly) calls “hypnotic imperialists” – i.e. individuals for whom any activity that involves suggestion or persuasion is hypnosis. So, it is easy to go to far, and to start calling everything hypnosis. While at times I thought Waterfield suffered from that chronic malady of historians (i.e. thinking that a thing never existed before the first mention of it in the earliest texts they can find), ultimately, I think his approach was sound in that he presented the thoughts of other authors about what activities constituted hypnosis and then offered his reasons for discounting (or not discounting) them. That seems to be a sound line to take.

The first couple chapters discuss this complex question of what hypnosis is and how we can tell it from other states of consciousness (if we can) and they also refer to the earliest mentions of activities that may (or may not) have involved hypnotically-induced trance. It is only when we get to chapter three that we get onto terra firma on the history of hypnosis. That’s when Franz Anton Mesmer enters the picture. Some credit Mesmer with inventing hypnosis. [Note: It wouldn’t come to be called “hypnosis” until a surgeon by the name of James Braid later coined that term. It did become known as “mesmerism,” reflecting Mesmer’s role in development of the technique and / or his fame. Personally, I always cringe when I hear someone in the modern world credited with “inventing” mental and physical techniques that require only a body and conscientiousness, rather than a particular state of technological advancement. It stinks of what a beloved professor of mine used to call the “outhouse fallacy” – the idea that because earlier people had no indoor plumbing that they were complete blithering idiots.] Mesmer was a study in contrasts. He thought himself a man of science and railed against the accusations of false science, but he also wore a cape and engaged in bizarre showmanship that one wouldn’t want to see if one went to one’s doctor’s office for a check-up. While it turned out that the hows and whys of Mesmer’s method are generally considered pseudo-scientific quackery (Waterfield is more diplomatic), it seems clear that the man had a gift and /or a skill for inducing trances.

There are chapters on the early use of hypnosis in both the United States and the United Kingdom, including by both doctors and religious men. There is also a discussion of the early debate about whether hypnosis presented a public safety danger. While the consensus view today is that a hypnotist can get most people to do something they wouldn’t ordinarily do, he or she can’t make them do something they don’t want to do, at the time there was a concern that nefarious hypnotists might use hypnosis to prey on women or even to make an assassin of an unwitting stooge. There is a lot of interesting legal history to be discussed involving individuals who pled non-guilty by way of mind control. The discussion of hypnotism for nefarious purposes is revisited in chapter 12, which deals not only with persuasion by advertisers but also [unsuccessful] government attempts to make Manchurian Candidates (programmed assassins who would kill on command, but have no recollection of it in a state of ordinary waking consciousness.) The idea that a hypnotist could make a subject do anything they wished is a notion that has died hard, but remains alive and well in fiction. I should point out that Waterfield addresses many of the more prominent fictitious applications of hypnosis, and – as an avid reader – I found this to be of literary interest, while as a person interested in human behavior I was intrigued by the influence of fiction on people’s decisions and behavior.

The middle of the book also has a chapter that discusses a widespread notion that hypnosis was key to unlocking super-normal skills of extra-sensory perception (ESP.) While that part of the chapter might not be of much interest to the skeptically minded reader, chapter 8 also addresses the fascinating and well documented phenomena of false memories. The book devotes a chapter (ch. 9) to Freud, another individual who went from being at the top of his field to being widely disregarded by modern psychology.

Chapter 10 elucidates the debate over whether the hypnotically-induced trance is actually an altered state of consciousness, distinct from other states. As I said, there are many psychologists today who believe that it’s just suggestible people in a state of waking consciousness. This chapter lays out the arguments on both sides. While the author argues for the considering hypnotic trance a unique state, to his credit he gives fair hearing to the opposition.

Chapters 11 through 13 consider hypnosis in the modern era as a tool used in medicine, mind-control, and self-improvement. The first and last of these applications are alive and well. Attempts to use hypnosis for mind-control seem to have been written off with the debacle of MK-Ultra. However, that chapter (ch. 12) also deals with hypnosis related to sales and persuasion. However, use of hypnosis as drug-free analgesic as well as for other medical purposes, as well as to quit smoking or stick to diets is alive and well. The final chapter is a short plea to keep interest in genuine hypnosis alive. The book has illustrations, annotations, and a bibliography.

I found this book to be interesting and thought-provoking and would recommend it to anyone wanting to learn more about hypnosis — particularly its history in the Western World.

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5 of My Favorite Trippy, Mind-bending Books

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I love books that send one down the rabbit hole. Here are a few of my favorites. [Note: as I was putting this post together, I realized that I’d left out Philip K. Dick entirely. That is a glaring oversight as almost any of his books could make this list, but I’m too lazy to make a bigger list right now, so you’ll have to wait for Part II.]

 

5.) The Unlimited Dream Company by J.G. Ballard: A man crashes a small aircraft into the Thames, and after struggling up from the wreckage he discovers he can’t leave the town of Shepperton — though he can do just about anything else he likes.

 

4.) The Lathe of Heaven by Ursala K. Le Guin: George Orr believes his dreams shape reality. At first, he’s taken for a crazy man, but then his therapist begins to wonder.

 

3.) Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami: A man hired for his skill at using his mind as an unbreakable encryption device, finds out that the job that seemed too good to be true, was.

 

2.) The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov: The devil comes to Moscow with his  rogue’s gallery, throws the city into disarray, and it’s all tied to a novel based on the life of Pontius Pilate.

 

1.) Alice in Wonderland  & Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll: Tumbling down a rabbit hole or walking through a mirror, Alice is transported to a whimsical land where everything is strange and exhilarating.

Let me know of any oversights [besides the aforementioned PKD.]