Have you ever asked yourself where hypnosis comes from? What I mean is, why do you have the capacity to go into this unusual state of consciousness, to lose track of most of ordinary reality and simply give your attention to another person, who can direct it as she pleases and who can, if she chooses, may you obey and lose track of your own desire in your overwhelming need to understand what she is saying and fulfill what she wants of you? One of the amazing things about hypnosis—one of the reasons why I was first drawn to it as a young man—is that it can be accomplished entirely by means of words. The hypnotist does not need size or physical strength. The smallest woman can, with the right words, subdue the strongest man. One does not need physical beauty—a plain or even unattractive hypnotist can have the most beautiful subject eating our of his or her hand with the right use of words and voice and perception. At a stage performance or demonstration, one can actually see this happen in front of your eyes, as the subject’s wariness dissolves, his attention wanders and turns inward, and his defenses collapse.
Where does this come from?
And as a secondary question, why is it that so many men have not only the capability but also the deep wish (even if for many of them it is unconscious) to go under a woman’s hypnotic spell, to give up their boundaries and become submissive and obedient? What evolutionary purpose does this serve?
It is clear to me that various forms of hypnosis have formed an important part of human life since very early prehistoric times, if not before. One famous historian I read wrote that rhythmic voice was the most important invention in all of human history, because it was (and is, in primitive cultures today) the means by which different bands of humans, who might otherwise fall into conflict and warfare, could sit down and begin to forge some commonality between them even if they had no common language. Two groups of hunter-gatherers meeting in the wild would sit and being to sing rhythmic song, joining in together until their aggressive impulses were at least temporarily restrained by a human bond. This cessation of hostility, this voluntary relinquishment of the barrier of fear between strangers, has some of the quality of hypnosis to me—consider that in certain situations, such as stage performances, a stranger you have never met before can, with the right mixture of skill and sensitivity, change your consciousness in a few minutes (the formal induction in most stage shows seems to last about five minutes) to such an extent that you will forget your surroundings and give up any self-consciousness you have in order to please her by the complete abandon of your compliance with her suggestions. This is such a powerful use of language that one could almost imagine that it was the reason why humans evolved the use of language—as a mean to control and manipulate others, to obtain their cooperation and obedience and to obtain sexual access to them—“voluntary” sexual surrender by strangers who might otherwise have been expected to remain apart. (I am not speaking of the use of hypnosis to obtain non-compliant sex; am speaking of the use of hypnosis to create a psychic intimacy that many women feel toward their male hypnotists, and vice-versa). But why hypnosis? At the most basic level, in a time when there was no anesthesia, to be able to follow a tribal healer into a trance would have very concrete health benefits, as a means of pain reduction and also as a way to obtain cooperation at times when the “patient” would be expected to be very anxious and distracted; to obtain compliance, cooperation and eventually implicit obedience.
But I also wonder at the intense erotic charge it carries for so many men; and here too I imagine an evolutionary story. Consider that one of the pervasive problems in most human societies is physical abuse of women by the men in their lives. Women on average are smaller and physically weaker than men; all too often in human history, men have used their superior strength against women to force them into something like slavery, to control and circumscribe their opportunities in life, and to exploit them sexually.
Consider that it may have been very useful at some points for women to have access to a method of gaining the upper hand and “persuading” men to do as they are told. Consider, in fact, that the children of such a couple might have a greater chance of surviving and reproducing than couples in which violence and male domination were the major contents. Thus there might be an evolutionary advantage in a woman who could easily pass these characteristics to her female offspring and thereby permit them gain the willing cooperation of males in raising children to maturity. There might even be an advantage in being a man whit the capacity to be easily hypnotized and the desire to be hypnotized. The intense sexual pleasure many men derive from the act may not be a strange or odd thing—they may be the major thing.
At any reason, I certainly feel inside that I have evolved to be a woman’s hypno-slave and that when I am not doing that I am missing out on my role in life. Perhaps that is simply who I am; but perhaps it shows us something of our history as a species. I am who I am because evolution has made me that way.
If so, I am deeply grateful to evolution. Consider me highly evolved.
