JUST LOVE YOURSELF AND RESET
Hypnotism – Dr S J Van Pelt
This is Dr Sydney James ‘S J’ Van Pelt’s second appearance on the Cosmic Pancakes! blog, having previously featured with his lengthier Hypnotism and the Power Within. Van Pelt is a hypno-name worth knowing because he established himself as a – if not ‘the’ – authority on hypnotism in Britain in the 1940s and 50s, and helped bring about the UK Hypnotism Act 1952, which imposes conditions and restrictions on entertainment hypnosis shows.
Published in 1960, Hypnotism is Van Pelt’s penultimate book; he penned six hypnosis books in the six prior years, and his eighth and final offering is a co-written medical hypnosis guide. Wedged as it is between these meatier, more passionate tomes and a professional collaboration, this short handbook feels, frankly, like a lazy, cynical piece of PR churn.
An Australian medical practitioner who came to Britain after the Second World War, Van Pelt was founding editor of the British Journal of Medical Hypnotism, the first and lifetime president of the British Society of Medical Hypnotists, and a member of the US Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis. While somewhat anointed by his medical degree, Van Pelt is clearly a man unafraid of seizing control of ‘hypnosis’ as a narrative, a movement, and a technique, and of creating and harnessing the prestige and officialdom to credibly drive his agenda amongst The Powers That Be.
I can imagine that a short summary of his wisdom to-date was an easy publishing and PR win for Van Pelt and those who backed him. Hypnotism is aimed at “doctors and laymen”; uncomfortable bedfellows, though Van Pelt notes that laypeople are merely being educated against falling prey to “quacks” rather than being encouraged to start meddling with minds themselves. But the book states Van Pelt’s overarching aim of ensuring hypnotherapy’s “rightful place” in medicine and “that never again will ignorance and superstition be able to rob suffering mankind of its priceless benefits.”
After a brusque start, where Van Pelt heralds his “new” way of utilising hypnosis to treat the causes rather than the symptoms of problems, we learn of our author’s traditional pro-Mesmer and statist perspective, plus his strongly anti-Freud and psychoanalysis stance. The bulk of the book’s content is then the common themes of hypnosis – induction methods, phenomena, stages, etc – via the lens of Van Pelt’s personal theory.
As you can see in the diagram, below left, this is a nonsense of our “units of mind power” being more susceptible to suggestion during hypnosis. I enjoyed Van Pelt’s cavalier attitude to sharing this: “The author’s theory, it is considered, gives a reasoned and practical explanation of hypnosis which has never been scientifically challenged.” Um, I’ve never been “scientifically challenged” on my myriad theories about hypnosis either... except by Kev practically every day, of course, and so they’re not to be taken seriously and are a satire on the lack of modern and diverse voices in hypnosis research and practice. Van Pelt’s ‘scientific’ insights also include that people of colour “usually make good subjects” because “hypnosis is usually easier to induce in a warm climate”, to give you a further sense of his strident confidence in his own ‘medical’ opinion.
The rest of the book is a paragraph or two on 40 case studies that confirm Van Pelt’s efficacy as a hypnotherapist in a whistle-stop tour of his client caseload. Brief and dull, they read like draft notes that some whacky wordsmith will transform into titillating Walter P Clayton client summaries. All they ultimately show is Van Pelt’s cavalier attitude to dealing with everyday dreads and delusions by persuading people to conform to societal norms – aka dealing with the symptom rather than the problem. This is all well and good for relatively straightforward issues – eg, a childhood phobia, sex education, negative habits, etc. But it all gets a bit murkier the messier people get. In his own words:
“For instance, a woman may say she is unable to go out without her husband or be left alone without becoming ‘panic stricken’. Secretly she may fear that if she ever did go out without her husband she would run away from him and never come back! On the other hand she may secretly fear that if she lets him out of her sight she will lose him. Her mind makes sure in either case, and the symptom binds her husband to her (for as long as he will stand it) as surely as a ball and chain.”
So, the symptom would be panic attacks from either scenario – which could be eased or removed by a lesser hypnotist. But Van Pelt seems to be advocating for using hypnosis to treat what he perceives as the cause: the neuroticism of his client. That this woman may want to escape or keep her husband for rational and legitimate reasons, or is simply making a different choice, doesn’t seem to occur to him. Another example is a man bitter at his ex-wife for leaving him, who just sort of has all his ill feelings confirmed and nurtured until he feels ready to start dating again. It’s all very superficial, detached, and borderline sociopathic.
It's curious to consider Van Pelt’s crusade against stage and entertainment hypnosis shows with this in mind. Perhaps an open-ended question at the heart of hypnotism is whether the task of the hypnotist is to open ‘Pandora’s Box’ – or to keep it permanently closed?
Where Van Pelt saw distinct categorisations (and classes) of people who needed help (re)conforming, I see all manner of individuals who are living their truest best lives. So: fuck Van Pelt. Listen to Born This Way and and always remember: Just put your paws up – because you were born this way, baby!
