I had a call from a priest friend who told me that for some High School seniors, who are having an end of the year school-sponsored "lock in" all night party – why, I can’t fathom – have scheduled, for entertainment, a hypnotist.
Now I of of the mind that perhaps… perhaps… in a clinical setting some use of some kind of hypnotism might be useful, say to stop smoking, etc.
But this is entertainment.
I have serious reservations about hypnotism.
It strikes me that it does not respect the dignity of the human person because it compromises in the will, in a sense.
Also, I believe that it could weaken a person’s resistance to demonic oppression. And if you don’t believe in the attacks of hell, you are a fool.
In any event, this is not the sort of thing I would want to have high school age kids involved with. As in occult activities, such as ouija boards, etc., there is no telling if some of the young people might then try to do these hypnotic things on their own and therefore open pathways for all sorts of dire influences. Just as ouija boards are not toys for entertainment, but rather tools of demonic influence, so too I fear that hypnotism, misused as a toy, could be the same.
I am especially concerned because of the age of the young people.
So, I did a brief search on line for solid documents on the Church’s understanding of hypnotism and didn’t come up with anything terribly useful.
I will enlist your help. Could you readers dig around a bit? Maybe we can have a discussion here about this issue. I would like to provide a resource online for others who may be faced with this problem.
Also, there is still time to get this party hypnotism thing cancelled for this event.
Please stay on topic with this. Let’s make this useful.
