Does hypnosis use fa shen?

[Nintendao]

Spoiler

 

 

In this video, the shifu talks about three types of influence over the partners’ movement: fascia, qi, and “spirit body.”

 

The fascia layer, I think this is what internal martial artists develop. Advanced level of sung and ting, can extend sympathetic tensegrity via the slightest contact.

 

Qi manipulation maybe more along the lines of when accomplished practitioners gain the ability to peng the dantian.

 

The spirit body, near the end of the video, he talks about communicating with the students “shadow.” This sounds to me like how hypnotists learn to issue commands directly to the “subconscious.”

 

How could this be, when direct shen perception is considered to require an even more refined cultivation than qi? Perhaps neurolinguistic programming is a technology not unlike acupuncture, but dealing with pure mind. Anyone who can pick up a needle, if shown the precise location, can insert it to affect a meridian. At least to some degree.

 

Edited December 4, 2023 by Nintendao

[Mark Foote]

5 hours ago, Nintendao said:

 

In this video, the shifu talks about three types of influence over the partners’ movement: fascia, qi, and “spirit body.”

 

The fascia layer, I think this is what internal martial artists develop. Advanced level of sung and ting, can extend sympathetic tensegrity via the slightest contact.

 

Qi manipulation maybe more along the lines of when accomplished practitioners gain the ability to peng the dantian.

 

The spirit body, near the end of the video, he talks about communicating with the students “shadow.” This sounds to me like how hypnotists learn to issue commands directly to the “subconscious.”

 

How could this be, when direct shen perception is considered to require an even more refined cultivation than qi? Perhaps neurolinguistic programming is a technology not unlike acupuncture, but dealing with pure mind. Anyone who can pick up a needle, if shown the precise location, can insert it to affect a meridian. At least to some degree.

 

 

I remember back in the '80's, friends gave me a video of an Aikido master throwing a student without contact.

I remember, when the first videos of Aikido masters in the ring with boxers and mixed martial artists came out, on the internet.  Not pretty.

 

I'm not saying that there isn't some truth to what goes on in the video, and I confess that I couldn't watch more that the first set of examples before my history with the Aikido videos kicked in and I couldn't watch any more (for wishing to see this guy demonstrate his teaching in the ring with someone).  

I will say that although I do believe that there's a mechanism for fascial support of the spine that can kick in, and allows for the kind of power at extremity that Bruce Lee demonstrated, I would say that the engagement of that mechanism is dependent on the natural tendency toward the free placement of attention and a presence of mind as the placement of attention shifts.  That's how shen circulates, collects, and moves chi, IMHO.

 

I can dance, but I think if I tried to punch somebody, I'd break my fist.

Meanwhile:

 

The psychotherapist Milton Erickson held that trance is an everyday occurrence for everyone. Getting lost in a train of thought, or absorbed in an athletic endeavor, he described as examples of trance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_H._Erickson). In his practice, Erickson regularly invited his clients to enter into trance, out of regard for the benefit of the client. That a client entered into trance in response to such an invitation, Erickson viewed as a result of the unconscious decision of the client, quite outside of Erikson’s control.
 

Erickson was famous for what came to be called “the confusion technique” in the induction of hypnosis, and in particular for his “handshake induction”. By subtly interrupting someone in the middle of the expected course of an habitual activity, like shaking hands, Erickson enabled them to enter a state of trance. For Erickson, the confusion technique could also be applied through engaging the patient’s mind with a sentence whose meaning could not be found through the normal interpretation of the words and syntax (engaging the patient’s mind in a transderivational search)...
 

The induction of trance serves to heighten the experience of the senses (a fact that Erickson noted)...

 

(Fuxi's Poem, by yours truly)

 

 

Edited December 4, 2023 by Mark Foote

[Taoist Texts]

6 hours ago, Nintendao said:

This sounds to me like how hypnotists learn to issue commands directly to the “subconscious.”

they dont. hypnosis works due to a verbal/visual cue  triggering an obedience mechanism and to understand the cue the patient uses his consciousness not the subconscious. It has nothing to do with the spirit of the operator being issued into the patient as  发神 implies.

 

moreover there is no such term аs 发神  in general chinese or in chinese MA. It sounds made up. In taoism 发神  is a spirit of the hair on the head. In general chinese there is fā shén jīng (coll.) to go crazy
As to the acupuncture the needle does all the work. In MA it is peng that does all the work. And NLP is fake news. Gotta get your ducks in a row.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

I taught myself hypnosis from an encyclopedia article when I was eight or so.  I had a friend at the time who was easy to hypnotize and I had a lot of experience.  At a certain point I realized that hypnosis could be dangerous and stopped doing it for years.  I bought a lot of books to learn more at some point, and in my late teens was quite good at it and wondered if it might be useful in spiritual training.  based on my own experience with the training that I did and some later experiments with another good subject I decided that it may be helpful, but was not necessary, so I left it alone until the late eighties or thereabouts when I met people into Neuro-linguistic programming.  From them I learned that the techniques of Milton Ericson had been assimilated into and refined within Neuro-linguistic programming and set about studying and practicing that, and those techniques for hypnosis.  Again the bottom line is that while such techniques are useful they are not necessary, nor are spiritual practices reducible to them.

 

I said all the above to make clear that I have a significant background in hypnosis and related topics.  Now for a quick look at the history of hypnosis.  Modern hypnosis began in the late 1700s with the work of Franz Anton Mesmer who developed a healing technique based on what he called "animal magnetism" and using it to heal people, a technique which also could involve trance induction.  Skipping over a lot of history to the mid 1800s, the idea of animal magnetism survived and was very influential, Poe for example wrote a story called Mesmeric Revelation, the link provides a lot of good good background information as well as the story.  In the middle of the 1800s the skeptical Scot James Braid said that mesmeric trance was all suggestion and created the alternative name hypnosis and after that the notion of animal magnetism and thus energy tranmission, qi, shen, whatever, was banished from the field of hypnosis, this link to the Wikipedia article is also more informative than I thought it would be, I looked at it to remind me who that Scotsman was, and I was reminded of exactly how much interesting history I was only vaguely remembering, but was leaving out.  So bottom line, hypnosis is not directly involved but suggestion may contribute to some aspects of the phenomena.

 

All of that said, Shadow training is apparently in important aspect of Daoist training and mastering and using one's own shadow as well as the shadows of others is part of Daoist teaching.  Professor Jerry Allen Johnson teaches in it his books.  I have all of his books and he talks about it in two of them at least.  I picked up my copy of Daoist Magical Transformation Skills: Dream Magic, Shape-Shifting,Soul Travel, and Sex Magic and found a section on it beginning on p. 72.  So I guess Naruto is not simply inventing Shadow Clone Jutsu.

 

I hope this information is interesting and helpful,

 

ZYD

[Sahaja]

Joining and Rou shou (which are the terms for these practices  I am familiar with) are pretty cool. It’s an internal martial arts/neigong skill that can be learned. I think the cool part is seeing what is possible to develop using your mindbody not  the martial skill or power. I understand there are a number of ways to do it. It’s a skill not magic though it does have a little woo-woo. 

[Nintendao]

Haha yes I was almost surprised to see in the video “The Martial Camp” banner in the background. The physical cultivation developed beyond just hitting each other, but especially as Mark was saying earlier, it now becomes more about the “arts” side of it. Like if someone exquisite at the sport of fencing, probably still gets sliced to ribbons pretty quick by an assassin with so much as a pocket knife. Some people may respect the sheer power more, but myself I’d rather be friends with the fencer.

The more I learn experientially about the subject, looking at these kinds of videos I see a lot of details differently than say ten years ago and just thinking “wow cool jedi powers.” As for hypnotism side of it, It was something I wondered about based on ideas from another thread about “mesmerism” looking at similar results. So there again, for me being someone who has seen mentalists at a talent show, but never trained in it, might as well look like voodoo.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

1 hour ago, Nintendao said:

might as well look like voodoo

 

More like voodoo than you might think.  The Chinese have a long history of Spirit Boxing in which a spirit or god takes possession of the boxer and guides him in the appropriate moves to learn the art as well as providing a boost to the boxer's qi.  Back around 1970 when I was first starting to research Chinese martial arts, I found adds for the Green Dragon Society.  I wrote to get their catalog and more information and was astonished to find them talking about spirit boxing involving spirit possession by the "spirits" of the eight trigrams.  Since I had started serious reading about magic, voodoo, Tibetan yoga, etc. as early as 1963, I was already familiar with the idea of spirit possession, but the idea of its application to martial arts training was completely new to me.  I never followed up with it because my Western magical training, already well advanced and successful by that time, disapproved of spirit possession.

 

I hope this information is interesting and helpful,

 

ZYD

[Mark Foote]

22 hours ago, Zhongyongdaoist said:

I taught myself hypnosis from an encyclopedia article when I was eight or so.  I had a friend at the time who was easy to hypnotize and I had a lot of experience.  At a certain point I realized that hypnosis could be dangerous and stopped doing it for years.  I bought a lot of books to learn more at some point, and in my late teens was quite good at it and wondered if it might be useful in spiritual training.  based on my own experience with the training that I did and some later experiments with another good subject I decided that it may be helpful, but was not necessary, so I left it alone until the late eighties or thereabouts when I met people into Neuro-linguistic programming.  From them I learned that the techniques of Milton Ericson had been assimilated into and refined within Neuro-linguistic programming and set about studying and practicing that, and those techniques for hypnosis.  Again the bottom line is that while such techniques are useful they are not necessary, nor are spiritual practices reducible to them.
 

 

I played with suggestion in my teens, both with others and with myself as subject.  

I was introduced by a friend to the Santa Cruz Zen Center, in Santa Cruz, California, in college.  Kobun Chino Otogawa, whom Shunryu Suzuki brought from Japan to help start the Tassajara monastery, lectured in Santa Cruz once a week for awhile in the early '70's.

In the mid-70's, I was living in San Francisco, attending practice at the Zen Center when I could and sitting by myself mornings and evenings.  One day I determined that I would attempt to be aware of each inhalation and exhalation as it occurred.  In the afternoon, I was sitting behind my desk in my room in the Panhandle, when my body got up and walked to the door.  A classic case of action through hypnotic suggestion, except that I had no intention to get up and walk to the door.

Years later, Kobun lectured at the San Francisco Zen Center, and he closed his lecture by admonishing the Zen students in attendance with the words, "you know, sometimes zazen gets up and walks around."

Meanwhile, I had been trying to make all my actions come from the place that my action had come from that day in the Panhandle. I discovered I could only act from that place in short stretches, and ultimately I realized that whatever I truly believed could also become the source of my action, seemingly in the same detached, hypnotic fashion.

As it turns out, Gautama the Buddha's way of living was anchored by "the contemplation of cessation of ('determinate thought' in the activity of the body in) inhalation and exhalation".   He would apparently meditate regularly to the experience of "the cessation of inhalation and exhalation", take an overview of the body ("the survey-sign" of the concentration), and then utilize the sign in a rhythm of mindfulness that was his daily life.  "Most of the time", and "especially in the rainy season."

The missing piece for me was "one-pointedness".  They mention focused attention in the Wikipedia history you linked.  The trick is that "one-pointedness" in Gautama's teaching is the apprehension of the location of awareness, not the object.
 

Although attention can be directed to the movement of breath, necessity in the movement of breath can also direct attention, as I wrote previously:
 

There can… come a moment when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a certain location in the body, or at a series of locations, with the ability to remain awake as the location of attention shifts retained through the exercise of presence.
 

(Common Ground)
 

There’s a frailty in the structure of the lower spine, and the movement of breath can place the point of awareness in such a fashion as to engage a mechanism of support for the spine, often in stages (see A Way of Living).
 

... When a presence of mind is retained as the placement of attention shifts, then the natural tendency toward the free placement of attention can draw out thought initial and sustained, and bring on the stages of concentration:
 

… there is no need to depend on teaching. But the most important thing is to practice and realize our true nature… [laughs]. This is, you know, Zen.
 

(Shunryu Suzuki, Tassajara 68-07-24 transcript from shunryusuzuki.com)

 

 

(Shunryu Suzuki on Shikantaza and the Theravadin Stages)
 

 

22 hours ago, Zhongyongdaoist said:

 

I said all the above to make clear that I have a significant background in hypnosis and related topics.  Now for a quick look at the history of hypnosis.  Modern hypnosis began in the late 1700s with the work of Franz Anton Mesmer who developed a healing technique based on what he called "animal magnetism" and using it to heal people, a technique which also could involve trance induction.  Skipping over a lot of history to the mid 1800s, the idea of animal magnetism survived and was very influential, Poe for example wrote a story called Mesmeric Revelation, the link provides a lot of good good background information as well as the story.  In the middle of the 1800s the skeptical Scot James Braid said that mesmeric trance was all suggestion and created the alternative name hypnosis and after that the notion of animal magnetism and thus energy tranmission, qi, shen, whatever, was banished from the field of hypnosis, this link to the Wikipedia article is also more informative than I thought it would be, I looked at it to remind me who that Scotsman was, and I was reminded of exactly how much interesting history I was only vaguely remembering, but was leaving out.  So bottom line, hypnosis is not directly involved but suggestion may contribute to some aspects of the phenomena.

 

Yes, fascinating history there, thanks.  Interesting to read that Freud seemingly got his start with hypnosis.
 

 

 

[Mark Foote]

13 minutes ago, Zhongyongdaoist said:

 

More like voodoo than you might think.  The Chinese have a long history of Spirit Boxing in which a spirit or god takes possession of the boxer and guides him in the appropriate moves to learn the art as well as providing a boost to the boxer's qi.  Back around 1970 when I was first starting to research Chinese martial arts, I found adds for the Green Dragon Society.  I wrote to get their catalog and more information and was astonished to find them talking about spirit boxing involving spirit possession by the "spirits" of the eight trigrams.  Since I had started serious reading about magic, voodoo, Tibetan yoga, etc. as early as 1963, I was already familiar with the idea of spirit possession, but the idea of its application to martial arts training was completely new to me.  I never followed up with it because my Western magical training, already well advanced and successful by that time, disapproved of spirit possession.

 

I hope this information is interesting and helpful,

 

ZYD
 

"Western magical training"?

Have you ever read Battle for the Mind?  Fascinating exploration of the mechanics of religious conversion and brainwashing, read it when I was 10.  Voodoo possession, among his topics.



 

Edited December 5, 2023 by Mark Foote

[Zhongyongdaoist]

1 hour ago, Mark Foote said:

In the mid-70's, I was living in San Francisco, attending practice at the Zen Center

 

Did you know Jiyu Kennet Roshi?  In the period from 1975 to 80 a student of hers and I were good friends down here in Southern California.  We had many interesting discussions.

[Nintendao]

19 hours ago, Zhongyongdaoist said:

The Chinese have a long history of Spirit Boxing in which a spirit or god takes possession of the boxer and guides him in the appropriate moves to learn the art as well as providing a boost to the boxer's qi. 

 

Omigosh.. one summer when I was a teenager, I became obsessed with watching a pirated VHS of Jackie Chan's "Spiritual Kung Fu," where he gets haunted by animal spirits who teach him the lost art of five fists. In classic Nintendao fashion, i treated this like a dang instructional video, and went leaping around the neighborhood looking for spirits, using random tree trunks as makeshift muk jongs. Looking back i was in legit qi deviation for a good couple weeks. Granted i'd also been consuming an amateur concoction of gotu kola, ginko biloba, ginseng and eleuthero, which i stopped doing when i realized things might be getting out of hand. Thankfully managed to not get arrested or too badly injured, and it eventually ran its course. To give you and idea of where i was at, one of the many "insights" i remember receiving at the time was discovering the earth really was flat, and the related cover-ups being perpetrated 💀💀💀

 

On 12/4/2023 at 5:22 PM, Taoist Texts said:

 fā shén jīng (coll.) to go crazy

😳

[Mark Foote]

19 hours ago, Zhongyongdaoist said:

 

Did you know Jiyu Kennet Roshi?  In the period from 1975 to 80 a student of hers and I were good friends down here in Southern California.  We had many interesting discussions.
 

I'll bet.  I know of Jiyu Kennet and Shasta Abbey, but that's about it.  Good article dated 2013 here, under the paragraph by the Rinpoche:

https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/great-lamas-masters/why-are-roshi-jiyu-kennett’s-disciples-so-reclusive.html

 

That was originally published on sweepingzen.com, but that site no longer exists.

Kensho is for me a funny idea, in so far as all the kensho experiences I've ever heard described have very little to do with Gautama's descriptions of his practice in the Pali sermons.  

I also like the idea of mixed monastic communities and married practitioners, and I think the teachers who came from Japan in the sixties demonstrated that being married and having kids does not necessarily preclude the serious practice of Zen.  That definitely is contrary to Gautama's teaching, but I am more interested in what Gautama had to offer with regard to concentration and a way of living than I am with enlightenment and what he felt enlightenment must necessarily entail.  

 

[Zhongyongdaoist]

On 12/6/2023 at 10:37 AM, Mark Foote said:

I also like the idea of mixed monastic communities and married practitioners, and I think the teachers who came from Japan in the sixties demonstrated that being married and having kids does not necessarily preclude the serious practice of Zen.  That definitely is contrary to Gautama's teaching, but I am more interested in what Gautama had to offer with regard to concentration and a way of living than I am with enlightenment and what he felt enlightenment must necessarily entail.  (Emphasis mine, ZYD)

 

Based on what you say above, you might find my posts in Confucian Qi gong interesting:

 

On 8/17/2008 at 10:15 PM, exorcist_1699 said:

Same as Taoist and Buddhist qi gong , Confucian qi gong is another important school in the Chinese tradition . Instead of starting from emptiness (Buddhist ) or jing (Taoist ), the Confucians starts from morals. Capable of transforming people's moral drive ( e.g, courage to rescue the people in danger , the determination to stand out and criticize all those evils...etc ,) into qi , hold it and expand it , is the main characteristics of the Confucian way.

 

The upgrade of your moral level will enhance the power of your qi ; a good man is also a very powerful man .

 

The topic was started by our wonderful friend in the Dao, exorcist_1699, and I contributed to it.  Confucianism is one of the most misunderstood Chinese philosophical schools in the West.  I decided to investigate it in 2000 and I am glad that I did, it provides a useful framework, and actually complimented my years of studying and practicing Ritual Daoism and Western magic.  I hope that you find the discussion and my contribution to it interesting and more importantly, useful.

 

ZYD

[Mark Foote]

On 12/7/2023 at 11:30 AM, Zhongyongdaoist said:

 

Based on what you say above, you might find my posts in Confucian Qi gong interesting:

 

Quote

 On 8/17/2008 at 10:15 PM, exorcist_1699 said:

Same as Taoist and Buddhist qi gong , Confucian qi gong is another important school in the Chinese tradition . Instead of starting from emptiness (Buddhist ) or jing (Taoist ), the Confucians starts from morals. Capable of transforming people's moral drive ( e.g, courage to rescue the people in danger , the determination to stand out and criticize all those evils...etc ,) into qi , hold it and expand it , is the main characteristics of the Confucian way.

 

The upgrade of your moral level will enhance the power of your qi ; a good man is also a very powerful man .

 

The topic was started by our wonderful friend in the Dao, exorcist_1699, and I contributed to it.  Confucianism is one of the most misunderstood Chinese philosophical schools in the West.  I decided to investigate it in 2000 and I am glad that I did, it provides a useful framework, and actually complimented my years of studying and practicing Ritual Daoism and Western magic.  I hope that you find the discussion and my contribution to it interesting and more importantly, useful.

 

ZYD
 

 

 

I did find that thread interesting, very interesting!

 

Gautama taught his way of living, which included thought initial and sustained with regard to the cessation of "determinate thought" in action, thought both in connection with inhalation and in connection with exhalation.  Most likely that thought regularly segued into the cessation of "determinate thought" in the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation, since he appears to have set that particular cessation up regularly in his practice.

That cessation takes place in the fourth of the initial concentrations.  There are further states of concentration, and Gautama associated them with “the excellence of the heart’s release” through particular extensions.

 

The first of the further states was “the infinity of ether”. Gautama identified the state with “the excellence of the heart’s release” through the extension of “the mind of compassion”. He described a particular method for the extension of the mind of compassion, a method that began with the extension of “the mind of friendliness”:
 

[One] dwells, having suffused the first quarter [of the world] with friendliness, likewise the second, likewise the third, likewise the fourth; just so above, below, across; [one] dwells having suffused the whole world everywhere, in every way, with a mind of friendliness that is far-reaching, wide-spread, immeasurable, without enmity, without malevolence. [One] dwells having suffused the first quarter with a mind of compassion… with a mind of sympathetic joy… with a mind of equanimity that is far-reaching, wide-spread, immeasurable, without enmity, without malevolence.

(MN I 38, Pali Text Society Vol I p 48)

 

The second of the further states (“the infinity of consciousness”) Gautama identified with “the excellence of the heart’s release” through the extension of “the mind of sympathetic joy”, and the third (“the infinity of nothingness”) he identified with “the excellence of the heart’s release” through the extension of “the mind of equanimity”.

 

(Appendix–From the Early Record)

 

 

What I can say is that in my experience, zazen does not get up and dance without the extension of at least the mind of friendliness to folks on the other side of the room and on the other side of the wall.

 

Sitting shikantaza is the place itself, and things. …When you sit, the cushion sits with you. If you wear glasses, the glasses sit with you. Clothing sits with you. House sits with you. People who are moving around outside all sit with you. They don’t take the sitting posture!

(“Aspects of Sitting Meditation”, “Shikantaza”; Kobun Chino Otogawa; http://www.jikoji.org/intro-aspects/)

 

 

The truth is, there's a good reason to have one's ducks in a row, which I mentioned previously:  whatever I believe in my heart of hearts can become the source of my action, with or without volition.

And the way to the cessation of "determinate thought" in feeling and perceiving, or to freedom in the place of occurrence of awareness in general, is through the excellence of the heart's release in the extension of the mind of friendliness, of the mind of compassion.  I believe these excellences are also the mark of people who truly believe they should treat others as they would want to be treated themselves, moral people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 9, 2023 by Mark Foote

[Zhongyongdaoist]

11 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

I did find that thread interesting, very interesting!

 

I'm glad that you found the tread interesting.  Now you can see why I consider Confucianism so misunderstood.  One of the reasons I recommended it was your comments about how you liked the Japanese Zen approach which was more open to family life, etc., than was a more strictly Chinese one.  It's been a long time, but if I am remembering correctly when Buddhism was introduced to Japan the Confucians were particularly open to, and interested in it.  If I can find any references to this I will let you know.  I am thinking of one book in particular, which you may find interesting anyway.  Confucianism is a philosophical system and not a religion, therefore Confucians can have varied beliefs and practices, as well as the meditative and qigong practices that are part of that system.  I view Confucianism as a type of mystical humanism, very much in contrast to modern "secular humanism".

 

ZYD

[Nintendao]

On 12/4/2023 at 5:22 PM, Taoist Texts said:

moreover there is no such term аs 发神  in general chinese or in chinese MA. It sounds made up. 

 

 Aw, you busted me it was a play on words between 发劲 and 法神 

[ChiDragon]

6 hours ago, Nintendao said:

 

 Aw, you busted me it was a play on words between 发劲 and 法神 

I thought that was what you meant 发劲(fa jin). In the video, the instructor made it sounds like he has special chi power. However, I think he was only performing fa jin. He was moving the opponent by getting him off balance. He ask the opponent to hold him real tight, so he can manipulate the guy. He also used a light weighted guy so he can push him away easily. Overall, he was use the fa jin trick to show his ability of being processed with special chi power. Peace!