NGH leads more practitioners to belief work than any other organisation I know.

     When we say the “belief” word, most people instantly make the jump to the word “faith” which touches emotions in their belief background.

     Unfortunately, too many have experienced religious trauma in their lives and have withdrawn from the seemingly immovable church and its policies (called dogma).

     In fact, a 2022 Gallup poll found the percentage of people with no religious identity in the US has risen from close to zero in the 1950’s to about one-fifth today (66,600,000 people - aka clients).

     They still have faith in the universality of things, and perhaps call it karma, but have abandoned the seemingly overwhelming dogma of religiosity.

SOMETHING BEYOND THEMSELVES

     We know that a lot of people visit a hypnosis practitioner as their last resort, but then surprise themselves with what they can so quickly accomplish.

     Through hypnosis, we’ve all seen how easily clients can change habits or thoughts no longer working for them and through that, perhaps also sense a feeling of something other than themselves at work.

     Just to say, the theta state of mind where they find a greater self, also supports the brainwave patterns reached in prayer, deep meditation and in mindfulness.

THE BELIEF FACTOR

     In the post-session debriefing, clients most often say they felt so comfortable “there” they didn’t want to come back to full awareness.

     Because of that, we give clients five minutes or so of quiet reflection upon coming back to full awareness so they can more fully appreciate that sense of calm.

         Then, in that calm, they start to consider the possibility of something else at work, something they haven’t felt for a while and in the hours and days following their session, the conscious mind lines up with the chosen changes the subconscious is activating.

     Once the negative flotsam of their life more fully clears away, they recognise that feeling … confidence … and start to believe in themselves again.

     In other words, they allow themselves to connect with their higher self, their spiritual self.

SO WHO ARE WE?

We are NGH’s Clergy Special Interest Group (CSIG), open to all, who support common concerns and interests where hypnotism meets spirituality.

Do you have to be clergy to join CSIG? No, and like NGH, we’re religiously neutral in our approach.

     We’re not here to convert you to anything but instead to share insights on spirituality in our work as hypnotists.
   

WHY ARE WE EXPANDING?

     We welcome those who’ve rejected religion proper due to church disagreements or trauma but who haven't lost their faith in the Divine, or the Universe, or Karma … or maybe they have.

     We also welcome the practicing religious and help them reach a deeper sense of spirituality than they currently enjoy.

     It’s inevitable that people are confronted by life situations which challenge their ambitions, beliefs, life values and personal worth.

     Due to these spiritual confrontations, people decide to change their lives to more fully encompass service.

Hypnosis meets that need.

HOW THE HYPNOTIST HELPS

These life helpers, trained in hypnosis, form groups, or ministries to serve niche areas quicker and more effectively, like grief counselling, life counselling, operational stress injuries (OSI), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), trauma following SARS and COVID, and a host of other life circumstances.

     Sometime the individual practitioner has an advanced degree in a specialty area in which they’re serving (i.e., end of life) but haven’t pursued a theology degree; or, they have substantial experience in the area in which they serve (a survivor) and reinforce that with independent course work.

     But how did these helping groups, or ministries, arise when we have a fully loaded hospital system?

THE DOCTOR DILEMA

     In North America, the general public find hospital lineups as frustrating as securing a family or even regular physician.

     The doctor who would sit back in his chair and spend time determining underlying reasons for a patient’s fugue rarely exists anymore.

     It’s very expensive nowadays to be a physician and they need to increase their daily turnover to keep their practices open.

     As a result, physicians are so rushed and overloaded in private practice by “the system” they tend to expeditiously prescribe pharmaceutical solutions rather than psychological ones.

     Most too have frustratingly long waiting lists or just aren’t taking on any new patients.

     In fact, for most of the population, a hospital is the only relief, but even if one visited a hospital seeking treatment, emergency rooms are so busy even the doctors cant walk down the hallway in a straight line for all the people coming in with their families.

     Nurses too, the nightingales of our world, who provide compassionate care, work long hours, have changing shift schedules are on their feet for hours at a time while contending with sometimes abusive patients are suffering record burnout, which in turn places serious demands on other nurses.

     According to medical associations, turnover rates for nurses across North America hovers between 20-30%, and between 7-10% for US doctors and 34% in Canada.

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN TO US?

     That does not in any sense mean that hypnotists can supplant the medical professional.

     What it does mean though is that we can address an extraordinarily wide variety of emotional traumas while operating within the boundaries of our training.

     From dental fear to habitual sadness, from biting fingernails to negative memories and everything in-between, a Certified Hypnotist can help.  

Keep NGH’s mission statement in mind … “Helping ordinary, everyday people with ordinary, everyday problems using individual hypnotic techniques.”

IT’S THE DEVIL’S WORK!

     As President of NHG’s Clergy Special Interest Group, I’ve been in touch with seminaries and universities offering to visit and give talks to students following the theological track on the advantages of expanding their personal skill sets, to no avail.

     As soon as I mention the word hypnosis, although everyone’s attention is peaked, educators and clergy managers become suddenly less interested, worried that their flocks will rebel if they knew their pastors were being trained in mesmerism.

     They forget the fact, or just plain ignore that the church sermon, and indeed prayer itself, is exactly that, focused attention.

     In fact, our inductions are remarkably similar to the components of a church service.

     To wit … during a service we speak with a certain lilt intended to calm and reassure. We induct (invocation), deepen (imagination), repeat some phrases (compounding) and express them from different viewpoints (reframing).

     We talk of finding peace within by opening our awareness (prayer), ask for intercessions (positive reinforcement), confess our weaknesses (self-forgiveness), and give thanks.

     Even the ones who shout that hypnosis is the devil’s work invoke a focused state of concentration during their vitriol.

     So what does all this mean to you, the NGH practitioner?

     We invite you to expand yourself by joining us.

OUR WEB PAGE

     We invite you to visit our internet presence (NGH-CSIG.net) where we mount articles of interest and concern along with informative videos of practitioners discussing their techniques.

     We host platforms for guest speakers and continuing education.

     We are invoking a comment forum, are developing a responsive survey page.

     We offer a professional and credible place to publish selected Member papers.

     We also mount a head and shoulders picture of Members with a direct, clickable link to their own web presence as a bit of free advertising.

     Rather than a static “put it up and ferged aboudit” page, we tend to our site almost daily and to answer the ever-arising question of “when’s the web page gonna be finished?”  … our answer of course is … “never.”

     The web page is ever expanding.

CSIG CONVENTION AWARDS

     There are also two unique … one to an ordained Minister and one to an Associate member, both of whom had made substantial contributions to the forward motion of Hypnosis meeting Spirituality.

     These awards, along with NGH recognitions in other categories, will be presented at the Awards Presentation portion of dinner Saturday night at the NGH’s Annual Learning Institute and Conference in August.

     Plus, the CSIG President recognises different contributing individuals throughout the year with certificates suitable for framing.

     To that, recommendations with accompanying reasoning(s) are welcomed.

YOUR TAKEAWAY

     At Convention, come meet with us!

     We’ll be arranging a “meet ’n greet” at 6pm Friday night, before the Stage Show at 7:30, and look forward to answering any questions about how our work can help improve your practice, or the understanding of your practice.

     We look forward to seeing you in Marlborough in August!

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Written by The Reverend Timothy Jones, BCH, CI, FNGH, OB
President, NGH Clergy Special Interest Group (2024)

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