Hypnotherapy and Traditional Healing Wisdom

Clinical hypnosis is a form of mind expansion. The role of a Hypnotherapist is to aid clients to focus their consciousness so as to make it possible to better perceive, understand, and heal parts of the mind that are ordinarily subconscious. A hypnotherapist addresses healing at the level of mind and spirit, which improves physical health on a holistic level.

As a healing modality, hypnosis has been utilized in some form at almost every place and time in history. Although some people might not make the connection, the most common, original practitioners of hypnosis have been tribal shamans.

Shamans have historically existed in the native tribes of North and South America, Africa, Asia, and Europe, as well as many other places. Every race and ethnicity has some form of ancestral history of shamanism. It is interesting to consider the fact that very different tribes with very different customs in very different places have developed shamanic traditions that are very similar in nature to the shamanic traditions that exist in other parts of the world, even without any known contact with these other tribes. There is a universality to shamanistic practices, and there are good reasons for this.

In tribal societies, the shaman always has two main functions. The first function is to help connect the individual members of the tribe to an unseen spiritual reality. The second is to serve as a kind of holistic healer. These two functions have always been closely related in the shamanic tradition. To separate the two and do what is done in the world of modern allopathic medicine, attempting to heal illness without healing the inner spirit of the individual, is something that is inconceivable to a shaman. The shaman knows that health cannot be restored on a genuine level unless the spirit is healed, and not just the body. The two must be addressed as one.

In order to facilitate healing, the shaman places the person seeking healing into some form of trance. This can be accomplished in various ways, but the end goal is always the same. Reaching a deeper state of expanded consciousness, the person seeking healing is led to experience an inner shift in energy, thought, and emotion. In order to help guide the healing correctly, the shaman also enters into a trance state of altered consciousness, so as to better understand the nature of what is to be done.

The art of shamanism is the most ancient of healing arts in the world, but the world has changed a great deal in the past few thousand years. Tribal societies still exist, but they are fewer and fewer in number, and the ancient ways of the shaman are sometimes forgotten or overlooked as the world moves into a state of greater and greater development and industrialization. Shamans still exist, but their ways and methods are no longer the prevalent modality of healing in the world.

The modern medical industrial complex that dominates health care in the developed world has little regard for the ways and healing practices of the shaman. To approach healing as a spiritual process, or to employ trance and consciousness expansion as an aid to healing is something that is very seldom seen in the mainstream practice of modern medicine. Some traditional spiritual healing practices are being explored by researchers in these modern times, but these things are not seen in hospitals or doctor’s offices.

There may be some aspects of what a shaman does that seem primitive to those who study medicine from a scientific perspective. And to be fair, there may be certain shamanic rituals or practices that are simply no longer a fit for this modern world. But even at that, it seems clear that to attempt to heal the sick while completely ignoring the role of thought, emotion, and spiritual reality in health is not the way to achieve genuine healing on a holistic level. In some respects, modern allopathic medicine can be seen not so much as progress, but as a loss of wisdom in the healing arts.

Even people who have little understanding either of medical science or of spiritual healing practices often understand that, if a person has a medical problem, and the accepted “cure” for that problem is to take pills on an indefinite and continuous basis, no real cure is taking place. If a medication needs to be taken on a continuous basis, it seems clear that it is only treating the symptoms and not the deeper cause of the illness. Though the symptoms may disappear, the illness remains.

Looking at the modern world, it can be clearly seen that the medical industrial complex is not really keeping society healthy in a holistic way. In fact, many people are becoming sicker in many ways than people have been in even the recent past. They may take pills that keep the symptoms of their illnesses at bay for a time, but the problems sooner or later emerge later on, in a different form. Many people in the modern industrialized world spend the last years of their lives in a very unhealthy state where there is little quality of life. This is a fact that many people like to ignore, but ignoring it does not make the problem go away. Some people may wish to believe that medical science will soon deliver easy, quick, and convenient cures for all sorts of illnesses. But there is no evidence of this. If we want to be healthy in mind, body, and spirit, we have to address our health on all levels, and take a level of responsibility for making aware, healthy choices in thinking and action. This has always been true and it will always be true.

The real future of medicine lies in a greater understanding of holistic health. As long as pharmaceutical companies are able to make huge profits by selling pills, this realization will only have a limited influence on the practice of mainstream medicine. But each individual in this modern world has the option to go deeper, and to explore the hidden aspects of holistic health. By entering into expanded states of consciousness such as hypnosis, we can address our personal issues and challenges on an inner level. We can discover insights that can show us a way to greater healing. We can come to understand the real value of healing practices that modern medical authorities do not understand or appreciate.

Like a tribal shaman, a good Hypnotherapist can be a guide to a deeper understanding of what is healthy. For people who are ready to look within and see what goes beyond the surface of life and health, a hypnotherapist can be a kind of bridge between the ancient wisdom of traditional healing and a future where healing and health care can one day again be seen as something that goes beyond treating the symptoms of illness alone.