Even the most educated could be tricked, brainwashed by charlatans

The recent expose on a pastor “coning” people of their money is not a new phenomenon and not the last! The scientific study of this phenomenon started just a little over 200 years ago and is entrenched in the modern English word “mesmerise”; derived from the name of Dr Mesmer, an Austrian trained medical doctor who later moved his practice to Paris.

He used water he alleged had what he called “Animal Magnetism,” which flowed from the water to the patient and improved their health. His practice was flooded beyond capacity. There were however, some people with an objective approach who demanded proof that what Dr Mesmer was doing was actually effective.

Since he could not provide the evidence, a high profile committee was set up to investigate Mesmer. They concluded there was no evidence of animal magnetism and that effects of mesmerism could be attributed to the power of suggestion and the subject’s active imagination.

Years later, a British Surgeon by the name of James Braid (1795-1860) believed that mesmerism worked by reducing the level of consciousness to a sleep like state where a person was less susceptible to feeling pain and renamed the phenomenon after the Greek god of sleep then known as Hypnos, attaching a supernatural aspect to it, thus giving birth to the concept of hypnosis.

Using the power of suggestion (the gateway to hypnosis) not to feel pain, Braid was able to operate on his patients when they were under hypnosis. There were no known painkillers at the time for use during a surgical operation.

Epidemiological studies by two research groups from Harvard and Stanford universities, two of the topmost universities in the world that have over the years dominated the top three positions in global university rankings, found that 5 per cent of the population could be induced to a deep hypnotic state easily through suggestion, and only 10 per cent did not respond at all whereas the remaining 85 per cent were in-between. In other words, 90 per cent of the population, men and women equally, is susceptible to suggestion.

There have been several experiments to the effect that under threat or during hypnosis, the body produces chemical changes that mute pain. It is possible that some people may actually feel less pain during those dramatic trance states we see on television or live stage healing. Even if this was the explanation, it does not amount to a miracle, but rather a very transient phenomenon which lasts as long as the hypnotic state lasts — a biological phenomenon like when you take a strong painkiller.

Suggestibility seems to work best in the context of other people with similar characteristics or in similar circumstances, and in the process loops in the power of mob psychology which in itself operates on different but complementary psychodynamics.

Take the example of so-called mass hysteria, when one dominant child in a school starts the process perhaps with a genuine condition and all of sudden other children start falling, shouting or behaving funny. This is purely a psychological phenomenon with no necessary supernatural explanation but operating at high level biological subtlety.

That pastor’s case is but just one aspect of suggestibility. The range of suggestibility at work is to be found in all spheres of life such as being conned with promise of huge returns, blind submission to politicians with all kinds of promises, even making some believe they owe allegiance to their ethnicity or race or that these confer on them special privileges over others (remember Adolf Hilter and his German people?).

Indeed, most commercials and propaganda of any type maximise on suggestibility. Many of us are by nature predisposed to suggestibility perhaps with a genetic predisposition, whose final expression is modified by the environment – social, economic, apparent lack of viable alternatives or even tradition. We should therefore not unreservedly judge the victims whether they are victims of religious, business or political suggestion or even question their intellectual ability to think for themselves. Just look around — amongst those easily suggestible are our most educated elite.

Perhaps what is needed is discernment which enables one to tell between suggestibility and manipulation, and the truth. For in spite of everything there are still genuine and sincere preachers, pastors, imams, sheikhs, politicians, miracles — including miraculous healings that stand up to medical scrutiny and true prophets of the calibre we read about in the scriptures and churches that selflessly do great things for the needy.

Fortunately, there is emerging evidence on how to tell the difference between genuine churches and preachers and the so-called cults, but discernment is still needed.