#tacit knowledge

pick up my bag at pickup, you break up during a breakup, you’ll pay back when someone gets payback

This is consistent with a small subset of two-syllable nouns that are also verbs (or the other way around).

you can subject a subject, address an address, and permit a permit

Yet you don’t garden a garden, surprise with a surprise, or control the controls

Maybe the problem is the word itself: hypnosis. It carries too much history. Mesmer. Animal magnetism. Stage shows. The popular image of the hypnotist making someone bark like a dog. All of that has cast a strange shadow over the term. And science, which is sometimes quite careful about its reputation, seems to have preferred a more prudent approach: studying the mechanisms separately. Not hypnosis.

Suggestion. Attention. Dissociation. Expectancy.

Entire schools of thought dedicated to explaining the phenomenon… but breaking it down into pieces more acceptable to scientific language. Not because the phenomenon doesn't exist. But because its name became uncomfortable. Or perhaps simply because the phenomenon is too complex to be studied in just one way.

At first, I thought hypnosis wasn't scientific, but rather a kind of magic.

It didn't seem to have clear rules; it just... happened.

Over time, I began to notice patterns.

There were structures, ways of doing things, effects that repeated themselves. But the rules didn't seem to be written down anywhere.

It was as if knowledge was passed on by word of mouth, more like an oral tradition than an academic discipline.

And that struck me as strange.

How do people learn it, then?

In many ways, traditional clinical hypnosis functions almost like a craft.

Its rules are transmitted through imitation, mentorship, and direct experience.

This contrasts quite sharply with the scientific ideal of replicability and transparency.

Perhaps the reason is that hypnosis depends deeply on context.

And on something difficult to encapsulate in a manual: the relationship between two people.

What works with someone in a particular state of mind might not work with another person at all.

That's why it's sometimes perceived as an art.

Or even a kind of magic.

But if you start digging a little deeper, you discover that papers, theoretical models, and experimental research do exist.

Hypnosis didn't end with Erickson or the old clinical hypnotists.

The curious thing is that often the phenomenon appears under other names: suggestion, focused attention, agency, dissociation, expectancy.

Then something strange happens.

You start reading cognitive psychology, neuroscience, or studies on perception...

and suddenly you realize that many of those things describe exactly what happens in hypnosis.

It's just that nobody calls it that.

✦ · · · ✦

Maybe the problem is the word itself: hypnosis.

It carries too much history.

Mesmer.

Animal magnetism.

Stage shows.

The popular image of the hypnotist making someone bark like a dog.

All of that has cast a strange shadow over the term.

And science, which is sometimes quite careful about its reputation, seems to have preferred a more prudent approach: studying the mechanisms separately.

Not hypnosis.

Suggestion.

Attention.

Dissociation.

Expectancy.

Entire schools of thought dedicated to explaining the phenomenon... but breaking it down into pieces more acceptable to scientific language.

Not because the phenomenon doesn't exist.

But because its name became uncomfortable.

Or perhaps simply because the phenomenon is too complex to be studied in just one way.

✦ · · · ✦

Meanwhile, in the popular imagination, hypnosis continues to live in a completely different place.

For some, it's a stage trick.

For others, a pseudoscience.

For others, an exaggerated promise of instant change.

And in the middle of all that, research continues to advance slowly, studying the same processes that hypnotists have been observing for centuries.

Just using a different vocabulary.

Maybe that's not a bad thing.

Perhaps dismantling the phenomenon into its parts was necessary to understand it better.

But still, a curious feeling remains: the word hypnosis keeps floating around, between disciplines, between concepts, between lines of research.

Perhaps the word serves precisely to unite those pieces.

A neuroscientist talks about attention.

A psychologist about expectancy.

A therapist about dissociation.

But the person living the experience perceives it as a unified whole.

That experience is what we call being hypnotized.

In that sense, the word functions as a kind of phenomenological glue: it unites the pieces that science separates in order to study them.

And then a question remains.

Have we lost something by dismantling the phenomenon to make it scientifically respectable?

Hypnosis didn't disappear.

It just changed its form.

✦ᛉumeᛋᛇ✦

✦ — — — — — — — — — — ✦

I have long observed that certain locutions are so tightly bound to the linguistic, cultural, and cosmological matrices from which they arise that translation, in the ordinary sense, is not merely inadequate but category-mistaken. One may transport lexical correspondences, historical glosses, and philological annotations across languages, yet the operative meaning remains embedded in a lived…

What is remembered lives: research connecting someone to their ancestors

Last spring, I did a presentation at Paganicon about research relating to ancestor work. My full notes from that presentation (including slides) are up on my Seeking site, but I thought Samhain (at least where I am) was a good time to talk a little more about some aspects of things I brought up there. I’m focusing here on the complexities of history, and will come back and do an article series on…

At first, I thought hypnosis wasn't scientific, but rather a kind of magic. It didn't seem to have clear rules; it just… happened. Over time, I began to notice patterns. There were structures, ways of doing things, effects that repeated themselves. But the rules didn't seem to be written down anywhere. It was as if knowledge was passed on by word of mouth, more like an oral tradition than an academic discipline. And that struck me as strange. How do people learn it, then? In many ways, traditional clinical hypnosis functions almost like a craft. Its rules are transmitted through imitation, mentorship, and direct experience. This contrasts quite sharply with the scientific ideal of replicability and transparency. Perhaps the reason is that hypnosis depends deeply on context. And on something difficult to encapsulate in a manual: the relationship between two people. What works with someone in a particular state of mind might not work with another person at all. That's why it's sometimes perceived as an art. Or even a kind of magic. But if you start digging a little deeper, you discover that papers, theoretical models, and experimental research do exist. Hypnosis didn't end with Erickson or the old clinical hypnotists. The curious thing is that often the phenomenon appears under other names: suggestion, focused attention, agency, dissociation, expectancy. Then something strange happens. You start reading cognitive psychology, neuroscience, or studies on perception… and suddenly you realize that many of those things describe exactly what happens in hypnosis. It's just that nobody calls it that.