Hypnosis And Judaism

"Lest anyone accuse hypnosis of lying outside the fence of what normative Judaism permits, let me invoke no less an authority than Jacob Ettlinger (1808-1871), the teacher of Samson Raphael Hirsch. When asked, he investigated hypnosis and defended hypnotism against a charge of witchcraft (Responsa Binyan Zion, No. 67). He derived his ruling from a discussion of healing powers in the authoritative code of Jewish law, Yosef Ram's Shulhan Arukh."
--Brigadier General Paul G. Durbin, Ph.D.
U.S. Army chaplain, Retired.

Rabbi Jacob Ettlinger (1798-1871) was a prominent German rabbi, author, and one of the leaders of Orthodox Judaism.

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888) has been called the most renowned German Jewish leader of the nineteenth century and the father of modern German Orthodoxy.

There are many contemporary rabbis who are also psychologists and who use clinical hypnosis in their practices.

Rabbi S. Glasner is one such rabbi. He is also a psychologist who uses clinical hypnosis in his practice. Rabbi Glasner published a scholarly article in the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, in which he and his co-author compared the state of autohypnosis with the Jewish cabbalistic state of kavanah. (1)

I don't know much about the concept of kavanah, but I know that the very distinguished rabbi, Dr. H. G. Enelow has written that it contains suggestions of empathy, rapport, righteousness, and steadfastness (2), and that the great medieval Jewish philosopher, Maimonides (1135-1204) has said that a prayer without kavanah is no prayer at all.

Rabbi Glasner reported that the experiences he observed in people who are in a state of hypnosis are similar in some ways to the experiences he has observed in prayer. He is referring, of course, to the psychological experiences and not the religious experiences.

In 1982 I participated in a series of workshops focusing on various aspects of clinical and experimental hypnosis which were co-sponsored by Beth Israel Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

References:

(1) Bowers, M. and Glasner, S.: Auto-hypnotic aspects of the Jewish cabbalistic concept of kavanah. J. Clin. Exp. Hypn., 6:50, 1958.

(2) Enelow, H. G.: Kavanah--the struggle for inwardness in Judaism. In Enelow, H. G.: Selected Works, vol. 6, pp 252-288. Private printing, Kingsport, Tenn., 1935