Dr. Robert Sumner passed away in December 2016. The Biblical Evangelist newspaper is no longer being published and the ministry of Biblical Evangelism has ceased operation.

The remaining inventory of his books and gospel tracts was transferred to The Baptist Tabernacle of Los Angeles and may be ordered here.

HYPNOSIS: MEDICAL, SCIENTIFIC OR OCCULTIC
by Martin and Deidre Bobgan

HYPNOSIS: MEDICAL, SCIENTIFIC OR OCCULTIC by Martin and Deidre Bobgan; EastGate Publishers, Santa Barbara, CA; 12 Chapters, 142 Pages; $10.00, Paper

We have been reviewing books by the Bobgans for years, always with enthusiasm. This husband-wife team is “an army of one” fighting against the evils of psychotherapy in all of its forms, and thereby have taken on some of the biggest names in evangelicalism.

This book follows the same format. When we picked it up, before we looked at the first page, we emphatically answered the question of the title, “Occult!” We have always felt this to be true and the book by the Bobgans only strengthened – should we say one hundred fold? – that conviction. Did that automatically make me a biased reviewer of this work? Perhaps so, but Hypnosis will stand on its own merit without any help from me.

In the long run, it makes little difference whether the hypnosis is performed by a jungle witch doctor or an evangelical medical doctor. It is playing with the occult, a dangerous thing for any individual to do, saved or lost. Starting with its founder, Franz Anton Mesmer (from which we apparently got the term mesmerized), in the mid-18th century and continuing to the present hour, it is been credited/blamed (choose one) from everything to being a nonexistent fake to a cure-all for everyone’s ills. Research has shown that those who can “immerse themselves in fantasy and imagination” are the best hypnosis subjects. In other words, those least involved in reality are the prime selections and their involvement “can be a doorway into the occult.”

Many today, including numerous evangelicals, try to tell us that hypnosis is a common part of everyday life. That they are mistaken is amply proven by the Bobgans. Some even claim that prayer is a form of self-hypnosis.

What about the oft-declared thesis that no one can, under hypnosis, do something contrary to his or her own moral standards and will? Not true! There are ways that it can be done and one author quoted herein suggests that Sirhan Sirhan was in such an induced state when he murdered Bobby Kennedy. This psychologist’s conclusion: “So it was not impossible. Sirhan could have been programmed and programmed to forget.” Scary, isn’t it?

Here’s another scary thought. Talking about the need of the hypnotist to dominate his subject, one practitioner says: “The relationship of a hypnotizable patient to the hypnotist does not differ in any essential way from the relationship of a lunatic to the superintendent of an asylum.” And knowledgeable hypnotists acknowledge that their results differ none from those of witchdoctors – and for the same reasons.

Some of the claims of hypnotists border on the bizarre – or, perhaps more to the point, downright ridiculous. One, a Jack Downing, claims he got a patient to “relive” a fetal memory relating to his mother telling his father she was pregnant and the latter wanting his wife to get an abortion because he was saving to buy a Chrysler. Someone who could believe that would have no trouble trying to hypnotize a newborn baby to save him or her going through the rigors of learning a language (the baby obviously already learned it in the womb). Some of these phonies insist their data proves reincarnation (one-fifth claiming earlier lives on other planets, no less). Others claim their patients have been able to see the future. Now let’s hear it for the tooth fairy!

You will probably conclude, after reading this book, that some of hypnotism is nothing short of demonism. There is one chapter with the same title as the book itself and you will learn that hypnosis is anything but scientific. Nor is there any medical benefit to it. Would you go to a witchdoctor to heal your cancer? Two hypnotists admit: “The reader should not be confused by the supposed differences between hypnosis, Zen, Yoga and other Eastern healing methodologies. Although the ritual for each differs, they are fundamentally the same.” In the case of medical, most of the claims are kindred to those of men like Benny Hinn and Oral Roberts. As the authors note, “An occult practice in the hands of even a kindhearted doctor can still leave the Christian open to the works of the devil.”

Bad aftermath resulting from hypnosis are common and, strangely perhaps, even more so in group hypnosis.

If you read this book, you won’t want anyone under any circumstances messing with your mind. We are happy to recommend this timely book. It is valuable for all, but especially for pastors and teachers!

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