The Benny Hinn Experience: An Altered State of

Consciousness

Presented by:

Sophie, Cristina, and Holly

Outline

• Introduction• Televangelism and Inducing an ASC (Sophie)

– Hypnosis– Meditation

• The trance-like state (Cristina)• Healing through faith? (Holly)• Suggested Studies

Who is Benny Hinn

• Toufik Benedictus Hinn• Born in Israel, moved to Canada as a

teenager• World famous televangelist• “Miracle Crusades”• Religious Healer

Induction-A closer look at his “Miracle Crusades”

• Line up outside for hours

• Hours of singing, clapping, and anticipation

• Enters during “How Great Thou Art”

• Collects money

• Heals the faithful

Meditative and Hypnotic Induction

• Focus attention • Concentrative Meditation

– Mandala– Yoga – Mantras– Koans

• Hypnosis: focus on the hypnotist’s voice

Pre-screening Participants

• Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale measures subject’s ability to be hypnotized through a series of exercise.

• Harvard Group Scale consist of motor and cognitive tasks but administered in a group setting (hence the name) and score themselves, highly subjective.

Hypnotic Susceptibility and Religious experience

Language, Mysticism, and Hypnosis. Adams PJ, 2008

Trance-like State

• Electricity felt – Viennese physician, Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815),

believed magnetic plates effected behavior and labeled the reactions animal magnetism. The behavioral results were reported to be convulsions and seizures but likelihood of electrical current from the battery like devices used by mesmerist (Wallace & Fisher, pg 84).

• GSR study?

High Suggestibility

• Video

Theories of Hypnosis

• Sociological Theory/Task Motivation Theory• Trance Theory

• Does a healing crusade bring about an altered state of consciousness?

Healing

"George has HIV. But my brother George, the holy ghost is burning it out of your body!"

Hypnotic Analgesia

• "Related hypnotic phenomena indicate that hypnotic suggestions can also alter organic functioning in ways not clearly understood.”

• Pain studies and hidden observer

Temporary Nature

• Smoking cured with hypnotherapy

• Symptoms return for many

• The “healed” get sick once they get home

Suggested Studies• Right Temporal Lobe activation

– Right temporal lobe epilepsy associated with religious experience

• Devinsky & Lay

– 1 microtesla magnetic stimulation to the right temporal lobe caused increased susceptibility

• Healey et al

• Altered Perception?– PET: ACC, thalamus, pontomesenphalic brainstem

had altered rCBF• Rainville et al

-REV E. L. CRUMP

““Religion is the greatest hypnotizing Religion is the greatest hypnotizing agent or influence in the world."agent or influence in the world."

Works Cited• Devinsky O, Lai G. Spirituality and Religion in Epilepsy. Epilepsy Behav. 2007 Dec

31 • Healey F Persinger MA, Koren SA. Enhanced hypnotic suggestibility following

application of burst-firing magnetic fields over the right temporoparietal lobes: a replication. The international journal of neuroscience.

• Wallace and Fisher. Consciousness and Behavior. Waveland Press, Inc. (2003)• Adams PJ. Language, Mysticism, and Hypnosis. Int J Clin Exp Hypn 2008 Jan-Mar;

56(1): 73-82• “Do you believe in Miracles?” The Fifth Estate, CBC News. • Brian Vandenberg, "Hypnosis and sociogenetic influences in human development"

Nov 10, 2005. doi:10.1016/j.newideapsych.2005.08.001• NBC News - Dateline/December 27, 2002• Hildgard ER 1973. A neodissociation interpretation of pain reduction in hypnosis.

Psychological Review 80, 396-411 (1973)• Powell DH (1980). Helping habitual smokers using flooding and hypnotic

desensitization techniques. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 28, 192-196.

• Rainville et al., Hypnosis modulates activity in brain structures involved in the regulation of consciousness. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14(6), 887-901, 2002.