Check out my latest edit to my first post.
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FOR THOSE WHO WOULD LIKE TO LISTEN TO THE CBC PROGRAM, HERE IT IS:
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2008/200812/20081223.html===========================
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Pneumatism--about coming to consciousness--trumps hypnotism, every time!
As, noted elsewhere, James Braid--who invented the word hypnosis (based on the Greek for sleep), in 1843--later admitted that 'hypnosis' was a misnomer. It really did not describe what he later discovered the phenomenon to be all about--our coming to consciousness. He wrote that he wanted to change the name to 'monoideism'--paying attention to one idea. He was more interested in waking people up to the power within them, not putting them to sleep (hypnos).
ABOUT THE GNOSTICS
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With the modern emphasis on the value of science, and its pursuit of provable knowledge, the ancients Gnostics would be very much at home in modern times. They put a great deal of the value of knowledge. Recent discoveries made by scholars regarding Gnosticism has given us a greater appreciation of the value of gnostic ideas. For them, knowledge--such as comes from spiritual insight--rather than faith, was the key to life's mysteries. I like to think of a sighted faith, not a blind one.
In the light of this, perhaps, instead of hypnosis, a good word for the process of reaching consciousness would be,
'autonosis'--a self-induced state of consciousness in which we are open to receive all the knowledge we need to be at-one-ment with GOD.
