What are the claims of proponents for regressive hypnosis and what are the skeptics?

2 Comments

1. Xystren says:

   May 20, 2010 at 11:54 am

   I answered another question similar to this… I will put my response here, as it is very similar.

   That is a very difficult question to answer, let alone prove with any sort of certainty.

   I will describe some of my thoughts and analysis that I have on the topic. Specifically, I will be talking about a past life regression (PLR)

   The first time I worked with someone on a PLR I was very skeptical. I really wasn’t sure either way if it was true or not. So I did take notes, and later did some checking. As it turned out, I was able to confirm a good amount of information that was "gathered" from the session. There was a *very* strong correlation between the session evidence, and the evidence of the records I looked up (mostly genealogy sites)

   So one part of me was saying, hey there could be something to this. But the other part of me was saying, well, she could have already known that information or picked it up from the same source I did, or via other methods. She had no reason so deceive me that I knew of, and I didn’t tell her I was going to check the information either. It was just something I did for my own curiosity.

   So, I got into this debate, was it true, or was it just imagined… Though about it some more, and questioned was it a metaphor for something that she was trying to resolve in her current day to day activities. And I just kept pondering, trying to look from all points of views..

   The conclusion I came to was, with our present understanding of ourselves and the universe I’m not sure if at this time we can ever really *prove* it a skeptic. For every reason I could come up with for the true side, I could come up with a reason for the not-true side, and vise-versa. I really reached a point where I couldn’t come with an answer.

   But I pondered some more, and was the question the right one to be asking?

   In this context, she was having some problems in her life, that she really didn’t know why. There were fears of certain situations that she had never experienced, yet, those fears were so genuine. After the PLR session, those fears subsided, and later were completely eliminated.

   So, if we look at the question again, and ask it from the context of "Is a PLR done with hypnosis true?" Then I would argue that I feel we don’t have the knowledge of understanding to make that statement true…

   But ask it from the context "Did the PLR hypnosis provide a positive benefit to her life" then I would answer 100% absolutely. So in this context, yes, it is true.

   So it really comes down to the context of the question, and how it is asked. The goal, or intent changes the meaning of the question.

   So from my point of view, the real/not-real debate can’t be answered with our current level of understanding/knowledge. So it has become a question that I really don’t ask that much anymore (though I do revisit it from time to time). My direction of my question is geared towards "Was there any positive benefit from the session." When I ask that question, the real/not-real seems so much less important that it first did. In that context, does it really matter if it was from a past live, or if it was imagined, or simply a metaphor for an issue in her day to day life?

   So as I say, a difficult question to answer. It’s more of a philosophical discussion than a scientific one. With what I do know, I also realize how much I don’t know; but I know I can’t even comprehend how much I don’t know that I don’t know.

   Let me know if you were asking more about "forensic regression" (or current life regression) and I can answer that also. Even with what I have described could easily be applied in a forensic regression case, but there are other further complications that can go along with it.

   Cheers,
   Greg
2. ummer f says:

   May 20, 2010 at 11:54 am

   Shouldn’t you be using google or search for that?

   http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=opera&rls=en&hs=B4z&q=regressive+hypnosis+skepticism&btnG=Search