Consensus trance induction

Gurdjieff characterized a newborn baby as pure essence. Essence is your genuine, deepest self, your desires, tastes, likes and dislikes, potentials, inherent in you before the consensus trance induction process has begun to change it. Essence is who we really were when we came into this world. 

Consensus trance induction is a process of shaping the behavior and the consciousness of the baby, the subject, to be normal, to ensure that there is a high level of standardization of behavior and consciousness in all people so they fit social norms. To be American, you must speak good English, you must have reasonably polite manners of the kind peculiar to your culture, you must look both ways before crossing the street, you must respect your parents and teachers, respect the American flag, you must etc., etc., etc.—add your favorite five thousand beliefs and attitudes here. 

Now we can begin our comparison of consensus trance induction with the induction of formal hypnotic trance. 

Consensus trance induction starts in conditions that give far more power and influence to the cultural hypnotists than is ever given in in ordinary hypnosis induction. 

First, consensus trance induction does not begin as a voluntary and limited relationship between two consenting and knowledgeable adults. It begins with birth. A newborn comes into the world with an immature body and nervous system, totally dependent upon its parents for its very survival, as well as its happiness. There is a sort of natural consent to learn, yet the power relationship puts a strong forced quality on that consent. 

Second, consensus trance induction is not limited to an hour s session. It involves of repeated inductions and reinforcement of the effects of previous inductions. Given the way children experience time, the cultural hypnotists have forever to work on their subjects. Further, consensus trance is intended to last for a lifetime there are no cultural hypnotists waiting to give you a suggestion to wake up. 

The personal validation aspect of consensus trance induction is very important. We all have a social instinct, a desire to be accepted by others, to have friends, to have a place in our social world, to be respected, to be normal. At early ages this acceptance and validation are mediated almost exclusively by parents they define what being normal means. As the child establishes social relationships with other adults and children (who also act as agents of the culture), he learns more about how he must act to be accepted. As these approved habits of acting become established and rewarded, they further structure the habitual patterns of mental functioning. Fear of rejection is a powerful motivator. All of us probably have some memories of childhood agonies about whether we were normal. ... 

Another factor that gives the consensus trance induction process great power is that the mental state of a young child is similar to the mental state of a deeply hypnotized subject in important ways. This increases the power of the suggestions made by the cultural hypnotists. 

As a culture, we are not particularly interested in the process of consensus trance induction per se. We are very concerned with education but have little awareness of how much of what is called education is primarily consensus trance induction. We are interested in producing dependable, normal people, culturally entranced subjects who automatically experience and do the right thing when the appropriate external-world situation presents itself. When normal people see A, they naturally feel B and do C. This is comparable to giving an ordinarily hypnotized subject a suggestion that when he hears or sees X, he will experience Y and do Z. 

Although we have focused on early childhood as the most intensive time of consensus trance induction, we must not think the induction process is finished just because we are adults. 

The consensus trance induction process probably begins before birth. The neurochemical balances of the mother s body may affect the fetus in some cases, reflecting emotional states. Recent research has also shown that speech sounds are heard very well in the womb, so the structure of the language of the culture, as well as the kind of emotional states reflected by shouting, excitement, etc., may have some effect on the fetus. 

There is a more disturbing interpretation, which will become clearer after you read the next chapter on consensus trance. When someone is hypnotized, the hypnotist can give a posthypnotic suggestion that the subject will not be able to be hypnotized by any other hypnotist than the original one. Until this suggestion wears off, which may take hours in some cases or months in others, the subject will not respond to a hypnotic induction by someone else, but will remain hypnotizable by the original... 

What happens to essence, the basic and essential you, in the induction of consensus trance. ... 

If you are very lucky, and most of the characteristics of your essence are ones that happen to be valued in your culture, the induction of consensus trance is very smooth and free of conflict. Your adult life will probably be normal and successful. If your essence is short-tempered and aggressive, for example, and you happen to be born in a culture that... 

We begin the induction of consensus trance, then, with far more power, knowledge, resources, and sophistication on the part of the cultural hypnotist than the ordinary hypnotist can ever hope to have. The cultural hypnotist also possesses the power of innocence he is unconscious of the consensus trance he himself is in and simply sees himself as acting naturally. The child, the subject, knows little and is genuinely dependent on the cultural hypnotists for survival, love, happiness, and validation. It is no wonder that the process induces a lifelong trance. 

A second major cost of identification comes from the fact that most of the things and roles you automatically identify with were not your choices in the first place. As part of the enculturation process, the induction of consensus trance, you were cajoled and conditioned to identify with many roles, ideas, people, causes, and values that may have had little or no interest for your essence or that were even contrary to it. Indeed,... 

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