Public Hypnosis for the Cognitively Volnurable: My Visit to a Local Church Service

Mature as smelly, moldy, and expensive French cheese, men and women, nervously shuffling through a psalm book, the detailed schedule for the day's service, and the general book of "how to do things" in the church, gather to repeat the rituals reminiscent of primary school classes at least weekly. Men and women way beyond being merely full grown adults, having to dart their eyes around and with trembling, arthritis-ridden hands desperately grasping about for those notes on the homework that they didn't bring.

I thought I'd reserved the best view by standing well at the back behind all this, yet was subjected to sensing my saggy-jeansed bottom being surveilled by the church DJ, whose presence there was supposed to be justified by a single board of switches and cables he awkwardly never even touched upon.

My  first thought at the beginning of this service of a church I live near to, is that people must start getting nostalgic about their years studying at school, or university. Everyone is given handouts with all the excerpts to be read, just like in every literature lecture that I could remember. At the general book, below a song with sheet music and the lyrics right below each note, it says "silence is kept". And it is! Everyone's up for becoming the teacher's pet, I see.

The priest, unnervingly resembling Gustavo Fring from "Breaking Bad" by the way, all of a sudden drones out a "let us praaaay" in a voice so deep and affectatiously sonorous, that I almost lose it right then. He continues in the same Kermit the frog way saying how Jesus and the Lord and the everything is superior than you, and oh how unworthy you are of His love, you filthy maggooooot.

Then comes story telling time, to really lull us into a deep but oddly terrifying trance. The story, as per usual to this type of gatherings, is something you and I wouldn't know where to start identifying with from. I've kept the handy handout but I can't be bothered looking up what it actually was now. Giving water to the camels, somehow linking to generosity and compassion, as much as I can recall. I perked up when the reader took onto politely explaining what the story means, that was totally new to me. However that bit as a whole felt more like the most boring episode of the X-Files that you could point out, rather than a heart-gripping tale about life and what's right. They should just screen a never ending loop of everything by James Cameron to even approximate the level of emotional intensity,  personal involvement, and the ability to engage one's internal understanding of moral values when introduced to a narrative.

Just like all "the moves" - you know the little aerobics exercise for the extremely mature -  sit down, stand up, kneel! Like this, yes, feel the burn of repence in your muscles...the heart to be precise! If it starts feeling like a 16 ton kettle on your chest, try to flail your arms for assistance before you collapse!

It's not that bad really. In fact everyone's so saccharine in a jar of honey mixed with a Shockers bar nice, the otherwise relatively brief visit begins to resemble an episode of the Twilight Zone where you're about to find out these people are keeping you prisoner for gradual skin tissue harvesting, and that they've already finished consuming the rest of your family. And they do harvest you though. Your personal information, and your time. A lady pointed her Dumbledore's wand-like finger at the line where she insisted I write down my last name as well. I did the 4th grader thing by writing all my details just slightly incorrectly so that when they try and look for me on the grid, disappointingly nothing comes up.

In the tea and cake room - again a complete novelty for someone from Eastern Europe - I got excited seeing two lads in their late teens, with colourful bracelets and awkward haircuts. Hey, someone I can joke about the whole service resembling a DJ tiesto gig at a nursery home! Nope. The two went silent, shunned me out, and even completely ignored the elders insisting that we all must know each other already. I like to imagine I was their Marla Singer from "Fight Club" - intruding my not entirely oblivious presence into their secret and oddly therapeutic society that they were hoping no one else finds out about. Because "they need this, and I'm just a tourist!"
Sliiiide!

One actual quote from another story time piece was this:
"If I do what I do not want, it is not I who will do it" - Word of the Lord.
And no, it wasn't followed by a cognitive correction where it'd say something like "lol no, don't think too much, Lord Jesus be with you showing you da way, don't overthink yo!" No, and not even in a more formal style. That's pretty much saying "do whaaaatever the hell you feel like!" - if I may be pardoned the phrasing.

The general effort to just make you stop thinking is astonishing! First you have the whole plan of activities written down and shoved into your grubby paws right at the entrance. You're guided and directed to walk to the altar and back, when to engage your vocal chords and when to forget you have them. You're asked for your own money in change of literally nothing, guilt-tripping most becase they've been tempted to try those muffins at the end in the other room. You're brought deep into a consistent trance via infantilazation and forced submission through guilt, and then literally commanded to "yield!" To whom at that point your mind hardly differentiates: Jesus, your own inner God who you pray to swearing you will never drink again if he just makes you alright just this once please, or the Gus Fring of this church, waving hands in threatening yet precise hand gestures, in his green-clothed, authoritative yet confusingly impractical looking uniform. 

And then they finish the hypnotic seance with a strong pace-and-lead verbal sequence where a nice lady describes all the main human senses in extensive detail, finishing them all with seeking and finding resolution in God, in pray, in the Church. Then in all true Derren Brown method but no style, you get pacified verbally - albeit quite primitively, by simply being commanded that you now are indeed relieved of your sins, although with the imposing stance in front of us and commanding hand gestures your mind likely feels intimidated into belief of this, and voila, you suddenly, almost magically and not with the help of any psychological science at all, feel all better about yourself and life now!

Having said all of that, maybe sometimes you do need a place that forces you to stop thinking, and a place full of people gathering there, and having the world's most innocuous conversations, and being so very tediously nice, just because they think it's right, and maybe you do need a place to feel welcome if you feel everywhere else has thrown you out and rejected you. It's quirky, it's outdated, it's definitely not for the sceptics and the rebels-- but if you have nowhere to go, that's probably a good place for a start.