An individual inquired about the nature of trance induction and wanted to know about the techniques used in conjunction with such phenomena.

Based on my experience with the group which calls itself 'Sufi' and the individual who refers to himself as a shaykh - neither of which is warranted - I have seen about four or five different conditions which appear to constitute altered states of consciousness that have either been induced by, or occurred in conjunction with, the alleged guide. There seem to be different mechanisms of induction involved with each of these conditions, although I believe they may be variations on certain central themes or precepts.

The following comments are merely preliminary remarks because, God willing, I plan to delve into this area more substantially in the near future. In fact, in another month or two, there probably will be an announcement to this effect - along with information concerning other related issues - on the sufi spiritual abuse recovery assistance website - so, as is said, stay tuned.

In the first paragraph above, I said that induction is either done by, or occurs in conjunction with, the presence of the so-called shaykh. Some people might wish to argue that nothing mysterious is going on here, but, rather, standard, well-known techniques of social influence, cognitive dissonance, re-framing and so on, are being used to shape thought and consciousness. Moreover, if one were able to study the biochemistry of these trance states, people might speak in terms of the flow of enkephalins and endorphins which are associated with the effects of using techniques of, say, social influence and which, together, result in certain altered states of consciousness.

While I am sure that some of the foregoing factors do figure into the equation of gaining control over the will, mind and heart of another human being, I believe that something more is going on as well. Consequently, I would like to proceed in this other direction and share some possibilities with you.

More specifically, no one knows why hypnosis works or how it works. There are many theories of hypnotic induction, but none of these theories ties the available evidence together in a convincing fashion.

The knowledge which is available on hypnosis is, for the most part, about either various techniques for inducing a hypnotic state, or, on the other hand, the effects which arise from those techniques. There is additional information about some of the physiological correlates associated with the hypnotic state, but no one has been able to adequately disentangle the issues of cause and effect to which hypnosis gives expression to be able to determine, with any degree of persuasive clarity, as to whether such correlates are: causal, effects, or physical markers signifying the presence of some underlying set of processes that may, or may not, be physical in nature.

There is a phenomenon which one reads about, from time to time, in some of the Sufi literature. This phenomenon involves the ability of certain, sufficiently well-realized individuals to be in more than one place at the same time - in other words, different people, in widely separated locations, may report having interaction and/or conversation with one and the same saint or shaykh on the same day and roughly the same time.

Apparently, this phenomenon is tied to a potential which is inherent in a subtle body associated with humans that is known as 'hamzat'. The hamzat is described as an 'emotionally' driven body with little capacity for discursive thought, but it does operate in accordance with the 'logic' of its potential.

When the hamzat is properly developed, it can serve, among other things, as a vehicle of manifestation for a saint's presence, personality, and the like. Moreover, and as indicated above, one of the properties of the well-developed hamzat is to be tied into serving as a locus through which multiple manifestations of a being's presence may occur.

On the dark side of things, the hamzat is often what is emotionally wounded during developmental trauma of whatever kind. This is one of the reasons why irrespective of what the intellect knows about the origins or etiology of emotional and psychological problems, until the hamzat is cured, no real progress can be made to restore an individual to emotional well-being, and since the hamzat is largely impervious to the logic of linguistic structures - although there are, at least, two important caveats to be noted here (more on this shortly) - talk therapy is, to a great extent, largely ineffective in bringing about a return to health within the hamzat.

Given the potential of the hamzat to serve as a locus for multiple manifestations of a person's presence, and given the highly emotional character of the hamzat, as well as its vulnerability to emotional trauma, one is tempted to make a link between various kinds of Dissociative Identity Disorders (which used to be knonw as multiple personality disorder) and a hamzat which is so wounded because of abuse that it uses its natural capacity for multiplicity of manifestation as a localized defense to survive the trauma of abuse through using the creation of different personalities to be able to be in different cognitive, physical, and emotional spaces at the same time as a response to the terrors of the dissociative state which have arisen in response to abuse. In addition, when one understands that the hamzat has a great capacity for empathy, one might also begin to hypothesize that, perhaps, hypnosis - especially of an Ericksonian variety - which seems to involve a strange form of co-operation between two spheres of consciousness - may tap into some of the properties of hamzat and establish an emotional link through which suggestions are transmitted or through which other influences are communicated.

Earlier I said that the hamzat has little, or no, capacity for discursive, critical thinking. However, the hamzat does seem to be susceptible to certain kinds of programming - such as might be used in neuro-linguistic techniques or hypnosis which may begin with words but soon by-pass the logical processes of language and conceptual thinking and an individual may be brought under the influence of how hamzat logic operates in terms of emotional, non-verbal currents which are being exchanged between the person who is inducing the trance and the one who is being entrained.

Moreover, some of the phenomena of chronobiology may intersect with the properties of hamzat, for, often times, there seems to be a relationship between the cadence of speech patterns and the appearance of certain kinds of trance states. Conceivably, there is some process of temporal rhythm entrainment in which the cadence of speech taps into, and induces various dimensions of hamzat activity to focus on the way things are being said, and the emotions with which things are being said, rather than the content of what is being said.

In fact, there have been numerous times which I have observed when this so-called shaykh talked and people listened without moving, for long periods of time, thoroughly engaged with what was being said but being incapable of remembering much of what had been spoken once those sessions ended. Furthermore, these people appeared to be coming out of, or recovering from, a trance, of sorts, and seemed to have difficulty focusing and shifting gears to other kinds of life activities.

Himma is a term which can mean aspiration (and, in the context of mysticism, refers to spiritual aspiration), but it also alludes to themes of focus and concentration. Hypnosis is an expression of one kind of himma in action when the aspiration of the hypnotist and the aspiration of an individual's conscious mind and/or hamzat join together to create an altered state of consciousness in which the person being hypnotized may become highly vulnerable not just to verbal suggestion, but other kinds of shaping influences as well.

The eyes of this so-called shaykh are very strange and captivating at times. When he wishes to draw someone into whatever is being transmitted through his gaze or himma, the result is often very striking in terms of the transformation it brings in the person toward whom the gaze is directed.

The work of Elizabeth Loftus with memory and false memory syndrome indicates that many, if not most, of us are quite sensitive to even extremely subtle forms of suggestion and compliance cues - influences which can alter what we remember, believe, feel, and think. To further suppose that people who wish to please their 'shaykh' will pick up on all kinds of suggestions and indications for behaving and believing in certain ways, is not much of a jump - especially, if this occurs during sessions in which properties of chronobiology and the temporal attunement of hamzat may flow into one another and establish a 'space' of anomalous consciousness.

I have coined the term 'Baba-juice' (Baba meaning spiritual father and, as such, this constitutes a way of referring to whatever it is that may be transmitted from the so-called shaykh to a devotee and, in the process, leads to an altered state of consciousness) to give expression to a medium of transmission between a so-called shaykh and those who come under the influence of this alleged teacher. I have seen this Baba-juice phenomenon manifest itself on a number of occasions, and in a number of different ways.

I have witnessed people respond in the presence of the so-called shaykh as if they suddenly had been hit with a powerful drug. The transformation is palpable, intense, and very, very quick, but there has been no discernible physical contact between the person affected and the so-called 'shaykh'.

Sometimes these individuals would roll around on the floor and shout with ecstasy. One of these individuals came to me after a session and began relating things which had been transmitted to that person during that state and which, supposedly, concerned information about certain facets of his and my spiritual link - which, according to him, went back a long time ... even before we met in this life.

Sometimes these individuals would remain seated or standing in kind of a one-shoe in this world and one-shoe in another world interstitial state. The impact of the other world whatever it might be was very, very intense.

On other occasions, when I detected the presence of 'Baba-juice', the people who seemed to be under the influence of this phenomenon could think of nothing else but what was of importance to their relationship with the so-called shaykh, irrespective of how such influence induced these individuals to treat other human beings. It was almost as if human beings, other than the so-called shaykh or those approved by the shaykh, didn't exist and, as such, had no rights or were owed no duties of care - to such an extent that even basic human decency or politeness, did not have to be observed in relation to such people. These other people could be brothers, sisters, wives, husbands, friends, mothers, fathers, or children, and it made no difference to them.

I saw another individual who had been a sweet, down-to-earth, sensible, caring, kind, happy individual, but who, under the influence of Baba-juice, turned into a suspicious, wary, argumentative, rigid, uncaring, irrational individual toward anyone who even tried to raise the possibility that things were going on in relation to the alleged shaykh which are not right. She had been whisked away for a few days stay with the so-called shaykh, and she returned home a completely changed individual - from someone who used to be very happy to see me, to someone who, literally, ran away from me the moment I walked in the room, and, despite the fact that I had no interaction with her for several years.

She goes through life and interacts with people in a totally preoccupied manner - as if listening to a distant form of music. She rarely smiles but claims she is very happy, and she shows all the signs of having been drugged with Baba-juice and continuing to remain under the influence of that phenomenon.

I refer to Baba-juice as a phenomenon because, in truth, I really don't know what it involves, and, quite frankly, neither does anyone else - except, perhaps (and, maybe, not even these individuals), those people who have been taught the underlying technology or techniques which are associated with the capacity to induce altered states of consciousness of one kind or another through the transmission of 'Baba-juice'. I have suggested some possibilities in the foregoing comments - both with respect to some of its dynamics, as well as in relation to the dimension of a human being - namely, hamzat - which such dynamics may impact upon and to which almost all of us are vulnerable under the right set of circumstances - this is especially so given the many wounds which have been recorded by hamzat and which may render a person susceptible to being induced into trances when people without moral or spiritual conscience choose to exploit such vulnerabilities through the techniques which they have been taught by others or which they have picked up along the way through one means or another.

While factors such as re-framing, social influence, cognitive dissonance, group dynamics, sleep- deprivation, obedience, compliance, and so on, may all have a contributing role to play in trying to explain what takes place when one human being gains dominance over the thoughts, beliefs, values and emotions of another human being, I believe, based on what I have witnessed, that something much more subtle and elusive is also involved as well, and, furthermore, I believe, that this 'something more' is an extremely dangerous technology or set of techniques which is being used by unscrupulous people for self-serving ends and spiritually destructive purposes.

In closing, I find it interesting that once I asked the so-called shaykh in the silsilah with which I was associated to teach me more about the structural character of hamzat, along with further details concerning its dynamics. I did this because of the central role which a wounded hamzat plays in the psychological and emotional problems experienced by many people as a result of developmental trauma of one kind or another.

When I raised this issue, he quickly changed topics and discouraged me from pursuing the matter further. This response came from a person who previously had told me that because I was his khalifah and of importance to the spiritual purposes of the silsilah, he could not, and would not, keep anything from me that concerned the silsilah.

Perhaps, like the wizard of Oz, he didn't like anyone lifting the curtain which disclosed what he was doing. I'm quite certain that he thought, and thinks, of me as something of a 'dog' even though my name is not Toto.