Inspiration, Motivation and the Link to Hypnosis (article Four)

Grigori Rasputin was born in Siberia in 1872. He received no formal education yet became one of the most powerful men in the history of Russia.

Claiming to have had been given ‘special powers’ by the Virgin Mary (who was especially revered by the Russian people) Rasputin travelled to St Petersburg, the capital of Russia at that time, where Tsar Nicholas II heard of his supposed powers. Alexis, Nicholas’s son and heir to the throne, suffered from haemophilia. The Tsar hoped that Rasputin might help.

By 1908 Rasputin had become a firm favourite of Tsarina Alexandra, who was grateful for the amazing improvements in her son’s haemophiliac condition. She was said to be both motivated and inspired by the demonstrations made by Rasputin. By all accounts the method used by Rasputin was little more than hypnotism. Rasputin had discovered that if people believed in his so called ‘special powers’ he could assist even a haemophiliac.

The very foundation of his ‘power’ was based on his ability to inspire and motive others into believing he had such power.

In more recent years Western countries have come to appreciate the important part the mind plays in general health. The Chinese have recognised the connection for at least 5,000 years. Although hypnosis cannot attack any disease directly, or kill known germs, it does have a remarkable ability to boost the body’s immune system and in so doing aids recovery.

Dentists to this day use similar techniques to Rasputin when extracting teeth from haemophiliacs. They are able to do this because the patient believes they can. They are motivated and inspired to believe this for a whole host of reasons, too many to describe in this short article.

Hypnosis is now legitimately used in dentistry and is still used by some dentists when extracting teeth from patients who are haemophiliac.

So how could someone not formally educated learn how to manipulate the mind?

The human brain is made up of an estimated 75,000,000,000 nerve cells known as neurons, and each neuron is believed to have up to 100,000 connections, known as synapses, to other neurons. Having the ability to manipulate those synaptic signals gives some indication of the power of hypnosis and the capability to motivate and inspire others. Hypnosis is very much about being motivated and inspired into having faith in the person facilitating, be it stage hypnotist, dentist or doctor.

My role as a keynote, motivational conferences speaker is to inspire the delegates, to give them an unswerving faith that they can succeed, above and beyond their own possibly mundane expectations.

It is not a conjuring trick. It is not an insincere manipulation for the purposes of corporate greed. I know from experience that if people feel valued, if they feel they have an objective, if they feel they are empowered to achieve, then they will.

It may well be good for the organisation, but it is even better for the individual delegate who returns to work with an enhanced feeling of self-worth. To them, work can take on a whole new meaning. Instead of being just a way of earning money, it becomes a fulfilling experience.

In reality nothing has changed: the work is the same, the routine unaltered, but their perception of themselves has changed, they have been motivated and inspired immeasurably for the better.

My ability to motive and inspire delegates at conferences is directly connected to the audience’s belief that I can motivate and inspire them!

I achieve this in many ways. One is by using ‘prime time’ to good effect. Prime time comes at the very start of my presentation. I have 2 to 3 minutes to convince the audience I know what I’m talking about. As the author of over twenty-five books I know I have the knowledge. Yet, my success as professional business speaker is more reliant on my understanding of how an audience is motivated and inspired and then by bringing that about. The audience believe I can motive and inspire them and therefore I can. The very same principle applied when I worked as a stage hypnotist.

Rasputin’s eventual downfall came not because he was using hypnosis for immoral purposes. He was murdered by people who feared the influence he had over powerful people – the Russian royal family.

Others too were discovering the power of hypnosis in the early part of the 20th century.

Trotsky, speaking about the October 1917 Russian Revolution said

‘. . applying the tactics of ‘peaceful penetration’ consisted of legally breaking the enemy’s bones and analysing by hypnosis whatever will he have left’.

Another, in reality a much more sinister character than Trotsky, was during that same time, becoming to realise how powerful an ability to motivate and inspire large audiences could be. His name was Adolf Hitler and, in the final article in this series, I describe how he became aware of the phenomenon known as hypnosis, and how his misused knowledge brought much of the world to war.