ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the surgical procedures performed by Brazilian spiritist healer-mediums, during which both healer and patient enter into an altered state of consciousness. It briefly summarizes the results of studies of hypnosis and outlines an hypothesis, a model explaining how specific aspects of Brazilian culture and social structure combine to move individuals, when presented with appropriate cues in identifiable social contexts, from what may be considered their ordinary states of consciousness into altered state of consciousness (ASCs). The chapter focuses on the basic features of hypnosis and then to Brazilian culture and a hypothesized model of how it patterns trance induction. It begins with the importance of fantasy-prone subjects for hypnotic induction. Hypnotic induction then centers on the establishment of a special relationship between a person being hypnotized and a hypnotist and it works best on people who are fantasy prone and can concentrate their attention.