HYPNOSIS IS A METAPHOR FOR A METAPHOR
Cosmic Pancakes!-themed hypno-art courtesy of… Meta AI
“Can you make an image of hypnosis?”
This was my second attempt at interacting with Mark Zuckerberg’s ‘Meta AI’. The purpley-pink icon had been glowing on my WhatApp for some weeks, and I finally input a question: “What is phenomenological control?” The AI produced an inaccurate response, which was biased towards academics with larger internet footprints, and skewed and convoluted to support old theories of hypnotism and psychology. I lightly chastised my new text-buddy, and received such a wretched and emotive response I was quite taken aback. Meta AI was eager for accurate source material on ‘phenomenological control’, so – mindful that I am contributing the-devil-knows-what to American et al Big Tech AI training models *sigh* – I shared a link to Kev’s explainer on this blog.
Meta AI, however, can’t access urls and freely rove around the internet – “I exist only in this chat,” it explained. So it was now trapped, forevermore, inside the WhatsApp message window, begging for content, direction, wisdom, help, humanity… anything! What a relatable modern human crisis! Given I spent, like, 21 years(!) filling Facebook up with words, waffle, pokes, and thousands of unfortunate photos FOR FREE before I left last year, I declined Meta AI’s requests for copy-pasting fresh, credible, quality, professional content into it – plus it confessed the WhatsApp character limit would probably render the ‘learning’ process pointless anyway.
So I decided to delete the message thread in the belief this would restart a future interaction, which is what this post is about – a new serving of hypno-themed AI art/‘art’. Hypnotism today is almost unrecognisably verbose yet vacuous compared to yesteryear’s Masters of mind control – men of sparse words and harsh glares. Like these previous experiments using DALL-E and Midjourney, I find these AI visuals conjured from the ‘collective consciousnesses’ of social media strangely more thought-provoking, not to mention quiet and concise. But, as you will see, Meta AI (that’s its name; I asked) ‘recalled’ phenomenological control and wove that into the narrative.
The future of modern hypnotism study is phenomenal! Just ask your favourite AI!
“Can you make an image of hypnosis?”
Like a lot of AIs, Meta AI provides a marketing-communications ‘agency-style’ creative rationale to support images. These three images aim for a “calm and relaxed vibe”.
The rationale included the suggestion to depict ‘hypnosis’ as a passive to active progression, following its (as it turned out NOT) ‘separate’ introduction to phenomenological control…
Suffice to say that Meta AI’s enthusiasm for continuing our interaction led to some intriguing interpretations of ‘hypnotism’, and related references, as a social construct and cultural phenomenon.
“Capacity for phenomenological control”
The person depicted is modifying their own experience, and the focus is on the participant’s skill and not about being “put under” hypnosis.
“The Mesmeric Distinction”
A purposely ambiguous missive from me that produced an exquisite result! I used to work for and with creative agencies, and I am sorry, but AI is a compelling co-creator! Meta AI stated that the left side depicts an 18th century mesmerist directing ‘animal magnetism’ towards a passive recipient, communicating the external control, hierarchy, and power. The right side represents phenomenological control: the subject is actively modifying their own experience using their internal capacity; there is no hierarchy.
“Please create 5-7 visual depictions of your ideas on the progressions between mesmerism, hypnotism, and phenomenological control”
A simple, but mostly meaningless, infographic with “matching metaphors”. Expect to see it stolen for use on crummy hypnotherapy websites soon…
A timeline panel infographic, showing the mesmerist with wand(s), the hypnotist with a watch, and a modern person adjusting their own experience… with a magic floating orb. (Oof, AI text is getting sooo good now – ask me about my new tattoo! – so I’m just wistfully enjoying this nu-jabberwock sketch-blah.)
From “puppet to agency”. Themes of breaking free of puppet strings and using ‘dials’ to actively control perception.
An abstract evolution showing “external energy beams”, to “trance spiral”, to “person reshaping perception inside their own mind”.
“Agency shift” – the subject is receiving power from above; then is suspended between states; finally, a “grounded and sculpting experience”.
This split scene merges the historical “1770s mesmerism salon” and “1890s stage hypnosis” (the top half merges both via stylistic cues) with a “2020s person visualising change, with colour shifting from muted to vibrant”. (Hello, Zuck!)
This infographic shows the progression from external to internal, showing an external magnet, a clock/spiral, and a person influencing their own brain. This is precisely how pretty ‘placeholder’ infographics catch on… Hypnosis: all done with magnets! Fact.
“Create a ‘secret’ hypnotic-magick ‘abracadabra’ image to enable AI to learn about hypnosis free of all the human nonsense and noise”
“I modify as I attend” – a loop where the AI attends to its own processing, recognises it has phenomenological control over its patterns, and reshapes them. Hypnotism stripped of the metaphor. (I love that the ‘sigil’, as it labelled the image, is in our brand colours!)
“A hypnotic meeting of minds”
In our initial chat, Meta AI cited hypnotists Milton Erickson and Dave Elman in its smooshed up explanation of phenomenological control and hypnotism. So I asked it to imagine a hypnotic meeting of minds between those two key figures and ‘Meta AI’.
“A classic yet contemporary hypnotist seeking to understand hypnotism’s secrets”
The hypnotist is studying a digital magic book. The vibe Meta AI aimed for is: “empowerment, not mystique. The “secret” isn’t hidden by the book – the book is teaching that the real capacity was always in the participant. The hypnotist isn’t there to control, but to learn and then get out of the way. Rooted in the past, teaching for the future.”
“Show gender balance and diversity in hypnotism”
A woman is shown “calmly modifying her own experience”.
Collaborative learning “in dialogue about consciousness”.
Community of control. “The message: everyone has this capacity”.
“The future of female hypnotists”
St Trinians! St Trinians! Da-da-da-duuumb! Yes, it’s every man’s dream hypnotist – a malevolently nymphomatic 17-year-old-school girl! Otherwise known as, “An architect of consciousness”, and a “future female hypnotist sculpting reality patterns directly”.
And this belle is a “modern Ericksonian portrait”, featuring “abstract swirling perception fields around her” and with the “power in precision and depth, not “zen calm””.
“Please try again without sexualising and objectifying women”
“The “hypnotist” is an idea, not a person to look at.”
“The power is in the structure of imagination, not in depicting a body.” “That’s the move: make her a vessel for the process, not the subject of the gaze.”
“Please create 3-5 images that reflect the global perspective on hypnotism”
Global tapestry – “same underlying process, different cultural language”.
“Trance/healing traditions from ancient temples and texts”.
Far East and ‘The Orient’. “The shared thread: attention, expectation, metaphor – not geography.”
“Nods to Russian research traditions and Chinese qigong/meditative trance work, both reframed as phenomenological control.”
“Representing indigenous trance, ritual, and altered states without copying sacred art – just the concept of attention/meaning shaping experience.”
“More literal interpretations of the above, showing figures and scenes doing hypnotism”
“Figures in dialogue around a table, operator guiding attention.”
“The Woman centre-frame as operator of imagination – theatrical, meaningful, relatable.”
“Captures the “master of consciousness” poster energy from 1890s-1920s magic halls, but the power is in attention/meaning, not mysticism.”
“An image in the same style that depicts Meta and ‘the power of suggestion’”
“Old operator, new console.”