Controversy
Margery Wakefield, in her book Understanding Scientology, noted the hypnotic nature of the extremely repetitive questioning done during drills in Scientology auditing. These drills are sometimes done for several hours at a time, "until the preclear can do it without delay, without protest, without apathy, but with cheerfulness."
In his book The Creation of Human Ability, Hubbard denied the hypnotic nature of the processes and drills. He stated: "(They) induce no trances. People who think so simply don't know much about hypnotism."
A 2005 article in the Miami Herald quoted Scientology critic David Touretzky as saying "It's very clear that what they're doing is putting people into a light trance". This article also included comments from a man named Peter Alexander who said that after spending years undergoing the "hypnotic repetition" of Scientology, they began training him to communicate with "dead space aliens called Body Thetans."
A 2010 article in Ynet quoted Dr. Alex Aviv, Chairman of the Advisory Committee on the Law of Hypnosis to the Israeli Ministry of Health as saying (in reference to Scientology) "they restore early memories, usually of traumas, when in some cases this is a false memory. When a patient 'remembers' a false event like that via a hypnotic process - the event can become real for him".
Volney Mathison, an early collaborator with Hubbard who designed the precursor machine to the e-meter, remarked in 1964, "I decry the doings of trivial fakers, such as scientologists and the like, who glibly denounce hypnosis and then try covertly to use it in their phony systems".
Read more about this topic: Scientology And Hypnosis
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