Goa: A party-center with a hypno obsession
There’s a (relatively) small area of the Indian continent that loves all things hypnosis. It’s called Goa. It’s a place of powerful spirituality. Are Goans on that next level? Are they experiencing truth, or just tripping out on party drugs all the time?
It may be small, but the history is rich with all things related to spirit, magnetism, and hypnotic experiences. That’s why it’s one of the most popular tourist locations in India. If you’re on a journey of new-age discovery, this will take you to some really cool places.
Perhaps you have heard of the stereotype among the hypnosis community: The idea that Indians are very easy to hypnotize (Maybe it’s the popularity of hypnosis in Bollywood movies). Who knows whether or not it is true–but it definitely originates from Goa.
Goa was the first place to bring hypnotism to the mainstream world
Even in 1810, when a man named Abbe Faria brought hypnosis to Paris, he knew that hypnosis was merely suggestion. He knew that there was no mind control happening, and that effects occur on people because thy will it themselves… and yet he also believed that there is an invisible force possessed by all living beings, whether they are plant, animal, or human. Many professionals believe that this magnetism mainly works as because it is a response to an expected result. Regardless, it is entirely possible to have both of these things.
“There was a man in Paris who made the experience of hypnotism public. Every day, some 60 people used to gather at his residence and it was rare among these, that there were not at least five or six people who were susceptible to fall into a hypnotic trance. He would openly declare that he did not possess any secrets nor any extraordinary powers, and that everything he achieved was dependent on the will of the persons he was performing upon.” – French General Francois Joseph Noizet
Even today, we still do performances of hypnosis taking over people, often on stage or in movies. Despite a skeptical North American culture, many people still believe that hypnosis can control people–they think that a set of images, sights, or sounds (love a human’s voice) can take over control of one’s mind… even to the point of being afraid of it.
The Party Capital of The World
Today you’ll find tons of folklore festivals in Goa, but the possibly the biggest ones are electronic festivals. A psychedelic paradise where inhibitions are freed in the name of waking up from the ego.
There’s even a genre of electronic music named after these festivals. They call it psytrance. Hypnosis has been so ingrained into the culture that the music celebrates the way we are taken away from reality. It highlights how much we live in a bubble of illusion, unable to tell reality from our own senseless egoic thoughts.
That’s right, Goa partied so hard that they made a new type of musical hypnosis-party hybrid.
Feel free to check out an example of it:
Some people believe that the path to enlightenment comes from mind-opening drugs, dancing, and partying. Some believe that it comes from countless hours of silence and self-reflection. If we all have such limited knowledge of true reality, who could possibly know what will bring us the freedom and understanding we need?
Our path is clearly our own choice.
It may be a small subset of India, but you’ll find no shortage of hypnotherapy and even hypnotic training in Goa–Showing that they don’t just party with hypnosis… they use it therapeutically as well. They use it along with many other spiritual modalities like Reiki, vastu pyramid, numerology, Law of Attraction, vibrational sound, and of course, Yoga.
