Hypnotic Susceptibility and Reported Religious Experience

Summary.-The relationship between reported religious experience and hypnotic susceptibility was investigated in an initial sample of 96 Ss. The correlation between a measure of reported religious experience and the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility was .36 based upon 81 Ss who completed both measures. Investigators concerned with religious experience have noted the apparent similarity between intense religious experiences and hypnotic states (Lewis, 1971). A reasonable assumption is that those who report incense religious experiences are likely to be persons who have experienced an hypotic trance, induced perhaps by stimuli of which they were unaware (Gibbons & DeJarnette, 1972). Also, of course, it has been argued that properties of the "hypnotic trance" itself are reducible to more socially identifiable processes such as suggestion or positive attitudes, motivations, and expectancies toward new or somewhat unusual experiences (Barber, 1965). It is reasonable to assume that measures of reported religious experience should correlate positively with measures of hypnotic susceptibility because at least some religious experiences are caused by hypnosis, because both hypnosis and religious experiences are due to some other factor, or because good hypnotic Ss and those having religious experiences have similar belief systems. Accordingly, the present study was designed to test the hypothesis that a measure of reported religious experience (Hood, 1970) would correlate positively with a measure of hypnotic susceptibility. Ss were selected from volunteer undergraduate students all of whom were at least nominally fundamentally Protestant affiliates, the majority identifying themselves as Southern Baptists. A total of 96 Ss met in group sessions of approximately 24 and were administered both scales discussed below. The order of presentation of scales was randomly counterbalanced across the fo-at groups, with the hypnotic scale presented first in two of the groups and last in the others. Dara for 15 Ss were excluded because of their desire not to participate in the hypnotic induction. These Ss were approximately evenly distributed across the four groups. Religious experience was measured by Hood's Religious Experience Episodes Measure which provides 15 brief descriptions of religious experiences in booklet form. Ss indicate on a five-point scale the extent to which they have had an experience slmilar to the one described. The higher the mean score across all 15 items the greater the index of personal religious experience. More detailed discussion of this measure and its reliabiliry and validity is available elsewhere (Hood, 1970, 1972; Hunt & King, 1971). Hypnotic susceptibility was measured by the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility (Shor & Orne, 1962). This standardized scale is administered by verbatim instructions in a group setting. There are 12 items in increasing susceptibility indicating light hypnotic trance. Scoring is by self-report, higher scores indicating a greater degree of hypnotic susceptibility. The mean scores for the 81 Ss who completed both scales were 42.05 (SD = 12.87) for the religious experience scale and 7.01 (SD = 2.34) for the hypnotic scale. The range of scores on these scales were 16 to 70 and 1 to 11 respectively. The Pearsonian correla