Washington, DC  8.30.10

A scientist has finally mapped ... happiness.  America, it turns out, is #23.  (With a Manhattan-style project to achieve greater adoption of hypnosis in the elicitation of the "Esdaile" or "Bliss" State -- rediscovered and revived by hypnotic legend Dave Elman (with a critical assist from his wife) --  Hy.pnos.is is confident that the USA is capable of vaulting ahead of  Antigua and Barbuda, perhaps even of Bhutan, to propel itself into the Top 10!  Perhaps even past the current #1, Denmark. 

(Meanwhile, how about if the National Guild of Hypnotists dispatches a emergency Humanitarian Hypnotic Teams to Russia, #167, and to the three unhappiest places on Earth:  Congo, Zimbabwe and Burundi?  Doc?)

Until we develop that national Resolve (and assuming the Danes don't outdo us!), it would appear that happiness correlates most closely with health, wealth, and education.  Thus it turns out that the best known recipe for happiness may be that of Ben Franklin who famously said: "Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." (Franklin, along with Dr. Guillotin, inventor of the guillotine served on the investigative committee that discredited Anton Mesmer's theory of animal magnitism.  But let's let bygones by bygones.)

According to an article in PhysOrg.com ("Science: Physics: Tech: Nano: News.") , 

Adrian White, analyzed "various studies were asked questions related to happiness and satisfaction with life. The meta-analysis is based on the findings of over 100 different studies around the world, which questioned 80,000 people worldwide. ***

"White said: “The concept of happiness, or satisfaction with life, is currently a major area of research in economics and psychology, most closely associated with new developments in positive psychology. *** There is increasing political interest in using measures of happiness as a national indicator in conjunction with measures of wealth. A recent BBC survey found that 81% of the population think the Government should focus on making us happier rather than wealthier. *** Further analysis showed that a nation's level of happiness was most closely associated with health levels (correlation of .62), followed by wealth (.52), and then provision of education (.51). ***

“There is a belief that capitalism leads to unhappy people. However, when people are asked if they are happy with their lives, people in countries with good healthcare, a higher GDP per captia, and access to education were much more likely to report being happy.

"The 20 happiest nations in the World are:

1 - Denmark

2 - Switzerland

3 - Austria

4 - Iceland

5 - The Bahamas

6 - Finland

7 - Sweden

8 - Bhutan

9 - Brunei

10 - Canada

11 - Ireland

12 - Luxembourg

13 - Costa Rica

14 - Malta

15 - The Netherlands

16 - Antigua and Barbuda

17 - Malaysia

18 - New Zealand

19 - Norway

20 - The Seychelles

Other notable results include:

23 - USA

35 - Germany

41 - UK

62 - France

82 - China

90 - Japan

125 - India

167 - Russia

The three least happy countries were:

176 - Democratic Republic of the Congo

177 - Zimbabwe

178 - Burundi

Washington, DC    8.23.10

Want some extraordinarily elegant self hypnosis? 

Draw yourself a plasma tree. 

Or forest. 

Apparently a "Chrome Experiment." 

Also more. 

Also less.

Washington, DC (recently returned from Marlborough, Massachusetts)   8.16.10

Somewhere on the World Wide Web there is ... almost everything good, bad, and ugly.  And, not so very occasionally, something extraordinary.

One of those virtual places at which to rejoice at its simple existence: the gorgeous, elegant, unique heart of the Monarchist Movement -- a blogspot named The Mad Monarchist. 

The executive staff of Hy.pnos.is is passionately Populist yet ... we instantly knew we had found a soulmate here, Somewhere Out There, because ...

we share a common credo:

Hy.pnos.is's Editor in Chief did not simply stumble across this site.  He was attacked in a virulently eloquent email for a column published as an op ed in a Washington, DC daily newspaper under one of his alter egos, purporting to detect a strain of Monarchism lurking within ... the current White House. 

Yes, let lesser Columnists detect Marxism.  Your Editor detected Monarchism!  Your Editor promptly was slammed by one of the 125 members of the Mad Monarchist community in no uncertain terms ... for sullying the good name of Monarchism.  For which he promptly apologized.   Not to the White House.  To the Monarchists. 

Proceeding to The Mad Monarchist he found himself in an Alternate Universe focused entirely on emperors, kings and queens, princes and other royalty, from ancient history to this very day. Advocating for the restoration of the Romanov Dynasty to Russia, the Qing Dynasty to China, celebrating existing monarchies like that of the superpower Monaco as well as long forgotten Emperors of Rome....

Written and regularly updated by an anonymous author with wit and great erudition, The Mad Monarchist presents an entrancing amd enchanting worldview, one that could hypnotize even a hardened Man of the People, if only for a few moments.  We are reluctant to return lest we be Persuaded!

Monarchist or Populist, at bedrock we seem to share this common credo:  Sanity is for the weak.  

As the Cheshire Cat said to Alice... "We're all mad here."

And as cannot be refuted (c.f. Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem), Cheshire Cats are never, ever wrong.

Phoenix, Arizona    8.9.10

G.K. Chesterton, British author, journalist and columnist of the early to mid 20th Century, was known for his elfin style and sense of wonder.  His appeal to the Imagination of the readers made him a natural hypnotist.

In his short essay Fairy Tales, he writes:

I doubt whether Mr. Yeats realy knows the real philosophy of the fairies.  He is not simple enough.  He is not stupid enough.  Though I say it who should not, in good sound human stupidity I would knock Mr. Yeats out any day.  The fairies like me better than Mr. Yeats; they can take me in more.  And I have doubts whether this [Yeats's] feeling of the free wild spirits on the crest of hill or wave is really the central and simple spirit of folk-lore.  I think the poets have made a mistake: because the world of the fairy-tales is a brighter and more varied world than ours, they havfe fancied it less moral; really it is brighter and more varied because it is more moral.

...[F]airies and journalists have an apparent gaiety and a delusive beauty.  Fairies and journalists seem to be lovely and lawless; they seem to be both of them too exquisite to descend to the ugliness of everyday duty.  But it is an illusion created by the sudden sweetness of their presence.  Journalists live under law; and so in fact does fairyland.   (Reprinted in the collection All Things Considered, pp. 187-188)

Washington, DC  8.2.10

As we warned you would be coming, this is a Special Election Edition of Hy.pnos.is encouraging you, a Unique Visitor, to go vote from the comfort of your own computer for our founder and publisher, Ralph Benko, who recently was among 13 people nominated to be among the "10 Who are Changing the World of Internet and Politics" (his day job).

For those of you who already have voted, please accept our great appreciation.  For those of you who voted from your computer, your smartphone, and your office computer, please accept our greater appreciation.  For those of you who voted and then forwarded last week's Note (or will forward this one) to your own friends by email, with an appeal for their votes, please accept our greatest appreciation and possibly a future Cabinet appointment. 

For those of you who have yet to vote:  What the heck is taking you so long????  Just click here, then click on Ralph Benko in the list, then click on Vote.  Takes 20 seconds.  http://www.politicsonline.com/content/main/specialreports/2010/top10_2010/vote.asp

From PoliticsOnline, co-host of this award:

PoliticsOnline and the World eDemocracy Forum are proud to announce the list for nominations of the Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics. For the eleventh year in a row, PoliticsOnline subscribers and visitors from around the world are invited to help select the top 10 individuals, organizations and companies having the greatest impact on the way the Internet is changing politics.

This prestigious award seeks to recognize the innovators and pioneers, the dreamers and doers who bring democracy online. This year marked another tough year in choosing the top finalists. The integration of politics and the Internet are reflected in this year's diverse, international nominees.

The winners will be invited as honored guests to the 11th World eDemocracy Forum October 13-15,2010, in Issy-les-Moulineaux, (Paris, France), where they will take part in an awards ceremony and other special programs throughout the two-day forum.

There has been some great media exposure of this nomination.  This from the Washington Examiner, 

Benko nominated for Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics

You can vote for a candidate who

is changing politics through

the Internet

NEWS FROM THE FRONT is your daily wrap-up of information affecting the conservative movement! For more information or media inquires, please contact This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .

To read and comment on these and other articles, click here.

You can vote for a candidate who is changing politics through the Internet
PoliticsOnline.com - Readers around the world are casting online ballots to select the persons who are having the greatest impact on the way the Internet is changing politics. The winners will be honored at the 11th World eDemocracy Forum, October 13-15, 2010, in Paris, France. Richard A. Viguerie, co-author of the 2004 book, America's Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power, is familiar with the impressive work done by two of the nominees, Ralph Benko and Erick Erickson, and recommends a vote for one of them.

***

So, Hy.pnos.is respectfully asks for your vote right now, this very moment, by clicking here and voting for Ralph Benko: http://www.politicsonline.com/content/main/specialreports/2010/top10_2010/vote.asp.  Thanks to all of our lovely Voters.  See you in Paris?

Las Vegas, Nevada   7.26.10

"Facts," reports the Boston Globe, "don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronge.  ***  The general idea is that it’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong,” says political scientist Brendan Nyhan, the lead researcher on the Michigan study. The phenomenon — known as “backfire” — is 'a natural defense mechanism to avoid that cognitive dissonance.' 

*** What’s going on? How can we have things so wrong, and be so sure that we’re right? Part of the answer lies in the way our brains are wired. Generally, people tend to seek consistency. There is a substantial body of psychological research showing that people tend to interpret information with an eye toward reinforcing their preexisting views. If we believe something about the world, we are more likely to passively accept as truth any information that confirms our beliefs, and actively dismiss information that doesn’t. This is known as “motivated reasoning.” Whether or not the consistent information is accurate, we might accept it as fact, as confirmation of our beliefs. This makes us more confident in said beliefs, and even less likely to entertain facts that contradict them."

These well documented findings by cognitive scientists profoundly buttress a core tenet of advanced hypnotic studies and practice:  the "Initial Sensitizing Event" (ISE).  The core insight around the ISE is that at a very early age -- sometimes during gestation -- a thought gets implanted in the subconscious mind.  The subconscious is pre-rational and does not differentiate between fact and fiction.  So this idea becomes embedded as a filter, causing the mind to embrace information, and patterns, consistent with it and to reject information, and patterns, that are inconsistent.  

Thus the most proficient hypnotists rely on regression to cause and the extraction of a toxic or morbid predicate held as "truth" by the subconscious and releasing it rather than overlaying it with antithetical suggestions.  Thus opening up new worlds of possibility for the subject who cooperates in letting such deeply imbedded misinformation be dispelled.