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The Witch in the Waiting Room

A Book Review by Tim Brunson DCH

After a recent speech on mind/body health that I gave at a major hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, I was approached by an oral surgeon that wanted to share some of his many experiences with visions, premonitions, and the like. So accurate were these "psychic abilities" that over his long career other physicians came to respect his judgment. Indeed, whenever he had a bad feeling about a case, no one argued when he demanded that the surgery be postponed.

A few days afterwards I received a copy of a book by Robert S. Bobrow, M.D., a clinical associate professor at Stony Brook University. With a title like The Witch in the Waiting Room: A Physician Investigates Paranormal Phenomena, it was enough to trigger both my scientific skepticism, as well as peak my curiosity. To date having read it twice, I find Bobrow's book forces me to look critically at the conventional limits of humanity. In this well documented discussion of "unexplained" phenomena, he leads us through a frank discussion that ranges from the weird to leading edge scientific investigation.

As a medical professor, Bobrow began collecting information on the unexplained and paranormal occurrences encountered in the medical profession. This avocation later led to a Grand Rounds talk at his university hospital. Being concerned that his off-the-wall topic might be objectionable to his colleagues, he was quite surprised to find himself privately inundated with a multitude of additional accounts that were equally bizarre as those that he had previously amassed. This was the beginning of a chain of events that resulted in his publication of an article in the British journal Medical Hypotheses. This book is an expansion of that article.

I must admit that I was impressed by Bobrow's objective stance. He comes across as a respected man of science who is not afraid to mention witchcraft, Near Death Experiences, voodoo, and the similar topics. When necessary and available, he provides citations of current and past research. However, he is not afraid to bluntly state that often there is just no explanation currently available. Regardless, he wraps up the book by discussing many of the modern advances in areas such as epigenetics and the evocative recent work of Michael A. Persinger, Ph.D., the innovative neuroscientist.

Regardless of my praise for this book, his chapter on hypnosis quickly raised suspicion. Why is hypnosis being discussed in book on the paranormal? He has it lumped together in with the weirdo stuff like witches and ghosts. Doesn't Bobrow know that hypnosis was approved as "mainstream" by the American Medical Association in 1958? This isn't recent news, folks. However, I came to understand that its place in this volume is due to the fact that modern medical science simultaneously accords hypnosis with awe considering its efficacy for a multitude of maladies while having absolutely no credible explanation for why it works.

On the other hand, many of his facts and comments about hypnosis are incomplete and a little stilted. Like many medical professionals Bobrow is part of the persuasion that insists that the theories of the late Milton H. Erickson, M.D., represent the universe of hypnotherapy. I beg to differ. As a trained Ericksonian, even I recognize that the good psychiatrists "Johnny-come-lately" views of hypnosis represent only a minority of the wisdom in this field. Furthermore, Bobrow heavily relies upon material from Michael Yapko, Ph.D., and Andre M. Weitzenhoffer, two respected names in the world of hypnotherapy. However, I respectfully find that many of such attributed comments reflect a rather limited view of hypnosis. Specifically this is the case when he quotes Weitzenhoffer's opinion about the rarity of hypnotic somnambulism. In this I would rather differ to a comment David Elman made in the 1950's about a similar statement by Erickson. Elman said that the reason that these "authorities" claim that the somnambulistic state is rare is that they don't know how to do it. I agree. Apparently, Yapko and Wietzenhoffer did not study under Elman. Oh, well.

In all, I found Bobrow's book to be spellbinding (no pun intended). Reading and re-reading this book gave me the strange feeling that there's more to being human than meets the eye. Being involved with the Energy Psychology and Energy Medicine crowd, who are currently fighting for legitimacy, my opinion is that this book is a "must read" for those that seek to find good science in the world of the paranormal and otherwise not-yet understood phenomena.

Posted: 07/07/2007



This article provided by The International Hypnosis Research Institute.

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