Jesus - Master Illusionist?

[-Demona-]

More mundane, but hardly more credible, is the idea that Yeshua was some kind of master hypnotist, who had such powers of persuasion that he could convince large crowds of people that he was walking on water, turning water into wine, etc.

 

But I wonder how you hypnotize a blind man into seeing. Did the blind man only think he could see? How did he keep from bumping into things? Did Yeshua hypnotize the entire crowd? How is it that people who weren't even there for the healing, who met the blind man after he had left Yeshua, were able to tell that he could see? And how do you hypnotize people into thinking you've risen from the dead? It has been suggested that Yeshua used post-hypnotic suggestion to cause his followers to believe they saw him alive after he was dead! I wonder why he bothered.

 

I also wonder where he could have learned such high-powered hypnotic technique as it would take to convince hundreds of people to experience the same complex illusion at the same time, as well as various groups of various sizes at various times in various places with no obvious common denominator that might have activated the dormant suggestion. And there's the problem of Paul, who once persecuted the church, but suddenly made an about-face and became an ardent believer after seeing the risen Lord. How did the presumably dead Yeshua manage that? It would take more faith than I can muster to believe any of these preposterous schemes. I am amazed at the lengths people will go to to get around the obvious.

 

(from "How Do You Explain Yeshua?")

For one thing, it's entirely possible to hypnotize a large crowd at once. When I was in high school, there was an assembly in the gymnasium featuring a hypnotherapist who taught us in this one session about the suggestivity of the human mind. He proceeded to demonstrate by hypnotizing all of us in the gym together, at once.

 

One of the exercises during this hypnosis session included us all closing our eyes and lifting our right arm so it was straight out and even with our shoulder. He would then, through hypnotic suggestion, get us all to lower our arm until the hand was resting against the thigh. I was one of the ones more resistant to the hypnotism (I even opened my eyes when they were supposed to be closed) but nonetheless, my arm moved of its own accord. It didn't end up at my side, but it did end up lowered enough that it was at a 45 degree angle to my body.

 

If he had wanted us all to see things as well, he could've done that fairly easily as well. Impossible, you say? Not at all. I was there, after all. I saw it with my own eyes. Many of the kids attending were successfully hypnotized, to a greater degree than I was. So, if a group of more than a thousand teenagers (who are skeptical of just about everything) can be commanded to all do the same or similar thing under mass hypnosis, then certainly a pre-Information Age magician can hypnotize a superstitous crowd into believing they're all being fed with just a few loaves and fish... and believing he rose from the dead. Or that he was even killed at all.

 

As to why anybody would want to create such an elaborate hoax... just ask the guys who create crop circles.

[nick5]

And there's also the possibility that those stories are completely false and never happened at all.

[I Broke Free]

And there's also the possibility that those stories are completely false and never happened at all.

 

I believe you statement falls under “The simplest answers is the one most likely true.”

 

I don’t think Joyful Ministries is going to explore the possibility though.

[Skankboy]

But I wonder how you hypnotize a blind man into seeing. Did the blind man only think he could see? How did he keep from bumping into things? Did Yeshua hypnotize the entire crowd? How is it that people who weren't even there for the healing, who met the blind man after he had left Yeshua, were able to tell that he could see? And how do you hypnotize people into thinking you've risen from the dead?

 

I don't know about hypnotizism, but both of these could be done quite easily with a plant. Have a guy go in ahead of time and play up the disability. Along comes JC and his posse, a little waving of hands and viola! The blind can see!

 

Of course, this argument is flawed to begin with as it assumes the texts were written by eye witness acounts and were relating actual historical events...

 

 

IMOHO,

[Eponymic]

John Roberts and other "psychics" trick people into believing things all the time.

 

This isn't so far fetched to believe that, if it did happen (which isn't substantiated) then he was just a good mental manipulator.

[The Holy Ghost]

Can ye not mold thy mashed potatoes into anything thou wantst? So it is with Us and the human mind.