Accept Belief and Surrender
As mentioned, the word suggestibility throughout as if being suggestible were something that all of us could simply do voluntarily on command. As you read in the story as the beginning of the articles it turns out that its not that easy. Let’s face it. Some of us certainly Ivan Santiago is more suggestible than others. And even those who are more suggestible respond to certain suggestions better than other suggestions.
For example, some of the hypnotism test subjects had no problem stripping to their underwear in public when given that posthypnotic suggestion yet they were unable to subconsciously accept the idea that a tub of frigid ice water was really a warm Jaccuzi.This was true even through posthypnotic suggestions are generally more difficult to make stick compared to suggestions that alter someone state temporarily during the hypnotic trance itself.
And like hypnosis the placebo response also does not just work for everyone. The placebo patients you are read about who were able to make positive changes last for years respond much like hypnotherapy subjects who have been given posthypnotic suggestions work beautifully. For others not much happens.
For instance, when they are sick or suffering from a disease many people simply can’t accept the idea that even a drug procedure treatment or injection can help them let alone that a placebo might work. Why not? It takes thinking greater than how they feel in turn allowing those new thoughts to drive new feelings which then reinforce those new thoughts until it becomes a new state of being. But if familiar feelings have become the means of familiar thinking and the person cannot transcend that habituation he or she is in the same past state of mind and body and everything stay the same
However, if those same people who cannot accept that a drug or procedure could make them well could reach a new level of acceptance and belief and then surrender to that end without constantly fretting worrying and analysing then they could reap greater rewards from the process. Hats what suggestibility is making a thought into a virtual experience and having our bodies consequently respond in a new manner
Suggestibility combines three elements: acceptance belief and surrender. The more we accept believe and surrender to whatever we are doing to change our internal state the better the results we can create. Similarly, when Santiago was under hypnosis and his subconscious mind was in control, he could totally accept what Silver told him about the bad guy who needed to be eliminated he could believe that Silver was telling the truth and he could surrender to carrying out the detailed instructions Silver gave him without ever analysing or thinking critically about what he was about to do
