I do not think that the notion that everything we do is a choice on some level is an accurate one. Our actions and reactions can be, possibly, but are not so by necessity.
Many things we have learned and been conditioned to have not been our choices to do so. For instance, there are certain behaviors to which we are predisposed. Learning a language is one. Walking is another. A lot of how we behave is a result of learnings that were not necessarily choices on a conscious or unconscious level, but we results of how we simply reacted to the reoccurring or particularly powerful stimuli around us.
Also, I do not know how true the belief about not doing anything you wouldn't normally do or have in your values is. A point brought up by the author of "Secret, Don't Tell" is that many experiments "proving" that hypnosis cannot be used to influence people against their will or values was executed by people for whom it was in their best interest to come to the aforementioned conclusion.
As for having responsibility for our communication being "positive," well, how can we know what is positive for someone else, really? How often have our well intentioned communications resulted in something like disaster?
Of particular interest to me lately have been ideomotor response to suggestion. I think that the simple arm levitation exercise provides a lot of information about and insight into what goes on in hypnosis in general. Ideas get communicated in an experiential, rather than cognitive level. I think in so far as we are able to process this experiential information on a more and more sophisticated basis, the more "self control" and conguency we will have.
It makes sense that hypnosis could affect Qi. If indeed Qi exists, if ideomotor responses can be generated via hypnosis and other changes, then why not changes in Qi? In fact, if Qi is integral to the body, then by necessity every hypnotic idea, by being numinous (that is, alive and actively expressed within the experiential self or mind), affects Qi.
[This message has been edited by babayada (edited March 31, 2004).]
