I've had several instances where teachers tried to foist ideas on me and my classmates that I knew were wrong. I'll confess I never found a good way of handling the situation. Usually I just say, "No, you're wrong." Point out the right answer, and try to defend myself as best I can. The first time this happened that I can remember was when I was 8 and the teacher tried to tell us that hot water freezes faster than cold water. You wouldn't believe how many people believe this. It's a common urban legend, but man, how ridiculous that an 8 year old has to set an adult straight on that!

Ever since that age, I've held a pretty skeptical stance of the education system, and clashed with authority on other occasions.

To answer your questions, the repressed memory hypnosis thing is complete crap.

Hypnosis is a state of mind where you are simultaneously focused/aware and imaginative/suggestible. There is really nothing magical, or mystical, or bizarre about it. We enter into hypnosis quite often on our own. Many people hypnotize themselves while watching TV or driving a car.

I tend to relate hypnosis with a daydreaming kind of state.

It is possible to use this state of mind for therapeutic effects, since the mind is malleable and what can be imagined can easily become mixed up with actual memories. Unfortunately, this same technique can be used to plant false memories via suggestion. Very often, the person guiding the hypnosis is not even aware that they are influencing the person under hypnosis. Suggestion is very often subconscious both to the suggestor and suggestee.

Look up 'false memories' on google and you should find some stuff on it. Essentially, the ideas of satanic rituals and alien abductions are implanted by an 'expert' who has been brought in to figure out the source of some distress (likely depression or anxiety). This 'expert' has a subconscious agenda to find more 'victims' of alien abduction (or whatever their 'specialty' is). They ask leading questions, and over a few sessions they are able to get the person to 'uncover' a 'repressed' memory.

Repression is a real psychological defense, however not to the extent that it can completely hide a memory. Repression is usually more along the lines of avoiding certain thoughts or memories because they are too traumatic or painful. You are aware that you have the memory, but you avoid thinking about it. It can fade to the background, but it never disappears completely. The 'repressed' memories uncovered by hypnosis are really invented, false memories, made up by a combination of suggestion and the patient's imagination.

If your school or public library has a subscription to Scientific American Mind, there was an issue a few months ago that dealt with this topic. You might want to go to a library and look it up.

ESP is also complete crap, as you seem aware. The issue is how to deal with the teacher. If the teacher is open-minded, you may want to talk to them after class and express your concerns. She may get offended. In which case, you may have to go to the principal. What you should tell the principle is that the teacher is teaching non-scientific stuff in a science class. Psychology is technically a science and follows the scientific method. There is no scientific basis for any of that stuff, and (if you do your research ahead of time) you can prove it. Therefore, tell the principal that you only want to learn about science in science class, and that you would like the teacher to stop teaching her superstitions as fact.

If the teacher is open-minded and you don't want to go to the principal, then one option might be to do a project for extra credit on this topic. You could do some research (it's not hard to find good material if you have a good library and/or know the right websites to visit), and put together a short presentation of what you found. Present it to the class as an alternative viewpoint to what they've been 'learning' in class.

Or you could do what I did and just tell her to her face in front of the entire class, "No, you're wrong!"

You have a psych teacher who does not know what she is talking about? Dear god noooo!!! We shall have to alert CNN immediately! On a more serious note, she is being required to teach outside of her main field, so she has to go on the strength of her teaching ability by itself. I will go out on a limb here and assume that she is qualified to teach in general, just not this particular subject.

A related question for you is to look at your syllabus and your current standing in the class and ask yourself just how important it is to get the remaining few weeks of class done to her standard. If you already have a good grade locked in, then you deal with this one way, if need the next few weeks to get a good grade, then you deal with this another way. Alternatively, if you can't get a good grade no matter what, then consider what happens to you if you throw the class and try for an incomplete.

As far as the question of hypnosis goes, it is real but with so many provisions that it is not something that you can say much that is unquestionable about the matter. For example, there are a great many people who simply cannot be hypnotized for whatever reason.

On the other hand, there are hypnotists who hire out for parties and they can make people do things that are just nuts. I once saw one convince two dudes that they were each sitting next to a hot and horny model. They both began to paw away at each other like they needed to go to a motel. Then the hypnotist woke them both up suddenly. When they both realized that they were going at it with another guy, the results were fully comedic.

Past lives? Yah, people will talk about them. Try proving that what they are on about is real and can be connected to some real dead guy. Heck but (as with implanted memories) it is not all that hard to get someone to talk about future lives. In that you can't connect a past life regression to a real dead guy, I fail to see how you are going to connect a future life to anyone not yet born but it is fairly easy to make happen.

OK, I know someone who should google the "Mpemba effect". Hot water does freeze faster than cold water and the matter has been verified in controlled laboratory setting over and over.

 DISCLAIMER:  I am only slightly qualified to answer this question.  Trust my answer at your own risk.

I don't know an awful lot about the neuroscience of hypnosis, so I won't try to address it.  I do know that hypnosis isn't magic.  You can't "program" someone to be an unwitting assassin.  There have been lots of studies that seem to indicate that hypnosis can aid memory, although there is serious doubt about uncovering "hidden childhood memories."  What it can do is help you remember the list of groceries you read twenty minutes ago.

Honestly, I don't really know where meditation ends and hypnosis begins, and I'm not sure anyone else does either.  It seems to me that a lot of hypnosis might well be placebo.  That is, someone wants to quit smoking, so they go to a hypnotherapist.  They really do acheive a state of relaxation which makes them believe the treatment is working which tends to make it work.

Susac mentioned hypnotic induction in another thread, and I think there's certainly something to this.  Rather than tapping into the unconscious, hypnosis seems to be a state of conscious focusing.  For whatever reason, some people are more susceptible to suggestion in this state.  There are a lot of elements of hypnosis in religious services, which lends some credence to the idea that preachers really do hypnotize and brainwash some of the faithful.

Oh, and then there's NLP, or neuro-linguistic-programming, which is probably mostly BS.  Although it's certainly possible for magicians to "program" their audience to see what they want, it's not possible to secretly program women to become uncontrollably horny.  NLP is just a little bit of hypnosis combined with smarminess.  Lots of women go home with smarmy men anyway.

ESP and all that other shit is nothing but bullshit.

Yeah, they definitely slip all 30 college students who volunteer a few bucks right in front of the audience.

You are right about the fact that it's playing along, but not everyone CAN play along. I've seen "party hypnosis" on more than one occasion, and some people don't respond to it. They are hypnotized, but they CHOOSE to relax and go into that hyper-focused state.

Hypnosis is real, but ESP probably isn't.

That said, hypnosis is about the most un-mysterious thing you can imagine.

Allow me to explain.

Remember that time when you were totally relaxed. Remember how you completely let go with every cell in your body, and just took a huge relaxing breath.  Remember How you could just feel your body getting heavier and lighter at the same time.

Notice that after reading the above lines you have actually become a bit more relaxed just by remembering these things.  Now.  Notice that your breathing has become deeper and that you feel a bit more alert.

THAT'S Hypnosis.

To even understanding what I wrote your body responded to the commands embedded in the language in the above sentences.  You became more relaxed because in order for you to understand the phrase "remember that time when you were totally relaxed." some part of your mind is obeying the command and actually doing it.

Once you get this concept, you find that you can do interesting and fun things to people with (fairly) reliable effect.  Stagecraft is a part of it, because it's all placebo effect, and the more strongly you believe in my knowledge and my authority the more likely you are to obey my commands, but all I'm doing is getting you to follow directions about your unconscious processes, like breathing, relaxing your muscles, etc.

Now consider this:

Think of a time when you were fully engaged in your imagination.  Maybe you were reading a book or watching a movie.  You were SO engaged that you became unaware of your surroundings, didn't you?  This is a trance state.  So what if I were to give you a series of directions that got you into that state, so that you were ignoring your sensory input and concentrating strictly on the internal sensations of your imagination?  What could you do in that state?  Could you start feeling up some guy sitting next to you and imagine that he's a hot supermodel?

I think you could.

That's it.  That's all hypnosis is.

That said if you don't follow the directions I give, then I can't hypnotize you.  All hypnosis is is following directions.  It does take training though, because there is skill involved in knowing what directions to give, and in providing the stagecraft, but if a person doesn't want to cooperate with you then there is nothing you can do.  You can fuck with their heads though - like give them a folded paper that says "you are now standing" then start giving them commands to sit down and relax.

If they cooperate, you have them, because they are following directions.

If they stand up and get all stiff, you ask them to open the paper - now they think you made them stand up and get all stiff using reverse psychology.

See?  Fucking with people is FUN!

Exactly!  In fact once you know what trance looks like (not hard to figure out), you can notice it in all kinds of ritualized behaviors.  I remember seeing a film of an African tribe where some women were dancing as part of the ritual.  It was very clear that one woman in particular was in a trance but that the other dancers were not.  This woman's facial tone was very relaxed and her body movement was fluid.  She seemed to be riding waves in the music, it was very cool looking.

What was particularly interesting as far as we are concerned on this forum, is that this was all part of a religious ritual.  The tribe viewed her as being possessed by spirits, and it's not hard to see why.  What I think was happening was that she was accessing brain systems that allowed her to experience an altered state of consciousness.

Think of consciousness as a spotlight.  You have all these brain systems that are activating at low threshold levels.  As long as they are operating at low threshold levels, they are "unconscious."  As these processes move in and out of awareness, it's like the spotlight of consciousness is moving around on your brain, causing specific areas to light up, and as they do you become aware of them.  Kind of a cool metaphor.

I think that when you are in a trance, what is happening is that you are moving that spotlight from the part of the brain where it usually is resting, onto an area of the brain that doesn't usually see much spotlight.  I have an idea that the left hemisphere is where you usually "live" as a conscious being.  Think about it:

For me at least, I do most of my thinking in words.  I literally form words in my head.  When I learn a new word, I learn a new idea, which means that I literally become better at thinking.  I also form pictures in my head.  Sometimes I will take even non-physical ideas (like systems) and move them around in a sort of 3D mental space in my head.  This is all happening in the context of space and time.  That is to say, when I do all this I am aware of space and time.  All of these things are functions of the left hemisphere.

But I have had experiences outside of these normal ranges.  I have been in states of mind where I am not aware of space and time.  I have had "spiritual experiences" in which I am aware of resources far beyond the simple linear limits of my normal state of mind.  I have engaged in meditations in which I was aware of a sort of bottomless pool of love at the base of consciousness, and I have noticed times when I have been in trances where I completely lost touch with time and space.

Masturbation is like that.  The closer I get to orgasm, the more vivid and real my fantasies become and the less I am aware of my environment.  When I cum, my mind stops.  This is why some Hindu religions believed that orgasm was the route to enlightenment.  Now there's a cult that knows how to worship! 

Once you notice that you can play around with your consciousness as a deliberate practice, you start to see the power of religion.  Religion is all about using mythology, hypnosis and story-telling in order to evoke specific states of mind.  This is one of the things that I think that religion is good for.  I also think that it's useful to consider that many of the myths of religion are useful stories for creating an idea of how to act under certain circumstances.

Let me give you an example:

I have been in jobs where I have significant authority over other human beings.  I worked in a drug court, where I could ask the judge to jail or release a given client, and generally expect that he would respect my request.  This gave me a large amount of influence with the clients, who often kissed up to me in order to curry my favor.  This put me in a moral dilemma.  How do I relate with these clients as a clinician, and effectively use my influence to help or at least not hurt my clients.  Keep in mind that these clients were drug addicts.  This means that they were experts at lying, manipulating and generally shucking and jiving.

The solution that I arrived at was actually fairly simple, but because it was simple, I found it to be quite powerful.  I realized that there is a simple rule that I could follow that kept me on the right side of morality, and it went like this:

"Only use your power aid those who you have power over."

This did not mean getting them off the hook.  Helping a drug addict means giving them the consequences of their actions, so I was not about to use my influence to help them to shuck and jive.  No, helping a drug addict means compassionately listening to them, AND confronting their bullshit and using good judgment to decide when to advocate for inpatient treatment as an alternative to incarceration.

I found this axiom very useful in helping me deal with corruption.  When I had opportunities to use my position to make money, I did not succumb.  when I had a hooker stick her (rather lovely) breasts in my face, I thanked her kindly and told her to talk to the judge.  Staying on the right side of morality was not hard, but the temptation was always there, and I did the right thing by sticking to this rule.  Making a buck or getting laid would have served myself instead of my clients.

So there you go.

Now MANY moral stories and myths contain this lesson.  Consider the story of Jesus.  He was the ultimate power of the universe.  He used his power to help the lowest of the low, and he was tempted by Satan who offered him all the kingdoms of the world.  This is the principal of servant leadership.  As far as I can tell Servant Leadership is the ONLY moral way to use authority, and Jesus is the ultimate archetype of this idea.  He represents my little moral principal on steroids.

Same thing with Moses, but with Moses he succumbed to hubris and took credit for god's work, and so he was barred from the promised land.  So here is a warning about what happens when you use your power to aggrandize yourself.

In fact this moral principal is repeated again and again in the bible, and in LOTS of religious traditions.  I think it represents something true about the moral use of power.  A lot of the stories in the bible are designed to offer role models and warnings for servant leadership. 

One of the other things you get in the bible are a lot of vague stories.  Vague stories are tools for hypnotic induction.  Think about the story of Sampson and Delilah.  Sampson gets a haircut and looses his strength.  Then he's blinded, and he grows back his hair and destroys the temple as he sacrifices himself.  Pretty powerful imagery there.  But what does it mean?  I can think of 2-3 meanings off the top of my head.

Why is that?  Why have a story that is so vague that all kinds of meanings can be taken from it.

Well, two reasons - the first one is that if you are a priest, it's easy to use the story to justify a wide verity of messages in your sermon.  But this is incidental.

I think that the main reason is this:  If a metaphorical story has vague meaning, then it invites me to project my own meaning onto it.  One of the axioms of hypnosis is the idea of "artful vagueness"  When I asked you to remember being really relaxed, I didn't specify any particular time - I just gave a vague command to relax, and described the process of relaxation.  Your mind picked out a specific time, and followed the command based on the command word "remember."

So these stories are vague specifically BECAUSE they are powerful tools for hypnotic induction!

OK, so here is the last idea I want to leave you with:

consider that "artful vagueness" is a tool of the hypnotist.

Another tool of hypnosis is what is called a "trance word"  A trance word is any word that invites you to use your imagination.  So "Imagine" and "Remember" are trance word "how surprise would you be to realize..." is a trance preposition, because it invites the listener to accept an idea suddenly into awareness. 

Another tool of hypnosis is magical thinking - the imagination is a part of your mind in-which anything is possible.  your imagination allows for the possibility of magic and it bypasses your critical reasoning.

OK, not think about God.

God is an idea that is:

Vague - Ask any 100 people who or what god is and you will get 100 different answers

Imaginary - He is bigger than the whole universe, and he exists outside of time and space - you have to stretch your imagination as big as it can get to even think about God.

An authority -  As the creator of the universe and the divine monarch he is the ultimate authority.

all-knowing, all-powerful - Magical - He is the ultimate magical figure.

All loving - and therefore ultimately trustworthy.

OK, so we have psychologically unpacked the idea of god.  What do we learn here:

God is a trance word

God is a trance word that not only invites you to enter into a trance but it also has embedded in it implicit commands to believe, obey, and trust without question.

Now you can see why priests have so much power!  God is a tool that is used by priests like a sock puppet in order for them to exert influence over their "flock."

But at the end of the day, it's all hypnosis.

How do I let my fellow students know the authority figure actually doesn't know what she's saying?

It is clear what must be done. Do what Brick-Top from Snatch would do. It is your duty.

Am I bringing the tone down here? Is that too edgy admin?

You've claimed to have recieved impressive beneficial results from psuedoscientific ju-ju treatment.

Forgive me if your personal experience holds no weight in my eyes.

No, they don't bribe every audience member. Just the ones they want to involve in the performance (alternatively, they simply plant audience members).

Or did you genuinely believe that David Copperfield has the ability to make people fly?