MDMA and Hypnotic Anchoring by Philip H. Farber
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MDMA and Hypnotic Anchoring
by Philip H. Farber
My introduction to MDMA came while I was very much into practicing and studying yoga. This was in the
early '80s, when Ecstasy was still legal and the hype which accompanied the appearance of the
substance - heart chakra activation and so forth - was very appealing to an aspiring yogi.
I noticed, during my earliest MDMA experiences, that some of the chakras that I had been working with
during my yoga practice "lit up" spontaneously while I was on the drug. This included, but was not limited
to, the heart chakra, as had been promised. Whether I was responding out of suggestibility to the drug's
advance press or not was immaterial; the experiences were very real. The next logical step, for me, was
yoga and meditation practice while under the influence of MDMA, which produced extraordinary results -
meditation on a single chakra could be taken far beyond what I had previously accomplished. The
experiences were largely kinesthetic and visual, with some attendant auditory phenomena - that is, I
could feel strong sensations in the area of the chakra which was "activated", could see the area infused
with brilliant light, and occasionally heard tones or a kind of white noise associated with the experience. I
noticed, days later, that my body seemed to hold a physiological memory of these states. That is, certain
physical responses that occurred during the MDMA/yoga sessions - change or relaxation of muscular
tension, alteration of breathing patterns, heart rate and so forth - seemed more easily recalled after
these sessions. I could remember, for instance, the breathing pattern (modalities of this include which
part of the chest or abdomen is doing the work, fullness of breath, which muscles seem to be resisting or
relaxing), and by remembering this recall the other physical and mental parameters of the experience and
very deeply re-enter the state I had achieved during the MDMA session. At that stage of my work, I had
encountered other intense and interesting altered states with other psychedelics, but the memories
seemed more abstract, and re-entering those states was not quite as easy as with MDMA.
I decided to explore this phenomenon further, and set up specific hypnotic "anchoring" routines for some
of the more interesting altered states encountered through the MDMA/yoga work. Anchoring routines are
the basic tools for producing post- hypnotic responses. It is based on an idea very much like classical
conditioning, and can be easily demonstrated with humans. A particular cue, in any representational
system, is associated with a specific action or experience. Thus, Pavlov's bell is the anchor which
activates the experience of salivation in Pavlov's dog. In the popular conception of post- hypnotic
instruction, the anchor, for instance the phrase "Afghanistan banana stand" elicits the response, for
instance, "Shoot the Pope." Some examples of non-hypnotically produced anchors: What response do
you have to the smell of your favorite food? To various tonalities of your lover's voice? To the sound of
the telephone ring?
In general, the hypnotically-generated anchor cue is one that is not to be confused with randomly
experienced words, touches, or visual components. That is, if an uncommon word, sound or sensory
experience is selected, it will have few if any associations already anchored to it, and will run little risk of
acquiring additional associations that might dilute the desired response. The process of anchoring
attaches the meaning or experience to the cue. This is closely analogous to the way that a ceremonial
magician learns and acquires meaning for the "barbarous words" of a ritual.
For my purpose, I focused on cataloging sensory data during the experience, running through a mental
checklist of sensory representational systems (that is, the sensory modes through which experience is
understood: auditory, kinesthetic, visual and olfactory/gustatory) and as many submodalities of these as I
could be aware of (submodalities of auditory experience, for instance, might include whether the sounds
were external or internal, tonal or verbal, pitch, volume and so forth). The very process of running through
this checklist seemed to enhance and intensify the experiences. As I focused on each representational
system, I would then add to it the selected cue, intoning the chosen word or making the selected
gesture. The result was that the various modalities and submodalities became "stacked" on the anchor.
Anchoring method, in short:
1. The desired state is attained by whatever method. In my case, this involved yoga meditation combined
with MDMA.
2. Attention is directed toward VISUAL experience. Submodalities are mentally cataloged: What is seen?
What color? How bright? Internal or external? etc...
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MDMA and Hypnotic Anchoring by Philip H. Farber http://www.hawkridgeproductions.com/media/xfiles.html

3. Anchor is added to VISUAL experience. In my case, I either used a Sanskrit word associated with the
yoga practice, or a physical sensation, for instance squeezing my thumb between first and second
fingers.

4. Attention is directed toward AUDITORY experience. Submodalities are mentally cataloged: What is
heard? Is it tonal or verbal? Loud or soft? Internal or external? etc...

5. Anchor is added to AUDITORY experience. The same anchor that was used for visual is reapplied.

6. Attention is directed toward KINESTHETIC experience. Submodalities are mentally cataloged: What is
felt? Internal or external? Tactile or visceral? What is posture like? What part of chest or abdomen is
breathing from? etc...

7. Anchor is added to KINESTHETIC experience.

8. Attention is directed toward any SYNESTHESIA. Synesthesia being "cross-wiring" of the senses in
which, for instance, a sound is felt, a vision is heard, etc. In my case there was a strong crossover
between visual and kinesthetic experience.

9. Anchor is applied to each SYNESTHESIA in turn.

10. If there is any olfactory/gustatory experience of note, the same technique is applied. In my case this
sensory representational system was not an important factor.

11. Once all sensory parameters are anchored, the experience Ä and the anchor Ä is ended in some
pronounced way. Get up, move around, take a deep breath.

12. Test the anchor. Intone the word, make the gesture, etc. Does the anchor restore the full sensory
experience? If not, you can repeat the process, restoring the state by the non-anchor method (step 1)
and re-anchor the representational systems which may not have been anchored strongly.

13. Some time after the experience is over, you can use the anchor to return to the original state. This is
sometimes surprising in its effectiveness.

By this method, I was able to create a single word, sound, color, or gesture by which I could later elicit
the entire physical, visual and auditory experience. In other words, if I would, at any time, focus my
attention on the word chosen for, for instance, the third eye, the physical, visual and auditory experience
of that chakra being activated would follow, seemingly of it own accord.

Now, in my opinion, this is the normal process by which we learn any number of things, broken down into
its component parts. BUT, in this case, by the use of MDMA and the specific hypnotic anchoring
techniques, the learning process was greatly accelerated. The anchors remained as extremely strong
resources for several months after the experiments, before their effect began to fade. They never did
fade entirely, and today, nearly ten years later, I can still elicit some measure of these experiences by
using the original anchor cues (which is useful, since MDMA is presently illegal and I no longer have
access to it). Since I do not have an identical clone, I had no control for this experiment other than my
earlier non-MDMA practice of yoga. I know of only two other people who repeated this experiment much
as I did... both reported extremely similar results.

What I find particularly suggestive about this course of experimentation is the idea that powerful and
unusual altered states of consciousness can be, in a sense, filed away for later use, then activated at
will, when necessary or useful. There are also some provocative suggestions concerning the functioning
of memory in general, and in relation to all psychedelics. I tend to think that some of the phenomena that
has been lumped under the heading "flashbacks" actually might be a memory effect created by the
random anchoring and then cuing of an altered state, rather than any permanent biochemical change or
damage to the user. To this end, I've made some small, less thorough experiments with anchoring using
other psychedelics, with encouraging results.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bandler and Grinder. Patterns in the Hypnotic Technique of Milton Erickson. Meta Publications, 1975.

Boas and Brooks. Advanced Techniques: an NLP Workbook, Metamorphous Press, Lake Oswego,
Oregon, 1984.

Dilts, et. al. Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Volume One. Meta Publications, 1979.

Erickson, Rossi and Rossi. Hypnotic Realities: The Induction of Clinical Hypnosis and Forms of Indirect
Suggestion, Irvington Publishers, 1976.

Farber, Philip H. "Hypnosis and Ritual Magick," Mnemosyne's Scroll, Winter, 1993.

© copyright 1994 Philip H. Farber. All rights reserved.

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