Osho,
Is there a place for hypnosis of the very young? It occurs to me that if children were hypnotized at the first stage of their being cognitive, there would be all kinds of ramifications which would only be tremendously beneficial.
They could become aware of their past lives and thus, of any self-defeating patterns they were caught up in. They could gain an understanding of why they were born in a particular family, to certain parents. They could periodically, through hypnosis, be cleaned of the accumulated unconscious motivations for future neurosis. And above all, they could discover where their particular potentialities lay, and thus direct their lives more consciously.
You have told us of the young girl for whom the recollection of a previous life proved traumatic, but if hypnosis were conducted under the right supervision, with the right guidance, it could prove the key to a whole new generation of people.
Would you please comment?

Hypnosis is a very powerful method, and one has to be always aware that it can do immense good, but it can also do immense harm. The question is, in whose hands is the power?

You are right that hypnosis can help children immensely in every direction: in maturity, in individuality, in freedom, in meditation, in education, in intelligence, in memory. It can help them, but it can also harm them.

If the power is in the wrong hands the same hypnosis can be used to enslave people, to destroy their individuality, to destroy even the idea of freedom; to convince them that they are born slaves and they will remain slaves and that to revolt is simply risking their lives.

So the whole question depends on whose hands hypnosis is in. Right now I will not suggest it, because society is in the wrong hands and the society is causing every wrong to be planted in human beings. But hypnosis can be of tremendous help to them.

I would certainly suggest that children of sannyasins can be helped, but before anybody starts helping children, he should go through the whole process himself, so he is acquainted with the terrain, and knows where there are pitfalls.

We cannot use it yet with the masses. One day, when the whole world is a little more alert, the children can be benefited inconceivably, but right now you have to confine yourself first to sannyasins, and secondly to their children, and you have to be very aware of what you are doing, because children are very delicate. Nothing wrong should reach their minds.

And hypnosis takes things deep into the unconscious. It is a tremendously powerful method, and can bring great joys to children – and multidimensionally. In education: if a child is lagging behind, he can be supported by hypnosis and the same child will be in the front. If in a certain subject the child is finding difficulties, those difficulties can be removed just by suggestions in hypnosis.

If you want to learn a new language, it is always more difficult as you grow older – for children it is not difficult, they can be molded very easily. Each child should be made capable of learning the international language through hypnosis. The other language he will be learning in the routine way.