The person goes deeper and deeper into sleep, with continuous suggestions. There is a point when he stops hearing anything else except the sleepy voice of the hypnotist saying, “You are going deeper, deeper, deeper” – and then he tests whether you have gone deeper or not. He will prick your hand with a safety pin, but you are so asleep that you cannot know about it, you will not feel it.

In fact, in the Russia they have started hetero-hypnosis even for operations. No anesthesia is needed. A person can go so deep given the right conditions: a very sleepy, dim atmosphere – neither dark nor light – a forcefully shining light focused on his eyes; very subtle music in the room, a beautiful fragrance…all these help him to go into such a deep sleep that operations can be done, have been done, and the person knows nothing.

So the hypnotist tries a few things. He takes your hand up and lets go of it, and the hand falls – because you cannot hold it, you are fast asleep; in sleep you cannot hold it up high. He lifts your eyelids up, he looks into your eyes and only the white of your eyes is seen; your pupils have moved upwards. The deeper the hypnosis, the higher your pupils will move upwards.

This happens in deep sleep every day, and this also happens when somebody dies. That’s why all over the world people immediately close the eyelids of a dead person – for the simple reason that it is so frightening to see somebody with completely white eyes. In India it has been known for centuries that when a man is going to die, his eyes start slowly moving upwards, and the sign and symbol is that he cannot see the tip of his own nose.

You can see it. Remember: the day you cannot see your nose six, months at the most! – because when the pupils of the eyes are moving upwards; they cannot see the tip of the nose.

So the hypnotist opens the eyelid and sees whether it is all white, and all that used to be there, your real eye, has moved upwards. Then he is certain that you are no longer capable of hearing anybody, you are no longer capable of disobeying him; whatever he will say, you will do.

This is the danger. He can say to you, “Just take out all your money and hand it over to me,” and you will immediately take out all your money and hand it over to him. He can take your ornaments, he can tell you to sign any document that may create trouble for you – that you have sold your house, or donated your house.

There is one thing more to be understood, which is very dangerous: he can give a post-hypnotic suggestion. A post-hypnotic suggestion means that he can say to you, “After ten days you will come to me, you will have to come to me, bringing all your money, all your ornaments, anything valuable that you have. Leave it on my table and simply go back.”

It is possible to give a post-hypnotic suggestion that after twenty-four hours you will shoot somebody. All these orders will be followed because the person does not know…as far as his consciousness is concerned, he has no idea what has happened under deep hypnosis. Deep hypnosis reaches your unconscious.