Eyeball pressing

This technique purportedly originates from Hindu meditation practices, but I found it mentioned in books on hypnotism, in books on the ‘occult’, in books on meditation, and even in a book by W B Yeats, but I cannot find the true origin for it.  This hardly matters I suppose.

The effectiveness of the technique can be judged by one of its names – the ‘path of Divine Light’.

The key is extremely gentle touching, a very light touch that is key.

In the early 1970's,  the Indian ‘mahatmas’ who claimed to know this technique and who were employed to ‘give people Knowledge’, often used to press the eyeballs hard. The result, needless to say was that the poor people saw swirling colours and little light shows and thought that this was THE Divine Light, rather than the neural entopic phenomenon that any child discovers when they squeeze their eyes.

The aim is to very gently, very gently press the closed eyelids with your fingers, it must be so light that there is actually no pressure, it needs to be as light as a feather to work.  With this very light touch, it is possible for some people to go into a deep state of meditation – a trance like condition – within a few minutes.

It works via triggering – see trigger points and eyes. Palm pressure or finger pressure on the eyeball can slow the pulse because of a reaction in the trigeminal nerve. The ophthalmic nerve (V₁) carries sensory information to the trigeminal nerve from the scalp and forehead, the upper eyelid, the conjunctiva and cornea of the eye, the nose (including the tip of the nose, except alae nasi), the nasal mucosa, the frontal sinuses, and parts of the meninges (the dura and blood vessels), thus in acupuncture all these can be used as trigger points.

Observations

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• Azam, Dr Etienne Eugène - Hypnotism, Double Consciousness and alterations of personality – The side effects of hypnotism