“Now, I’d like to start this sermon with a little exercise. I’d like you, if you wish, to close your eyes and breathe deeply with me.”

I know what he’s doing, I thought as I obliged him.

~

I’ve always been into hypnosis, and particularly hypnokink. I share a common story with many kinksters: watch a formative piece of media as a kid, lurk in kink spaces for a while before formally introducing yourself, et cetera et cetera.

However, for the longest time, religion had escaped me. I was baptized as a child before I could remember it, and while my mother was religious, my father wasn’t, so the two compromised and didn’t take me to church.

I identified as an atheist, and often an insufferably smug one. I would get into theological arguments with the other boys in my scout troop until one day I was told directly to my face that I would never achieve Eagle if I didn’t believe in God. I opted to drop out.

My perspective on religion and faith was sculpted by hateful media; baptist churches waving signs proclaiming that “God hates fags,” pundits screaming that leftist culture had declared a “war on Christmas,” and protesting zealots waving effigies of the current (black) president being lynched.

More than a decade later, after having been fired from a (pretty terrible, honestly) job, I eventually stumbled into a job offer from a local Episcopalian church claiming that progressive and queer candidates were welcome. I wasn’t out as queer at that point, but I applied nonetheless.

Three years later, I came out as non-binary to the rector. He was one of the first I came out to. My prejudices about Christianity writ large were put out to pasture, at least for this community in particular.

A year after that, I left the job in pursuit of a more lucrative career, but I remained as a parishioner.

And a few months after that, the rector began his sermon with a hypnotic breathing exercise.

~

The Holy Trinity is the concept that God is represented simultaneously as one being, and also as three different entities: the Father, who created the heavens and the earth, the Son, who became incarnate, was made human, and was crucified, and the Holy Spirit, who moves within all people. The three are distinct, but they are all God; They move within, and are, to an extent, all people.

(Yes, I am referring to the Almighty with gender-neutral pronouns. Sue me.)

The rector once used the Hebrew term רוח (ruach) to describe this. The wind, the breath of God. And that word, ruach, stuck with me.

Even the Tetragrammaton, יהוה (YHWH), the name of God in the Hebrew texts, is evocative of deep breathing.

Breathe in. Yhhhhhhh. Breathe out. Whhhhhhhhh.

~

These are often the first steps of hypnotic trance. A calming activity to prepare the mind for its journey into whatever place the hypnotist will send you.

Whether I’ve been sent into spaces of submission, objectification, or profound helplessness; whether the induction has me focusing on a pocketwatch, a spiral, someone’s eyes, or even just someone’s voice with my eyes already closed, it’s always begun with those simple instructions.

Yhhhhhhh.

Whhhhhhh.

Eventually, the mind will cease paying attention to those breaths, as the trance takes hold and the hypnotist guides the hypnotee’s imagination, but those breaths remain steady.

Yhhhhhhh.

Whhhhhhh.

~

As the rector continued the exercise, I pondered this commonality and reached a new level of understanding.

The people experiencing trance around me were experiencing it very differently from me, but it was equally profound, for them. They held faith that this exercise would guide them into experiencing the church community as the Holy Spirit, or vice versa: the Holy Spirit as the church community.

The breaths, the ruach that we all shared in that same moment.

Yhhhhhhh.

Whhhhhhh.

Trance is something that I consider to be real. It is something I have tangibly experienced. One of my earliest memories of hypnosis was listening to a file about being tied in a ribbon, and independently thinking, Damn, I need to use the bathroom. I hope she unties me soon, instead of just getting up and going to the bathroom.

This is a real phenomenon. But it is also intangible and subjective in a way that renders it hard to observe objectively.

It requires trust, and faith.

To this day, I am unsure of what my position is on the journey towards Christian faith, or even of Christian faith. I attend this community for the community.

But in that moment, that exercise, I believed.

And every time I enter trance, whether it’s the wholesome context of a church community or the decidedly not wholesome context of hypnokink, I nonetheless feel that spiritual feeling of my mind taking that leap of faith.

And it always begins with those simple deep breaths.

Yhhhhhhh.

Whhhhhhh.