some updates

When the Skypenosis group chat on Skype was first created it was open to all ages.  Very quickly it came to my attention that this was not a wise idea.  From very early on I adopted a no minors rule.  They were welcome to the group chat on skype with their parent(s) permission of course.

Here are the two main reasons why I had decided to make it an adults only room:

1. ITS THE INTERNET  While some of us think we "know" each other n the skype chat room, none of us truly know each other.  Any one of us could be a pedophile, yet we are never likely to know this.  I chose to snip this in the bud for the most part by not allowing children in the chat room.  Apparently some other people didn't see this as an issue.
   
   
2. ADULTS TALK ABOUT ADULT THINGS - While this isn't always the case, it does happen.  There were a few incidents where he had a couple of very heated discussions.  One discussion was along the lines of gays in the military and and one of the people in the chat tried to equate homosexuals with people who practice bestiality.  Should a child be exposed to that persons beliefs?  What if that child had parents that were of the same sex?
3. YOUNG CHILDREN SHOULD BE HANGING WITH THEIR PEERS - Lets face it, searching the tubes on the internets can suck up a huge amount of time if we let it.  Young children should be outside playing and soaking up the sun, not wasting away all of their time on the internet.  Also, its easier to spend more time on the internet when you have people responding back to you, like in a chatroom for example.
4. CHILDREN ARE SUSCEPTIBLE AND MOLDEABLE  - If this weren't the case, then children wouldn't be able to learn languages at breakneck speeds.  Plain and simple.  When you add hypnosis into the mix, its a whole new realm.  A child may turn to hypnosis as an unhealthy addiction if they feel that they are getting attention from people.  Face it, life isn't always easy for youngsters.  There is puberty, depression, etc.  If someone is showing attention to a child they will more than likely appreciate this attention.  Like I mentioned earlier, this can turn into an unhealthy addiction to Hypnosis - hence the term "trance junky".  While Hypnosis and trance are a good thing, too much of them can be a bad thing.
5. HYPNOSIS HAPPENS - Its inevitable that hypnosis will happen in a context where it is being discussed.  It is also likely that text trances will happen in the chatroom.  A few people in the hypnosis community in general have stated that its best to keep hypnotic experiences in private chats.  This is one thing, but when you are allowing minors to be in a chat room where there are people that are WAY older than them, you are opening a huge can of worms.  There have been some attitudes of "what happens in a private chat is not my business".  That is utter lunacy.  That kind of policy is on the verge of encouraging shady behaviour.  If there were no children in the chatroom, this would be different.

There have always been some people who were opposed to this rule.  Some of the arguments I have been witness to are:

1. WE OWE IT TO THE CHILDREN TO MENTOR THEM
   I have no problem mentoring youngsters.  Its one thing to mentor to mentor a child.  Its an entirely different thing to mentor a child across the internet, and an entirely different ball of wax when you are mentoring a child without their parents permission.  Since Hypnosis is what is being taught, you should keep in mind that Hypnosis is not well understood by most of society.  It may totally violate a parents religious ideals.  If you had a child, wouldn't you want to know what they are doing?   
2. ITS NOT MY JOB TO BE THEIR PARENT
   While this is true, its not our job to expose children to anything that might put them in additional harm.

     Recently a few people decided to create another Hypnothoughts Skype Hypnosis chatroom.  One reason for doing this was because of me posting a lot of my links in the Skypenosis Chatroom.  And?  I created this group and the Skypenosis chat.  Also on the same token, I have never asked someone not to post any of their links, videos, etc. in the chat. 

      If I had run things like a tyrant maybe I would understand. Even when we had that very heated argument about gays in the military, I didn't ban the person that tried to equate gays with people who practice bestiality.  In all honesty, instead of banning said person, I'd rather that his close minded bigot make themselves look ignorant.

So what do you guys think of this?

p.s. I'll probably add more to this.  Its kind of late now and I need to get some sleep.

p.s.s Most people in the Hypnosis/NLP community will remember Carmine Baffa.  He was the NLP/Hypnotist that was charged with raping a 13 year old and 19 year old.  He had convinced these girls that it was part of the therapy.  This is just one example of a person in authority abusing his position.

A few months ago I came across a response from Gil Boyne in regards to hypnotizing a minor.

"Hello All, I can't speak about Canadian law, but in most states in the USA, to hypnotise a minor without a written parental consent or the presence of a parent or guardian has a similar status to statutory rape. A minor is not legally capable of giving consent."