Dolores Cannon

Dolores Eilene Cannon (April 15, 1931 – October 18, 2014) was an American author, self-trained hypnotherapist, and publisher. She was a leader of the New Age movement and a promoter of fringe theories relating to aliens and alternative realities.

Cannon specialized in past life regression and developed a technique that she called the Quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique. She gained notoriety for claiming to be in contact with Nostradamus through her hypnosis sessions.

In 1992, Cannon founded Ozark Mountain Publishing which specializes in New Age, spirituality, and metaphysical books.

Early life
Dolores Eilene Taylor was born in St. Louis, Missouri on April 15, 1931. Her parents were Mary Elizabeth (née Hardin) and Arthur Taylor. She completed her education in 1947 when she was sixteen years old.

Hypnotherapy
In the 1960s, Cannon began using hypnotherapy to control her weight and to stop smoking. She learned hypnosis from her husband who was an amateur hypnotist. While her husband was stationed in a Navy base in Texas in 1969, a doctor asked the couple to use hypnosis to help a patient who had an eating disorder. Under hypnosis, the patient began claiming they were a flapper in Chicago in the 1920s during a previous life. In the following months, the Cannons continued hypnosis, and the patient claimed and detailed a further four past lives. However, her work was stalled when her husband was injured in a car accident later that year.

In the late 1970s, Cannon returned to hypnotherapy and used it to treat clients. After past life regression sessions with thousands of clients, she created her own techniques and theories about reincarnation. She created what she called the Quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique (QHHT) which she believed allowed her to communicate with the client's subconscious. She claimed that her QHHT could heal any medical conditions by connecting the hypnotized person with a "different plane of consciousness". However, philosopher and academic Robert Todd Carroll notes that Cannon lacked medical training, was self-taught in hypnotherapy, and used the word quantum for her technique although "there is nothing quantum about it".

In 1985, Cannon became interested in UFOs and extraterrestrial investigations. She used her hypnosis techniques with individuals who claimed they had been abducted by aliens. Her findings from these sessions led to several books on extraterrestrials. Cannon was also the head of the Ozark Mountain UFO Conference from 2013 until 2014. Carroll believed that Cannon "cashed in" on the UFO and alien visitation fad and created "a bizarre cosmology on par with L. Ron Hubbard's story of Xenu".

Writer
Cannon wrote general articles for newspapers and magazines. She worked as a stringer for the Northwest Arkansas Times for ten years. However, because of the fringe nature of her hypnotherapy work, Cannon was unable to find a publisher for her research in the 1970s and 1980s. It took nine years for her to find a publisher for her first book. In 1992, she formed Ozark Mountain Publishing which published the works of Cannon and others who wrote about New Age subject matter.

Her first published book was the three-volume Conversations with Nostradamus which contained the translation of almost 1,000 prophecies that she claimed to have obtained during past life regression sessions and "direct psychic contact" with Nostradamus. This book was reviewed in The New York Times and The Washington Post. Alex Heard, reviewer for the Post, described Cannon as a millennialist who "views current events through blood-colored glasses". Cannon also wrote about what she claimed were past-life interactions with Jesus.

Cannon published a total of seventeen books covering New Age topics such as extraterrestrial worlds, lost civilizations, parallel universes, spiritual awareness, and mysteries such as the Bermuda Triangle, the Loch Ness Monster, and Stonehenge. Some of her books were about her work helping people recover their past lives; she claimed to have taken some clients back to lives on planets other than Earth. She also wrote about how her Quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique could cure AIDS, cancer, diabetes, flesh wounds, heart conditions, kidney diseases, vision issues, and other medical conditions.

Her books were translated into more than twenty languages and were international hits, especially in Russia and Eastern Europe. In reviewing one of Cannon's books, The Stirling Review noted that opinions on her work will range from controversial to "dangerous nonsense".

Speaker and teacher
Cannon was a frequent speaker for New Age conferences. She spoke at the Global Sciences Congress in Denver, Colorado in August 1991. In November 1991, she spoke at the world's largest holistic exposition, the New Age Whole Life Expo in Los Angeles, California. In December 1991, the Japanese television network TVW interviewed Cannon for a documentary special; she was interviewed because of her books on Nostradamus.

In 1992, she was interviewed for the CBS television show Doorways to the Unknown. Also in 1992, she toured Israel, England, and Europe where she presented lectures in conjunction with the release of her book Jesus and the Essenes. She spoke at the Ozark UFO Conference in 1997.

She also established the Quantum Healing Hypnosis Academy which taught students from around the world in person and through books and recordings.

Personal life
In 1951, she married Johnny Cannon of Kansas City, Missouri, a member of the United States Navy Their children included son Tom and daughters Florida, Julia, and Nancy. Over 21 years, the family moved frequently for her husband's Naval assignments, sometimes to international locations. He served in the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

Her husband was nearly killed in a car accident in 1969 and was confined to a wheelchair as a partial amputee. The family moved to Madison County, Arkansas, and lived off of his military pension. He died on April 30, 1994.

Cannon was a member and president of the Auxiliary of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post #2956 in Springdale, Arkansas.

Cannon died at the Washington Regional Medical Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on October 18, 2014.

Legacy
Cannon became "a central figure in conspiracy theory communities" and spread her beliefs in books and presentations about alien contact, Atlantis, alternative realities, reincarnation, and the concept of starseeds or individuals from other star systems who occupy human bodies on Earth. Author Ashwin Vinoo says that Cannon's work on aliens "led to propaganda" and created a narrative that "was implanted into the UFO community..." In The Skeptics Dictionary, Robert Todd Carroll wrote that Cannon was "the poster child" for the New Age movement but was undecided as to "whether Dolores Cannon was a charlatan, a fraud, or a sincere delusional person...."

The QHHT training she provided in person and through books and tapes informed the practices of hundreds of modern-day hypnotherapists, past life regressionists, and astrologers from around the world. The Quantum Healing Hypnosis Academy and Ozark Mountain Publishing that were founded by Cannon still exist today. Her daughter, Julia Cannon, is the CEO of Ozark Mountain Publishing and the director of Quantum Healing Hypnosis Academy where she teaches her mother's techniques to students from around the world. As of 2023, Ozark Mountain Publishing has released books by more than fifty authors on New Age topics such as metaphysics, UFOs, spirituality, alternative healing, reincarnation, and ancient history.