History of Hypnosis

Hypnosis has been around since the dawn of recorded time and at least from the time of the ancient Babylonians, Greeks and Egyptians. Hypnosis is named after the Greek word for sleep, hypnos, although the actual state of hypnosis is very different from sleep. It has, however, been called different names, by different cultures, different religions, and different individuals. The use of chants, drumming, and monotonous dancing rituals to change or alter consciousness fall under the definition of hypnosis. Such methods have been used successfully by the Druids, Vikings, Indian Yogis, Hindu priests, and holy men of all religions and denominations for centuries. In 2600 BC, the father of Chinese medicine, Wong Tai, wrote about techniques that involved incantations and passes of the hands. Accounts of what we would now call hypnosis can also be found in the Bible and The Hindu Vedas written about 1500 BC.

HISTORICAL DATES AND PEOPLE
1734 -1815: Dr. Franz Anton Mesmer – ,an Austrian doctor recognizing the healing ability of ancient shaman Mesmer's dissertation at the University of Vienna (M.D., 1766), suggested that the gravitational attraction of the planets affected human health by affecting an invisible fluid found in the human body and throughout nature. In 1775 Mesmer revised his theory of “animal gravitation” to one of “animal magnetism,” wherein the invisible fluid in the body acted according to the laws of magnetism.  According to Mesmer, “animal magnetism” could be activated by any magnetized object and manipulated by any trained person.  Accused by Viennese physicians of fraud,  Mesmer left Austria and settled in Paris in 1778. There he continued to enjoy a highly lucrative practice but again attracted the antagonism of the medical profession, and in 1784 King Louis XVI appointed a commission of scientists and physicians to investigate Mesmer's methods; among the commission's members were the American inventor and statesman Benjamin Franklin. They reported that Mesmer was unable to support his scientific claims, and the mesmerist movement thereafter declined. Whatever may be said about his therapeutic system, Mesmer did often achieve a close rapport with his patients and seems to have actually alleviated certain nervous disorders in them. More importantly, the further investigation of the trance state by his followers eventually led to the development of legitimate applications of hypnotism.

1808-1859: James Esdail A British surgeon in India, , performed 2,000 operations, even amputations - with the patients under hypno-anesthesia and feeling no pain.

1795-1860: James Braid – British surgeon and a pioneer investigator of the word hypnosis who did much to divorce that phenomenon from prevailing theories of animal magnetism.  In 1841, when well established in a surgical practice at Manchester, Braid developed a keen interest in mesmerism, as hypnotism was then called. Proceeding with experiments, he disavowed the popular notion that the ability to induce hypnosis is connected with the magical passage of a fluid or other

influence from the operator to the patient. Rather, he adopted a physiological view that hypnosis is a kind of nervous sleep, induced by fatigue resulting from the intense concentration

necessary for staring fixedly at a b right, inanimate object. Braid introduced the term “hypnosis” in his book Neurypnology (1843). He hoped that hypnosis could be used to cure various seemingly incurable “nervous” diseases and also to alleviate the pain and anxiety of patients in surgery. Braid introduced the term “hypnosis”

1784: Count Maxime de Puysegut discovered a form of deep trance he called somnambulism.

1825-1893: Jean-Martin Charcot – In 1885 one of his students was Sigmund Freud founder (with Guillaume Duchenne) of modern neurology and one of France's greatest medical teachers and clinicians. Charcot took his M.D. at the University of Paris in 1853 and three years later was appointed physician of the Central Hospital bureau.  A teacher of extraordinary competence, he attracted students from all parts of the world. In 1885 one of his students was Sigmund Freud and it was Charcot's employment of hypnosis in an attempt to discover an organic basis for hysteria that stimulated Freud's interest in the psychological origins of neurosis. 

1856-1939: Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud (May 6, 1856 – September 23, 1939), was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind, especially involving the mechanism of repression; his redefinition of sexual desire as mobile and directed towards a wide variety of objects; and his therapeutic techniques, especially his theory of transference in the therapeutic relationship and the presumed value of dreams as sources of insight into unconscious desires.  He is commonly referred to as "the father of psychoanalysis" and his work has been highly influential — popularizing such notions as the unconscious.  Father of cathartic method, free association and psychoanalysis, become interested in hypnosis and began to practice it. Not being very good at it, he went on to develop psychoanalysis instead!

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