A Short History of Hypnosis
Prior to the 15th century, disease was often considered to be a punishment from God or gods. Healers of the time, such as shamans, priests and "witch doctors" would induce an altered state of consciousness, to help heal or for spiritual rituals. Sometimes they did this to their "patient", sometimes to themselves, and sometimes both.
They would use many different techniques. Chanting, drums, dancing, fire and drugs were all incorporated in ritualistic ways.
"Suggestion" in Ancient Healing
A common important element, was creating a "suggestion" that the patient’s conscious and subconscious mind, would "accept", thus utilizing the patients "power of belief". Believing that they were being healed, would put their own mind power to work healing them.
Ancient Egyptians had the Temples of Sleep, and the Greeks their Shrines of Healing – both places where patients were given curative suggestion while in an induced sleep.
One of the greatest uses and needs for hypnosis was in the area of anesthesia. Because anesthesia as we know it didn’t exist at all until the mid-nineteenth century.
Mesmer and the Misunderstanding of Hypnosis
Paracelsus had a theory that the heavenly bodies exerted an influence upon disease and healing, working through an all-pervading universal magnetic fluid.
In 1765, Franz Anton Mesmer, stated that man could influence this magnetic fluid to bring about healing. He established salons where patients applied magnets to afflicted parts of their body. Later he moved to Paris where he further developed his theory.
In 1784, Louis XV1 set up a commission of investigation, which included Benjamin Franklin, M. La Guillotin, and La Voisier. They concluded that magnetism with imagination had some effect, but Mesmer’s magnetism theories were discredited, although his Society of Harmonies continued.
Le Marquis de Puysegur, a member of the Society, believed that the magnetic power was produced in his own mind and was transferred to the patient via his fingertips. He found that he could produce a sleep in which the patient would follow his commands – very authoritarian – and introduced the terms, "perfect crisis" and "profound sleep".
1800s – Surgery without Anesthetic and "Hypnotic Sleep"
In 1837, Dr. John Elliotson, Professor of Medicine at UCH London, conducted public clinical demonstrations of hypnosis and hypnotic phenomena, demonstrating its effects on voluntary and involuntary muscle, somnambulism, analgesia, hallucinations etc., which he attributed to the magnetism theory.
He was forced to resign, and began to edit the journal, The Zoist. There, he reported on James Esdaile, a Scottish surgeon working in India, who had performed several hundred operations painlessly using only hypnosis (mesmerism) as an anesthetic.
Esdaile would produce something like suspended animation, now known as the Esdaile State, by stroking the patient’s body for several hours. Esdaile’s logs indicated that fatal surgical shock or post operative infection occurred in only 5% of cases compared with the then norm of 50%. The medical establishment rejected these claims.
In 1841, the British doctor James Braid saw a demonstration of mesmerism by a French man named La Fontaine. He was impressed, and started using the mesmerism techniques in his practice. He used his shiny bright lancet case to induce his patients to enter a deep "hypnotic sleep". In that state, his patients would accept his "healing suggestions".
He thought the reason this worked, was that staring at a bright object exhausted the nervous system, rather than it involving magnetism. He coined the word Neurypnology (literally ‘nervous sleep’), from Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep.
This was the first use of the word hypnosis.
Hypnotic Suggestion?
In 1884, Dr. Ambroise-August Liebeault, of France, proclaimed that he could cure people in a hypnotic state, by "suggestion". In 1886, he was joined by Professor Bernheim, from Paris, and together they published ‘De La Suggestion’, which further rejected the concept of magnetism.
About the same time, at the Salpetriere Hospital, Jean Martin Charcot was pushing his views that hypnosis was a pathological state akin to hysteria, and that the two were interchangeable. After a falling out, Bernheim’s theories won out over Charcot, and Charcot was discredited. BUT…
In 1890, two of Charcot’s pupils, Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud, changed the approach of hypnosis from "suggesting" away the symptoms, to eliminating the apparent causes. Breuer noticed that hypnosis patients would often recall past events and talking about them would bring about emotional outpouring. Then they would losing their symptoms.
He called this his "talking cure" (such an emotional state would now be referred to as an abreaction). Freud was also experimenting with it, and looking for other reasons behind illness, but eventually stopped working with Breuer, and began developing what would later become psychoanalysis.
Hypnosis for Shell Shock (PTSD)
During WW1, between 1914 to 1918, the Germans realized that hypnosis could help treat shell-shock quickly. It allowed soldiers to be return to the trenches almost immediately. A formularized version of hypnosis, autogenic training, was devised by Dr. Schultz.
After the second world war, Milton Erickson of the US, had a major impact on the practice and understanding of hypnosis and the mind. He theorized that hypnosis is a state of mind that all of us are normally entering spontaneously and frequently.
Modern Medical Understanding of Hypnosis
On the heels of Erickson’s work, hypnosis evolved into a well respected practice, used by doctors, psychologists, business and law enforcement. Hypnosis is a a very powerful tool! It’s also used for self help, and self improvement. It is used for stress management, stress related disorders, dental and medical anxiety and anesthesia, even in obstetrics. It is also used for pain management, including pain associated with cancer; as an adjunct to psychotherapy, and in the management of a wide range of phobic, anxiety and other medical and psychological problems.
Hypnosis and Belief
As Dr. John Lilly was fond of saying "in the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true within certain limits to be found experientally and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the mind, there are no limits." It is this powerful fact which makes Hypnosis such a life changing tool, for in the right hands and motivation, any belief can be changed thru hypnosis.
Hypnosis and Programming
Wheather you know it or not, you are constantly being programmed by the constant bombardment of media in your llife. Look around my website. Some of what you will see and hear will be very disturbing to accept. However, like it or not, it is all verifiable and factual. My purpose in setting up this collection of topics is to try and help those who are seeking answers to those questions which inevitably come to those who ask questions. One guiding principle I follow and teach is that there are no experts to be implicitly trusted. First and foremost seek to understand for yourself. If someone tells you something is too complicated to explain in simple terms, they either do not fully understand the subject in question , or they are trying to fool you.
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