The History of Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy
The phenomenon of hypnosis has been described in various forms from early biblical days.
However, it’s difficult to quantify or qualify with any degree of accuracy or certainty exactly what effect the phenomenon of hypnosis played in early civilisations. Research suggests however, that its role was significant, especially in the areas of religious experience and healing. Indeed, the ancient Egyptians and Greeks developed ‘Dream Incubation Centres’, where people came to fast and pray, hoping to have a dream which would lead them from their problems. It is highly probable that many of these dreams were hypnotically induced.
The earliest recorded evidence of hypnotic practice dates back to the early 1500’s; with a guy with one of the most hypnotic names in history; Philip Areolus Theothrastus Bombastus Von Hohenheim (1493-1541) (known for brevity as ‘Phil’, actually no, he was known as ‘Paracelcus’), He was a Swiss physician who believed in the idea that the stars had some influence over human behaviour.
He believed also that it was the magnetic nature of the stars that held their alleged influence and that all magnets could thus have some effect on the human body.
Paracelcus’ theory that all space was filled with this ‘magnetic fluid’, was taken up by Van Helmont in 1577, who developed it to include the idea of ‘Animal Magnetism’. This suggested that humans were able to emanate a magnetic field, which could have influence over the minds and bodies of others.
This principle of magnets having a potential healing power led to a great many magnetic healers practising over the next hundred years. One of the most famous practitioners of the art of Magnetic Healing was a Jesuit priest, the unusually named Father Maximilian Hell. Both his teaching and writings promoted a popular understanding and enthusiasm for astronomy and magnetism, spreading Hell’s reputation throughout Europe.
Among his adventures were experiments in magnetism applied to medicine. This was unchartered ground. By assuming very unconventional premises he started something quite remarkable. Using lodestone he devised an arrangement of magnetic plates for the lessening of pain from diseases, including attacks of rheumatism from which he himself suffered. He met with considerable success in relieving pain.
His magnetic medicine attracted the attention of a young man named Franz Mesmer, recently graduated from the Jesuit University in Bavaria.
Mesmer was to become possibly the most notorious of all the magnetic healers and the man with whom most modern descriptions of hypnosis began.
Franz Anton Mesmer was born in Vienna and is considered the father of hypnosis. He is remembered for the term Mesmerism which described a process of inducing trance through a series of passes he made with his hands and/or magnets over people. He worked with a person’s animal magnetism (their psychic and electromagnetic energies). The medical community eventually discredited him despite his considerable success treating a variety of ailments.
In the 1800s James Braid, an English physician, originally opposed mesmerism, but then became interested. He said that cures were not due to animal magnetism however but to suggestion. He developed the eye fixation technique (also know as Braidism) of inducing relaxation and called it hypnosis (after Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep) as he thought the phenomenon was a form of sleep.
Later, realising his error, he tried to change the name to monoeidism (meaning, influence of a single idea) however, thankfully, the original name stuck
