The Hystory of Hypnosis Part 1

Looking Back Through Time at The Historical Time Line of Hypnosis

Hypnotherapy - An Anceint Science and Art - The History

The History of Hypnosis
The word hypnosis comes from the ancient Greek word 'Hypnos' which literally translates into 'sleep' due to the deep trance state when someone is in a state of hypnosis. Ancient civilisations from history have been shown to take part in group hypnosis sessions - with group rituals such as mass chanting and meditations to a steady drum beat, as part of religious ceremonies. This was the healing of the mind before any medical practices.

Although literally translated as sleep, hypnosis is far from sleep - the brain is more alert, focused and adabtable. The subject can talk, move and the brain waves are operating on an altered frequency. However the name 'Hypnosis' is quite appropriate when in context of the hypnotised subjects body, which is relaxed, often placid, and can be very still, which is quite sleep-like.

Animal hypnosis was in fact the very first form of accepted hypnosis and was first experimented with. It was in the 1600's that people calmed chickens by various forms of hypnosis - methods that included balancing wood shavings on their beaks, or tying their heads to the ground, and then drawing a chalk line in front of their beaks. It then became popular in France to actually hypnotize hens to sit on top of eggs that were not actually their own. Travelling shows became very popular in the mid 1800's, where in Germany, troupe's travelled from town to town with animals such as birds, rabbits, frogs, salamanders and others, all featuring forms of hypnosis. There was a very famous event - LaFountaine, in Manchester - the taming of a lion using hypnotic techniques. Well documented was the event of famous Hungarian hypnotist Volgyesi, in the late 1800's, who actually tamed all of the animals at the Budapest Zoo. Scientists and biologists such as Preyer, Verworn and Emile Mesmet studied animal reflexes (like paralysis from fear) that might cause such phenomena.

From the famous Salpetriere, B. Danilewsky experimented with animal psychology and the effects of hypnosis working with animals. Also after winning the nobel Peace Prize, Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (a Russian psychologist), whilst working with dogs in 1904, found that if given a signal before being given food, after a short perios of time, the animals would salivate when given the signal, without there being any food. This straight forward conditioning (stimulus/response) mechanism, has become such a conerstone foundational understanding in modern day psychology and indeed hypnosis (and NLP - anchoring). This stimulus response behaviour is related entirely to human learning and human conditioning. Now since much of human behaviour pertained to conditioning and reconditioning reflex and, of course, patterns of thought and actions, Pavlov became very interested in Hypnosis, as he believed that this state induced a similar state as to his experiments.

Now the single most well known name in the history of hypnosis is probably that of Dr Franz Anton Mesmer, whose theory that a universal fluid that is present in everything, with uniform characteristic, made present at all levels of creation, with a magnetic vibrations - called magnetism. Mesmer is famous for his work with early magnestism and hypnosis. He is known to have cured a girl of convulsions by placing magnets on her thighs and her stomach. Franz Anton Mesmer then began to work with his hands, rather than magnets, in order for the universal magnetic fluid to work its healing power. Mesmer's home in Vienna was turned into a healing clinic. As Mesmer's reputation flourished and results grew; the fashionable set of Swabia and Switzerland came to visit him. Mesmer was unaninmously elected as a member of the Bavarian Academy, upon his healing and curing of the director of Munich Acadamey of Sciences.

Mesmer is known to have cured the sight of a young and famous female musician named Mille Paradies. Paradies had lost her sight as a young child at the age of 4 when she heard a startling noise at her bedroom door. After Mesmer had managed to cure Paradies, her parents came to collect her and take her home. The young musician however, refused to leave. Paradies mother slapped her and Mesmer intervened. In response the young musicians father drew a sword, and likewise, so did Mesmer, and forced the girls father back. The mother fainted and Mille Paradies' blindness returned - and so after the ordeal, she remained with Anton Mesmer. This event caused a tremendous scandal!

In response Mesmer arranged to travel to Paris in 1778, where the King of France commanded members of the French Acadmey of Science to observe Mesmers experiments. The outcome of their findings were simply that the cures brought about by Mesmer's work were due to nothing more than imagination, and because of this, the cures were not valid. They also noted that 'medicine' already had mny cures for the specific cures Mesmer had discovered with his art of magnetism.

Mesmer would treat 30 patients in a vat filled with two or three layers of bottles of magnetized water at the bottom. The neck of each bottle pointed to the center and bent iron rods were inserted into perforations in the lid covering the entire container so that they could be applied to the affected body par. A rope was used for this also. Patients were placed face to face whenever possible, as close as possible to each other touching thighs, knees and feet as much as possible so that the magnetic fluid could continually circulate. Singing and harmonicas accompanied this. Often patients would cough, spit, feel heat or pain, or be rocked by convulsions lasting five hours (these were carried into adjoining room padded on all sides). Mesmer wore a lilac silk coat and carried a long iron wand with which he would touch the patient's bodies. He also magnetized then with his eyes, the laying on of his hands, or putting his fingers into a pyramid shape passing his hands, lightly all over patient's body beginning with the head. He would continue this until the patient was saturated with healing fluid and swooned from pain or pleasure.

It was in 1779 that Mesmer produced a treatise to impress the Academy doctors. Mesmer had become such a success with his cured patients, that he had had to take on extra assistant magnetizers. Cretiel was where he opened his clinic. Proving ever popular Mesmer then bought Hotel Boullion and installed four tubs. Mesmer is also known to have magnetised a tree at the end of the street of rue Bondy. Here, thousands attached themselves by rope, in the effort to achieve a cure to their ailment. Mesmer became very wealthy indeed, curing learned people of sickness and illness, people who would write and document tales of their astonishing cures. Anton Mesmer lived so elegantly. If he demanded a castle, he would gain it.

However, Mesmer never did achieve the sanction of the medical body. It was the Faculty of Medicine, a doctor Charles Desion, who renounced magnetism as a medical science and demanded that all renounce magnetism or else they would be struck of the roll of doctors. Desion even asked the King himself to appoint a commission to make judgement upon the effectiveness of magenetism as a medical science. Following this, two commissions concluded an unqualified condemnation of the art of Magnetism.

After the devasting news from the Medical Board, Mesmer failed to cure Prince Henry of Prussia and began to doubt whether he still did indeed possess his magnetic powers. Mesmer retreated socially to live in a forest by a lake and was later imprissoned in Vienna for some greatly disapproved political comments. And later, in 1802, France granted Mesmer a pension.

After release, Prince Henry of Prussia invited Mesmer to teach animal magnetism in Berlin, however Mesmer declined the offer. Mesmer continued to live out his life in France, caring for the poor, until his death in 1815. Now although Mesmer's Magnetism was indeed officially condemned, the art continued to flourish with a body of research, studies and demonstrations. Spawned from Mesmer's great work came three men, brother's of Mesmer's Secret Society.

Continued in The History of Hypnosis Part II

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