Hypnosis/Chapters/History

History of Hypnosis
There is no doubt that hypnotism is a very old subject, though the term hypnosis only gained widespread use in the 1880s, initially amongst those influenced by the developments in France. Its history, that can be traced to several seemingly connected but distinct phenomena we now label today as hypnosis, reaches beyond the limits of memory, tradition, or recorded history. Although often viewed as one continuous narrative around a single practice or methodology that is not the case.

Trance
Trance states are as old as the mind. Man and many animals are capable of entering a trance state. Indeed it is quite possible that early Homo-erectus was able to reach this mind state. There is increasing evidence that art, imagination, the concept of the divine and the origins of the human mind's ability to express and interpret images, have their origins in early trance-like states. This is where the roots of hypnosis are.

The term trance may be associated with meditation, magic, flow, and prayer. It is also related to the earlier generic term, altered states of consciousness, which is no longer used in "consciousness studies" discourse.

Trance is from Latin transīre: "to cross", "pass over" and the multiple meanings of the polyvalent homonym "entrance" as a verb and noun provide insight into the nature of trance as a threshold, conduit, portal and/or channel.
 * Etymology

Trance, n. F. transe "fright", in OF. also, "trance" or "swoon", fr. transir "to chill", "benumb", "to be chilled", "to shiver", OF. also, "to die", L. transire "to pass over", "go over", "pass away", "cease"; trans ("across, over") + ire ("to go"); cf. L. transitus "a passing over". See Issue, and cf. Transit.

An intransitive usage of the verb trance is "to pass", "to travel". This definition is now obsolete.

Stories of the saints, myths, parables, fairy tales, oral lore and storytelling from different cultures are themselves potentially inducers of trance. Often literary devices such as repetition are employed which is present in many forms of trance induction. Milton Erickson used stories to induce trance as do many NLP practitioners.
 * Oral lore and storytelling

From at least the 16th century it was held that march music may induce trance states in soldiers marching in unison. According to apologists they bond together as a unit engendered by the rigours of training, the ties of comradeship and the chain of command. Conversely, the detractor may hold that they are trained as automatons. This effect was widely evident in the 16th, 17th and 18th century due to the increasing prevalence of firearms employed in warcraft. Military instruments, especially the snare drum and other drums were used to produce a monotonous ostinato at the marching pace and heartbeat. High-pitched fifes, flutes and bagpipes were used for their "piercing" effect to play the melody. This was intended to bolster the morale and solidarity of soldiers as they marched to battle.
 * Military

The Norse Berserkers induced a trance-like state before battle, called Berserkergang. It is said to have given the warriors superhuman strength and made them impervious to pain during battle. This form of trance could have been induced partly due to ingestion of hallucinogenic mushrooms. The ingestion of mind altering substance is extremely old, but even today some medicines are referred to as hypnotics.

Trance and cognate experience are often central to the experiences of mystics, which generally involve direct connection, communication and communion with a Deity, Godhead, and/or god (see Yoga, Sufism, Shaman, Umbanda, Crazy Horse, etc.)
 * Mystics

Sleep temples
Trance states as a tool for health seems to have originated with the Hindus of ancient India who often took their sick to sleep temples to be cured by suggestion as also found to be the case in ancient Egypt and Greece.

The book the Law of Manu, which was the ancient Sanskrit Science of the Indian people, categorized different states of hypnosis discerning different levels of gradation: the "Sleep-Waking" state, the "Dream-Sleep" state, and the "Ecstasy-Sleep" state.

Sleep temples (also known as healing temples, dream temples or Egyptian sleep temples) are regarded by some as an early instance of what we now define as hypnosis over 4000 years ago. These temples were hospitals of sorts, healing a variety of ailments, perhaps many of them psychological in nature. The treatment involved chanting, placing the patient into a trance-like state, and analyzing their dreams in order to determine treatment. Meditation, fasting, baths and sacrifices to the patron deity or other spirits were often involved as well.

In ancient Egypt, under the influence of Imhotep. Imhotep served as Chancellor, and High Priest of the sun god Ra at Heliopolis. He was said to be a son of Ptah, his mother being a mortal named Khredu-ankh.

According to Hoffman (1998: p.10), in Greece, pilgrims visited the Temple of Epidaurus (built in honor of Asclepios, the Greek God of Medicine) an asclepieion, for healing sleep. Seekers of healing would make pilgrimage and be received by a priest who would welcome and bless them. This temple housed an ancient religious ritual promoting dreams in the seeker that endeavored to promote healing and the solutions to problems, as did the oracles. The Greek treatment was referred to as incubation, and focused on prayers to Asclepios for healing. The asclepion at Epidaurus is both extensive and well-preserved, and is traditionally regarded as the birthplace of Asclepius.

A similar Hebrew treatment was referred to as Kavanah, and involved focusing on letters of the Hebrew alphabet spelling the name of the Hebrew God.

Sir Mortimer Wheeler unearthed a Roman Sleep temple at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire in 1928, with the assistance of a young J.R.R. Tolkien. Of remark is the discovery of a fish-covered mosaic with an inscription that referred to 'Victorinus the Interpreter', thought to be a depiction of an interpreter of dreams.

Magnanimous structures surrounded by a strong sense of faith and reverence are, even today, capable of having similar effects in visitors. That is the power of suggestion.

Avicenna
Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (980-1037), a Persian psychologist and physician, was the earliest to make a distinction between sleep and trance. In The Book of Healing, which he published in 1027, he referred to trance in Arabic as al-Wahm al-Amil, stating that one could create conditions in another person so that he/she accepts the reality of hypnosis.

Avicenna was among other subjects a pioneer of neuropsychiatry. He first described numerous neuropsychiatric conditions, including hallucination, insomnia, mania, nightmare, melancholia, dementia, epilepsy, paralysis, stroke, vertigo and tremor.

Avicenna was also a pioneer in psychophysiology and psychosomatic medicine. He recognized 'physiological psychology' in the treatment of illnesses involving emotions, and developed a system for associating changes in the pulse rate with inner feelings, which is seen as an anticipation of the word association test attributed to Carl Jung. Avicenna is reported to have treated a very ill patient by "feeling the patient's pulse and reciting aloud to him the names of provinces, districts, towns, streets, and people." He noticed how the patient's pulse increased when certain names were mentioned, from which Avicenna deduced that the patient was in love with a girl whose home Avicenna was "able to locate by the digital examination." Avicenna advised the patient to marry the girl he is in love with, and the patient soon recovered from his illness after his marriage.

In The Canon of Medicine, Avicenna dealt with neuropsychiatry and described a number of neuropsychiatric conditions, including melancholia. He described melancholia as a depressive type of mood disorder in which the person may become suspicious and develop certain types of phobias.

Mesmer, though his pretensions were discredited, was quickly followed by Puysegur, who drew all the world to Buzancy, near Soissons, France.

Armand-Marie-Jacques de Chastenet, Marquis of Puységur
Although Armand-Marie-Jacques de Chastenet, Marquis de Puységur (1751–1825), was a French aristocrat from one of the most illustrious families of the French nobility, he is now remembered as one of the pre-scientific founders of hypnotism (then known as animal magnetism, or Mesmerism).

The Marquis de Puységur learned about Mesmerism from his brother Antoine-Hyacinthe, the Count of Chastenet. One of his first and most important patients was Victor Race, a 23-year-old peasant in the employ of the Puységur family. Race was easily hypnotized by Puységur, but displayed a strange form of sleeping trance not before seen in the early history of Mesmerism. Puységur noted the similarity between this sleeping trance and natural sleep-walking or somnambulism, and he named it "artificial somnambulism". Today we know this state by the name "hypnosis", although that term was invented much later by James Braid in 1842.

Puységur rapidly became a highly successful hypnotherapist, to whom people came from all over France. In 1785, Puységur taught a course in animal magnetism to the local Masonic society, which he concluded with these words:

Every one rushed once more to be magnetized, and Puysegur had so many patients that to care for them all he was obliged to magnetize a tree (as he said), which was touched by hundreds who came to be cured, and was long known as "Puysegur's tree". As a result of Puysegur's success, a number of societies were formed in France for the study of the new phenomena.

Puységur's institute for training in hypnotherapy, Société Harmonique des Amis Réunis, grew rapidly until the Revolution in 1789. During the revolutionary era the institute was disbanded and Puységur spent two years in jail. After the Napoleons' overthrow the new generation of practitioners of hypnotism looked to Puységur as their patriarch, and came to accept his method of inducing a sleeping trance in preference to the original methods of Mesmer. Puységur, however, always portrayed himself as a faithful disciple of Mesmer. He never took credit for having invented the procedure that is now known as hypnotic induction that seems to have been based on Abbot Faria techniques, of whom he was a close friend. His contributions were gradually forgotten, until Charles Richet rediscovered his writings in 1884, and showed that most of what other people had claimed as their discoveries in the field of hypnotherapy were originally due to the Marquis de Puységur.

Henri Ellenberger, the great historian of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, wrote that Puységur was "one of the great forgotten contributors to the history of the psychological sciences." The details of the life and work of Puységur may be found in Ellenberger's book, The Discovery of the Unconscious, pp. 70-74.

Etienne Félix d'Henin de Cuvillers
Etienne Félix d'Henin de Cuvillers (1755–1841) was a French "magnetist" who was an early practitioner of mesmerism as a scientific discipline.

Hénin de Cuvillers was a follower of Franz Anton Mesmer. However, unlike Mesmer he did not believe in the existence of a "magnetic fluid" in animal magnetism, and instead emphasized the role of mental processes in mesmerism. In his book Le magnétisme éclairé, he describes accounts of mesmeric effects in terms of belief and suggestibility.

He is credited for popularizing a system of scientific nomenclature by using the prefix "hypn" in words such as hypnotique (hypnotic), hypnotisme (hypnotism) and hypnotiste (hypnotist). He used these terms as early as 1820, and is believed by many to have coined these names. In 1820 he became editor of the Archives du Magnetisme Animal. This view was later expanded by James Braid.

Charles Lafontaine
Charles Lafontaine (1803 – 1892) was an early Swiss mesmerist. He lived in Geneva and published a journal called Le magnétiseur. Although he had failed as an actor, he became wealthy as a traveling mesmerist, or animal magnetiser, as it was then known.

His stage demonstrations of animal magnetism in Manchester influenced surgeon James Braid to pursue the study of what came to be known as hypnotism (note that Braid's hypnotism was significantly different from Lafontaine's mesmerism). Braid first saw Lafontaine in Manchester on November 13, 1841.

He wrote an autobiography, which may have influenced George du Maurier in his writing of Trilby, one of the most popular novels of its time, perhaps the second best selling novel of the Fin de siècle period after Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Trilby is set in the 1850s in an idyllic bohemian Paris. Though it features the stories of two English and a Scottish artist — one of the most memorable characters is Svengali, a Jewish rogue, masterful musician, and hypnotist.

Trilby O'Ferrall, the novel's heroine, is a half-Irish girl working in Paris as an artists' model and laundress; all the men in the novel are in love with her. The relation between Trilby and Svengali forms only a small portion of the novel, which is mainly an evocation of a milieu, but it is a crucial one.

Trilby is literally tone-deaf: "Svengali would test her ear, as he called it, and strike the C in the middle and then the F just above, and ask which was the highest; and she would declare they were both exactly the same."

Even so, Svengali hypnotizes her and transforms her into a great diva, la Svengali. Under his spell, Trilby becomes a talented singer, performing always in an amnesiac trance. At a performance in London, Svengali is stricken with a heart attack and is unable to induce the trance. Trilby is unable to sing in tune and is subjected to "laughter, hoots, hisses, cat-calls, cock-crows." Not having been hypnotized, she is completely baffled and though she can remember living and traveling with Svengali, she cannot remember anything of her singing career.

The cultural influence of this literary work has not only brought hypnosis into the public's awareness but also influenced other works that reached also high popularity, like Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera (1910) and was also adapted into a long-running play starring Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Svengali. The play was revived many times, including at the Apollo Theatre in the 1920s.

José Custódio de Faria
Even if breaking the chronology, no one can speak on the history of hypnosis without mentioning Abbot Faria, a contemporaneous of Mesmer that clearly defended a different theory and practice. As it would be expected Abbot Faria, did have, due to his Indian origins and personal experiences (he reports that his father did use suggestions to help him), a deeper understanding of the older meditation and trance techniques and a better contextual grasp on the history of the phenomenon, hence his clear distantiation from the concept of magnetism. Faria was also well traveled, well educated and seemingly well connected.

Abbot (or Abbé or Abade in Portuguese), José Custódio de Faria, (30 May 1746 - 20 September 1819), was a colorful Portuguese Goan Catholic monk, born in the Portuguese administrated Goa, who was one of the pioneers of the scientific study of hypnotism, following the work of Franz Anton Mesmer. Faria, unlike Mesmer, who claimed that hypnosis was mediated by "animal magnetism", understood that it worked purely by the power of suggestion. In the early 19th century, Abbé Faria introduced oriental hypnosis to Paris.

He was also a friend of Armand-Marie-Jacques de Chastenet, Marques of Puységur (a disciple of Franz Anton Mesmer), to whom he dedicated his book Causas do Sono Lúcido ("On the Causes of Lucid Sleep").

Alexandre Dumas, père used a fictionalized version of the Abbé in his famous novel The Count of Monte Cristo. In the novel, Faria, an Italian, is a prisoner of the Château d'If who instructs Edmond Dantès, the protagonist and a fellow prisoner, in a number of fields including mathematics, the sciences, and foreign languages, and eventually helps him to escape from the island prison. He also discloses to Dantès the whereabouts of a hoard of jewels at Monte Cristo, a small island near the Italian coast, before dying from a cataleptic seizure.

Faria changed the terminology of mesmerism. Previously focus was on the "concentration" of the subject. In Faria's terminology the operator became "the concentrator" and somnambulism was viewed as a lucid sleep. The method of hypnosis used by Faria is command, following expectancy. The theory of Abbe Faria is now known as Fariism.

In 1813 Abbé Faria, realizing that animal magnetism was gaining importance in Paris, returned to Paris and started promoting a new doctrine. He provoked unending controversies with his work Da Causa do Sono Lúcido no Estudo da Natureza do Homem (On the cause of Lucid Sleep in the Study of Nature of Man), published in Paris in 1819 and was soon accused of being a charlatan.

In 1814 Deleuze published a book on the subject and mentions Abbe Faria as the demonstrator that there was no fluid, but that the phenomena were subjective, or within the mind of the patient. Faria is the first to introduce what is now called the "method of suggestion" in producing hypnotism.

After-years Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault (1864-1904), the founder of the Nancy School, and Emile Coué (1857-1926) father of applied conditioning, developed the theory of suggestion and autosuggestion and made them therapeutic tools.

Afterwards Johannes Schultz developed these theories as Autogenic training.

Hypnotherapy
The French revolution (from 1789–1799) fueled existing internal political friction in Britain in the 1790’s and a few political radicals used animal magnetism as more than just a moral threat but also a political threat. In his many lectures that warned society against government oppression, Samuel Taylor Coleridge states:

In the rest of the Western world including the revolutionary France, the experimentation continued, and in the 1820's a young Paris physician, P. Foissac (1801-1884?) wrote a to the National Academy of Medicine (Académie Nationale de Médecine) suggesting that the time was ripe for a further examination of animal magnetism. After five years, the appointed a commission investigating the subject presented a report. This report gave a good statement of the practical operation of magnetism, mentioning the phenomena of somnambulism, anesthesia, loss of memory, and the various other symptoms of the hypnotic state as we know it. It was thought that magnetism had a right to be considered as a therapeutic agent, and that it might be used by physicians, though others should not be allowed to practice it. In 1837 another commission made a decidedly unfavorable report.

Soon after this Burdin, a member of the Academy, offered a prize of 3,000 francs to any one who would read the number of a bank-note or the like with his eyes bandaged (under certain fixed conditions), but it was never awarded, though many claimed it, and there has been considerable evidence that persons in the hypnotic state have (sometimes) remarkable clairvoyant powers.

Soon after this, the term magnetism, or new magnetism since the theory and practice had suffered subtle but considerable changes, fell into very low repute throughout France and Germany, and scientific men became loath to have their names connected with the study of it in any way. The study had not yet been seriously taken up in England, and two physicians who gave some attention to it suffered decidedly in professional reputation.

Major politicians and people in power were accused by radicals to be practicing animal magnetism on the general population. In Roy Porter’s article “Under the Influence: Mesmerism in England”, he notes James Tilly Matthews' accusations of French infiltration into England via animal magnetism. Matthews believed that “magnetic spies” would invade England and bring it under subjection by transmitting waves of animal magnetism to subdue the government and people.

It is to an English physician, however, that we owe the scientific character of modern hypnotism. Indeed he invented the name of hypnotism, formed from the Greek word meaning 'sleep', and designating 'artificially produced sleep'. His name is James Braid, and so important were the results of his study that hypnotism has sometimes been called "Braidism", though it was used infrequently.

James Braid
James Braid (19 June 1795 – 25 March 1860), a Scottish physician and surgeon, member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh from 1815 until his death, specialized in eye and muscular conditions, was an important and influential pioneer of hypnotism and hypnotherapy. Braid maintained an active interest in hypnotism until his death.

Braid became interested in the phenomenon known as mesmerism, when he personally observed demonstrations given by the traveling Swiss mesmerist Charles Lafontaine. In particular, he examined the physical condition of Lafontaine's mesmerized subjects and concluded that they were, indeed, in quite a different physical state.

Doctor Courmelles gives the following interesting summary of Braid's experiences:

"November, 1841, he witnessed a public experiment made by Monsieur Lafontaine, a Swiss magnetizer. He thought the whole thing a comedy; a week after, he attended a second exhibition, saw that the patient could not open his eyes, and concluded that this was ascribable to some physical cause. The fixity of gaze must, according to him, exhaust the nerve centers of the eyes and their surroundings. He made a friend look steadily at the neck of a bottle, and his own wife look at an ornamentation on the top of a china sugar bowl: sleep was the consequence. Here hypnotism had its origin, and the fact was established that sleep could be induced by physical agents. This, it must be remembered, is the essential difference between these two classes of phenomena (magnetism and hypnotism): for magnetism supposes a direct action of the magnetizer on the magnetized subject, an action which does not exist in hypnotism."

Within a few days following his observation, upon reflection, he became convinced that he had discovered the natural psychophysiological mechanism underlying these quite genuine phenomena.

He completely rejected Franz Mesmer's idea that a magnetic fluid caused hypnotic phenomena, because anyone could produce them in "himself by attending strictly to the simple rules" that he had laid down.

Braid began experimenting with his own method, leading him to write a report entitled "Practical Essay on the Curative Agency of Neuro-Hypnotism", to the British Association, and having it rejected. After that he immediately started delivering a series of five public lectures, conversaziones, in Manchester that commenced on 27 November 1841, at which he read it.

Braid thought he had discovered a new theoretical view of the phenomena, for at this time he believed that hypnotism was largely, if not purely, mechanical and physical. He noted that during one phase of hypnotism, known as catalepsy, the arms, limbs, etc., might be placed in any position and would remain there; he also noted that a puff of breath would usually awaken a subject, and that by talking to a subject and telling him to do this or do that, even after he awakes from the sleep, he can be made to do those things. Braid thought he might affect a certain part of the brain during hypnotic sleep, and if he could find the seat of the thieving disposition, or the like, he could cure the patient of desire to commit crime, simply by suggestion, or command.

Braid's conclusions were, in brief, that there was no fluid, or other exterior agent, but that hypnotism was due to a physiological condition of the nerves. It was his belief that hypnotic sleep was brought about by fatigue of the eyelids, or by other influences wholly within the subject. In this he was supported by Carpenter, the great physiologist; but neither Braid nor Carpenter could get the medical organizations to give the matter any attention, even to investigate it.

Although Braid he was the first to use the terms hypnotism, hypnotize and hypnotist in English, the cognate terms hypnotique, hypnotisme, hypnotiste had been intentionally used by the French magnetist Baron Etienne Félix d'Henin de Cuvillers (1755–1841) at least as early as 1820.

Braid therefore began using the term "neuro-hypnotism" in late November 1841 and later adopted the term "hypnotism" as an abbreviation for "neuro-hypnotism" or nervous sleep (that is, sleep of the nerves), in his lectures of 1841-2, and it is from his influential work that others derived the term "hypnosis" in the 1880s.

In early 1842 — as a response to a personal attack upon himself and his work that had been made in a sermon delivered by a Manchester cleric, M‘Neile, and had been published a few days later in an unaltered form, despite Braid's attempts to rectify the misunderstandings he felt it contained — Braid privately published the contents of an (unanswered) letter that he had written to the cleric as a twelve page booklet entitled Satanic Agency and Mesmerism Reviewed (Braid, 1842).

In this booklet, Braid uses the terms "neurohypnotism", "hypnotic", and "neurohypnology", perhaps for the first time (rather than in his 1843 work, Neurypnology, as is often asserted). However, he seems to have used "Neuro-Hypnotism" in the title of his unpublished report rejected by the British Association, and read at his own public lectures, as early as November or December 1841.

In 1843 he published Neurypnology; or the Rationale of Nervous Sleep Considered in Relation with Animal Magnetism…, his first and only book-length exposition of his views. According to Bramwell (1896, p. 91) the work was popular from the outset, selling 800 copies within a few months of its publication.

Braid thought of hypnotism as producing a "nervous sleep" which differed from ordinary sleep. The most efficient way to produce it was through visual fixation on a small bright object held eighteen inches above and in front of the eyes. Braid regarded the physiological condition underlying hypnotism to be the over-exercising of the eye muscles through the straining of attention.

James Braid published many letters and articles and several small books and booklets. His first major publication was Neurypnology, or the Rationale of Nervous Sleep (1843), written less than two years after his discovery of hypnotism. However, Braid continually revised his theory and practice and carried out many, albeit primitive, experiments on hypnosis.

In a letter written to the editor of The Lancet in 1845, Braid emphatically states that (emphasis used to show Braid's position): "I adopted the term "hypnotism" to prevent my being confounded with those who entertain those extreme notions [sc. that a mesmeriser's will has an "irresistible power… over his subjects" and that clairvoyance and other "higher phenomena" are routinely manifested by those in the mesmeric state], as well as to get rid of the erroneous theory about a magnetic fluid, or exoteric influence of any description being the cause of the sleep. I distinctly avowed that hypnotism laid no claim to produce any phenomena which were not "quite reconcilable with well-established physiological and psychological principles"; pointed out the various sources of fallacy which might have misled the mesmerists; [and] was the first to give a public explanation of the trick [by which a fraudulent subject had been able to deceive his mesmerizer]… [Further, I have never been] a supporter of the imagination theory — i.e., that the induction of [hypnosis] in the first instance is merely the result of imagination. My belief is quite the contrary. I attribute it to the induction of a habit of intense abstraction, or concentration of attention, and maintain that it is most readily induced by causing the patient to fix his thoughts and sight on an object, and suppress his respiration.

Braid, was the first person to use "hypnotism" in referring to a "psycho-physiological" theory rather than the "occult" theories of the magnetists, this is the principal reason why Braid is regarded by many as the first genuine "hypnotherapist" and the "Father of Modern Hypnotism".

In his first publication, he had also stressed the importance of the subject concentrating both vision and thought, referring to "the continued fixation of the mental and visual eye". The concept of the mind's eye first appeared in English in Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale in his Canterbury Tales, where he speaks of a man "who was blind, and could only see with the eyes of his mind, with which all men see after they go blind", in a reference to the engagement of the natural physiological mechanism that was already hard-wired into each human being.

Braid’s work had a strong influence on a number of important French medical figures, especially Étienne Eugène Azam (1822–1899) of Bordeaux (Braid’s principal French “disciple”), the anatomist Pierre Paul Broca (1824–1880).

"Braid later changed his sleep-based physiological theory to a psychological one which emphasized mental concentration on a single idea, giving this the name of monoideism in 1847". Braid summarized and contrasted his own view with the other views prevailing at that time. This las change to his theory puts the "hypnotism" more in-line with its modern sense.

In 1848 an American named Grimes succeeded in obtaining all the phenomena of hypnotism, and created a school of writers who made use of the word "electro-biology."

In 1850 Braid's ideas were introduced into France, and Dr. Azam, of Bordeaux, published an account of them in the "Archives de Medicine". From this time on the subject was widely studied by scientific men in France and Germany, and it was more slowly taken up in England.

According to a lengthy report (dated 16 December 1859), "Hypnotism — Important Medical Discovery" from the anonymous "Paris correspondent" of the New York Herald, in the Thursday, 5 January 1860 edition of the Herald (p.5), Azam had introduced Braid's techniques to Broca; and Broca subsequently performed a number of operations using Braid's hypnotic techniques (i.e., rather than using mesmerism as Esdaile had done) for anaesthesia, and the eminent French surgeon, Velpeau (1795-1867) was so impressed that he read a paper on Broca's experiments to the French Academy of Sciences on Broca's behalf.

Braid hypnotised the English Swedenborgian writer Dr. J.J.G. Wilkinson, who observed him hypnotising others several times, and began using hypnotism himself. Wilkinson soon became a passionate advocate of Braid's work and his published remarks on hypnotism were quoted enthusiastically by Braid several times in his later writings.

Just three days before his death he sent a (now lost) manuscript, written in English,On hypnotism, to the French surgeon Étienne Eugène Azam.

In 1997 Braid’s part in developing hypnosis for therapeutic purposes was recognized and commemorated by the creation of the James Braid Society (http://www.jamesbraidsociety.com) a discussion group for those “involved or concerned in the ethical uses of hypnosis.” The society meets once a month in central London, usually for a presentation on some aspect of hypnotherapy.

In April 2009, Robertson published a reconstructed English version, backward translated from the French, of Braid's last (lost) manuscript (On Hypnotism), addressed by Braid to the French Academy of Sciences.

Apart from Neurypnology, his first book, all of Braid's works have been out of print since his death; however, many are now available on-line (see Wikipedia's article on James Braid links in the Further reading section). The 2009 publication of Robertson (Discovery of Hypnosis) contains all of Braid's major works and many letters and articles by him, including "On Hypnotism".

Autosuggestion
Autosuggestion (from the Greek: αὐτός, autós, "self") must not be confused with automatic suggestion.

Émile Coué de Châtaigneraie
Émile Coué de Châtaigneraie (February 26, 1857 – July 2, 1926) was a French psychologist and pharmacist who introduced a method of psychotherapy and self-improvement based on optimistic autosuggestion.

The application of his mantra-like conscious autosuggestion, "Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better" (French: Tous les jours à tous points de vue je vais de mieux en mieux) is called Couéism or the Coué method.

The Coué method centers on a routine repetition of this particular expression according to a specified ritual, in a given physical state, and in the absence of any sort of allied mental imagery, at the beginning and at the end of each day. Unlike a common held belief that a strong conscious will constitutes the best path to success, Coué maintained that curing some of our troubles requires a change in our unconscious thought, which can only be achieved by using our imagination. Although stressing that he was not primarily a healer but one who taught others to heal themselves, Coué claimed to have effected organic changes through autosuggestion.

The Coué method
Coué noticed that in certain cases he could improve the efficiency of a given medicine by praising its effectiveness to the patient. He realized that those patients to whom he praised the medicine had a noticeable improvement when compared to patients to whom he said nothing. This began Coué’s exploration of the use of hypnosis and the power of the imagination.
 * Development and origins

His initial method for treating patients relied on hypnosis. He discovered that subjects could not be hypnotized against their will and, more importantly, that the effects of hypnosis waned when the subjects regained consciousness. He thus eventually turned to autosuggestion, which he describes as

"... an instrument that we possess at birth, and with which we play unconsciously all our life, as a baby plays with its rattle. It is however a dangerous instrument; it can wound or even kill you if you handle it imprudently and unconsciously. It can on the contrary save your life when you know how to employ it consciously. in Coué, E: "Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion", page 19, 1922"

Coué believed in the effects of medication. But he also believed that our mental state is able to affect and even amplify the action of these medications. By consciously using autosuggestion, he observed that his patients could cure themselves more efficiently by replacing their "thought of illness" with a new "thought of cure". According to Coué, repeating words or images enough times causes the subconscious to absorb them. The cures were the result of using imagination or "positive autosuggestion" to the exclusion of one's own willpower.

Coué thus developed a method which relied on the principle that any idea exclusively occupying the mind turns into reality, although only to the extent that the idea is within the realms of possibility. For instance, a person without hands will not be able to make them grow back. However, if a person firmly believes that his or her asthma is disappearing, then this may actually happen, as far as the body is actually able to physically overcome or control the illness. On the other hand, thinking negatively about the illness (ex. "I am not feeling well") will encourage both mind and body to accept this thought. Likewise, when someone cannot remember a name, they will probably not be able to recall it as long as they hold onto this idea (i.e. "I cannot remember") in their mind. Coué realized that it is better to focus on and imagine the desired, positive results (i.e. "I feel healthy and energetic" and "I can remember clearly").
 * Underlying principles

Coué observed that the main obstacle to autosuggestion was willpower. For the method to work, the patient must refrain from making any independent judgment, meaning that he must not let his will impose its own views on positive ideas. Everything must thus be done to ensure that the positive "autosuggestive" idea is consciously accepted by the patient, otherwise one may end up getting the opposite effect of what is desired.
 * Willpower

For example, when a student has forgotten an answer to a question in an exam, he will likely think something such as "I have forgotten the answer". The more he or she tries to think of it, the more the answer becomes blurred and obscured. However, if this negative thought is replaced with a more positive one ("No need to worry, it will come back to me"), the chances that the student will come to remember the answer will increase.

Coué noted that young children always applied his method perfectly, as they lacked the willpower that remained present among adults. When he instructed a child by saying "clasp your hands and you cannot open them", the child would thus immediately follow.

A patient's problems are likely to increase when his willpower and imagination (or mental ideas) are opposing each other, something Coué would refer to as "self-conflict". In the student's case, the will to succeed is clearly incompatible with his thought of being incapable of remembering his answers. As the conflict intensifies, so does the problem: the more the patient tries to sleep, the more he becomes awake. The more a patient tries to stop smoking, the more he smokes. The patient must thus abandon his willpower and instead put more focus on his imaginative power in order to fully succeed with his cure.
 * Self-conflict

Thanks to his method, which Coué once called his "trick", patients of all sorts would come to visit him. The list of ailments included kidney problems, diabetes, memory loss, stammering, weakness, atrophy and all sorts of physical and mental illnesses. According to one of his journal entries (1916), he apparently cured a patient of a uterus prolapse as well as "violent pains in the head" (migraine).
 * Effectiveness

C. (Cyrus) Harry Brooks (1890–1951), author of various books on Coué, claimed the success rate of his method was around 93%. The remaining 7% of people would include those who were too skeptical of Coué's approach and those who refused to recognize it.

The use of autosuggestion is intended to complement use of medicine, but no medication of Coué's time could save a patient from depression or tension. Coué recommended that patients take medicines with the confidence that they would be completely cured very soon, and healing would be optimal. Conversely, he contended, patients who are skeptical of a medicine would find it least effective.
 * Medicines and autosuggestion

Milton Erickson
Recognized by the method named after himself, the Milton Erickson's hypnotherapy, for which, however, he did not provide an orthodox methodology. Erickson would put his patients in trance with short stories. While keeping the ego of his patients occupied, he would target his healing messages straight at their unconscious mind, which he believed to have considerable self-healing powers. In this way he claimed to have healed himself of the paralysis that affected him when young and to which he did finally succumb later in life.

Erickson is noted for his often unconventional approach to psychotherapy, such as described in the book Uncommon Therapy, by Jay Haley, and the book Hypnotherapy: An Exploratory Casebook, by Milton H. Erickson and Ernest L. Rossi (1979, New York: Irvington Publishers, Inc.). He developed an extensive use of therapeutic metaphor and story as well as hypnosis and coined the term brief therapy for his approach of addressing therapeutic changes in relatively few sessions.

Erickson's use of interventions influenced the strategic therapy and family systems therapy practitioners beginning in the 1950s among them, Virginia Satir and Jay Haley. He was noted for his ability to "utilize" anything about a patient to help them change, including their beliefs, favorite words, cultural background, personal history, or even their neurotic habits.

Through conceptualizing the unconscious as highly separate from the conscious mind, with its own awareness, interests, responses, and learnings, he taught that the unconscious mind was creative, solution-generating, and often positive.

He was an important influence on neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), which was in part based upon his working methods.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a controversial extrapolation from hypnosis, specially from Milton Erickson's hypnotherapy. It is chiefly based on patterns of behavior and the subjective experiences (esp. patterns of thought) underlying them.

It may be still too early to include NLP in the history of Hypnosis but at the same time there are some aspects that do have a positive impact on suggestion, even in normal dialog and direct interaction. Most of it may seem commonsense, use of brevity, positive reenforcement, reading body language, augmented empathy, optimal phrase structure, all this has been streamlined by the two co-founders of the movement, Richard Bandler and linguist John Grinder and seems useful, but it is hard to classify it as an innovation, nevertheless we can certainly say that the concepts defended by NLP have had a real impact on hypnosis.

We will talk a little more about NLP in Chapter 6 in relation to conversational hypnosis.

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