World Hypnotism Day - The History and Truth about Hypnosis

Around the world, January 4th is recognized as World Hypnotism Day. It is an opportunity to appreciate all things hypnosis-related. Whether you think of hypnotism in terms of helping people improve their quality of life, or perhaps the ‘stage hypnosis’ side of things where hypnosis is used for entertainment, it’s undeniable that hypnotism is a fantastic skill that can help people to improve various aspects of their lives, as well as for a bit of light-hearted fun too.

World Hypnotism Day began in 2006 and was dedicated in the honour of Dr. Jack Gibson (1909-2005). Dr Gibson was an Irish hypnotherapist and surgeon, widely remembered for his advocacy of the use of hypnosis instead of anesthetic drugs for use in surgery. Dr. Gibson is on record stating that he performed over 4,000+ operations using hypnotic anesthesia as the only form of pain management.

World Hypnotism Day was established with the sole purpose of dispelling the many myths surrounding hypnotism. Most of these myths come from television, movies, and popular literature, whose purpose is to fascinate and entertain, and not necessarily to reveal facts.

The History of Hypnosis

Practically all ancient cultures, including the Sumerian, Persian, Chinese, Indian, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman, used hypnosis in some form. In Egypt and Greece, the sick often went to healing places known as sleep temples or dream temples to be cured by hypnosis. In ancient India, the Sanskrit book known as The Law of Manu described different levels of hypnosis as “Sleep-Waking,” “Dream-Sleep,” and “Ecstasy-Sleep.”

Some of the earliest evidence of hypnosis for healing comes from the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus, dating to 1550 B.C. Another Egyptian papyrus (Pap. A. Nr. 65) describes the laying of hands on the patient, hand passes, and eye-fixation.

For many centuries, especially during the Middle Ages, kings and princes were believed to have the power of healing through the “Royal Touch.” Their miraculous healings were attributed to divine powers. Before hypnosis was well understood, the terms “magnetism” and “mesmerism” were used to describe these healing phenomena.

The Swiss physician Paracelsus (1493-1541) was the first to use magnets for healing, instead of the divine touch or a holy relic. This method of healing was still around into the 18th century, when Maximillian Hell, a Jesuit priest and the Royal Astronomer in Vienna, became famous for healing by using magnetized steel plates on the body. One of Hell’s students was Franz Mesmer, the Austrian physician from whom we derive the word “mesmerize.” Mesmer discovered that he could induce trance without magnets, and concluded (incorrectly) that the healing force must come from himself or from an invisible fluid that occupied space.

One of Mesmer’s students, the Marquis de Puysegur, became a successful magnetist and the first to produce a deep form of hypnosis similar to somnambulism (sleep-walking). Followers of Puysegur and the Paracelsus-Mesmer fluidism theory called themselves “Experimentalists.” The work of Mesmer and the Experimentalists was a step in the right direction to recognize that the cures they observed came not from a magnet or object, but from some other force.

In 1813, an Indo-Portuguese priest known as Abbe Faria conducted research on hypnosis in India, and returned to Paris to study hypnosis with Puysegur. Faria proposed that it was not magnetism or the power of the hypnotist that was responsible for trance and healing, but a power generated from within the mind of the subject.

Faria’s approach was the basis for the clinical and theoretical work of the French school of hypnosis-centered psychotherapy known as the Nancy School, or the School of Suggestion. The Nancy school held that hypnosis was a normal phenomenon induced by suggestion, not the result of magnetism. The Nancy school was founded by Ambroise-Auguste Liebeault, a French country doctor who is considered to be the father of modern hypnotherapy. Liebeault believed that the phenomena of hypnosis were psychological and disregarded theories of magnetism. He studied the similarities between sleep and trance, and saw hypnosis as a state that could be produced by suggestion.

Some of the pioneers of psychology studied hypnosis in both the Nancy and Paris Schools. Pierre Janet (1859-1947), who developed theories of unconscious processes, dissociation, and traumatic memory, studied hypnosis with both Bernheim in Nancy and the rival school of Charcot in Paris. Sigmund Freud also studied hypnosis with Charcot and later observed Bernheim, and Liebeault. Freud began practicing hypnosis in 1887, and hypnosis was crucial to his invention of psychoanalysis.

During the period of intense psychological investigation of hypnosis, a number of physicians developed the use of hypnosis for anesthesia. In 1821, Récamier performed a major operation using hypnosis for anesthesia. In 1834, the British surgeon John Elliotson, who introduced the stethoscope to England, reported numerous painless surgical operations using hypnosis. James Esdaile, the Scottish surgeon, performed over 2,000 minor and 345 major operations using hypnosis in the 1840s and 1850s.

The Scottish ophthalmologist James Braid is the father of modern hypnotism. It was Braid who first coined the term neuro-hypnotism (nervous sleep), which later became “hypnotism” and “hypnosis” (1841). Braid had visited a demonstration of a French magnetist, La Fontaine in 1841. He scoffed at the ideas of the Mesmerists, and was the first to suggest that hypnosis was psychological. Braid is perhaps the first practitioner of psychosomatic medicine. In 1847 he tried to explain hypnosis by “monoideism” (focus on one idea), but the term “hypnosis” had advanced in the work of the Nancy School, and is still the term used today.

From an historical standpoint it is interesting to note that, although hypnosis was at times attached to various passing fads and movements, the clinical practice and scientific study of hypnosis have survived. That alone is a great testament to the enduring power of hypnosis to help people. Thankfully, the medical and academic fields have continued to use and validate hypnosis as a therapeutic procedure, and hypnosis research seems as active as ever.

Credit to research by John Mongiovi, Board Certified Hypnotist

The Truth About Hypnosis

I am in the business of empowerment. That means that I teach people just like you tools that they can use to accomplish their goals easier and without resistance. Sometimes that tool is hypnosis, or NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), or cognitive reframing. And sometimes we use something else. Once we figure out what tools will work best for you, I can teach you how to use those tools more effectively.

Hypnosis is sometimes one of the most misunderstood and controversial treatment options available today. The myths and misconceptions that surround hypnotherapy often stem from people’s ideas about stage hypnotism as well as what they see in movies and on television. In reality, stage hypnosis is basically an interactive bit of theater, and has about as much in common with clinical hypnosis as television and Hollywood movies have with real life. The same mechanics and methods are used in stage and clinical hypnosis to induce trance, and that is where the similarities tend to end.

The fact is, hypnosis is a genuine neurological phenomenon that has valid uses in managing the symptoms of many common conditions, from chronic pain to digestive issues, stress and anxiety to memory and cognition.

Simply put, hypnosis is a state of highly focused attention or concentration that is often associated with relaxation and heightened suggestibility. While in hypnosis many people are much more open to helpful suggestions than they usually are.

You Are Most Certainly Not Under My Control!

Contrary to popular belief, people under hypnosis are in total control of themselves and will never do anything they would normally find highly objectionable. And in order to be successfully hypnotized, a person must want to undergo the process voluntarily.

The suggestions given to people during a hypnosis session are an important part of how hypnosis works. Many people won’t accept or respond to an up-front, direct suggestion, especially if that new idea creates conflict with what you already believe. For example, you are most likely ignoring the direct suggestion of the voice in your mind telling you that you don’t need another cookie, while you are putting one in your mouth.

In hypnosis, suggestions are able to get into the mind by bypassing the filter called the “critical factor” or “critical faculty.” This filter in your mind prevents new ideas from creating conflicts. The hypnotic trance allows the filter to loosen, and the hypnotic suggestions go directly to the subconscious mind where can be established as important behavioral or psychological changes.

The Hypnotic Process

Our behaviors and patterns are complex, and change is a process. Nothing is built, torn down, or rebuilt overnight. Most often, a person will find the greatest benefit in a series of hypnosis sessions to create gradual and permanent change. 

When you train someone to do something, you are using repetition to learn a pattern, habit, or behavior. We can use repetition to train the control center of the mind that a certain activity, feeling, or reaction is desirable and eventually, with enough repetition, the control center will accept the change and make it permanent.

This method is effective, and the results are usually permanent, like learning to ride a bike. But it takes a long time, and can be very difficult, especially when trying to change habits, reactions, fears, and behaviors.

Repetition is not needed to create permanent changes when using hypnosis. Think of it as the difference between training and programming. 

When you program something, like a computer, you are writing the new behavior, habit, or pattern directly into the control center. When you download a new app on your phone you don’t have to train the phone to use the app and perform the functions. It just happens automatically from now on. Hypnosis allows you to program your mind in the same way.

Hypnosis is powerful, versatile, efficient, and effective. It can be used as a tool for physical healing, as well as emotional healing and growth. There are no side effects, and it is completely safe and natural. Hypnosis uses your own imagination to motivate changes, build better options, better strategies, and take all these new behaviors and make them so automatic it becomes as if that's just how it's always been.

But Don’t Believe Me. Try it For Yourself!

Use the link below to get instant access to my “15 Minute De-Stress” hypnosis Mp3, a brief hypnosis session designed to dissolve stress and reprogram your mind to react differently to things that used to be stressful.

http://www.greenmountainhypnosis.com/15-minute-de-stress-audio-page.html

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