Hypnosis through the Years
1775: French Count Frederick Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) presented his theory
that magnetic fluids were responsible for disease and healing influences
in the body. He used magnets to heal people, and later found that the magnetic
"fluid" had entered his hands, so that when he passed his hands over their
bodies, they were healed. Documented cases of physical and mental healings
were reported to King Louis XVI, who formed a committee to study MESMERISM
and MAGNETISM. Benjamin Franklin, Ambassador from the United States, served
on the committee that reported that it was all done through the power of
suggestion, and that magnets had no effect.
1784: The Marquis de Puységur, one of Mesmer's students, used
"magnetic somnambulism" - magnetic sleepwalking - as a clinical technique.
He produced what he called "clairvoyance" - clear seeing. This linked mesmerism
with the psychic world.
1821: First reports of painless dentistry and surgery in France using
magnetism by Ambrose Liebeault (1823-1904), J.M. Charcot (1825-1893) and
Charles Richet (1850-1935). The School at Nancy (France) was created to study
hypnotism and psychology.
1840: John Elliotson (1791-1868), President of the Royal Medical and
Surgical Society of London, reported using hypnosis as anesthesia in 1,834
surgical operations.
1850: James Braid (1795-1860), London eye doctor, renamed mesmerism/magnetism
as HYPNOSIS, after the Greek god of sleep, hypnus.
1853: James Esdaile (1808-1859), British surgeon in India, reported
performing 2,000 operations - 300 of them major - using hypnosis as anesthesia.
1883: Sigmund Freud became a practicioner of the Nancy technique for
several years, and then discarded it in favor of his system of psychoanalysis.
1891: The British Medical Association reported favorably on the use
of hypnosis in the field of medicine.
1925: Use of hypnosis in dentistry developed in the United States.
1950: The British Medical Association and the American Medical Association
issue statements supporting the usefulness of hypnosis as a form of therapy.
1962: A brain operation was performed under hypnosis in Indianapolis.
1970: Milton Erickson, M.D. (1901-1980), was recognized as the leading
authority on clinical hypnosis. Many books have been written on his techniques,
which included the use of therapeutic metaphor - stories.
FAMOUS USERS OF HYPNOSIS: poet Tennyson, composer Mozart, composer Rachmaninov,
writer Geothe, pianist Chopin, inventor Thomas Edison, inventor Nikola Tesla,
manufacturer Henry Ford, physicist Albert Einstein, novelist Aldous Huxley,
prime minister Winston Churchill, psychologist Carl Jung, psychologist Sigmund
Freud, first lady Jackie Kennedy, actor Kevin Costner - and many more.
