Hypnotherapy and Intuitive Hypnosis (eBook)

The history of hypnosis

Hypnosis is an age-old therapeutic technique, which was used by all the great civilizations of humanity. In fact, even the Sumer, the oldest known civilization has been known to have used hypnosis since the 4th millennium BC! Indeed archaeological research has brought to light excerpts from the works of the famous priesthood school of Erech, according to which, the practicing doctors used hypnotic suggestions as a means of treatment for the while the patients were asleep. We should note here that they ranked hypnosis according to three stages: light, medium and heavy. In India, hypnotherapy for treating diseases was particularly popular. Besides, even in our days, the school of Yoga teaches a plethora of self-projective techniques leading to complete relaxation and meditation for higher truths! In the same manner, the Egyptian priest – healers practiced hypnotic techniques. According to the Ebers scroll, a very popular hypnotic technique was the following: the priests held in front of the patient’s eyes shiny objects, such as a golden disc, so as to tire them and force them to close. By means of the other-suggestion, they tried not only to diagnose the disease but also cure it. Ancient Greece could not be an exception in this medical practice. As was the case in all other scientific sectors, the Greeks developed it even further. It is perhaps enough to stress that the Greek priest-healers practiced the inducement of trance for medical reasons even during the first Christian centuries, particularly in the Asclepeions. To be successful, they used suggestion while their patients were in deep sleep. They were able to activate inner powers of self-suggestion which could lead to self-healing. For those patients that could neither dream nor be hypnotised, the priests took up the role of the medium, re-establishing contact with the god Asclepius1. But also, Pythia’s oracles at Delphi were due to a hypnotic trance she was induced into while she breathed in, sitting on a tripod, the vapours that escaped from a crack on the ground.

Christianity never officially accepted hypnosis as a means to prophesise or heal. But since the 16th century, the study of ancient sources has favoured researching the phenomenon, which however is now conducted on the basis of scientific observation. Paracelsus2 mentions that the monks of his time healed patients by forcing them to look at shiny spheres. They thus were induced into a hypnotic trance and the monks proceeded with the proper suggestions. The first observer who by means of experiments understood that apart from humans, animals could also be hypnotised was the mathematician N. Schwender. In 1636 he observed that he could hypnotise a chicken if he placed a piece of wood in front of its beak. He validated therefore whatever was already referred to in a multitude of folklore fables and fairytales, themselves the results of age-old observations of nature by almost every people on earth. A classic example is the hypnotic look of the snake cast upon its unwilling victim.

The Swiss doctor Frantz Anton Mesmer3 (1734 – 1815) who had his practice in Vienna, is considered by the historians to be the first theorist of hypnosis. He was the first to support the claim, circa 1766, that there is an animal magnetism (magnetismus animalis) across the whole universe, which impacts on people’s health.

Abbé de Faria, a contemporary of Mesmer, will be the first to use repeated phrases to induce suggestion to his patients, like the particularly laconic command ‘sleep’. A few decades later, the famous Swiss magneticist La Fontaine with the Englishman James Braid4 performed real miracles by using the hypnotic method and magnetism. It is worth noting that the oculist Braid started on his experiments because he wanted to invalidate La Fontaine’s theory. Not only did he validate it, but he was the first to use the Greek word ‘hypnotism’ to describe the phenomenon under study in his book ‘Neuro-hypnology’ (1843).

In 1865, a revolution takes place in surgery with the discovery of chloroform. This anaesthetic set aside all hypnotic techniques, which were the only available then antidote to pain. Even so, two great schools of hypnosis are founded almost then in France, those of Nancy and Salpêtrière.

The Nancy school was founded by doctor A.A. Liebault6, and the famous University professor H. Bernheim5 . This school had a determining role in re-introducing hypnosis for medical reasons because hypnosis re-entered medicine. Liebault was particularly interested in hypnosis, which he used to treat his patients. Around 1883, Liebault declares that sleep and hypnosis do not differ as states but only on the fact that during the latter, the person under hypnosis maintains contact with the hypnotist, while Bernheim concludes in 1884 after years of studies that ‘the phenomenon of suggestion is not due to magnetism (Mesmer), nor to hypnotism (Braid), nor induced sleep (Liebault)n but has to do with a natural function of the brain which can be activated even during sleep’.

The school of the Paris Hospital La Salpêtrière was founded by the doctor in chief and professor of pathological anatomy Jean Martin Charcot7 . It was different from the Nancy school because Charcot applied hypnotic techniques on the mentally ill, while the Nancy school did the same on healthy patients. The influence he commanded was great which was due to the fact that he often organised lectures open to the wider public.

Charcot was primarily concerned with the movements and reflexes of the hypnotised, while, being a neurologist, he ignored the psychological factor in his patients. Even so, he is credited as being the man who re-introduced the method of hypnosis in medical procedures.

One of the greatest figures of the 20th century, Sigmund Freud, worked for 19 months (1885) under Charcot. Along with his associate Broyer, they applied a technique called ‘Katharsis’ yet on an experimental stage.

Particularly significant has been the contribution of the English Paranormal Investigations Company, headed by Dr. M. Branwell, who in 1903 published the classic study of hypnosis under the title ‘Hypnotism: its practice and theory’. The usefulness of hypnosis according to the above author is due to the fact that apart from the analgesic effect on the person under hypnosis, it is particularly useful for research into the paranormal.

During the 1920s, a true ‘phenomenal’ researcher on metaphysics, Edgar Cayce 8 was able to cure crowds of patients from a distance under hypnosis.

Milton Erikson9 is considered another great figure of modern hypnosis. During the start of 1930s, he publishes monographs in which he suggests new methods of hypnosis, less authoritarian than those practiced by other psychotherapists at the time. Erickson attributed great importance to the highest possible active participation of the subject in the whole process. His school overshadowed all others to such an extent that not only is he regarded the father of modern hypnosis, but his suggested methods are still applied today!

Another step forward in the hypnosis research was taken in the 1940s by the Swedish psychologist T. Bjorgem. By means of his experiments, with student volunteers as subjects, Dr Bjorgem succeeded via hypnosis, not only to induce regression to childhood, but in many cases to induce regression to past lives. The unusual result of his experiments was sealed by another, quite innovative for his time experience, the post-hypnotic suggestions: he convinced his students about the existence of imaginary persons or things. Only when he decided to snap them out of their illusions of their post-hypnotic effect, all the imaginary creatures disappeared from sight!

In the former Soviet Union, great scientists such as Pavlov11 and Betcherev demonstrated that hypnosis was a clearly psychological phenomenon. The Soviet school in particular has favoured the practical application of hypnotic techniques, not only as a practical medical method but also as a method for espionage! An interesting method of hypnosis was the one practised by the doctor B. Raykov. He managed to convince his patients under hypnosis that during their past times they had been well-known figures of letters and arts. When the patients returned to full consciousness, they exhibited much greater capacity in the particular areas that they had ‘seen’ were capable in their past lives, to such a degree that it is certain they had been self-induced to it.

After World War II, hypnosis becomes common treatment for all those who had gone through horrific experiences, Neuroses linked to terrific scenes were cured to the best possible degree thanks to the method of hypnosis. It should be noted that hypnosis was an officially accepted practice by the famous British Medical Association. The international conferences on hypnosis held in Paris (in 1950 and 1965) are evidence to the height the field reached in Europe. There was an analogous success in the application of hypnosis as a therapeutic method of chronic psychological illnesses in the USA as well. Particularly after the tragic Vietnam war, psychiatrists were faced with thousand of cases of patients who would like to forget their experiences and re-enter American society. Hypnosis has been the most efficient method of treatment and cure of those psychologically fragile patients.

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