by Christa Nwokedi

Created on: November 16, 2009

The history of hypnosis

Hypnosis is a psychological state resembling sleep. The hypnotized individual functions at a level of awareness different from the ordinary consciousness. The state is characterized by increased receptiveness and responsiveness to internal perception and external reality. In a hypnotic state the individual can see, smell, and feel on suggestions of the hypnotist, even if these suggestion are contradicting to the actual stimuli of the environment. The effects of hypnosis are not limited to the sensory perception; change of memory and awareness of self may occur, and alteration effects of suggestions might be extended into the waking state.

The origin of hypnosis dates back to pre-historic times when people employed hypnotic-like methods to alter, or change human behavior using the power of suggestion. These methods were usually deeply rooted in the belief of magical and occult powers, and used for physical and spiritual benefits.

Priests and physicians of ancient Egypt induced sleep-like states in other people; a prominent practice in sleep temples of classical Greece, where worshippers asks Hypnos, the god of sleep, to give them prophetic dreams. Another hypnotic-like method dates back to 2600 BC in China. Wang Tai, the father of Chinese Medicine, described a "medical procedure that applied incantations and mysterious passes of the hands over the patient that leaves no doubt about its hypnotic nature. Hypnotic-like techniques similar to the techniques of modern hypnotherapists practice today were mentioned in the Hindu Vera, about 1500 BC, and the 3,000 years old Ebers papyrus. People of different continents, thousands of years ago, may have known about the strange powers of hypnosis that appeared to be magic, and were use to organize societies and to cure the sick.

The first attempts to provide rational explanations for the causes and cure of diseases began in Europe during the 16th century. The physician and alchemist Paracelsus (1493-1541) was among the first theorists. He suggested that magnets, the sun, the moon, and the star possessed healing energies that influence the human body. Many similar notions motivated physicians, astronomers, physicists, and healers to analyze diseases and invent methods of curing. Maximillian Hell, a Viennese Jesuit, was known for curing patients by applying a steel plate to the bodies of peoples who were sick or diseased, in 1771. The German physician Franz Anton Mesmer demonstrated the healing powers

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