The History of Hypnosis

Hypnosis can be traced back to before written records began. Hypnosis has been around since Man has been on this earth. Do not under estimate the power in the process and secrets you are about to learn.  Hypnosis has been studied for thousands of years and still is held in high regard.

The first written origins can be traced back to before 1000BC. The ancient Egyptians told us about their sleep temples in great detail. The first written hypnosis induction was found written in one of the great pyramids. These temples were places where Priests put worshippers to sleep and suggested that they be cured. The Ancient Egyptians were the first to instruct us in the procedure for hypnotic inductions, these lessons are still used in a lot of our inductions today.

These sleep temples spread over the years finding there way to Greece in the 4^th century BC. The Romans learnt about these sleep temples and made them even more popular and spread them throughout the Roman Empire. It was the Romans who brought sleep temples to Europe and Britain for the first time. One of the biggest sleep temples was at the Roman bathes in Bath. A visit to the Bathes is a must if you are ever in the area.

In these years of sleep temples and suggestion therapy, most of the practices involved where kept a close secret and only passed down from family to family or Priest to Priest. Because the people who held the secrets to these therapies were held in such high regard by the people around them they were very reluctant to pass on any of their secrets. Even hundreds of years ago these hypnotherapists made their living from the practice.

Throughout history it has been well documented about witch doctors, shaman and medicine men in all cultures, it is also documented as early as the 1^st century AD about the procedure of “laying on of hands” and its magic healing powers. These were all forms of hypnosis and healing.

It is not until recent history, from the 1600’s, that hypnosis has been written about and experimented with and today it is still not fully known exactly how and why these suggestions work or how the mind works to make these suggestions so powerful. But it is so powerful that it is being taught to doctors at university.

The term “Hypnosis” was introduced by Dr James Braid (around 1840) and was derived from the Greek “hypnos” which meant the god of sleep. He also introduced the terms “hypnotist” and “suggestion”.  He later tried to change the word “hypnosis” as he believed it was misleading and technically incorrect (hypnosis is not sleep). Unfortunately it had already gained popularity and stuck, even to this day. Even in the 1800’s hypnosis was used as entertainment and a hypnotherapist would almost have a cult following.

James Braid

In the late 1800s, Sigmund Freud became interested in hypnosis and spent time learning more about it. He later abandoned it in favour of psychoanalysis, although most experts agree that his free association techniques were hypnosis by another name. Sigmund then spent a number of years telling any one who would listen that hypnosis did not work and was just a trick of the mind. The rumours of the time said that he was not any good at hypnosis that’s why he did not have a good word to say about it.

In recent history, the Germans in World War I used hypnosis for pain control when they run out of anaesthetic. It was also used very successfully during and after both world wars for the treatment of shell shock.

Today hypnosis has been recognised by the American Medical Association as well as the British Medical Association and although it has had a lot of set backs over the years, mainly due to the bad publicity of stage hypnosis, today hypnosis is routinely used to help with all kinds of ailments. Even the medical profession has started to see the benefit of hypnosis, trainee doctors are now taught a whole term about hypnosis in their university training.

 Hypnosis has now becoming so popular that it now goes under many different names such as relaxation therapy, meditation, reframing, time line therapy and visualization and is now gaining more and more credibility.