A Critical History of Hypnotism: The Unauthorized Story

By Saul Marc Rosenfeld

Despite more than two centuries of having tacitly recognized its enormous potential utility, the phenomenon of hypnosis has always been commonly regarded with outright Fear and Loathing.
How is it possible that something as beneficial to humanity as hypnosis ever came to be viewed in such a horrible manner?

I intend to show that the history of hypnotism provides us with the clue to this unfortunate legacy; and I've neither spared anyone's feelings nor pulled any punches in this quest to reveal the shamefully appalling level of incompetence and ignorance that has characterized the (mis)use of this phenomenon since its discovery by Mesmer more than two hundred years ago.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 28, 2008
• ISBN: 9781477177167

Saul Marc Rosenfeld

The author is a European-trained hypno-therapist (now retired) who graduated in 1983 from the "Institute for Applied Hypnosis" (Instituut Voor Toegepaste Hypnose) in Amsterdam, Holland. After exclusively devoting more than twelve years of his life to researching most of the English, Dutch, German and French literature of the past two centuries on the subject, he embarked upon a unique mission: to uncover and reveal, for the very first time, the true reason why hypnotism has always been almost universally regarded by both the public as well as health care professionals in such a negative fashion.

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Copyright © 2008 by Saul Marc Rosenfeld.

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To the memory of my loving mother Dina,

as well as to my wife Anita and stepdad William Block,

for their constant encouragement

and support throughout the years.

Contents

FOREWORD

AUTHOR’S NOTE

PREFACE

PART I

The Authoritarian Approach

Chapter     1             Early Mesmerism

                  2             Braid and Hypnotism

                  3             Stage Hypnosis

                  4             Salpêtrière School

                  5             Nancy School

                  6             Freud and Hypnotism

PART II

The Standardized Approach

Chapter     7             Subject Characteristics

                  8             Susceptibility Scales

                  9             Phenomena of Hypnosis

                  10           The Image Problem

                  11           Hypnotic Depth

                  12           Depth and Suggestion

                  13           Interpersonal Factor

                  14           Communicational Factor

                  15           Emotional Factor

                  16           Motivational Factor

                  17           Modifi able Factor

                  18           Time Factor

                  19           Instant Hypnosis

                  20           Gadgets

                  21           Drug Hypnosis

                  22           Summary and Conclusion

PART III

Epilogue: The Utilization Approach

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth, from the laziness that is content with half-truths, from the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth, O God of truth, deliver us.

—ancient prayer

FOREWORD

I’d be the last person to deny that this is an extremely controversial book.

In fact, even the title was designed to give readers fair warning by emphasizing both the words CRITICAL, and UNauthorized.

What’s more, simply calling it controversial is probably not sufficient because that word doesn’t just pertain to the nature of its contents, but is equally descriptive of the highly, shall we say, irreverent style which I deliberately chose to employ.

This style could not be in sharper contrast to the usual dry tone in which works of a scholarly nature are invariably written. So why, you may ask, did I even attempt it? Because I believe that it’s one thing to be scholarly and another to be soporific; and it would be hard to deny that when it comes to the subject of hypnotism, authors all too often prefer to present their findings in the numbing language of experimental psychology—as though fed through some nefarious jargon enhancement machine that transforms a simple word or concept like suggestion into something horrid such as perceptual cognitive restructuring (a mouthful that has yet to catch on).

Needless to say, I am not alone in that assessment. This sentiment was also shared by Kay F. Thompson—the person who heartily agreed to write the foreword to my book, but who, sadly, passed away several years before its completion.

Dr. Thompson was internationally recognized as being one of the world’s foremost authorities on hypnotism—having been a past president of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis, a good friend and close associate of Milton Erickson for almost thirty years, and a highly successful practitioner in her own right. We started corresponding way back in 1985, and when she invited me to be her guest at the Thirty-sixth Annual Conference of the ASCH in Philadelphia in 1994, I gave her a preliminary draft of this book and asked for an honest no-holds-barred opinion.

The following critique appeared in her letter of March 22, 1994, which accompanied my manuscript upon its return:

I REALLY like it!! . . . I think you have done such an exhaustive historical and relevant analysis of hypnosis that people cannot not be impressed.

It is an incredible achievement—comprehensive, thorough and objective in the historical perspective. The fun part of your interjection of the tongue-in-cheek humor is what makes it so different from the usual tome, and piques the interest of the reader… You keep things in perspective, and give the reader a scholarly view and an objective one at the same time. I cannot help but be impressed at the encyclopedic volume of reading/researching it represents!

Ah yes, the encyclopedic volume of reading/researching it represents.

As far as that goes, I’ve had the rare luxury of being able to devote more than twelve years of my life to the single-minded pursuit of devouring hundreds upon hundreds of books and periodicals which I purchased on hypnotism, suggestion, and related topics for my own private collection, as well as having the opportunity to peruse, at my leisure, ancient archives of the major libraries in Holland (where I resided for many years).

You can only imagine my astonished delight when I was informed by the curator of the Royal Library of The Hague that I was the first person in almost two hundred years to have ever bothered withdrawing a number of particularly obscure Dutch language works on hypnotism (or rather, dierlijk magnetisme as it was then called). I felt so privileged to have had this unique distinction that I was inspired to broaden and deepen my research even further by combing through the archives of Leiden University’s copious medical library—where I was able to unearth several other totally forgotten works from the distant past. Works, I might add, which had never before been rendered into the English tongue.

All the while, I continued fanatically collecting a vast array of English, French, German, and Dutch literature on the subject; and though I myself am only fluent in English and Dutch, my wife happens to be fluent in French and German as well and was fortunately both able and willing to translate select passages from those sources for inclusion in this work.

Throughout the years, I’ve always tried to keep in mind the old lawyers’ adage that a case is won or lost in the preparation, and have consequently taken great pains to ensure that the ideas put forth in this book are supported by an innumerable host of facts which, when taken together, form such a compact web of truth as to wholly baffle the scalpel of doubt (Lombroso).

By the same token, I’m fully confident that my adversaries will, to paraphrase Gibbs, undoubtedly be tripped up by the collapsing weight of their own double-talk.

In fact, gentle reader, I can safely assure you that even the likes of Johnnie Cochran or Robert Shapiro wouldn’t relish having me as opposing council if this one came to court!

Which is not to say that I won’t be thoroughly vilified and scorned by the powers that be in the traditional hypnosis establishment for daring to tell it like it is. Because I too have neither spared anyone’s feelings nor pulled any punches in this quest to reveal the shamefully appalling level of incompetence and ignorance that has characterized the (mis)use of this phenomenon since its discovery by Mesmer more than two centuries ago.

Yes, indeed, that could spell trouble for me, but no matter. For unlike other hypnosis investigators, I am in the enviable position of being a free agent.

I am beholden to no one, and have not been constrained in the slightest by an affiliation to any particular organization, society, or school.

I have no hidden agenda or vested interest in the outcome of this battle, and am fully aware that I will almost certainly never realize anything even remotely approaching a suitable financial reward for my efforts.

As a matter of fact, even if this book were to become a runaway best seller (which, for a scholarly work on hypnotism, would be roughly equivalent to the odds of winning both the grand prize in the Powerball lottery and the Triple Crown on the same day!), I would still not recoup even a fraction of the great personal expense that I’ve lovingly invested in this project over the course of so many years.

I’m talking, my friend, about thousands of unreimbursed, nonrefundable, unsponsored, non-tax-exempt man-hours.

What’s more, I neither teach courses, give demonstrations, nor attend seminars.

I am not, and nor will I ever be, part of any lecture circuit.

Nor, for that matter, will I ever be involved in any commercial enterprise having to do with hypnosis.

Quite simply, I have no interest in such things and am, fortunately enough, in no way financially dependent on that prospect.

But does that mean I seek no recognition whatsoever for all my efforts? Hardly!

What would please me immensely would be to one day become known by insiders as the outlaw scholar or rogue historian of hypnotism.

Or perhaps the whistle-blower, gadfly, loose cannon, or (best of all?) self-appointed scourge of traditional hypnosis.

What would really please me the most, however, would be if this book had sufficient impact to once and for all break the regrettable pattern of false leads and dead ends that has plagued the science from the start, and to finally accomplish more than simply making the institution of hypnotism shudder for a brief instant, then right itself and resume its age-old course.

An institution that, of itself, essentially just continues not to improve because the traditionalists defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance (Burke).

It’s hardly a secret that the track record so far has been nothing to brag about, and I’ve resigned myself to the fact that this will be an uphill battle all the way.

But the future of this science is ultimately in your hands now, gentle reader; and as for me, well, all that remains to be said is

Feci quod potui faciant meliora potentes.

(I did the best I could; let those who can, do better.)

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Far be it from me to tell anyone how to read this book. However, if you’ll allow me to offer just two (very!) helpful suggestions, then I’d highly recommend that, in the interest of greater clarity and continuity, you first read it through without consulting any of the notes and then go back and read it a second time, at your leisure, together with the notes.

I expended much extra time and effort specifically designing it this way in order to give you the best of both worlds, because I’m certain that trying to absorb the voluminous amount of information presented in the thirty-nine notes the first time around would undoubtedly diminish your reading pleasure.

By the same token, I’d suggest that you also place a bookmark in the NOTES section, so that you’ll be able to quickly flip back and forth between the main text and the corresponding note without having to search for your place again every single time.

PREFACE

Suppose that there were no word or concept such as hypnosis, and that psychologists then discovered a technique whereby important aspects of a person’s belief system could be radically modified, for brief periods, by particular verbal inputs. Clearly, such a startling procedure would be seen to have to have the greatest of significance.

—McReynolds in Sheehan and Perry,

1976, p. 269

Indeed, you’d think the universal response to such a momentous discovery would be one of profound delight, while surely even that reaction would pale before the excitement caused by the finding that people who were hypnotized could sometimes learn to regulate involuntary bodily functions like circulation, markedly accelerate the healing process, or (once again—by means of simple speech) be helped to reduce chronic intractable pain.

It was, after all, the stuff Nobel prizes were made of, and it’s not very likely that the implications would have been lost on anyone.

Back here on earth, however, it seems that despite more than two centuries of having tacitly recognized its enormous potential utility, the phenomenon of hypnosis has commonly been regarded with outright Fear and Loathing.

Instead of hypnotists being looked upon as gentle, benevolent, Albert Schweitzer-type healers, they’ve invariably been characterized rather as sinister, Rasputin-like villains with dark, piercing eyes; a penetrating, merciless stare; and a powerful, domineering will.

In fact, the popular reaction to the whole subject of trance was perhaps best captured by Estabrooks and Gross’ (1961) candid observation that, to many people, the very word hypnosis still evokes a whole series of lurid visions more properly associated with tales of horror, murder, and creatures that walk by night. (p. 88)

What I wanted to know was: how did it ever come to this, for crying out loud? How is it possible that something as potentially beneficial to humanity as hypnosis ever came to be regarded in such a horrible manner?

I intend to show that the history of hypnotism provides us with the clue to this unfortunate legacy. You see, the one common denominator found all throughout mankind’s two-hundred-plus-year investigation of trance has been this image problem—the universal perception that hypnosis is a sinister force capable of overpowering the minds of hapless subjects.

As will be revealed in the following chapters, that’s the way people have always tended to regard the phenomenon—whether back in Mesmer’s time in the later 1700s, all throughout the course of the nineteenth century, and, as everyone reading this is probably aware of, during most of the twentieth as well.

Why, to hear Aaronson (1973, p. 93) tell it, even nowadays, though hypnosis appears to have finally gained acceptance as a proper area of scientific study, the word hypnosis continues to evoke disturbing images of illegitimately held power; and researchers in hypnosis must continually justify their morals, motivation, methodology, and conclusions to a degree seldom demanded of researchers in other areas of the behavioral sciences.

Now, if we stop to consider just how great a part this attitude has always played in preventing mankind’s acceptance of the phenomenon, it hardly seems irrelevant to wonder, whatever happened to make our image of trance so consistently disagreeable over the years?

Even more important perhaps is the question of what can still be causing so many people to persist in regarding hypnosis this way.

There is much historical evidence to suggest that the answer to this problem lies in our manner of employing the phenomenon.

PART I

THE AUTHORITARIAN APPROACH

The mere fact that man can produce a kind of slumber in his fellow-man by a few and simple means, is surely not to be confounded with the heap of absurdities attached to it.

—Townshend, 1841, p. 6

With the possible exception of witchcraft or black magic, it’s reasonably certain that most of the procedures still used to induce hypnosis belong to the only art being practiced today much as it was more than a century ago.

A considerable number of practitioners, in other words, are still employing some version or other of what has been termed the authoritarian approach.

This concept was succinctly described by Gilligan (1982) as follows:

The Authoritarian approach emphasizes the power of the hypnotist. This approach, spawned by Mesmer and others, is still explicitly exploited by stage hypnotists and is consequently often the conceptualization held by the uninformed layperson. Even many trained clinicians implicitly adhere to this view, which… involves some powerful and charismatic operator [usually a male] exercising some strange power over some hapless and weak-willed subject [often a female]. In essence, the operator gets the subject to do something he or she wouldn’t ordinarily do [e.g., bark like a dog or stop smoking]. (pp. 87-88, italics mine)

Until quite recently, the history of trance induction was pretty much exclusively a chronicle of this approach—which basically consists of the operator trying to order subjects into trance using challenge suggestions the likes of You cannot open your eyes! You cannot unclasp your hands! etc.

Thanks to the eternal use of this now-I-have-you-in-my-power approach, the myth that hypnotists totally controlled the minds of their (hapless) subjects by some unwholesome means was going to flourish over the years.

But perhaps it’s best to start at the beginning of the story.

As far as that goes, things could hardly have gotten off to a worse start, for the very foundation of hypnotism (once called mesmerism or animal magnetism) was based on mistaken theory, and this was going to be clearly reflected in the development of the induction process.

CHAPTER 1

Dr. Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) is credited with being the first to deliberately employ a systematic procedure for inducing trance. Regrettably enough, however, the nature of his methodology was such that it immediately managed to instill apprehension in most people. Binet and Féré (1888) provide us with the following description of the technique used in his (soon to be notorious) establishment:

Mesmer, wearing a coat of lilac silk, walked up and down amid this palpitating crowd together with D’Eslon and his associates, whom he chose for their youth and comeliness. Mesmer carried a long iron wand with which he touched the bodies of the patients… often, laying aside the wand, he magnetized them with his eyes, fixing his gaze on theirs, or applying his hands to the hypochondriac region and to the lower part of the abdomen. This application was often continued for hours and, at other times, the master made use of passes. He began by placing himself en rapport with his subject… seated opposite . . . foot against foot, knee against knee… (he then) passed his hands all over the patient’s body, beginning with the head, and going down over the shoulders to the feet… he renewed the process again and again . . . [The authors went on to dryly note that] young women were so much gratified by the crisis that they begged to be thrown into it anew; they followed Mesmer through the hall, and confessed that it was impossible not to be warmly attached to the magnetizer’s person. It must have been curious to witness such scenes. (pp.10-11)

Though some called it curious, others preferred horrifying as the adjective most descriptive of their feelings.

Such as the members of the Bailly Commission of 1784, who were delegated by the king of France to investigate and report on Mesmer’s discovery. Although these gentlemen concluded in their widely circulated Rapport (Bailly, J.S., ed., Rapport des commissaires chargés par le roi de l’examen du magnétisme animal, Paris, Imprimerie Royale, 1784) that the phenomenon of magnetism was merely a product of the imagination, of no use to men of science, and of no value in therapy, it seems that there was more to this business than they were prepared to openly discuss. The commissioners’ private objections, in fact, happened to be almost entirely based on the offensive nature of the induction process.

As they nervously informed the king in a privately issued Secret Rapport (Bailly, J.S., ed., Rapport secret présenté au ministre et signé par la commission précédente, n.p., n.p., 1784):

The long-continued proximity, the necessary contact, the communication of individual heat, the interchange of looks, are ways and means by which it is well known that nature ever effects the communication of the sensations and the affections… the reciprocal attraction of the sexes must consequently be excited in all its force. It is not surprising that the senses are inflamed. (ibid, pp. 19-20)

Nor should it have been particularly surprising that such tactics were prone to misinterpretation.

In that respect, Voltelen (1791), head of the Dutch medical faculty at Leiden University, would echo the sympathies of his French colleagues when he asked,

Who, pray tell, can imagine that women—graced with the most delicate of feelings—won’t be harmed when the operator, with a pensive expression, fixates his eyes on those of the sufferer, and then with a soft and ticklish, then with a firmly pressing hand, rubs and caresses (her) from the head to the breast, over the abdomen, around the navel and along the thighs; and, by sitting knee to knee, foot to foot, joins himself to her? (p. 76)

[see NOTE 1 on p. 253]

In other words, not only was the use of this technique quite sufficient to poison most people’s minds against the phenomenon itself, but the actual sight of someone performing these odd manipulations was often ludicrous enough to merit scorn in its own right.

To be blunt, the methodology was probably best suitable for instilling ridicule in bystanders.

Sure enough, that reaction had been apparent from the start—as was reflected in an anecdote from Wyckoff (1975, p. 109) illustrating how, at the carnival of 1785, Mesmer was parodied in a float that was carried through the streets of Paris in which a man, dressed like a physician, was seated backward on a donkey facing the tail and kept making strange movements with his hands and arms, obviously in imitation of Mesmer, to the pedestrians as they passed.

In short, it appears that the world’s very first induction procedure managed to be both ethically and aesthetically objectionable, and though it hardly seems possible, matters were soon going to deteriorate even further.

*    *    *

As if Mesmer’s methodology hadn’t been damaging enough, in a little while even more emphasis would come to be placed on the notion of an operator’s power to overmaster his subjects. Trance induction was becoming increasingly regarded as a process of mental subjugation, and the battle of wills paradigm was born.

This development can be seen in the following instructions from Debay (ca. 1840), who belonged to the second generation of Mesmer’s followers:

The operator stares fixedly into the eyes of his subject, and powerfully directs the stream of his Will towards her. This… encounters no resistance in the subject’s exhausted brain… It penetrates that organ—replacing the Will of the subject—and settles itself, so to speak, as a new master in his new lodging. (p. 302)

[see NOTE 2 on p. 275]

Sounds convincing. But in practice, things didn’t always go quite so smoothly.

In fact, what happened to the author Balzac was really much more typical of what usually took place. An eyewitness (in Dingwall 1967, 3:142) described how, in the summer of 1838, Balzac attempted to demonstrate his magnetic powers on his valet as follows:

Scowling in a frightful way like one who was possessed, Balzac pointed at him and made waving passes with his hands while panting and sweating because of his intense concentration of mind and body—but in vain. He then repeated the attempt on a subject who was supposedly more suited to the process, namely, a hunchbacked dwarf named Gattino, but with the same lack of success. After several such attempts, however, Gattino began to show a more stupid expression than usual, his mouth gaping and eyelids drooping in a gloomy silence. Balzac became irritated by the lack of attention paid by Rajberti, who was reading a book, and stamped on the floor in agitation. Rajberti then hastened to ask the dwarf if he’d slept (e.g., had been hypnotized), to which Gattino replied more awake than ever, but that he was just about to go to sleep.

Not surprisingly, Balzac was no longer heard to speak of magnetism.

And he wasn’t the only one.

The continuing employment of such objectionable (not to mention ineffectual) tactics as bug-eyed glaring, seductive passes and ominous gesticulations was going to ensure that the phenomenon would continue to be associated with this image of sinister and/or comical authoritarian weirdness.

By the mid-1800s in fact, mesmerism had practically become a synonym for all that was low and contemptible; and as far as official recognition of trance was concerned, Ray (1950) accurately portrayed the trend when writing, Science would have none of it, wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. Utterly repudiating mesmerism, science cast it to the charlatans. (p. 97)

The author (ibid, p. 100) went on to note how it soon degenerated into a parlour game, a vaudeville trick, a scandal, which the scientific establishment then tossed, like an uncut diamond, into the gutter.

As Townshend (1841) sadly concluded,

Such are the causes which have condemned mesmerism to lie beating, like a wreck, on the shore of substantial knowledge. The vessel, in itself, was beautiful and well built, but adverse currents turned it from its course, and by many a storm its sails were rent, and its noble frame was shattered… All the circumstances which are unfavorable to mesmerism end in one fatal word—contempt. Everything tends to raise a laugh at its expense—and against a laugh who shall have the courage to contend? This is the last possible degradation. Men love the mysterious… but shrink from the ridiculous; they can bear to be thought wicked, but not to be deemed fools; they will endure to be hated, but not to be despised. Now mesmerism has become not merely a persecuted but a ridiculous faith… There is no dignity in suffering (for) such a cause. (pp. 32-33)

Slowly but surely, it seems that mankind was being inadvertently conditioned to sneer at the very thought of a trance state, just as surely as Pavlov’s dogs would one day be trained to salivate to the bell.

CHAPTER 2

Despite this dismal scenario, an incredible opportunity to make a fresh start would arise in 1843 when, after decades of cheap exploitation by traveling stage mesmerists, a Scottish physician named James Braid decided to seriously investigate the phenomenon of magnetism and adopted the term hypnotism with which to denote it.

As far as this change in terminology went, Hudson (1893/1920) would shrewdly observe how

it had received many names before Braid undertook the task of re-christening it; but… each was objectionable… The name mesmerism was obviously improper… Animal magnetism implied Mesmer’s theory of magnetic currents… and electro-biology was American, and not to be tolerated. But when Braid denominated it hypnotism . . . it was hailed as a compromise sufficiently noncommital to entitle it to recognition, and hypnotism it will be called until some academician drags to light the ultimate cause of all things. (pp. 87-88)

In addition to cleverly rechristening the phenomenon, Braid also provided a physiological theory for trance induction (overexcitation of the optic nerve), which was far more palatable to the scientific community than the mystical theories of the magnetists.

But his attempt to create an equally suitable methodology for inducing hypnosis left much to be desired, and the reason for that is not hard to discern.

You see, Braid’s formula for this consisted of little more than telling his subjects to think only of sleep while having them stare at a bright object (usually his lancet case) that would be placed in a position to cause the greatest possible strain upon the eyes, and this tactic of fixed gazing at bright objects had already been known in bygone times by the name fascination.

Even a brief look at the roots of Braidian fixation will show that there was nothing really original about this version except for his telling the subjects to think of sleep.

As DuPrel (1890/1921) explained,

While the magnetists produced this artificial sleep by means of passes, and because Braid had his subjects stare at shining objects, one might assume that he was the discoverer of this… such, however, was not the case… His predecessor was the infamous Cagliostro, who produced… unconsciousness by having them stare at mirrored surfaces. This by the way was also an ancient art of sorcerers. (p. 170)

In other words, Braid’s methodology of fixed gazing had, in times past, always been associated with the likes of magicians and sorcerers and their reputation of diabolical, occult power.

[see NOTE 3 on p. 280]

*    *    *

Not only was his emphasis on this technique therefore most unfortunate, but it was even debatable if Braid’s hypnotic induction was much of an improvement over the mesmeric, seeing as how his methodology was often responsible for causing some rather unpleasant side effects.

Boekhoudt (1890, p. 79), for instance, complained of how it frequently causes intense headaches and, in addition, the subject sometimes continues to see the glittering object of fixation even after waking.

[see NOTE 4 on p. 291]

And when it came time to awaken his subjects, it appears that Braid’s procedure for that was equally unsuitable.

A colleague of his (in Bramwell 1903) reported how Braid always awoke his subjects from their hypnotic condition by sharply clapping his hands close to the sleeper’s ears, which at once aroused them (p. 466).

While Braid himself (1843/1960) had written, I instantly arouse the patient… by a clap of the hands, an abrupt shock on the arm or leg by striking them sharply with the flat hand, (and) pressure and friction over the eyelids (pp. 128-129).

Considering the ham-fisted nature of these procedures, it’s hardly surprising that some patients woke up with headaches. But a relevant question might be, why was this man in such a rush?

One clue may be found in his remark that Mr. Mayo, one of our best authorities, in a letter to me on this subject, states distinctly that the great reason for its not being more generally introduced into practice was the tediousness of the processes for inducing the condition… He concludes his observations on the subject by the remark, ‘It took up too much time’ (ibid, p. 91).

It was not specified if by too much time he meant more than an hour, thirty minutes, or, for that matter, even ninety seconds.

Nor did Braid see fit to comment on this serious matter of artificially restricting the delicate process of trance induction to the harried schedule and arbitrary demands of impatient practitioners.

This attitude becomes even more inexplicable if one considers the fact that, long before Braid’s day, it had already been recognized that after the first (few) successful sessions, subsequent inductions were invariably both quicker and easier to achieve!

For example, Thouret (in Bake 1791) observed back in the eighteenth century how susceptibility to the stimulus soon becomes, for both sexes, a kind of ‘habit’; for having experienced it once or several times, they need only remember what they felt before in order to excite the imagination enough to produce the very same results. Nor will this be difficult if (the patient) undergoes the same type of manipulations under the same conditions (p. 125).

Despite the fact that countless other investigators would, over the years, also notice this intriguing point (and presumably its implications), it appeared as though no one felt that learning to develop trance capacity was worth the expenditure of much time or effort.

Not even as much time as they casually devoted to learning how to ride a horse.

*    *    *

In any event, while Braid had, for the most part, eliminated the use of bizarre gesticulations and passes from the induction process, he did occasionally employ passes in later years to awaken expectation or to direct attention in his subjects. And the spectacle of those subjects—saucer-eyed and squinting until tears ran down their cheeks—was hardly conducive to creating an appropriate therapeutic image of hypnotism.

The man utterly failed to remove the destructive stigma of authoritarian weirdness that had always been associated with the induction of trance—first the mesmeric, and now the hypnotic.

According to Harte (1903), moreover, Braid

was not by nature a leader of men. He undoubtedly made an important discovery, but he did not follow it up… he did not sally forth to do battle with the world on its behalf… Some of his most marvellous cures were preceded by weeks of ineffectual dosing, blistering, and so on, until he seems to have suddenly remembered that there was such a thing as hypnotism… Braid’s lack of enthusiasm gave the keynote to his followers. (2:147-149)

Whatever dim spark of interest there might have been in hypnotism was quietly allowed to extinguish.

As Harte (ibid) concluded,

Braid left no disciples; he founded no school. Soon after he died (1860) hypnotism was simply the name for a theory of the causes of certain strange phenomena, which some people believed that Braid had produced in a certain strange way. (p. 147)

Strange way was right.

CHAPTER 3

Having missed this golden opportunity to finally attain scientific recognition, hypnotism, just as had mesmerism, soon became more or less relegated to the tawdry domain of the stage operators, where a potent combination of tasteless sensationalism, coupled with extremely authoritative induction tactics, would serve to effectively poison the minds of most everyone against the phenomenon of trance.

To hear Hudson (1893/1920) tell it,

The idea is being very generally promulgated… that the ability of one man to mesmerize or hypnotize another implies the possession of a very dangerous power… It would be strange indeed if the average man were not impressed with an indefinable dread of the power of the hypnotist. He sees him, by means of certain mysterious manipulations, throw his subject into a profound sleep, and awaken him by a snap of the fingers… All this, and much more, can be seen at public exhibitions of hypnotism. (pp. 122-123)

[see NOTE 5 on p. 293]

Not surprisingly, induction tactics were expressly tailored to meet the special requirements of these entertainers, which meant instilling a sense of righteous awe in the audience.

That effect was always best achieved by appearing to totally subdue their subjects.

For example, as a certain Dr. Cook (1901/1950) instructed,

Stand directly in front of the subject, about 5 feet from him; have him stare at you blankly while you assume a fierce expression of determination; raise your hands and separate the fingers; gradually move your hands toward him, and then suddenly seize him by the shoulders and give him a… quick shove backward; rivet your eyes upon his in the greatest earnestness and intensity. If this method succeeds, the subject will assume a peculiar and unmistakable expression of submission. (p. 259).

Presumably somewhat like that of the legendary Count Dracula’s slack-jawed victims after he’d transfixed them (in a curiously similar manner) with his Evil Eye.

Or consider the methodology of Donato, one of the most active of these traveling hypnotists at the close of the nineteenth century. His favorite induction technique (employed at one time or other on some thirty thousand subjects) made use of both fascination and a bizarre derivative that was known as attraction.

Wynaendts Francken (1902) described its manifestation as follows:

The subject becomes paralyzed in his will, follows the operator everywhere, and slavishly imitates his every movement… (Donato) had the subjects press the palms of their hands against his; he then applied downward force while at the same time, and with a penetrating stare from his bulging eyes, ordered them to lock gazes with him. While doing this, he whirled around the subject or forced him backwards, until he felt that that one would offer him no more resistance… While all this was taking place, his subjects exhibited a taut, staring demeanor, wide-open eyes, a look devoid of all expression, and contorted facial features. (pp. 20-21)

The mind reels at the low-rent horror of it all.

For all intents and purposes, it appeared as if open season had been declared on anyone who was either foolhardy or naïve enough to offer themselves as a volunteer. And generally, by the end of each performance, even the most liberal boundaries of common decency had been ruthlessly and shamefully violated.

What the audience got to witness, from that first barked order (Sleep!) to the last imperious command (Awaken!), was an elegantly staged but contemptible illusion of raw power, of total mind control.

As de Laurence (1901/1925) advised his