That Hypnotism Never Meant Mind-Control

According to its Founder James Braid

Copyright (c) Donald Robertson, 2010.  All rights reserved.

The British Psychological Society published a detailed review of the scientific evidence on hypnotism in 2001 which concludes,

Hypnotic procedures are not in themselves able to cause people to commit acts against their will. However, the demands of the context in which the procedures take place may exert pressure on the subject to comply with the hypnotist’s instructions. (BPS, 2001)

A century and a half earlier, the founder of hypnotherapy, the Scottish surgeon James Braid, had written,

And, finally, the state cannot be induced, in any stage, unless with the knowledge and consent of the party operated on.  In this, hypnotism has an advantage over medicine, for many powerful medicines have been used for criminal purposes and can be administered without the knowledge of the intended victim.  [...]  Moreover, I have proved that no one can be affected at all unless by voluntary compliance, and consequently it has no right to be held as an agency which could be converted to immoral purposes, as many have supposed. [...] I am quite certain no one can be affected by it, in any stage of the process, unless by the free will and consent of the patient which is at once sufficient to exonerate the practice from the imputations of being capable of being converted to immoral purposes, which has been so much insisted on to the prejudice of animal magnetism.  This has arisen from the Mesmerisers asserting that they have the power of overmastering patients irresistibly, even whilst at a distance, by mere volitions and secret passes. (James Braid)

Braid couldn’t make it clearer that he believed, from the outset, that hypnotism required the initial voluntary compliance of the hypnotic subject.  He defined hypnosis as focused attention upon a single expectant idea or train of thought, which obviously entails the conscious collaboration of the subject in most cases.  Although he did not use this phrase, which is common among hypnotherapists today, Braid very clearly believed that “All hypnosis is self-hypnosis.”  Braid also makes it clear that the notion that hypnotism has something to do with mind-control is a complete misconception due to the popular tendency to confuse hypnotism with the (pseudoscientific) claims of Mesmerism, its historical rival.  Braid developed hypnotism out of a critique of Mesmerism, and in opposition to it, so the two things cannot be equated and most of the modern fallacies about hypnosis stem from the fact that comics, movies, and stage performers, tend to conflate Mesmerism and hypnotism for dramatic effect, thereby confusing and misleading their audiences, not to mention many ill-informed hypnotherapists.