Braid on Hypnotism, Childbirth and Infants

Excerpts from The Discovery of Hypnosis: The Complete Writings of James Braid, The Father of Hypnotherapy (2009).

www.James-Braid.com

Hydro-Hypnotism of Infants

The following method of producing and prolonging sleep at will – which may be designated hydro-hypnotism – is adopted by the peasantry residing among the Himalaya Mountains.  An aged female is generally appointed to watch a number of infants whilst their mothers are engaged out of doors in agricultural labours. The infants are wrapped up like little mummies, laid on their backs arranged in a semicircle, and from a number of small spouts, a little of water is made to fall upon and flow over the head of each infant. The natives believe that this process strengthens the children, and makes them hardy. However this may be, it appears to be a most effectual method of sending them into a state of sleep and quietude, for, at page 272 of Lloyd and Gerard’s Travels, they state, as eye-witness of the fact, frequently seen by them, “The most refractory imp, when tied up, let it yell never so loud, will, when the stream has for a few seconds bathed its head, fall into a most noiseless slumber.”

First Reported Hypnotic Childbirth

The following is another highly interesting case of the influence of mental impression changing physical action. The patient was one of those subjects who pass into the second-conscious state of hypnotism, and had been cured by hypnotism of paralysis, both of sense and motion, of one side of the head and face. The following effect of the expectant idea, however, relates to what occurred when she was in the waking condition. This patient, Mrs –––, was the mother of three living children, the last of which was a cross birth, delivery being accomplished with great difficulty. The two subsequent births were of largely developed children, both still-born, both having been shoulder presentations, the labour far advanced, and the shoulder and arm advanced within the pelvis before medical assistance arrived. Upon careful examination of the bones of the pelvis of this patient, it was clearly ascertained that there was such advancement forward, and depression of the promontory of the sacrum and lumbar vertebrae, as to preclude the hope of her ever giving birth to a full-sized living child; and, therefore, when she again became pregnant, I explained how matters stood to her husband, as well as to the patient, and recommended that premature labour should be induced, as affording the only chance of her bearing another living child, and as affording the greatest safety, moreover, for the mother. Both parties were perfectly satisfied to abide by my decision on this point, so that I was to consider myself at perfect liberty to act in the matter as I thought best, both as to the method to be adopted for accomplishing such purpose, and also in regard to the time when I was to induce premature labour. About two weeks beyond the seventh month was the period which I had fixed on for inducing labour. I had seen the patient a few days before this period, and found her in excellent health, experiencing no inconvenience of any sort. I told her that in three or four days I intended to do something for her to bring on labour as had previously been agreed upon should be done. She was quite agreeable to this proposal, and seemed to entertain no anxiety whatever on the subject. In two days thereafter, however, I was sent for to the patient, and ascertained that the mere mental impression had been sufficient to bring on labour, for the os uteri was not only fully dilated, but, as in the three former labours, the shoulder was presenting. In this case, from the small size of the infant, I was enabled with great ease to turn and deliver the mother of a living child.

Lactation Induced by Hypnotism

Having told a gentleman that the expectant idea in the mind of a patient was quite adequate to produce a corresponding change in the physical function of any organ or part of the body to which it was directed, he expressed his incredulity. I asked him if his wife was not then nursing, to which he replied she was; and I therefore offered to prove my position, if he chose, by causing an increased flow of milk to come into ONE of her breasts, by directing her attention particularly to that breast during the sleep. This gentleman’s wife had been a patient of mine some eight months previously, and was then cured of violent headaches by hypnotism; and I knew she was one of those subjects who pass into the second-conscious or full state, and upon whom the power of suggestion manifests its greatest influence. The lady was sent for, and asked if she had any objections to being hypnotised, for her husband to have an opportunity of seeing her in that state. She readily gave her assent, and whilst standing on her feet, I held my lancet case over her head, in my usual way, and requested her to gaze upon it, and speedily her eyelids closed, with the twitter peculiar to the hypnotic sleep. After she had remained in this state a little while, I gently drew the tips of my fingers two or three times over the left mamma, when the patient slowly raised her left arm towards her breast. I then inquired “What is it?” To which she replied “Baby.” “What about baby?” To which she answered, “Oh this is so tight,” pointing to her left breast. In this state I allowed her to remain for a few minutes, her mind riveted to the idea of her baby, and the fullness of her breast. With a clap of my hands I now aroused the patient, who had no recollection whatever of anything said or done when she was asleep.  I asked if any part of her body felt different from its usual condition. To which she replied, pointing to the left breast, “This breast feels very tight.” I asked her what had made it so. To this she replied, she could not tell, but that it felt so. Her husband now remarked, “That is what Mr. Braid said he would do – he said he would bring a rush of milk into it.” To this the lady replied, “That will be no easy matter, for my baby is fourteen months old, and I have scarcely any milk.” I requested her to bring baby and try, as I felt assured that now there would be no lack of milk in that breast. The baby was applied to that breast, and, notwithstanding he was fourteen months old, the flow of milk was so copious that it nearly choked him.

A few days thereafter this lady complained that I had disfigured her, as I had made her over-protuberant on the left side. I said I can soon settle that matter, for, by putting you to sleep again, I can take it down as readily as it was increased in size during former sleep. She most willingly assented to this, but when she was asleep, instead of taking it down (which a suggested idea to that effect would have done), I acted on the other breast in precisely the same manner as on the left breast, and with precisely similar results. The most important point, however, still remains to be told – viz., that although her child was fourteen months old, and before being hypnotised she complained of having had very little milk, these hypnotic processes had given such a stimulus to the mamma, that this lady was enabled to continue to suckle her child from an overflowing breast for six months longer.  [Hence, Braid appears to have enlarged both breasts by inducing lactation, and the child was breast-fed until it was a year and eight months old.]

Letter to The Medical Times (1847)

Excerpt from The Discovery of Hypnosis: The Complete Writings of James Braid[This small study could be considered to show, at best, either 30% or 60% “success” for Esdaile’s Mesmeric anaesthesia, depending on whether subjects who acted as if suffering pain but denied feeling pain can be counted as positive outcomes. Arguably, this is not a high success rate and conceivably within the potential range of a placebo anaesthetic. Either way it probably does not prove the efficacy of Esdaile’s specific method, but perhaps does suggest, as now seems likely, that non-specific factors (as found in placebo control group outcomes) might be expected to reduce pain.]

Facts & Observations as to the relative Value of Mesmeric and Hypnotic Coma, and Ethereal Narcotism, for the Mitigation or entire Prevention of Pain during Surgical Operations.

James Braid, M.R.C.S.E., etc.[…] The remarkable success of Dr. Esdaile, in India, was well calculated to arrest attention; and in an able article on the subject, in the British and Foreign Review, for October last, the author avows, as the result of a dispassionate consideration of the amount of evidence on the subject, together with the known influence of certain processes on the nervous system, that the time has arrived when it is the duty of the medical profession to test the matter fully and fairly.Inasmuch as this subject has been fairly tested last September, at Calcutta, before a committee appointed for the purpose, by the Government, I have thought it might be interesting to many of your readers to have the results of the investigation laid before them, so that they may compare the said results with those of the operations performed during the ethereal narcotism, so many interesting examples of which have lately appeared in The Medical Times. [….]My own experience of hypnotism, or Mesmerism was this, that in many cases of highly susceptible subjects, by proper management, they could be reduced to such condition as would enable them to undergo severe surgical operations without their manifesting the slightest symptoms of consciousness or pain during the sleep or nervous coma; and they would have no recollection of such awaking; that, in other cases, they might manifest physical indications of suffering pain during the artificially-induced sleep, but have no recollection of it after awaking; and that, in other cases there might be consciousness of what was being done whilst little or no pain was experienced by them. It always appeared to me, however, that a great drawback existed to these processes becoming generally available for such purposes, from the great length of time which was required in many cases to render the patients susceptible of going so deep into the sleep as is requisite to secure a complete immunity from pain, and especially so if they went into the sleep with the idea on their minds that the operation was to be performed there and then. In most cases it must have been necessary to put the patient repeatedly into the sleep, and to conceal from him the particular time when the operation was really intended to be performed – leading the patient, in fact, to expect it was to be done on some future day. Then, again, a considerable number of those who are susceptible of the influence to an extent sufficient for the cure of disease would not, even with all the above precautions, be readily reduced into the profound unconscious state requisite to ensure complete immunity from pain during surgical operations.Such was my personal experience, and for these reasons I considered Mesmerism and hypnotism far less available for such purposes with British subjects, than for the relief and cure of various forms of disease. The success of Dr. Esdaile, however, with Hindoos and Mohamedans, seems to have been very great; but still the objection as to the length of time required would be felt to be a serious inconvenience even with such subjects, compared with the rapidity with which the desired ethereal narcotism can be induced. Many individuals, for example, are not possessed of those physical and mental qualities requisite to secure entire success by the hypnotic and Mesmeric processes; and comparatively few could be reduced into the state, provided they chose to resist complying with the conditions required. […]But to return to Dr. Esdaile’s operations performed during Mesmeric coma. It is well-known to your readers that the doctor published a book last summer, detailing his great success [i.e., Mesmerism in India, and its Practical Application in Surgery and Medicine, 1846], of which cases you published a considerable number in The Medical Times. I shall not, therefore, now advert to the cases published in that volume, but confine any remarks and quotations to the cases operated on by him in presence of the committee above referred to, as your readers must feel assured they were not likely to afford the new heresy any special favour; and the following names will be sufficient guarantee as to the respectability and fitness of the individuals for the task imposed upon them by the Governor:–

The committee consisted of James Atkinson, Inspector-General of Hospitals, as chairman; Evelyn N. Gordon; D. Stewart, Presidency Surgeon; James Hulme; J. Jackson, Surgeon to the Native Hospital; A. Rodgers; W. B. O’Shaughnessy, M.D., F.R.S., secretary to the committee. The second, fourth, and sixth gentlemen named are high officials in the Honourable East India Company’s service. I believe they are judges. The preliminary arrangements having been agreed upon, the committee assembled at the hospital on the 7^th of September, 1846, when Dr. W. B. O’Shaughnessy was requested to act as secretary, record each day’s proceedings, and keep minutes of the cases. It was also agreed that the minutes of each day should be read at the next meeting in Dr. Esdaile’s presence, and that the meetings should take place at half-past seven a.m.

The committee accordingly assembled on fourteen successive days, and had under their consideration ten surgical cases taken by Dr. Esdaile from the general wards of the native hospitals, all needing operations of more or less severity. These cases are given in outline in the journal, and any remarkable phenomena exhibited are farther recorded minutely in the statement of each day’s proceedings. From the facts elicited by these cases, the committee deduced the following conclusions, as in their opinion being strictly warranted by the premises:–

The patients treated were all native males, from eighteen to forty years old, Hindoos and Mahomedans [i.e., Hindus and Muslims]; in all conditions of general health, from extreme emaciation to ordinary strength. Their diseases are specified in the annexed table:–

Dr. Esdaile had stipulated that he should only operate on natives and that he should have the sole management or medical charge of the hospital wards set apart for his patients to be submitted to operation during the Mesmeric coma; that he should have for his own subordinate hospital establishment, those employed by him as Mesmerisers in Hooghly; and that there should be a daily sitting of the committee. The committee assented to these conditions, and made arrangements for three apartments being at Dr. Esdaile’s disposal: one as a committee and operating room, the other two rooms provided with three beds each for the accommodation of the patients. The doors of these rooms opened into the committee-room and into each other, so that the committee could either enter these sleeping wards, or observe the appearance and conduct of the patients from their own room, as they might incline. Here, then, every precaution had been taken to guard against error or deception.

The Mesmerisers employed by Dr. Esdaile were young men, Hindoos and Mahomedans, from fourteen to thirty years of age, most of them compounders and dressers from the Hooghly Hospital. To each patient a separate Mesmeriser was assigned. The room in which they operated was darkened, but from time to time the committee were enabled to witness, through small apertures made in the door panels, the manner in which the processes were carried on. Profound silence was observed. The processes were continued for about two hours each day in ten cases, for eight hours in one case in one day, and for six hours, in another case, without interruption. Three cases of the ten, Bissonath, Deeloo, and Neechul, were dismissed without satisfactory effect; Bissonath suffering from slight cough, which Dr. Esdaile considered to render the Mesmeric manipulation inefficient; Deeloo, on the fifth day, for having taken spirits; and Neechul having resisted the Mesmeric processes during eleven days without conclusive result. [That gives a 30% combined drop-out/failure rate at the outset of treatment.] In seven cases, in a period varying from one to seven sittings, deep sleep followed the processes above described.

I have considered it unnecessary to give their Mesmerising processes in detail, but I beg the reader’s special attention to the following description of the peculiar character of the sleep thus induced, which I shall transcribe verbatim from the report:–

This sleep, in its most perfect state, differed from ordinary natural sleep, as follows. The individual could not be aroused by loud noises, the pupils were insensible to light; and great, and in some cases apparently perfect, insensibility to pain was witnessed on burning, pinching, and cutting the skin and other sensitive organs. This sleep, in its general character, differed from that which would be produced by narcotic drugs, in the quickness with which, in eight out of ten cases, the patient was awoke, after certain transverse passes and fanning by the Mesmeriser, and blowing upon the face and on the eyes; in the natural condition of the pupils of the eye and the conjunctivae in all the cases after awaking, in the absence of stertorous breathing, and of subsequent delirium or hallucination, and of many other symptoms familiar to medical observers, which are produced by alcoholic liquors, opium, hemp, and other narcotic drugs. It is right, however, to add that in two cases the patients showed much confusion and disinclination to answer, and complained of giddiness for some time after being suddenly aroused.

Here then, we have proof of careful observation and minute record of facts, as well as clear and accurate deductions, both as to the reality and peculiarity of the sleep thus induced.

In seven cases (thus continued) surgical operations were performed, in the state of sleep above described.In the ease of Nilmoney Dutt, there was not the slightest indication of the operation having been felt by the patient. It consisted in the removal of tumour. It lasted four minutes. The patient’s hands or legs were not held. He did not move, or groan, or his countenance change; and, when awoke after the operation, he declared he had no recollection of what had occurred.In another case, Hyder Khan, an emaciated man, suffering from mortification of the leg, amputation of the thigh was performed, and no sign of its causing pain was evinced.In a third case, Murali Doss (the operation he underwent being very severe), moved his body and arms, breathing in gasps, but his countenance underwent little change, and the features expressed no suffering; and, on awaking, he declared he knew of nothing having been done to him during his sleep.A case of tapping one side of a double hydrocele is passed over as insignificant and inconclusive, although apparently painless, for the operation was repeated on the other side while the patient was awake, with the same result. The operation, too, is one daily borne without material suffering by numerous patients in all our hospitals.In the three other cases observed by the committee, during the performance of operations in the state of sleep above described, various phenomena were witnessed, which require to be specially pointed out. While the patients did not open their eyes, or utter articulate sounds, or require to be held, there were vague and convulsive movements of the upper limbs, writhing of the body, distortion of the features, giving the face a hideous expression of suppressed agony; the respiration became heaving, with deep sighs. There were, in short, all the signs of intense pain which a dumb person undergoing operation might be expected to exhibit, except resistance to the operator.But in all these cases, without exception, after the operation was completed, the patients expressed no knowledge or recollection of what had occurred, denied having dreamed, and complained of no pain till their attention was directed to the place where the operation was performed.It, therefore, becomes a question whether the writhings and distorted features, in the three cases above described, are to be regarded as proof that the operations occasioned at the time the actual agony of which such symptoms are the usual evidence, or whether they were mere “instinctive movements” (reflex or automatic movements) as Dr. Esdaile represents them. But our province is only to record facts, and not to enter upon that of the physiologist or the metaphysician.The general result arrived, at then, on the question of pain during the Mesmeric surgical operations we witnessed, amounts to this, that in three cases there is no proof whatever that any pain was suffered, and that in the three other cases the manifestations of pain during the operations are opposed by the positive statement of the patients that no pain was experienced.

The following table shows the curious fact that, in the three cases in which there was no evidence of pain, the pulse rose remarkably during the operation. But in the cases in which there were the [behavioural] symptoms of pain, described in paragraph 20, the pulse continued exactly the same before and during the operations.

This acceleration of the pulse, in cases which showed no evidence of suffering pain during the operation, whilst it remained unaltered in those cases which were accompanied with writhing and distortion of features, seems to have puzzled and perplexed both Dr. Esdaile and the committee, as it may many others, who would naturally have expected the very opposite results. The fact is very easily explained, however, and the solution of this apparent anomaly will at once suggest itself to all who have read my little treatise on Hypnotism [Neurypnology, 1843] with attention. In the former cases the stimulus of the knife has excited a greater or lesser degree of rigid catalepsy, which is always attended with acceleration of pulse, generally in the ratio of the intensity of the rigidity (and it also suspends motion); whilst in the latter cases, accompanied by distortion of features and jactitation [i.e., restless agitation] of the limbs, there being no rigidity of muscles to obstruct the transmission of blood through the limbs, there would not necessarily be any acceleration of the pulse, unless from mental emotion. The tranquillity of the pulse in these cases, therefore, was the surest possible indication that the patients spoke the truth in declaring that they had felt no pain. The jactitation of the limbs, and convulsive movements of the muscles of the face, in the latter, as well as the rigidity in the former cases, might all arise as reflex or automatic actions, of which the brain might take no cognizance, as is well-known to every physiologist, and is daily witnessed during the second conscious state [i.e., artificial somnambulism] of nervous sleep.Dr. Esdaile considered much less blood was lost by patients who were operated on during the Mesmeric sleep; but three of the four medical members of the committee expressed as their opinion, that there was no material difference observable. Neither did the medical members consider that the after-treatment of the patients was in any degree ameliorated, or the cure accelerated, by the operation having been performed in the Mesmeric sleep.[1]The following is the only case to which the committee attached any importance to renewing the dressings of sores during the sleep:–

In Ramchund, an examination of the wound, of a peculiarly painful nature, was required (dressing) involving two separate incisions; just as the first was completed (it lasted about a quarter of a minute, and caused writhing of the body and distortion of the face) he awoke, and, on proceeding to the second step, he shouted aloud in pain and terror, and struggled so violently that the operator could not proceed.

This seems pretty conclusive evidence, that whilst he was a person of keen feelings, the induced sleep had saved him much suffering during the first incision. It also tends to support the truth of his statement, as to having suffered no pain when first operated on, on the 13^th of September. It strikingly proves, moreover, the superiority of sleep thus induced for such purposes from that induced by an opiate, as the following case will show:–

The committee, having adjourned to the Native Hospital, inspected No. 4, Neechul, upon whom Dr. Jackson operated, removing the hypertrophied prepuce [foreskin] at one stroke.Ninety drops of laudanum had been administered half an hour previously, and the patient was sound sleep when operated on: pulse 90.At the moment of operating, he shouted aloud, struggled violently, drew up his legs, and kicked hard: pulse rose to 120; he continued to struggle for several minutes.

In paragraph twenty-seven, the committee express a similar opinion to that which I have already stated as my own conviction, respecting the great length of time required destroying its general applicability in surgical practice. They say:–

The uncertainty of the time required in producing the intense condition of the Mesmeric sleep, in the majority of the cases now under notice, appeared very unfavourable to the general introduction of Mesmeric manipulations in the practice of surgery, especially in hospitals. But Dr. Esdaile states positively, that by frequently changing the Mesmerisers, and performing the manipulations without interruption, the same results may possibly be produced in one day, which would, in the manner pursued before the committee, have been necessarily extended over several days. In the cases of Hyder Khan and Murali Doss, several Mesmerisers were successively employed, and the result seemed to the committee corroborative of Dr. Esdaile’s statement.The committee farther apprehend that a serious practical obstacle to the universally useful application of Mesmeric processes exists in the resistance to the sleep, which, Dr. Esdaile acknowledges, is given by cough, by pain, by mental excitement, by fever, and by the sinking state of the vital system induced by protracted and dangerous diseases.

I can state, as the result of my own experience, that patients with restless and excitable minds are generally, if not always, difficult to be reduced into a deep state of nervous sleep. In cases of fever, so long as it is possible to arouse and arrest the attention of the patient, he may be affected; I have failed, however, with one of the most susceptible subjects I ever met with, when in a state of such profound delirium from fever that the attention could not be arrested and fixed: a clear proof that hypnotism is as much a mental as a physical influence.The fears expressed in paragraph 30, that the repetition of the processes may bring the nervous systems of patients into a morbidly impressible condition, which might render them liable to numerous nervous maladies, I feel assured, from very extensive experience, is a groundless fear, provided the patients are treated with care and judgement. In the whole course of my experience I have met with no such untoward result, although I have hypnotised some patients daily for several months successively.I most heartily concur in the just tribute of praise awarded to Dr. Esdaile in the concluding paragraph of the committee’s report:–

The committee are unanimously of opinion that great credit is due to Dr. Esdaile for the zeal, ability, and boldness with which he has taken up and pursued this inquiry.

They further add:–

His sphere, however, has been hitherto limited, but the committee hope that his further investigation may be extended to medical as well as surgical cases, to European as well as native patients, and to the elucidation of the several questions which have been adverted to in the course of this report.

In the Deputy Governor’s reply to the above report, he says:–

So far has the possibility of rendering the most serious surgical operations painless to the subject of them been, in his honour’s opinion (it was written by the secretary), established by the late experiments performed under the eye of a committee appointed for the purpose, as to render it incumbent on the Government to afford to the meritorious and zealous officer by whom the subject was first brought to its notice, such assistance as may facilitate his investigations, and enable him to prosecute his interesting experiments under the most favourable and promising circumstances.With this view his honour has determined, with the sanction of the Supreme Government, to place Dr. Esdaile for one year in charge of a small experimental hospital, in some favourable situation in Calcutta, in order that he may, as recommended by the committee, extend his investigations to the applicability of this alleged agency to all descriptions of cases, medical as well as surgical, and all classes of patients, European as well as native. Dr. Esdaile will be directed to encourage the resort to his hospital of all respectable persons desirous of satisfying themselves of the nature and effects of his experiments, especially medical and scientific individuals in or out of the service. Medical officers of the presidency are also to be appointed as “visitors”, to inspect the proceedings of Dr. Esdaile, and report thereon to the Government, but without interfering with the doctor’s proceedings.

Here, then, we have an example of the most judicious, praiseworthy, and enlightened conduct, both on the part of the Government and the committee, which has ever been recorded, in connection with this highly interesting inquiry. It is conduct not only deserving of all praise, but also worthy of universal imitation. Extending the inquiry and treatment to medical cases, I feel confident, is a movement in the right direction, as it may be rendered of far more avail for the relief and cure of disease, than for suspending the anguish of painful surgical operations; and the latter application is the less important now that we can achieve the like purpose so much more generally and rapidly by ethereal narcotism. […]In theory I entirely differ from Dr. Esdaile. He is a Mesmerist – that is, he believes in the transmission of some peculiar occult influence from the operator to the patient, as the cause of the subsequent phenomena. He has entirely failed, however, in adducing any new or additional evidence in support of this position, which had not been adduced before by European Mesmerists; with which opinions I am entirely at issue for reasons which are well-known to your readers, from my previous contributions to The Medical Times. In these papers I have illustrated and explained, as the ground of my dissent from the occult influence theory, that all the well-ascertained phenomena of Mesmerism can be equally, readily, and more satisfactorily explained, without the aid of any occult or exoteric influence. It is gratifying to me to be able to add, in support of my opinion on this point, that since the publication of my observations “On the Power of the Mind over the Body”, I have had the honour to receive numerous letters from some of the most eminent members of the profession and of general science, expressive of their entire concurrence with my views of the nature and cause and extent of Mesmeric phenomena generally; and also of my mode of explaining the extraordinary phenomena adduced by Baron Reichenbach, as proof of a “new imponderable”. On this last point I have only met with one or two dissentients, and these were parties who were previously strongly committed to the mystical notions of the Mesmerists.Dr. Carpenter, in the third edition of his “Principles of Human Physiology” – one of the most perfect and valuable works on physiology extant – has fully admitted the reality and peculiarity of all the Mesmeric phenomena which I contend for. He says to that extent he considers they have “as just a title to the attention of the scientific physiologist as that which is possessed by any other class of well-established facts”. Dr. Carpenter was present at a private conversazione at my house[2], when he had an opportunity of investigating the phenomena most minutely; and the lucid manner in which he has described the nature and modes of educing the genuine manifestations does him infinite credit. In respect to my mode of operating, he has done me the honour to say, at page 757, that he “considers that this curious class of phenomena cannot be better prosecuted than by that method [i.e. Braid’s hypnotism].”I have thus endeavoured, to the best of my ability, to submit to your readers a candid estimate of the relative value of hypnotism, Mesmerism, and ethereal narcotism, for the relief and cure of disease, as well as for suspending consciousness, and thus relieving or entirely preventing pain during surgical operations. I shall be glad if my public endeavours may in any degree tend to the advancement of what seems to be so well calculated to promise amelioration to suffering humanity.3, St. Peter’s Square,Manchester.January 30^th [1847].[A long postscript on the use of chemical anaesthetic follows which has been omitted from this edition, as being of no discernable relevance to hypnotism.][Braid, “Facts and Observations as to the Relative Value of Mesmeric and Hypnotic Coma and Ethereal Narcotism, for the Mitigation or entire Prevention of Pain during Surgical Operations”, Medical Times, 13^th February, 1847, vol. XV, 1846-47, pp. 381-382; continued vol. XVI., 27^th February, 1847: 10-11.]

[1] [That is, by comparison with no anaesthetic; there might have been more difference if Mesmeric subjects were compared with patients under chemical anaesthetic.][2] [This visit from Carpenter possibly signals the beginning of an ongoing dialogue between the two, and their growing mutual support.]

About Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy

Copyright © Donald Robertson, 2011.  All rights reserved.

The internet is, unfortunately, awash with false information about hypnotism, often perpetuated by poorly-trained hypnotherapists.  Here are five basic points about hypnosis and hypnotherapy that every hypnotherapist should be aware of.  These facts can easily be gleaned, or substantiated, by reading modern books and journals on the subject…

1. Hypnotism is the opposite of Mesmerism

Indeed, hypnotism very much evolved in active (at times, fierce) opposition to Mesmerism.  Many people confusedly believe that Franz Mesmer was the first hypnotist but in fact, the word “hypnotism” and the practice of hypnotherapy were founded in 1841 by the Scottish surgeon James Braid.  Braid spent his latter decades battling against Mesmerism, which he rejected as a pseudoscientific theory.  Mesmer and his followers believed that they cured patients by projecting an invisible “fluid” called “animal magnetism” into the bodies of patients.  Braid thought this was hocus pocus and carried out many debunking experiments, proposing instead that the effects were due to suggestion and focused attention on imaginative ideas, accompanied by expectation, the conceptualisation underlying most subsequent hypnotism.

2. Stage hypnosis has very little to do with experimental hypnotism or hypnotherapy

“Stage hypnosis” is actually older than hypnosis, if that makes sense.  That’s because virtually identical performances were carried out in the early 19th century by showmen (or conmen, depending on how you look at it) who claimed that subjects on stage were entering a trance-like state, responding to hallucinatory dramas, etc., because of the performer’s telepathic powers, or animal magnetism, etc.  When hypnotism became popular, showmen carried on performing the same tricks but labelled what they were doing as “stage hypnosis” to provide a more plausible, psychological explanation, as audiences became more sceptical about the paranormal over the decades.  However, many of the traditional stunts used in stage hypnosis shows have nothing whatsoever to do with either suggestion or hypnosis and merely involve “smoke and mirrors” type deception. 

For example, the most popular stage hypnosis trick was traditionally, the “human plank”, in which a subject supposedly in a “trance” was suspended rigid between two chairs while someone stood on top of their body.  This is a “playground trick” that merely depends on the fact that the human body is much more capable of supporting pressure in that position than audiences tend to assume.  It has absolutely nothing to do with hypnosis, and the trick works with or without any hypnotic induction or even suggestions.  Many stage hypnotists are happy to confess behind the scenes that their acts do not require “hypnotic trance” and often deceive the audiences.  For example, the famous magician and stage hypnotist of twenty years, Kreskin, has become  a kind of “whistleblower” concerning stage hypnosis, having written several books debunking the acts from an “insider” perspective.  Nevertheless, even many hypnotherapists are fooled into believing that stage hypnosis is what it appears to be, sometimes even attending training courses in hypnotherapy run by stage hypnotists.  Most stage hypnotists are neither therapists nor psychologists.  Many have little knowledge relating to hypnotherapy and are not actually qualified to deliver therapeutic training.

3. Hypnotism has nothing to do with “hypnotic trance”

It’s another common misconception, shared by many hypnotherapists, that hypnosis works by inducing an “altered state of consciousness” called “hypnotic trance.”  In fact, the founders of hypnotherapy, in the Victorian era, Braid and Bernheim, never proposed that hypnotism had anything to do with a “hypnotic trance”, this idea partly comes from stage hypnosis and partly from the widespread confusion of hypnotism and Mesmerism.  Virtually all modern researchers either completely reject the concept of “hypnotic trance” or posit something very far removed or watered down compared to what most people take that term to mean.  Attempts to induce hypnotic trance are well-known, from the accumulated evidence of a great many research studies, to have relatively small effects, e.g., increasing suggestibility by around 15-20% above an already moderately high baseline level. 

Most modern researchers now prefer to conceptualise hypnotism in terms of ordinary “cognitive” factors, i.e., beliefs and attitudes, such as the expectancy of responding to suggestions and focused attention, etc.  In other words, hypnotherapy seems to work quite well but not because it induces a hypnotic trance, even people who want to stick by this old idea are forced to admit that attempting to induce a “trance” has very mild effects, which sceptics attribute to increased expectation and focused attention.  (As an aside, there is very little evidence to support the notion of “indirect suggestion” made popular by Milton Erickson and his followers, which his contemporaries pointed out appeared to be something other than “hypnotism” and to employ fundamentally different processes, etc.)

4. A fairly large volume of positive research evidence exists concerning hypnotism

James Braid, the founder of hypnotherapy, was a passionate empiricist and insisted that hypnotism should be subjected to careful experimental investigation, as far back as 1841.  Since that time psychologists have continued to carry out many experiments on hypnosis.  In 1933, Clark L. Hull, arguably the most influential American behavioural psychologist, and president of the American Psychological Association, published a groundbreaking book detailing a whole programme of systematic behavioural research carried out on hypnosis.  Hull paved the way for many subsequent psychologists to carry out serious research on hypnosis, long before research began on any other psychological therapy. 

PubMed, the public face of the National Institute for Health’s database of books and articles in medicine, the largest and most important database of its kind, contains a whole category for “hypnosis” with approximately 11,000 books and articles listed, more than for any other psychological therapy apart from cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT).  Recent reviews of evidence from clinical trials has generally provided good evidence for the efficacy of hypnotherapy, especially in the treatment of pain and anxiety.  However, unlike most other psychological therapies, hypnotherapy has also been subjected to considerable experimental investigation, i.e., in laboratory settings, where brain scans or behavioural experiments have been used to examine what happens to hypnotic subjects.  Because hypnosis lends itself well to experimental studies like these a whole category of research evidence exists that other psychological therapies cannot easily imitate.

5. Hypnotism is simple and easy and anyone can do it

No other subject is surrounded by so much misconception.  All the false information about hypnotism tends to confuse subjects and a number of research studies have shown that popular misconceptions about the nature of hypnosis actually inhibit people from responding properly.  These inhibiting ideas come mainly from stage hypnosis, such as the idea that it involves being under the hypnotists “control” or that the subject should be unconscious or asleep or amnestic for the experience, etc.  Braid originally defined hypnotism as an extension of normal psychological functioning, involving heightened focused attention on imaginative ideas, or mental images, of some response, accompanied by increased expectation of it occurring.  No special altered state of consciousness or “trance” is required to do this, just the ability to imagine things or adopt a confident, expectant mind-set.  Research on hypnosis has consistently shown that hypnotic inductions are not necessary to respond to hypnotic suggestions, although they may help slightly by raising expectation and focusing attention, etc.  Likewise, when people are asked to put themselves into self-hypnosis, they tend to respond about as well to subsequent suggestions as when another person, a hypnotist, attempts to induce a “trance”. 

A great many studies have measured hypnotic responsiveness in large samples and shown that it follows a standard “bell-shaped” distribution (slightly positively skewed), i.e., the majority of people are moderately responsive to hypnosis, about 20% are highly responsive and about 15% are poorly responsive.  However, many studies, largely stemming from Prof. Nicholas Spanos’ seminal research at Carleton University in Canada, have shown that people who respond poorly can normally be trained within an hour or so to become moderately or even highly responsive.  This has been found to largely require changing their attitudes toward hypnosis to dispel common misconceptions, which seem to have an inhibiting effect.  In particular, the “wait and see” attitude of passivity encouraged by hypnotherapists who tell clients things like “hypnosis is an altered state in which I will speak directly to your unconscious mind”, seems to generally be counter-productive, and subjects tend to respond better when asked to consciously and actively “think along” with suggestions by imagining the things being suggested by the hypnotist.

James Braid, the Founder of Hypnotherapy, on Homoeopathy

Copyright © Donald Robertson, 2011.  All rights reserved.

James Braid, the founder of hypnotherapy, was a passionate scientific skeptic who dedicated the latter decades of his life to systematically debunking Victorian nostrum (“quack”) remedies.  Braid developed hypnotism precisely because he believed in the power of suggestion and that many of the popular therapies of the Victorian era were due primarily to ordinary suggestion and the placebo effect, which he took as indirect support for his own suggestive method: hypnotism.  The crucial difference is that whereas nostrum remedies pretend to function by some other mechanism, such as the chemical properties of a drug, and thereby deceive the patient, hypnotism is explicitly a method of suggestion that functions by means of focused attention and imagination.  Braid therefore sawa hypnotism as a “non-deceptive” placebo, which attempts to collaboratively enhance the effects of suggestion by enlisting the client’s voluntary use of focused attention on the imaginative expectation of some (therapeutic) response occurring.  Modern hypnosis researchers, most notably Prof. Irving Kirsch, have also conceptualised hypnotism as a non-deceptive mega-placebo, or deliberate and open use of the placebo effect, which is explicitly enhanced through imagination, focused attention, and suggestion, etc.

Dr. John Milne Bramwell, Braid’s most dedicated follower, notes in relation to Braid’s theory of suggestion,

In support of this theory, Braid called attention to the number of recoveries which took place during the use of infinitesimally small doses of medicine in homeopathic practice. These, he said, benefited the patient, not by their physical or chemical qualities, but as suggestions, and quoted Professor Simpson, who had proved that in one homeopathic dilution a patient would have to take a dose every second of time, night and day, for 30,000 years before he consumed one grain of the original drug, while another was so attenuated that it would require a mass of the dilution equal to 61 times the size of the earth, to contain a single grain of the medicine.

While, according to Braid, the action of homoeopathic remedies was a purely subjective one, he also thought that the mental element associated with the administration of drugs in general had been far too much ignored […]

In Hypnotic Therapeutics (1852), one of his most important works, Braid referred to homoeopathy as an illustration of the placebo effect in medicine and as providing indirect proof for the value of suggestion and hypnotism,

The last proof which I shall adduce in support of my position is the number of recoveries which take place during (not of cures effected by) the use of infinitesimally small [homoeopathic] doses of medicines, as in what is called homoeopathic practice.  According to the principles [of hypnotism] which I have demonstrated, there are a number of individuals who may be benefited and cured by whatever means their minds can be confidently and persistently concentrated on and engrossed with, so as to excite a lively expectant idea as regards a particular result.  Besides changing the physical action directly, it also does so indirectly, by changing the current of thought, and withdrawing it from the unhappy train in which it was wont to flow.  This latter effect alone does much to benefit the patient, by leaving nature free and unfettered, to carry out the salutary purposes of the “vis medicatrix naturae”.  This, together with good nursing and suitable regimen, are adequate to effect many recoveries and cures without the aid of a single particle of medicine.

The vis medicatrix naturae, or “healing power of nature”, is the body’s ability to heal itself without intervention, i.e., the phenomenon of spontaneous remission.  Braid’s astute observation is that many problems are maintained by maladaptive thought and behaviour, in which case the use of a nostrum or placebo, such as homoeopathy, may act as a distraction from morbid preoccupation, or interrupt worry, and thereby intercept behaviour that is unintentionally maintaining a problem.  Perhaps the best example of this is the high response rate of insomnia to placebos, in which case taking a pill may cause a person to stop worrying about getting to sleep, and thereby allow nature to take its course.  Specifically with regard to homoeopathic remedies, Braid writes,

The infinitely small doses of medicine, therefore, may benefit the patient, not by their physical or chemical qualities, but as sensible signs involuntarily to change or fix the current of thought, and thus to modify physical action [i.e., as placebo pills]. But, that the billionth, quintillionth or decillionth of a grain, or drop of any substance in nature, could, on physical or chemical principles only, do either good or harm to any human being, is what I do not believe; and I only feel surprised that any rational person can believe what, to me, appears to be such a palpable absurdity.  It is just like the Lama amongst the Tartars, who, when short of the required medicine, writes its name on a piece of paper, and rolls it up in small pills, and desires the patients to swallow them, under the conviction that to swallow the name has the same efficacy as to swallow the medicine itself.  Dr. Simpson’s calculations in his work, clearly prove the exiguity of homoeopathic doses, when he demonstrates, that for any person taking billionths of a grain every second of time, night and day, would require to go on at this rate, without intermission, for thirty thousand years, before he consumed one grain of a substance which might be taken by any adult man or woman, at least in a full grain dose, and some of them in fifty grain doses, with perfect impunity.  But, if you go to quintillionths, it would require a mass of sugar equal to sixty-one globes the size of the earth to compound a single grain of said drugs!

Braid then objects against homoeopathic principles, from a scientific perspective, on both a priori (logical) and a posteriori (experimental) grounds,

I am aware that some of the practitioners of homoeopathy contend that dose is nothing, but the proper selection of the medicine everything. Now to this dogma I cannot assent for two reasons – first, it is at variance with reason and common sense; second, it is at variance with fact and experience, when I have brought it to the test of experiment and observation.  Thus, I have never seen indubitable effects produced from such medicines, when administered by some of its most noted professors, in infinitely small doses; nothing beyond what might be anticipated from the expectant idea, or an accidental coincidence [i.e., spontaneous remission] occasionally.  […]  No sophistry can gainsay such an obvious fact as this displays, that much depends on the amount of dose given, as well as on the adaptation of the medicine to the case.

Arguably, we might expect someone who specialises in the study and therapeutic use of suggestion, i.e., a hypnotherapist, to be inherently bound to criticise dubious remedies as being forms of suggestion, or placebos.  However, many modern hypnotherapists are perhaps guilty of a kind of “double-think”, at times, with respect to this.   There is an apparent inconsistency between believing in the power of suggestion in general, except with regard to their favoured forms of complementary therapy, which they believe work independently of suggestion or the placebo effect, despite evidence to the contrary from controlled trials in most cases.  For more skeptical information about homoeopathy, see the Guardian journalist Ben Goldacre’s excellent Bad Science blog, which has a whole category dedicated to the subject.

By Donald Robertson, editor of The Discovery of Hypnosis: The Complete Writings of James Braid

These are some of the key figures in the history of hypnosis, with links to their pages on Wikipedia…

Animal magnetism

Was the precursor to hypnotism, founded by Franz Mesmer in the 18th century.

History of hypnosis

This article provides an overview of the whole history of hypnotism.

Franz Mesmer

Mesmer was not a hypnotist, but developed a method called “animal magnetism” that was the forerunner (and bitter rival) of early hypnotism.

Marques of Puységur

A famous follower of Mesmer, who introduced the concept of “artificial somnambulism.”

James Esdaile

Not actually a Mesmerist but Esdaile used a similar method with some success in India, for painless surgery, although his results were subsequently disputed by observers.

John Elliotson

A Mesmerist, contemporary of Esdaile and Braid, and bitter opponent of hypnotism.

James Braid

Braid coined the term “hypnotism” in 1841 and is widely-regarded as the founder of hypnotherapy.

Jean-Martin Charcot

Charcot was an influential French neurologist, whose ideas about hypnotism were essentially debunked by his rival Bernheim and his colleagues.

Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault

A provincial French doctor who employed a method of hypnotism influenced by Braid and taught Bernheim and Coue, founding the so-called Nancy School.

Hippolyte Bernheim

French neurologist and doctor who studied with Liebeault and founded the Nancy School with him, becoming perhaps the most influential figure in the history of hypnotism.

Pierre Janet

French psychologist and rival of Freud, who developed a sophisticated early theory of hypnotism based on the concepts of dissociation and automatism.

Sigmund Freud

The founder of psychoanalysis started as a hypnotist and introduced the concept of hypnotic regression and catharsis.

Émile Coué

A pioneer of self-help who studied hypnotism with Liebeault but went on to develop his “conscious autosuggestion” method of training groups instead.

Morton Prince

An early psychotherapist who used hypnotism and developed the idea of dissociation.

Clark L. Hull

The founder of scientific research into hypnotism, president of the American Psychological Association and one of the most influential American behavioural psychologists.

Andrew Salter

The father of assertiveness training and an early pioneer of behavioural approaches to hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis.

Theodore R. Sarbin

The founder of the nonstate or sociocognitive approach to hypnosis, compared hypnosis to a form of imaginative role-taking rather than an altered state of consciousness

Milton H. Erickson

Perhaps the most influential hypnotist of the 20th century, although his importance has waned because of lack of empirical support for his unique approach to “indirect” hypnosis, some have argued that his methods depart so much from traditional hypnosis, though, that he was effectively doing something else.

Ernest Hilgard

Professor of psychology at Stanford University, authority on pain management, and co-author with Weitzenhoffer of the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale (SHSS), the most widely-used research tool in the field of hypnosis.

Martin Theodore Orne

Influential hypnosis researchers who developed the idea of the social “demand characteristics” of a situation powerfully influencing the behaviour of experimental subjects.

André Muller Weitzenhoffer

Author of the clinical textbook The Practice of Hypnotism and influential researcher and colleague of Hilgard.

Theodore Xenophon Barber

Influenced by Sarbin, Barber coined the term “cognitive-behavioural” approach to hypnosis in 1974, carrying out a rigorous programme of experimental research on the cognitive factors determining hypnotic responses.

Nicholas Spanos

One of the most prolific researchers in the field of hypnosis, Spanos developed the work of Sarbin and Barber into a systematic programme of hypnotic skills training, and demonstrated that subjects could be trained to respond better to hypnotism.

Irving Kirsch

One of the most influential contemporary researchers in the field of hypnosis, Prof. Kirsch has focused on the role of “response expectancy” in hypnosis and the placebo effect, again from a broadly cognitive-behavioural perspective, rejecting the idea of hypnotic trance.

James Braid was the Scottish surgeon who coined the term “hypnotism”, and the founder of hypnotherapy, which he opposed to Mesmerism.  In Hypnotic Therapeutics (1853), Braid provides the following account of suggestion being used to induce labour in a patient for the purposes of preventing certain complications,

The following is another highly interesting case of the influence of mental impression changing physical action. The patient was one of those subjects who pass into the second-conscious [“somnambulistic” or amnestic] state of hypnotism, and had been cured by hypnotism of paralysis, both of sense and motion, of one side of the head and face. The following effect of the expectant idea, however, relates to what occurred when she was in the waking condition.

This patient, Mrs –––, was the mother of three living children, the last of which was a cross birth, delivery being accomplished with great difficulty. The two subsequent births were of largely developed children, both still-born, both having been shoulder presentations, the labour far advanced, and the shoulder and arm advanced within the pelvis before medical assistance arrived. Upon careful examination of the bones of the pelvis of this patient, it was clearly ascertained that there was such advancement forward, and depression of the promontory of the sacrum and lumbar vertebrae, as to preclude the hope of her ever giving birth to a full-sized living child; and, therefore, when she again became pregnant, I explained how matters stood to her husband, as well as to the patient, and recommended that premature labour should be induced, as affording the only chance of her bearing another living child, and as affording the greatest safety, moreover, for the mother. Both parties were perfectly satisfied to abide by my decision on this point, so that I was to consider myself at perfect liberty to act in the matter as I thought best, both as to the method to be adopted for accomplishing such purpose, and also in regard to the time when I was to induce premature labour.

About two weeks beyond the seventh month was the period which I had fixed on for inducing labour. I had seen the patient a few days before this period, and found her in excellent health, experiencing no inconvenience of any sort. I told her that in three or four days I intended to do something for her to bring on labour as had previously been agreed upon should be done. She was quite agreeable to this proposal, and seemed to entertain no anxiety whatever on the subject. In two days thereafter, however, I was sent for to the patient, and ascertained that the mere mental impression had been sufficient to bring on labour, for the os uteri was not only fully dilated, but, as in the three former labours, the shoulder was presenting. In this case, from the small size of the infant, I was enabled with great ease to turn and deliver the mother of a living child.

This is an excerpt from The Discovery of Hypnosis: The Complete Writings of James Braid (2009) edited by Donald Robertson.

Dr. J.J.G. Wilkinson’s Account of James Braid’s Hypnotism

Dr. James John Garth Wilkinson

Excerpts from The Discovery of Hypnosis: The Complete Writings of James Braid, edited by Donald Robertson.   www.James-Braid.com

In his book, The Human Body (1851), Dr. James John Garth Wilkinson gives an account of hypnosis, quoted favourably by James Braid, the founder of hypnotherapy.  Wilkinson was a succesful contemporary writer, who used much more “purple prose” than Braid.  Wilkinson had been hypnotised by Braid, observed him work several times, and appears to have made use of the hypnotic method with his own patients.  Braid writes,

Regarding Mr. Wilkinson, however, I may observe that he possesses a mind of the very highest order, and was, therefore, peculiarly fitted for dealing successfully with the psychological part of the question.  Another circumstance which gives so much greater value to his opinions is his practical experience of hypnotism in his own person as well as in others.  Mr. W. not only carefully watched many cases when operated upon by me, and has continued ever since to practise the art when suitable, but he also submitted himself to me several times to be hypnotised; and, as he is one of those who remember when awake all which occurs during the condition, he was enabled to describe, with the greater accuracy, not only what he saw but also what he felt.

Wilkinson writes of Braid’s hypnotism,

We presume it is evident to the reader what a power Mr. Braid has methodised and called into play for the treatment of disease.  As a curative agent, hypnotism contains two elements, each valuable in its kind:–

1. Where it produces trance, it has the benefits of the Mesmeric sleep, or furnishes so strong a dose of rest, that many cases are cured by that alone. 

2. The suggestion of ideas of health, tone, duty, hope, which produce dreams influential upon the organisation, enables the operator by this means to fulfil the indication of directly ministering to that mind diseased, which always accompanies and aggravates physical disorders. 

We have a direct proof of the continuation of the mind through the body, in the way in which suggestions, directed to the mind, respecting the organs, operate upon the latter.  In the hypnotic state, the operator can play upon the emotions by a variety of suggestive means, and in this way give power to impotent parts, and hand them over to the will.  Mr. Braid’s devices for these ends stamp him as a man of inventive genius; and we are surprised that such a piece of combined intellectual and scientific sagacity as hypnotism has not placed him, long ago, in the first rank of metropolitan physicians.  The virtue of hypnotism, where it succeeds, is just this, that for the moment it unweeds the human soil so completely, that whatever faith is impressed can work and grow. 

Wilkinson describes Braid’s hypnotism as follows, based on his own experience as subject, observer, and practitioner,

The atom of sleep is diffusion; the mind and body are dissolved in unconsciousness; they go off into nothing, through the fine powder of infinite variety, and die of no attention; common sleep is impersonal.  The unit of hypnotism is intense attention, abstraction – the personal ego pushed to nonentity.  The unit of Mesmerism is the common state of the patient, caught as he stands, and subjected to the radiant ideas of another person; it is mediate – or both personal and impersonal.  Patients can produce the hypnotic state upon themselves, without a second party; although a second will often strengthen the result by his acts or presence, just as one who stood by and told you that you were to succeed in a certain work would nerve your arm with fresh confidence.

Adding, 

The preliminary state is that of abstraction, and this abstraction is the logical premise of what follows.  Abstraction tends to become more and more abstract, narrower and narrower, it tends to unity, and afterwards nullity.  There, then, the patient is, at the summit of attention, with no object left – a mere statue of attention – a listening, expectant life – a perfectly undistracted faculty, dreaming of a lessening and lessening mathematical point, the end of his mind sharpened away to nothing.  What happens?  Any sensation that appeals is met by this brilliant attention, and receives its diamond glare, being perceived by force of leisure, of which our distracted life only affords the rudiments.  External influences are sensated, sympathised with, to an extraordinary degree; harmonious music sways the body into graces the most affecting; discords jar it as though they would tear it limb from limb; cold and heat are perceived with equal exaltations, so smells and touches.  In short, the whole man appears to be given to each perception; the body trembles like down with wafts of the atmosphere; the world plays upon it as upon a spiritual instrument finely attuned.  This is the natural hypnotic state, but it may be modified artificially.  

He proceeds to describe the influence of the hypnotist’s tone of voice on the hypnotic subject as follows,

The power of suggestions over the patient is excessive.  If you say, ‘What animal is it?’ the patient will tell you it is a lamb, a rabbit, or any other.  ‘Does he see it?’  ‘Yes.’  ‘What animal is it now?’ putting depth and gloom into the tone of now, and thereby suggesting a difference.  ‘Oh,’ with a shudder, ‘it is a wolf.’  ‘What colour is it?’ still glooming the phrase.  ‘Black.’  ‘What colour is it now?’ giving the now a cheerful air.  ‘Oh, a beautiful blue,’ spoken with utmost delight.  And so you lead the subject through any dreams you please, by variation of questions, and of inflections of voice; and he sees and feels all as real.  

Of Braid’s experiments in “muscular suggestion” during hypnosis, he observes,

Another curious study is the influence of the patient’s postures on his mind in this state.  Double his fist, and put up his arm, if you dare, for you will have the strength of your ribs rudely tested.  Put him on his knees, and clasp his hands, and the saints and devotees of the artists will pale before the trueness of his devout actings.  Raise his head while in prayer, and his lips pour forth exulting glorifications, as he sees heaven opened, and the majesty of God raising him to his place; then, in a moment, depress the head, and he is dust and ashes, an unworthy sinner, with the pit of hell yawning at his feet; or compress the forehead so as to wrinkle it vertically, and this little attitude of gloom glooms the whole mind, and thorny-toothed clouds contract in from the very horizon; and what is remarkable, the smallest pinch and wrinkle, such as will lie between your nipping nails, is sufficient nucleus to crystallise the man into that shape, and to make him all foreboding; as again the smallest expansion, in a moment, brings the opposite state, with a full breathing of delight. […] In this state, whatever posture of any passion is induced, the passion comes into it at once, and dramatises the body accordingly.  Moreover, the patient’s mind directed to his own body does physical marvels.  He can do in a manner what he thinks he can.  Tell him that a tumour on his body is about to disappear, and his mind will often realise your prophecy. […] A patient in the full state obeys all motives in the most natural direction.  If the arm is placed up, there it will stay; but a waft of air will cause it to fall.  Why?  Because it is already up, and the new motive changes the direction.  If the arm be down, another waft will raise it.  If down, and prevented from moving up, the impression will send it sideways.  When the frame is erect, a touch behind the bend of the knees will send it into genuflexion, which will at once suggest prayer, as noticed before. 

Wilkinson’s comments are of value as Braid quotes them enthusiastically, and clearly finds them agreeable, although Wilkinson writes more from the perspective of the subject, having been hypnotised by Braid himself, and in a much more colourful and expressive style, adding to our comprehension of the subjective side of hypnotism.

From James Esdaile to James Braid

Excerpt from The Discovery of Hypnosis: The Complete Writings of James Braid.

[Braid introduces the letter, saying "After acknowledging the receipt of some of my publications on hypnotic phenomena, and thanking me for them, Dr. Esdaile says:"]

I shall find much in the books to interest and instruct me, as I did in your first work on Hypnotism; but I shall not wait to read them before replying to your communication.

I have not seen any of the papers you allude to in the journals; but am glad to hear that the doctors are, at last, condescending to turn their attention to one of the most interesting and important subjects ever submitted to the consideration of the physiologist, the metaphysician, and natural philosopher. […] Regarding the reality and cause of the Mesmeric phenomena, if I venture to differ from you even, who are so much better prepared to investigate the subject (than certain individuals to whom the Doctor had referred), it is for reasons which I hope you will consider worthy of your attention.  I am fully aware that there are various modes of inducing the Mesmeric symptoms, to a certain extent, without the probability, or even possibility, of any vital force proceeding from the operator being concerned in the matter.  But I have never (except for experiment) produced the Mesmeric state of the system by the exhaustion of any organ, such as the eye, (here the Doctor has overlooked the important part which the mental act of fixed attention plays in this matter, vide page 53-7) or by acting strongly on the imagination, or by any means that could favour self-Mesmerisation, as you will perceive from the following resumé of my practice:–

During the last six years I have performed upwards of 300 capital operations of every description, and many of them of the most terrible nature, without inflicting pain on the patients; and, in every instance, the insensibility was produced in this fashion.

All knowledge of our intentions was, if possible, concealed from the patients, and if they had never heard of Mesmerism and painless operations, so much the better.  They were taken into a darkened room, and desired to lie down and shut their eyes.  A young Hindoo or Musulman [i.e., Hindu or Muslim] then seated himself at the head of the bed, and made passes, without contact, from the head to the epigastrium [around the navel area], breathing on the head and eyes all the time, and occasionally resting his hands for a minute on the pit of the stomach.  This often induced the coma deep enough for the severest surgical operation in a few minutes; but the routine was for me to examine the patient at the end of an hour, and if he was not ready, the process was repeated daily.  Taking the average, the operation, of whatever description, was usually performed on the fourth or fifth day.

Probably as many more cases were subjected to the trance for medical purposes, and were usually treated in the same way, for its convenience to both parties.

The enclosed remarkable case of clairvoyance, with transference of the senses to the epigastrium [i.e., the Mesmerised subject “seeing with” their own belly], will show that the Mesmeric control of the system may be obtained, when the patient is not only asleep, but in a state of intense natural coma.

I have also entranced a blind man, and made him so sensitive, that I could entrance him however employed, (eating his dinner, for instance,) by merely making him the object of my attention for ten minutes.  He would gradually cease to eat, remain stationary a few moments, and then plunge, head foremost, among his rice and curry.

Numbers of madmen have been entranced in the lunatic asylum of Calcutta, and I performed a Mesmeric operation on one man who had cut his throat.

I frequently desired the visitors of my hospitals to pretend to take the portraits of patients, and to engage their attention as much as possible, by conversing with them.  I then retired to another room, and reduced them to statues, without the possibility of their suspecting my intentions.

How such phenomena can be accounted for, without presuming the existence of a physical power transmitted from the operator to the subject, passes my comprehension, that the Mesmeric virtue can be communicated to inanimate matter, is a physical fact, of which I am as well convinced as of my own existence.  It was my common hospital practice to entrance patients for the purpose of having their sores burned with Nitric Acid, by giving them Mesmerised water to drink.

Community of taste, and thought-reading, are among the most common of the higher Mesmeric phenomena, and how they are to be explained, except by the transmission of the operator’s sensations, through his thought-stamped, nervous fluid, sent to the brain of the subject, I cannot conjecture.

“Important, if true,” you will probably say.  I can only say that healthy senses, a natural power of seeing things as they really are, and an earnest desire to know the truth, whatever it may be, are perfectly useless for the acquisition of knowledge, if all I have related is not perfectly true.

Till such facts are known to medical men and natural philosophers, it is surely premature to dogmatise about the only source of the Mesmeric phenomena.

It happened curiously enough, that the sleeping Fakir of Lahore had attracted my attention about the very time your interesting account of him appeared, and I had actually written to Sir Henry Lawrence [an influential British statesman and soldier in India], begging him to procure us information on the subject; but my departure from India, shortly after, prevented my prosecution of the subject.

Excerpt from The Discovery of Hypnosis: The Complete Writings of James Braid

www.James-Braid.com

I shall now cite from a paper [the middle section of “Magic, Hypnotism, Mesmerism, etc., considered historically and physiologically”] actually published by me in The Medical Times for December 28^th 1844, a few of the wonders recorded in Ward’s “History of the Hindoos”, which they represent as facts and as special gifts imparted to them in token of the great superiority of their religious system, of inducing a state of self-hypnotism, or ecstatic trance.  They produce this condition by certain postures or modes of sitting – the minds of the devotees being engaged in acts of fixed attention, by looking at some parts of their own bodies, or at inanimate or ideal [i.e., imaginary] objects; at the same time holding their breath, i.e., suppressing their respiration.  My modes of explaining these alleged marvels are given within parentheses.  I may premise, however, that whatever idea occupies the mind of the subject before he passes into the condition, or whatever may have occurred to it accidentally or through the suggestion of others subsequently, will ever after be realised, under similar combination of circumstances, in consequence of the power of suggestion and double-conscious [dissociated] memory, as manifested in some patients even in the sub-hypnotic or waking condition, when what have been called the vigilant or waking phenomena are producible; and still more certainly during the full, active, double-conscious condition.  These principles alone, and the vivid state of the imagination, explain most of the marvels; but, with the parenthetic explanations, I trust to make them sufficiently obvious to any candid and intelligent person.

The Yogee [i.e., master of yogic meditation] who has perfected himself in the three parts of sungyamu [yogic “self-mastery”] obtains a knowledge of the past and of the future (quickened memory and excited imagination); if he apply sungyamu to sounds, to their meaning and to the consequent results, he will possess, from mere sound, universal knowledge (hypnotic patients imitate, with the utmost precision and with the greatest facility, the vocal enunciation of any language, but do not understand the meaning of the words which they utter).  He who applies sungyamu to discover the thoughts of others will know the thoughts of all.  (He will believe and talk as if he did so.)  He who does the same to his own form, and to the sight of those whose eyes are fixed upon him, will be able to render his body invisible, and to dim the sight of the observers. (Through the force of imagination, or fixed attention, or suggestion.)  He who, according to these rules, meditates on his own actions, in order that he may discover how he may most speedily reap the fruits of them, will become acquainted with the time, cause, and place of his own death.  He who, according to these rules, meditates on the strength of the powerful, so as to identify his strength with theirs, will acquire the same.  (Through concentrated attention and conviction of their physical energy, there is a most amazing manifestation of increased muscular power.)  He who meditates, in the same manner, on the sun as perfect light, will become acquainted with the state of things in every place.  (He will believe and speak as if he really did.)  By similar application of sungyamu to the cup at the bottom of the throat, he will overcome hunger and thirst; by meditation on the basilar suture, he will be capacitated to see and converse with deified persons, who range through the aerial regions; by meditation on extraordinary presence of mind, he will obtain a knowledge of all visible objects; by meditating on the seat of the mind, or on the faculty of reason, he will become acquainted with his own thoughts and those of others, past, present, and future; by meditation on the state of the Yogee who has nearly lost all consciousness of separate existence, he will recognise spirit as unassociated and perfect existence.  (Belief and vivid imagination.)  After this he will hear celestial sounds – the songs and conversations of the celestial choirs; he will have the perception of their touch in their passage through the air, his taste will become refined, and he will enjoy the constant fragrance of sweet scents.  (All this I can easily cause hypnotic patients to realise, through suggestion and their fervid imagination.)  When the Yogee, by the power of Samadhi [meditation], has destroyed the power of those works which retained the spirit in captivity, he becomes possessed of certain and unhesitating knowledge; he is enabled to trace the progress of intellect through the senses, and the path of the animal spirit through the nerves.  After this he is able to enter into any dead or living body, by the path of the senses – all the senses accompanying him, as the swarm of bees follows the queen bee; and, in this body, to act as though it were his own.  (Now, all this extravagance I can easily make hypnotic patients imagine themselves accomplishing – but, of course, it is only imaginary, just as such feats are accomplished in dreams.)

The collected power of all the senses is called the animal soul, which is distinguished by five operations connected with the vital air, or air collected in the body.  The body of the Yogee who, according to the rules of Dharanu, Dhyanu, and Sumadhee [concentration, meditation, and mystic union], meditates on the air proceeding from (…) to the head, will become light as wood, and will be able to walk on the fluid element.  He who, in the same manner, meditates on the ear and its vacuum, will hear the softest and most distant sounds, as well as those uttered in the celestial regions, etc.  (This accords with my proposition, that calling attention to any organ or function will exalt the activity of the function positively, as well as excite ideas con­nected with such organ or function.)  He who meditates on vacuum will be able to ascend in the air.  (Imaginary ascent.)  He who meditates, by the rules of sungyamu, and in a perfect manner, on the subtle elements, will overcome and be transformed into those elements; he will be capacitated to become as rarefied and atomic as he may wish, and proceed to the greatest distance; in short, he will be enabled to realise in himself the power of Deity, to subdue all his passions, to render his body invulnerable, to prevent the possibility of his abstraction being destroyed, so as to subject himself again to the effects of actions.

“By applying sungyamu to the division of the four last minutes of time, he who perfects himself in this will obtain complete knowledge of the separate elements, atoms, etc., which admit not of division of species, appearance, and place.  This knowledge brings before the Yogee all visible objects at once, so that he does not wait for the tedious process of the senses.  (Imagination, lively faith, and fixed attention, until ideas became too vivid to be corrected by an appeal to the senses and sober reason.)

The following paragraph is from the “Dabistan” [Dabistān-i Mazāhib, a 17^th century Persian religious text of a syncretistic nature]:–

The Sipasian [an ancient Zoroastrian sect] and the historians relate that, whoever carries this process to perfection rises above death; as long as he remains in the body, he can put it off and be again reunited to it; he never suffers from sickness, and is fit for all business.

So much for the lively fancy and fervid faith of these religious enthusiasts, during their dreams, in the state of self-induced hypnotism, through fixing their thoughts or sight upon some part of their own bodies, or on some ideal [i.e., imaginary] or inanimate objects, and holding their breath, or suppressing their respiration.  By an appeal, therefore, to the feats of the Hindoos, I might claim for hypnotism, or self-induced trance, quite as high pretensions for its capability of inducing clairvoyant marvels as anything adduced by the animal magnetists or Mesmerists, with all the exoteric or alleged aid which they profess to communicate or impart to their subjects, by whatever name they may call it – whether magnetic, Mesmeric, odylic, nervous, or vital force transferred from the operators into the bodies of their subjects.

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.