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.

In the following quotations from his New Studies in Hypnotism, Hippolyte Bernheim, the father of 20th century hypnotism, makes it abundantly clear that he believes “hypnosis” is something of a misnomer in that the effects of hypnotism do not require any form of “sleep” whatsoever.  Instead, he proposed that “hypnotism” would be better defined simply as a state of heightened suggestibility, or rather “suggestibilities” of various kinds.

Copying Braid, every author defines hypnotism as artificial sleep, nervous or induced.  This definition does not seem to me to be comprehensive enough.  It does not include a generalization of the actions that produce hypnosis. [...]

Sleep, or the idea of sleep, is not necessary for the hypnotic influence.  There is hypnosis without sleep. [...]

Have I not demonstrated that sleep, or the idea of sleep, is itself only one of the phenomena obtained by the hypnotic influence, just like catalepsy and hallucinations, but that the phenomenon of sleep does not necessarily precede or generate the others?  It can be dissociated from the others.  there is hypnosis without sleep – all the phenomena of hypnosis can exist without sleep. [...]

The conception of the word hypnosis is singularly restrictive.  The real nature of the phenomenon, when defined as induced sleep (as Braid and his successors have done) is misunderstood. [...]

We have seen, however, that this abnormal state is not always sleep; we have seen that sleep itself is only a phenomenon of suggestion, in the same class as catalepsy, anesthesia, and hallucinations.  In my opinion, it would be best to completely abolish the word “hypnotism” and replace it with “a state of suggestion.”  The procedures called “hypnotic” are reduced to demonstrating or heightening various suggestibilities. [...]

If one wishes to keep the words “hypnosis” and “hypnotic state”, we will define them as follows: a particular psychic state,  capable of being induced, which activates or heightens various suggestibilities, that is, the capacity to be influenced by an idea accepted by the brain, and to realise it.

In reality, hypnotic phenomena are only phenomena of suggestibility.

Although sleep is not necessary for suggestion, nevertheless, it may be said to facilitate it.  Whether it is natural or induced, it suppresses or attenuates intellectual initiative and concentrates cerebral activity on the phenomena of automatism.  It frees the imagination of the moderating brake of the faculties of reason.  Dreams are the hallucinatory autosuggestions of natural sleep. [...]

Many subjects only become suggestible to a noticeable degree when one has successfully induced the appearance of sleep.  Also, one generally tries in hypnosis to induce sleep, or a state as near to sleep as possible, in order to render suggestion as intense as possible.  But it as important to recognise that these two phenomena are not absolutely correlated.  As Braid previously indicated, this is shown in the frequent therapeutic failures that accompany a rather profound sleep.

Bernheim seems to overstate the extent to which James Braid, the founder of hypnotherapy, associated hypnotism with sleep.  Braid himself had observed that a state resembling sleep only occurred in approximately 10% of his subjects and therefore argued that the term “hypnotism” was a misnomer and should be replaced with a more descriptive terminology such as “mono-ideo-dynamics”, i.e., focused attention on a single dominant expectant idea.  This concept makes no reference whatsoever to sleep or relaxation and this definition in terms of conscious focused attention, if anything, is somewhat antagonistic to the notion of hypnotism as a kind of sleeplike state.

The James-Lange Theory of Emotion

Copyright (c) Donald Robertson, 2008-2010.  All rights reserved.

Whistling to keep up courage is no mere figure of speech.  On the other hand, sit all day in a moping posture, sigh, and reply to everything with a dismal voice, and your melancholy lingers.  There is no more valuable precept in moral education than this, as all who have experience know: if we wish to conquer undesirable emotional tendencies in ourselves, we must assiduously, and in the first instance cold-bloodedly, go through the outward motions of those contrary dispositions we prefer to cultivate.  The reward of persistency will infallibly come, in the fading out of the sullenness or depression, and the advent of real cheerfulness and kindliness in their stead.  Smooth the brow, brighten the eye, contract the dorsal rather than the ventral aspect of the frame, and speak in a major key, pass the genial compliment, and your heart must be frigid indeed if it does not gradually thaw!  (William James, ‘What is an emotion?’, 1884)

William James

Although best-known as a theory of emotion, in this short passage William James clearly states how his ideas lead directly to a practical application which clearly pre-empts 20^th Century behaviour therapy.  By encouraging clients to “act as if” they are cured, adopting the body language, etc., of a relaxed or assertive person, early behaviour therapists attempted not only to change behaviour but also to evoke emotional transformation.  James Braid, however, had already clearly described the same method, which he referred to as “muscular suggestion.” 

The Danish physician and psychologist Carl G. Lange (1885) and the founder of American psychology, William James (1884) both arrived independently of each other at a similar theory of the emotions, subsequently dubbed the James-Lange theory.  James and Lange both observed that most emotions are accompanied by emotional behaviour, changes in body language, posture, and also more subtle physiological changes such as changes in heart rate, breathing, and circulation.  Most people ordinarily assume, or at least speak as if, these physical manifestations of emotion are the effect of subjective feeling of emotion, i.e., that people feel an emotion of sadness inside and then, immediately or after a short delay, their posture slumps and they begin to cry as a result.  However, both Lange and James questioned this. 

James took his cue from Charles Darwin who had earlier examined the physiological expressions of emotion in animals and, by a natural process of extension, interpreted human emotions largely on the basis of the same physiological changes and behaviours.  Of course, as animals do not speak, we are less tempted to attribute a purely subjective sense of emotion to them but naturally assume that their emotions are physical processes.  For Darwin’s evolutionary theory, human emotion was essentially a special case of animal emotion and it therefore seemed obvious to him that it should be viewed as largely a physical phenomenon.

An example of “acting as if”, so obvious as to appear banal, is that when people act as if relaxed and sleepy, they often begin to feel so.  Even Pavlov observed that dogs tended to fall asleep when prevented from moving around.  Relaxation techniques almost universally require the subject to close their eyes, sit down or lie down in a recumbent manner, remain silent, stop moving, relax their skeletal muscles, and to encourage themselves to breathe in a progressively more relaxed manner.  It would be difficult to distinguish these components of relaxation technique from the actions of an actor attempting to enact the role of a relaxed or sleeping person convincingly. 

Muscular Suggestion in Hypnosis

In his earliest writings, James Braid, the founder of hypnotherapy, placed more emphasis on certain forms of physical suggestion than upon verbal suggestion.  Braid’s follower Dr. J.J.G. Wilkinson wrote of his method,

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, and 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.  Raise the head next, and ask, if it be a young lady, whether she or some other is the prettier: and observe the inexpressible hauteur, and the puff sneers let off from the lips, which indicate a conclusion too certain to need utterance; depress the head, and repeat the question; and mark the self-abasement with which she now says, “She is,” as hardly worthy to make the comparison.  In this state, whatever posture of any passion is induced, the passion comes into it at once, and dramatises the body accordingly.  (Wilkinson, 1851)

Indeed, in the conclusion and summary to Neurypnology, Braid states that one of the main principles of his method is,

That during hypnotism, by manipulating the cranium and face, we can excite certain mental and bodily manifestations, according to the parts touched.  (Braid, 1843)

In his last article, On Hypnotism (1860), Braid writes in a manner which strikingly pre-empts the James-Lange theory of emotion,

In this way, we influence the muscles of physiognomy [facial expression] and it is possible for us to arouse any passion or sentiment whatsoever; the contraction of the interconnected muscles, constituting “the anatomy of expression,” evokes in the brain of the hypnotized person certain impressions just as these, in the waking state, determine the whole facial expression.  It is thus merely a reversal of the usual order [of causation] between the emotions and their physical manifestations.  (Braid, 1860)

The father of hypnotism may perhaps claim to have pre-empted James and Lange, and to have conceived of “muscular suggestion” as a therpeutic method long before the advent of “acting as if” in modern psychotherapy.  Braid, notably, observed that hypnosis appeared to amplify the effect of this technique, and if featured prominently in the armamentarium of the original hypnotherapeutic method.

James Braid’s Life & Work

Copyright (c) Donald Robertson, 2009.  All rights reserved.

This is an excerpt from the book The Discovery of Hypnosis: The Complete Writings of James Braid, the Father of Hypnotherapy. 
www.James-Braid.com

James Braid was born to James Braid (senior), a landowner, and his wife Anne Suttie on 19^th June 1795 at Rylaw House in the Portmoak parish of the town of Kinross in Scotland.  On 17^th November 1813, Braid married Margaret Mason (or Meason).  They had a son, James (b. 1822), who also became a doctor, and a daughter.

Braid attended Edinburgh University, from 1812-1814, and graduated at the age of 20 as a Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons (L.R.C.S.), subsequently becoming M.R.C.S.  Braid was originally apprenticed to the father and son surgeons Charles Anderson in Leith, to whom he subsequently dedicated Neurypnology (1843).  Anderson was a founding member, and vice-president, of the elite learned society called the Wernerian Natural History Society of Edinburgh.  The Wernerian Society was created in 1808 by Robert Jameson, professor of natural history at Edinburgh University, as a break-away group from the Royal Society of Edinburgh.  It was dissolved in 1858, a few years before Braid’s death.

It seems that Anderson may have provided Braid with access to this learned body; Braid’s writings therefore also carry the designation ‘C.M.W.S.’ or ‘M.W.S.’, denoting his status as a ‘Corresponding Member of the Wernerian Society’.  (This little-known fact is supported by his contribution of some early articles, on subjects unrelated to hypnotism, to the society’s journal.)  Indeed, in Neurypnology (1843) Braid emphasises that one of the first people to whom he demonstrated his discovery of hypnotism was Captain Thomas Brown, a fellow Wernerian, respected natural historian, and curator of the Manchester Museum.

In 1816, after his apprenticeship to Anderson, Braid was appointed as a mine physician attached to Lord Hopetoun’s silver-lead ore mines in Leadhills, Lanarkshire.  Subsequently, in 1825 he opened a private practice working as a surgeon and ophthalmologist in Dumfries.  In 1828, however, at the request of a patient named Mr. Petty, he moved to Manchester where he lived and worked for the rest of his life. 

Even in his youth, he was a well-respected specialist and published a number of articles in various medical and scientific journals.  It is perhaps notable that as a surgeon who treated and published work on ophthalmology and musculoskeletal conditions, Braid should emphasise the use of eye-fixation and “muscular suggestion” in his method of hypnotism.  Certainly, by the time of his death, he had acquired a considerable reputation as a physician and surgeon, apparently specialising mainly in conditions such as strabismus, club-foot, muscular paralysis, and spinal curvature. 

His competence as a surgeon won him a solid practice and his geniality many friends.  He was also noted for his compassion towards patients too poor to pay a fee.  (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ‘James Braid’, 2007)

Braid’s charitable nature was demonstrated, e.g., by the fact that he offered free-of-charge hypnotic treatment to anyone suffering from hydrophobia (rabies) within travelling distance of Manchester in his ‘Author’s Preface’ to Neurypnology (1843).

Given his modest professional status as a provincial surgeon, Braid had a surprising number of friends and supporters among the most distinguished scientists, academics and physicians of his day.  To some extent this may be attributed to his early association with the prestigious Wernerian Society.  However, his endeavours seem naturally to have attracted the support of the many Victorian empiricists who were keen to disprove “occult” theories such as Mesmerism, and to offer more credible scientific explanations in their stead.  Most notable among these was Prof. William B. Carpenter, the distinguished physiologist, whose concept of the “ideo-motor response” became an essential part of Braid’s later “mono-ideo-dynamic” theory of hypnotic suggestion.

The Lafontaine Incident (1841)

On 13^th November 1841, in Manchester, Braid attended a public stage demonstration of phrenology and animal magnetism, conducted by a Swiss Mesmerist called Charles Lafontaine.  This kind of performance – though predating Braid’s introduction of hypnotism – is probably the prototype of the modern “stage hypnosis” show.  Called the Mesmeric séance or conversazione, it was a popular form of public lecture or entertainment across Europe at the time.  Lafontaine was a well-known and successful Mesmerist who toured his stage show, using two young assistants called Eugen and Mary as his subjects.  Curiously, the practice of using one’s own assistants for demonstrations was common at the time and did not seem to arouse quite as much suspicion as it might today.

            Lafontaine, by all accounts, was an intense-looking man with a heavy accent, and a large beard, who dressed in completely black attire (Forrest, 1999: 193).  He spoke very limited English and, somewhat bizarrely, performed with the aid of an interpreter.  Braid claims that he was initially a sceptic, believing the whole of Mesmerism to be due to collusion and deception.  The letter from Mr. Simpson reporting on Braid’s own demonstrations notes, ‘It was during a Mesmeric experiment conducted by M. Lafontaine – to which, in his then incredulity and disdain, he was almost dragged by a friend – that this idea occurred to Mr. Braid’.  In the first chapter of Neurypnology (1843), Braid writes,

The first exhibition of the kind I ever had an opportunity of attending, was one of M. Lafontaine’s conversazione, on the 13^th November, 1841.  That night I saw nothing to diminish, but rather to confirm, my previous prejudices.

However, for some reason Braid returned.

At the next conversazione, six nights afterwards [19^th November], one fact, the inability of a patient to open his eyelids, arrested my attention.  I considered that to be a real phenomenon, and was anxious to discover the physiological cause of it.  Next night, I watched this case when again operated on, with intense interest, and before the termination of the experiment, felt assured I had discovered its cause, but considered it prudent not to announce my opinion publicly, until I had had an opportunity of testing its accuracy, by experiments and observation in private.

One of these lectures was very graphically described by an astute witness, Prof. William Crawford Williamson, a distinguished academic and physician, in his Reminiscences of a Yorkshire Naturalist (1896).  It seems that, in an attempt to debunk the whole Mesmeric performance, Braid, Williamson, and others, mounted the stage led by a prominent eye surgeon called Mr. Wilson.  However, all three were surprised to find, on Williamson raising her eyelids, that the girl’s pupils were unusually contracted, an involuntary response normally indicative of deep sleep.  In his introduction to Neurypnology, Braid also remarks that he was impressed by the inability of Lafontaine’s subject to open her eyelids, a phenomenon now dubbed “eyelid catalepsy”. 

With the typical forthrightness of a Victorian surgeon, Braid proceeded to jam a pin underneath the girl’s fingernails but found her completely anaesthetised to what would normally have been an excruciatingly painful injury.  He was therefore forced to recognise that a genuine, and noteworthy, transformation had occurred in the subject’s state of mind and physiological responses.  A week later, Braid returned, this time determined to observe Lafontaine’s method more closely and discover a more rational explanation for the phenomena than the supposed power of animal magnetism.  For his own part, Lafontaine published his memoirs in 1866, which contain his own rather sensational, and probably somewhat unreliable, report of his time in England and encounter with Braid (q.v. Waite’s ‘Introduction’ to Braid on Hypnotism, 1899). 

After the Discovery (1841-1843)

After attending Lafontaine’s show and discovering that he could produce the same results without the need for animal magnetism, Braid appears to have acted very quickly indeed and argued forcefully to establish his views that nervous fatigue, concentration, habit and imagination accounted for the observable results of Mesmerism, without the need for any reference to occult forces or telepathic powers, etc.  In the opening chapter of Neurypnology he explains,

In two days afterwards [23^rd November?], I developed my views to my friend Captain [Thomas] Brown [a fellow member of the Wernerian Society], as I had also previously done to four other friends; and in his presence, and that of my family, and another friend, the same evening, I instituted a series of experiments to prove the correctness of my theory, namely, that the continued fixed stare, by paralysing nervous centres in the eyes and their appendages, and destroying the equilibrium of the nervous system, thus produced the phenomenon referred to.  The experiments were varied so as to convince all present, that they fully bore out the correctness of my theoretical views.

According to his introductory remarks in Neurypnology, Braid immediately wrote to the Medical Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in order to arrange delivery of a professional report entitled ‘Practical Essay on the Curative Agency of Neuro-Hypnotism’ before his peers.  It seems evident that Braid had therefore already coined the term “neuro-hypnotism” by late 1841.

However, his proposal to the British Association was declined; apparently because of concern over the controversial nature of the subject.  Frustrated, Braid advertised his own public reading of the ‘Rejected Essay’ (as he calls it) on 27^th December 1841 which seems to have been attended by many of the British Association members.  This was one of five public lectures which he undertook at this time to promote his ideas, and which were reported in detail in the Manchester newspapers.  Braid attracted opposition from both Mesmerists and sceptics, but he also immediately drew credible supporters from among his “scientific friends”.  On 31^st December 1841, a conversazione on Braid’s methods was given by a surgeon, Mr. Duncan, at the Hanover Square Rooms in London, and reported as “A New Theory of Animal Magnetism” in The Medical Times (vol. v, 1841-1842, p. 175).  This event seems also to have acted as an introduction for Braid who was soon to visit London himself.

On 1^st March 1842, Braid travelled to the capital, where he arranged a formal lecture held in the Hanover Square Rooms.  In defence of his position, he later recalls,

[…] I had, at great personal inconvenience as well as pecuniary sacrifice, gone to London, that my views might be subjected “to a rigid examination” of the most learned men in our profession, to propound to them the laws by which I consider it to act, and above all, to prove to them “the uniformity of its action” and its practical applicability and value as a curative agency, by [my] mode of operating.  (Braid, Satanic Agency, etc., 1842)

Several eminent scientists and physicians were present, most notably Herbert Mayo, Professor of Physiology & Pathological Anatomy at King’s College.  Mayo seems initially to have been sceptical but was convinced by his observations.  He was himself hypnotised by Braid and also vigorously tested the anaesthesia of a hypnotic subject by pushing a pin straight through the back of the man’s hand and out the other side, through the palm.  At the same lecture, Braid also hypnotised a group of eighteen people, en masse, who were instructed to gaze upon the base of a chandelier.  Reportedly, the only ones who did not respond to the satisfaction of the audience were two participants who refused to fully comply with the procedure.

So much interest was generated that it proved necessary to immediately repeat the lecture at the London Tavern the following day to accommodate all those who wished to attend.  (The Hanover Square Rooms and London Tavern were venues used for medical and scientific lectures in London.)  After this validation, Braid began to report his work in letters and articles in the medical periodicals.  On 12^th March 1842, The Medical Times published an enthusiastic report on Braid’s lectures in London, accompanied by a letter by Braid himself on ‘Animal Magnetism.’  This seems to be his first known publication on the subject, just four months after his encounter with Lafontaine.  At this early stage, Braid expresses the essential criticisms of Mesmerism which would become the basis of his theory of hypnotism.  He argues that the fixed gaze and “passes” of the animal magnetist were merely monotonous stimuli designed to induce a state of physiological fatigue in which subjects somehow became more liable to respond to their own imagination, and therefore to ideas arising from their own expectations or from external influences, i.e., through suggestion or imitation.  The report mentions Braid’s introduction of the term “neurypnology” used in distinction from Mesmerism.  It was followed on 26^th March by another letter on ‘Animal Magnetism’ in the same publication.  In an article entitled ‘On Mr. Braid’s Experiments’ in The Medical Times 2^nd April 1842, Mayo reported as follows in response to Braid’s letter,

The same cures which you effect have, indeed, before been made by the ordinary process of Mesmerising but that process is so extremely tedious, occupying for the first sittings in general from half to three-quarters of an hour, as, joined to the uncertainty of producing any effect after all, practically to wear out the patience of experimenters, and to prevent the method advancing, either as a subject of inquiry, or its being brought into general use as a curative means.  It took up too much time.  What you appear to have done is to have found out a method, by which, in five minutes, the susceptibility of any given individual towards the [hypnotic] trance may be determined (or, at all events, by the repetition of the same brief process, a few successive days.)

In the years to follow, Braid would publish many articles and letters in The Medical Times, which seemed to welcome his contributions on hypnotism.

At this point, however, he became embroiled in what seems to have been the first of several controversies caused by his views.  Reverend Hugh McNeile, one of the most popular and outspoken Anglican preachers in the country at the time, delivered a scathing attack upon Braid in which he appears to accuse him of deceiving his patients, and even of doing the work of Satan.  The sermon was given on Sunday 10^th April 1842 at St. Jude’s Church in Liverpool.  Braid immediately wrote to McNeile responding to the accusations, but received no reply.  He then held a public lecture on 21^st April 1842, in response to the sermon, to which he formally invited McNeile, but he did not attend.  In fact, McNeile now responded by publishing the text of his original sermon in his ‘Penny Pulpit’ review without any acknowledgement of Braid’s objections.  Frustrated, Braid’s hand was forced and he rushed into print on 4^th June 1842 with what appears to be the first independent publication on hypnotism, though he had previously penned various letters and his unpublished report.  He had this “open letter” printed himself and distributed as a twelve-page booklet expounding and defending his views.  As such, this must be the first publication (other than his published letters) in which Braid uses the term “hypnotism”.

On 29^th June 1842, he delivered a conversazione to the British Association in Manchester, which was reported in the Manchester Times.  Braid seems to have delivered his “rejected” paper on ‘The Curative Agency of Neuro-Hypnotism,’ once again at this event.  He states that he exhibited several patients successfully treated with hypnotism, as discussed in Neurypnology, including Sarah Ann Mellor (Case 19), Thomas Morris (Case 21), and Samuel Evans (Case 17).  He also exhibited a female subject who seemed able to follow the scent of a rose around, though blindfolded, because of olfactory hyperacuity developed in hypnosis, as discussed in excerpts from the Manchester Times quoted in Neurypnology.  Braid then published another letter entitled ‘Neuro-Hypnotism’ in The Medical Times of 9^th July 1842, and then a short case study entitled, ‘Account of case of total deafness successfully treated by hypnotism’ in The Manchester Times of 1^st September 1842.  As far as I am aware, these were his only publications on the topic of hypnosis prior to Neurypnology (1843), which he tended later to refer to simply as his book “on Hypnotism”. 

Neurypnology appears to have been something of an instant success, selling an impressive 800 copies within a few months of its publication, according to a letter published soon afterwards by Braid in the Medical Times (11^th Nov. 1843).  It is true that Neurypnology was Braid’s only full-length book, though it is important to realise that he subsequently published several other small booklets on hypnotism, often extended essays based upon previously published articles in medical journals.  These smaller books, and his other writings, are essential in order to understand the evolution of Braid’s thought, which underwent radical modifications in response to his growing clinical and experimental experience.  Indeed, near the end of his life, Braid composed a short essay, summarising the content of his later works and quoting at length from them, which was meant to be included as an appendix to a proposed French translation of Neurypnology.  It is clear that he felt this was necessary in order to place his earlier views in context.

After Neurypnology (1843-1860)

After publishing Neurypnology, only two years after he discovered hypnotism, Braid began to gradually revise his views, shifting emphasis from the physiological state of nervous fatigue onto the psychological state of mental abstraction or “monoideism”.  This paralleled an increasing recognition of the role of suggestion, a word which itself becomes increasingly common in his writings over time.  In Neurypnology, Braid had recognised that physical manipulations could evoke certain responses, a phenomenon which he terms “muscular suggestion”.  He had also recognised the fact that, once induced into nervous sleep, a subject became increasingly susceptible to re-entering the condition as a result of imagination, habit, and expectation.  However, the following factors seem to have contributed to his progressive growth of interest in suggestion,

1. Carpenter’s “ideo-motor” theory of reflex action, which provided an early neuropsychological framework for understanding the nature and function of suggestion.
2. Braid’s own experiments proving that the phenomena attributed by Baron von Reichenbach and the Electro-Biologists to forces such as magnetism, odyl, or electricity, could be reproduced in the “waking state” by a variety of psychological means, such as verbal suggestion, etc.

Even in Neurypnology, Braid complains of the misconception that hypnotism should be accompanied by a loss of awareness, resembling sleep.  This problem finally led him to argue that the word “hypnotism” should be reserved for those cases in which the subject experiences no recollection afterwards of what happened during the process, though he emphasised that this accounted for only 10% of his subjects.  The other 90% of Braid’s subjects were in a “sub-hypnotic” state referred to as the “vigilant” or “waking” state, or as “concentration”, “abstraction”, or “monoideism”, meaning focused attention upon a single idea or train of thought to the exclusion of other stimuli.  He increasingly recognised, moreover, that hypnotic suggestion and other techniques could be surprisingly effective without any induction whatsoever, in the normal state of mind.

            Braid therefore introduced the term “mono-ideo-dynamic”, and related expressions, to describe the general theory that focused attention, along with expectation and other psycho-physiological factors, can enhance the ideo-motor response and bring about a variety of physiological changes as a result.  Braid concluded it was necessary to emphasise the fact that suggestion may be operative in the waking state, and increased even in states of reverie or focused attention which it would be incredibly misleading to describe as “nervous sleep”.  He carried out many experiments debunking pseudoscientific placebo therapies including “subtle energy” treatments like Mesmerism, magnets, crystals, homeopathy, etc.  Ironically, these Victorian “nostrum” (i.e., quack) remedies were the precursors of many of the currently popular complementary therapies with which modern hypnotherapy is frequently associated.  However, Braid was perhaps as well-known in his own day as an intelligent and powerful critic of pseudoscientific therapies and paranormal claims.  In any case, his own observations increasingly forced Braid to recognise that real effects could be produced by various forms of suggestion and autosuggestion in the normal waking state, without any specific induction technique or change in the nervous state.

            In his earliest writings, Braid places cardinal emphasis upon the physiological basis of hypnotism, in an obvious attempt to distance himself from those, like Thomas Wakley, the editor of The Lancet, who dismissed Mesmerism as mere “imagination” or pretence.  Arguably, Braid is somewhat hamstrung in this regard by his Christianity, which biases him against materialism and in favour of a dubious metaphysical theory of mind.  In Neurypnology, for instance, he enters into a lengthy digression attempting to argue in favour of a Cartesian dualist theory, i.e., that the mind (or immortal soul) and body are two fundamentally distinct entities which causally interact.  Later in his career, he introduces the term “psycho-physiology” (we now say “psycho-somatic” or “mind-body”) to help clarify the fact that he thinks the psychological and physiological changes in hypnotism causally interact.  Physical and mental changes are intertwined.  On the one hand, body can affect mind; for instance, changes in physical posture and facial expression can be used to evoke psychological responses – by making a subject frown we evoke feelings of sadness in his mind.  On the other hand, mind can affect body; for instance, attention, imagination and expectation may not only make someone believe that he is sleepy, but may actually change his physiological state, and bring about physical phenomena such as lowering of heart rate and dilation of the pupils, usually considered autonomic, or involuntary. 

In Braid’s writing, therefore, the study of hypnotism, “neuro-hypnology”, expands to encompass, more generally, the combined effect of attention and dominant ideas (suggestions) upon the body, termed “mono-ideo-dynamics”, and ultimately becomes subsumed within the study of mind-body interaction in the most general sense, or “psycho-physiology”.  Hypnotism was psycho-physiological therapy, and as Braid repeatedly argued, it conformed to the well-established laws of psychology and physiology.  Hence, his later book Hypnotic Therapeutics (1853) concludes emphatically,

I beg farther to remark, if my theory and pretensions, as to the nature, cause, and extent of the phenomena of nervous sleep have none of the fascinations of the transcendental to captivate the lovers of the marvellous, the credulous and enthusiastic, which the pretensions and alleged occult agency of the Mesmerists have, still I hope my views will not be the less acceptable to honest and sober-minded men, because they are all level to our comprehension, and reconcilable with well-known physiological and psychological principles.

Contrary to the popular misconception that confuses Mesmerism and hypnotism with each other, therefore, Braid emphasised from the outset that his theory was intended to oppose the views of the Mesmerists.  He wrote in The Lancet, ‘I adopted the term “hypnotism” to prevent my being confounded with those who entertain these extreme notions, as well as to get rid of the erroneous theory about a magnetic fluid, or esoteric influence of any description being the cause of the sleep’. (‘On Hypnotism’, The Lancet, 1845; vol. 1: 627-628)

The Original Hypnotic Eye-Fixation Technique

Copyright (c) Donald Robertson, 2008-2010.  All rights reserved.

This is a modified excerpt from the book The Discovery of Hypnosis: The Complete Writings of James Braid, The Father of Hypnotherapy.  Available online from Amazon. 

www.James-Braid.com

In Neurypnology (1843) Braid explicitly described the original hypnotic eye-fixation induction technique as follows,

Take any bright object (I generally use my lancet case) between the thumb and fore and middle fingers of the left hand; hold it from about eight to fifteen inches from the eyes, at such position above the forehead as may be necessary to produce the greatest possible strain upon the eyes and eyelids, and enable the patient to maintain a steady fixed stare at the object.

The patient must be made to understand that he is to keep the eyes steadily fixed on the object, and the mind riveted on the idea of that one object.  It will be observed, that owing to the consensual adjustment of the eyes, the pupils will be at first contracted: they will shortly begin to dilate, and after they have done so to a considerable extent, and have assumed a wavy motion, if the fore and middle fingers of the right hand, extended and a little separated, are carried from the object towards the eyes, most probably the eyelids will close involuntarily, with a vibratory motion.  If this is not the case, or the patient allows the eyeballs to move, desire him to begin anew, giving him to understand that he is to allow the eyelids to close when the fingers are again carried towards the eyes, but that the eyeballs must be kept fixed, in the same position, and the mind riveted to the one idea of the object held above the eyes.  It will generally be found, that the eyelids close with a vibratory motion, or become spasmodically closed.  After ten or fifteen seconds have elapsed, by gently elevating the arms and legs, it will be found that the patient has a disposition to retain them in the situation in which they have been placed, if he is intensely affected.

If this is not the case, in a soft tone of voice desire him to retain the limbs in the extended position, and thus the pulse will speedily become greatly accelerated [i.e., doubled], and the limbs, in process of time, will become quite rigid and involuntarily fixed [i.e., cataleptic].  It will also be found, that all the organs of special sense, excepting sight, including heat and cold, and muscular motion, or resistance, and certain mental faculties, are at first prodigiously exalted, such as happens with regard to the primary effects of opium, wine, and spirits.  [The “primary” stage, of sensory excitation.]  After a certain point, however, this exaltation of function is followed by a state of depression, far greater than the torpor of natural sleep.  [The “ulterior” stage, of insensibility.]

Most accounts of Braid’s method are based on this passage.  However, even in this, his first book on the subject, he described several variations of the basic eye-fixation technique.  In a footnote, he adds,

At an early period of my investigations, I caused the patients to look at a cork bound on the forehead.  This was a very efficient plan with those who had the power of converging the eyes so as to keep them both steadily directed on the object.  I very soon found, however, that there were many who could not keep both eyes steadily fixed on so near an object, and that the result was, that such patients did not become hypnotised.  To obviate this, I caused them to look at a more distant point, which, although scarcely so rapid and intense in its effects, succeeds more generally than the other, and is therefore what I now adopt and recommend.

This technique clearly resembles the “eye-roll” induction popularised in recent decades by Herbert and David Spiegel. 

Crucially, and contrary to a widespread misconception, Braid also acknowledged at this stage in his career that expectation and other psychological factors could produce the same hypnotic state without eye-fixation, or any induction process whatsoever.  With some justification, however, he maintained that the physical procedure must usually be carried out at least once for this to be possible.  It might be argued that for suggestion or autosuggestion to be completely effective, the subject must (typically) be able to imagine the response suggested – a feat that is much easier if they have previously experienced it.

It is important to remark, that the oftener patients are hypnotised, from association of ideas and habit, the more susceptible they become; and in this way they are liable to be affected entirely through the imagination.  Thus, if they consider or imagine there is something doing, although they do not see it, from which they are to be affected, they will become affected; but, on the contrary, the most expert hypnotist in the world may exert all his endeavours in vain, if the party does not expect it, and mentally and bodily comply, and thus yield to it.

Although Braid clearly believed that the process of eye-fixation had certain inherent effects, it seems he thought that these could be enhanced or undermined by the subject’s expectations and mental attitude.  The same is true of many other physical procedures, such as progressive muscle relaxation.  In truth, therefore, Braid interpreted his eye-fixation induction in terms of what he later described as the “reciprocal” interaction of psychological and physical factors, i.e., a genuine physical process of eye-fatigue compounded by verbal suggestion and expectant imagination.  In modern terminology, this might be described as a circular feedback model of the interaction between cognitive and behavioural factors or strategies.

In his later writings Braid adds further details, probably because he modified his technique over time, with growing experience. However, it also seems likely that the description in Neurypnology was incomplete, and did not represent the variations employed by Braid even at an early stage in his work.  There is a common misconception that Braid’s method took a long time, however, he now clarifies that the used of eye-fixation to induce eyelid closure is limited to 3-4 minutes.  In Magic, Witchcraft, etc. (1852), he writes,

My usual mode of inducing the sleep is to hold any small bright object about ten or twelve inches above the middle of the forehead, so as to require a slight exertion of the attention to enable the patient to maintain a steady, fixed gaze on the object; the subject being either comfortably seated or standing, stillness being enjoined, and the patient requested to engage his attention, as much as possible, on the simple act of looking at the object, and yield to the tendency to sleep which will steal over him during this apparently simple process.  I generally use my lancet case, held between the thumb and first two fingers of the left hand; but any other small bright object will answer the purpose.  In the course of about three or four minutes, if the eyelids do not close of themselves, the first two fingers of the right hand, extended and a little separated, may be quickly, or with a tremulous motion, carried towards the eyes, so as to cause the patient involuntarily to close the eyelids, which, if he is highly susceptible, will either remain rigidly closed, or assume a vibratory motion – the eyes being turned up, with, in the latter case, a little of the white of the eyes visible through the partially closed lids.  If the patient is not highly susceptible, he will open his eyes, in which case request him to gaze at the object, etc., as at first; and, if they do not remain closed after a second trial, desire him to allow them to remain shut after you have closed them, and then endeavour to fix his attention on muscular effort, by elevating the arms if standing, or both arms and legs if seated, which must be done quietly, as if you wished to suggest the idea of muscular action without breaking the abstraction, or concentrative state of mind, the induction of which is the real origin and essence of all which follows.

Braid may be implying here that he employed what subsequently became known as an “eyelid catalepsy test”, i.e., verbally challenging the subject to try to open their eyes as a test of responsiveness.  Otherwise, it seems unlikely he would claim to know that their eyes were sealed rigidly closed.  He describes the induction of rigid arm catalepsy in a way that resembles his notion of “muscular suggestion”, i.e., that the manipulation of the body suggests a certain response to the subject’s mind.  As with the eye fixation induction itself, this appears to have been conceptualised in terms of Braid’s reciprocal interaction model of suggestion, whereby physical manipulation and expectation mutually reinforce each other.  His caution suggests that he may have previously found that carelessly handling the subject’s arms and legs sometimes broke their concentration and interfered with the technique.

www.James-Braid.com

Let’s go back to the horse’s mouth and see what the surgeon who coined the term “hypnotism”, James Braid, the founder of hypnotherapy, said about the dangers it posed and the extent to which patients could be “controlled” and made to do objectionable things…

While under the hypnotic influence, the patients evince great docility, but there is, however, such a state of the perceptive faculties and judgement that they will be quite as fastidious of correct conduct as when in the natural state. So far as I know, there is no more, or not so much, chance of gaining a knowledge of the thoughts of others than might be attained by giving the patient a glass or two of wine. And I have no experience of any such irresistible influence over individuals for producing those malign effects you refer to. I strongly suspect they only exist in the imagination of the parties operating or operated on. At all events, no such effects result from my operations, although undoubtedly I have been able to produce the most wonderful effects in many instances where ordinary treatment had been unavailing.

This is from an unpublished letter in the archive of his follower, Dr. John Milne Bramwell, who goes on to comment,

[Braid] had never seen a hypnotised patient who did not strenuously resist any attempt at taking a liberty with her. Such patients could not be induced to take off their stockings, for example, or to give a kiss to a gentleman, even should he be a hallucinatory one. On the contrary, they would repel such suggestions with more energy than in the waking condition.

Victorian doctors were, it has to be said, in a better position to test behaviour which might be considered too dubious to propose in a modern psychological experiment, and wouldn’t get approval from a modern ethics committee. Braid recognised that people do sometimes do things they later regret in hypnotism but that this was more often due to other factors such as social compliance, peer pressure, deception, etc., and that it seemed to him more likely to be possible to manipulate people psychologically through the use of alcohol or intoxicating drugs rather than hypnotism.

What might be achieved by systematic and persevering attempts to corrupt a virtuous person during that state, I do not pretend to tell; I should never condescend to witness such attempts being systematically made; but my present convictions are that the same individual might be more readily demoralised when awake, than when in the second conscious state of nervous sleep, which evidently has a tendency with virtuous people to quicken their perceptions and heighten their notions of what would be immoral or highly indecorous, whilst at the same time it renders them most docile and obliging in all which is reasonable and seemly in their estimation. Thus, while they still indignantly repel the proposal to kiss an imaginary gentleman, they will be quite willing to do so to an imaginary child.

Modern research on hypnotism has, overall, supported Braid’s original view and failed to find credible evidence that hypnotic subjects were more complaint than non-hypnotised subjects. It has to be emphasised, in this context, that as Milgram’s famous experiment illustrates, people are surprisingly compliant to social pressure anyway and this is easily confused with the effects of hypnotism.

The 2001 report reviewing the scientific research on hypnotism, commissioned by the British Psychological Society (BPS), 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)

Essentially this confirms Braid’s original account of hypnotism, which he opposed to the misconception of “mind control” originating in the tendency to confuse hypnotism with Mesmerism.

In concluding his primary text on hypnotism, Neurypnology (1843), James Braid, the founder of hypnotherapy, lists summarises the main points of his theory as follows. 

1. [Eye-fixation]  That the effect of a continued fixation of the mental and visual eye in the manner, and with the concomitant circumstances pointed out, is to throw the nervous system into a new condition, accompanied with a state of somnolence, and a tendency, according to the mode of management, of exciting a variety of phenomena, very different from those we obtain either in ordinary sleep, or during the waking condition.
2. [Hypnotic Stages]  That there is at first a state of high excitement of all the organs of special sense, sight excepted, and a great increase of muscular power; and that the senses afterwards become torpid in a much greater degree than what occurs in natural sleep.
3. [Nervous Excitation & Depression]  That in this condition we have the power of directing or concentrating nervous energy, raising or depressing it in a remarkable degree, at will, locally or generally.
4. [Heart Rate]  That in this state, we have the power of exciting or depressing the force and frequency of the heart’s action, and the state of the circulation, locally or generally, in a surprising degree.
5. [Muscular Tone]  That whilst in this peculiar condition, we have the power of regulating and controlling muscular tone and energy in a remarkable manner and degree.
6. [General Physiological Effects]  That we also thus acquire a power of producing rapid and important changes in the state of the capillary circulation, and of the whole of the secretions and excretions of the body, as proved by the application of chemical tests.
7. [Therapeutic Use]  That this power can be beneficially directed to the cure of a variety of diseases which were most intractable, or altogether incurable, by ordinary treatment.
8. [Pain Control]  That this agency may be rendered available in moderating or entirely preventing, the pain incident to patients whilst undergoing surgical operations.
9. [Muscular Suggestion]  That during hypnotism, by manipulating the cranium and face, we can excite certain mental and bodily manifestations, according to the parts touched.