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.

Excerpt from the NCH August Research Snippet by Donald Robertson

See the rest of this article online at the NCH website,

http://www.hypnotherapists.org.uk/1502/mindfulness-metacognition-and-hypnosis-august-research-snippet/

In 2006, Steven Jay Lynn collaborated with the Buddhist teacher Lama Surya Das, and two other researchers, in an attempt to explore the possibility of combining elements of Buddhist mindfulness meditation practice, cognitive therapy, and hypnosis, drawing on recent research in cognitive psychology.

Mindfulness versus Thought Suppression

Over the past couple of decades, enthusiasm for mindfulness meditation techniques derived from Buddhism has flourished among cognitive-behavioural therapists, inspired by the early success of Jon Kabat-Zinn’s meditation programme for stress management.  Meditation and acceptance strategies have been used to counteract the tendency of many clients to try to suppress, control, or “fight” distressing thoughts.  Lynn et al. refer to the recent study by Wegner and his colleagues, which found that when people tried to deliberately suppress a thought there was evidence of a “rebound effect” in which they subsequently experienced more intrusions of the thought than a control group who were simply asked to think freely about the same thing.  Other studies have found evidence that emotional suppression can inhibit memory and problem-solving and increase physiological signs of nervous arousal.  Lynn and his colleagues report that of nearly a hundred subjects who were asked to keep their minds blank while listening to hypnotic suggestions, only one reported any success. 

Where thought-control strategies backfire, mindfulness and acceptance have been seen as offering an alternative way of responding to distressing experiences.  Lynn et al. follow other contemporary cognitive-behavioural therapists in contrasting non-judgemental mindfulness and acceptance with the unhealthy suppression of thoughts and feelings.  (However, they fail to mention that experimental studies on this “rebound” effect in thought suppression have produced some mixed results – q.v. Clark & Beck, 2010, for a more detailed review.)  Lynn et al. also cite a 2003 meta-analysis of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and stress reduction approaches by Baer, which found a mean effect size of 0.59 (a medium-sized treatment effect) for this approach across various emotional problems and medical conditions.  In other words, it probably works, but the effects are comparable to those of other therapies and not dramatically superior to them.

See the rest of this article online at the NCH website,

http://www.hypnotherapists.org.uk/1502/mindfulness-metacognition-and-hypnosis-august-research-snippet/

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

(This is a brief excerpt from my forthcoming book, The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy: Stoic Philosophy as Rational and Cognitive Psychotherapy, published by Karnac and available for pre-order online now.)

Plato has a fine saying, that he who would discourse of man should survey, as from some high watchtower, the things of earth.  (Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations) 

Take a moment to settle into your posture and make yourself comfortable…  Close your eyes and relax… [Pause.]  Be aware of your breathing…  Notice the rhythm and pattern of the breath…  Do nothing for while, just be content to contemplate your breathing more deeply… [Pause.]  Now, begin by paying attention to the whole of your body as one…  From the top of your head, all the way down into your fingers and down into your toes…  Be aware of your body as one… every nerve, muscle and fibre… Don’t try to change anything.  Don’t try to stop anything from changing…  Some things can change just by being observed… 

Just be content to notice whatever you notice, and feel whatever you feel…  Be a passive, detached observer…  As you continue to relax, turn your attention deeper within, and become more aware of your body… until you can almost imagine how you look right now…  Begin to picture yourself as if seen from the outside… Now just imagine that you are taking a step back and looking at yourself.  It really doesn’t matter how vividly you can picture yourself, it’s just the intention, just idea that matters.  Imagine your body posture… your facial expression… the colour and style of your clothing…

Now keep looking at the image of yourself resting there, and imagine your own feet are gently leaving the ground.  You begin floating serenely upwards, slowly and continuously, rising upwards.  All the while your gaze keeps returning to your own body, now seated there below you as you rise above it.  Keep looking down toward your body as you float higher and higher….  The roof and ceiling disappear, allowing you to float freely upward.  Gazing down you see yourself seated comfortably below in the building, looking contented and contemplative.  You see all the rooms, and any other people around.

As you continue to float gently higher and higher, your perspective widens more and more until you see the whole surrounding area.  You see all the buildings nearby from above.  You see the people in buildings and in the streets and roads.  You observe people far below working, or walking along the pavement, people cycling or driving their cars, and those travelling on buses and trains.  You begin to contemplate the whole network of human lives and how people everywhere are interacting with each other, influencing each other, encountering each other in different ways…

Floating higher, people become as small as ants below.  Rising up into the clouds, you see the whole of the surrounding region beneath you.  You see both towns and countryside, and gradually the coastline comes into view as your perspective becomes more and more expansive…  You float gently up above the clouds, above the weather, and through the upper atmosphere of the planet Earth…  So high that you eventually rise beyond the sphere of the planet itself, and into outer space…  You look toward planet Earth and see it suspended in space before you, silently turning… resplendent in all its majesty and beauty…

You see the whole of your home planet… the blue of the great oceans… and the brown and green of the continental land masses…  You see the white of the polar ice caps, north and south…  You see the grey wisps of cloud that pass silently across the surface of the Earth…  Though you can no longer see yourself from so far above, you know and feel that you are down there on Earth below, and that your life is important, and what you make of your life is important.  Your change in perspective changes your view of things, your values and priorities…

You contemplate all the countless living beings upon the Earth.  The population of the planet is over six billion people…  You realise that your life is one among many, one person among the total population of the Earth…  You think of the rich diversity of human life on Earth.  The many languages spoken by people of different races, in different countries… people of all different ages… newborn infants, elderly people, people in the prime of life…  You think of the enormous variety of human experiences… some people right now are unhappy, some people are happy… and you realise how richly varied the tapestry of human life before you seems.

And yet as you gaze upon the planet Earth you are also aware of its position within the rest of the universe… a tiny speck of stardust, adrift in the immeasurable vastness of cosmic space…  This world of ours is merely a single planet, a tiny grain of sand by comparison with the endless tracts of cosmic space…    a tiny rock in space, revolving around our Sun… the Sun itself just one of countless billions of stars which punctuate the velvet blackness of our galaxy…

You think about the present moment on Earth and see it within the broader context of your life as a whole.  You think of your lifespan as a whole, in its totality…  You think of your own life as one moment in the enormous lifespan of mankind…  Hundreds of generations have lived and died before you… many more will live and die in the future, long after you yourself are gone…  Civilisations too have a lifespan; you think of the many great cities which have arisen and been destroyed throughout the ages… and your own civilisation as one in a series… perhaps in the future to be followed by new cities, peoples, languages, cultures, and ways of life…

You think of the lifespan of humanity itself…  Just one of countless billions of species living upon the planet…  Mankind arose as a race roughly two hundred thousand years ago… animal life itself first appeared on Earth over four billion years ago…  Contemplate time as follows…  Realise that if the history of life on Earth filled an encyclopaedia a thousand pages long… the life of the entire human race could be represented by a single sentence somewhere in that book… just one sentence…

And yet you think of the lifespan of the planet itself…  Countless billions of years old… the life of the planet Earth too has a beginning, middle, and end…  Formed from the debris of an exploding star, unimaginably long ago… one day in the distant future its destiny is to be swallowed up and consumed by the fires of our own Sun…  You think of the great lifespan of the universe itself… the almost incomprehensible vastness of universal time… starting with a cosmic explosion, a big bang they say, immeasurable ages ago in the past…  Perhaps one day, at the end of time, this whole universe will implode upon itself and disappear once again…  Who can imagine what, if anything, might follow, at the end of time, in the wake of our own universe’s demise…

Contemplating the vast lifespan of the universe, remember that the present moment is but the briefest of instants… the mere blink of an eye… the turn of a screw… a fleeting second in the mighty river of cosmic time…  Yet the “here and now” is important… standing as the centre point of all human experience…  Here and now you find yourself at the centre of living time…  Though your body may be small in the grand scheme of things, your imagination, the human imagination, is as big as the universe… bigger than the universe… enveloping everything that can be conceived…  From the cosmic point of view, your body seems small, but your imagination seems utterly vast… 

You contemplate all things, past, present and future…  You see your life within the bigger picture… the total context of cosmic time and space…  The totality is absolute reality…  You see yourself as an integral part of something much bigger, something truly vast, the “All” itself…  Just as the cells of your own body work together to form a greater unity, a living being, so your body as a whole is like a single cell in the organism of the universe…  Along with every atom in the universe you necessarily contribute your role to the unfolding of its grand design…

As your consciousness expands, and your mind stretches out to reach and touch the vastness of eternity…  Things change greatly in perspective… and shifts occur in their relative importance… Trivial things seem trivial to you…  Indifferent things seem indifferent…  The significance of your own attitude toward life becomes more apparent… you realise that life is what you make of it…   You learn to put things in perspective, and focus on your true values and priorities in life…  One stage at a time, you develop the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference…  You follow nature… your own true nature as a rational, truth-seeking human being… and the one great nature of the universe as a whole…

Now in a moment you are beginning to sink back down to Earth, toward your place in the here and now…  Part of you can remain aware of the view from above, and always return to and remember that sense of serenity and perspective. 

Now you begin your descent back down to Earth, to face the future with renewed strength and serenity…  You sink back down through the sky… down… down… down… toward the local area… down… down… down… into this building…  down… down… down… You sink back gently into your body… all the way now… as your feet slowly come to rest upon the floor once again…

Now think about the room around you… Think about action… movement… think about looking around and getting your orientation…  raising your head a little…  Begin to breathe a little bit more deeply… a little bit more energetically… let your body feel more alive and ready for action… breathe energy and vitality into your body… breathe a little deeper and deeper again… until you’re ready to take a deep breath, open your eyes, and emerge from meditation… taking your mindfulness and self-awareness forward into life… beginning now… take a deep breath… and open your eyes now… when you’re ready… entering the here and now with deep calm and serenity…

Copyright (c) Donald Robertson, 2009

The short handout below is based on the AWARE acronym used by Aaron Beck and his colleagues in their cognitive therapy for anxiety and phobias.  For more information see Beck, Emery, & Greenberg, Anxiety Disorders & Phobias: A Cognitive Perspective (2005).  This self-help advice to clients can precede typical cognitive therapy to modify negative automatic thoughts.  Similar acceptance and self-awareness strategies have been used in hypnotherapy and humanistic psychotherapies for many decades, especially in Gestalt psychotherapy. 

Your First Job: Being AWARE

At the beginning of therapy it helps to start learning a whole new attitude toward your anxiety, which has been summed up in the acronym “AWARE” to help you memorise the instructions.  You can think of this as defining your initial “role” in therapy, or as a kind of job description.  Paradoxically, learning to accept anxiety tends to help overcome it.  People sometimes describe this as stopping “battling against” or “fighting with” their symptoms, taking the pressure off themselves, being non-judgemental, or forgiving themselves for feeling anxious. 

• Accept that your anxious thoughts and feelings are natural.  Allow yourself to feel anxious without becoming annoyed or frustrated with yourself.  Say “hello” to the thoughts and feelings, think of them as being fairly normal, acknowledge the fact that they exist, and adopt a patient attitude toward change.
• Watch your anxiety from a distance.  Observe your thoughts and feelings non-judgementally, without making strong value judgements about them being bad, or about yourself for having them.  Just imagine you’re observing your thoughts and feelings from a detached perspective, from a distance, without placing too much importance on them.  You are not your thoughts or your feelings; rather you’re the person observing them.  Observe your thoughts and feelings as if they’re transient things, like clouds passing across the sky, instead of becoming absorbed in them.
• Act despite your anxiety.  Act as if you’ve overcome your fears, act as if you’re in control or you’ve already achieved your goal of getting better.  Reverse your avoidance behaviour and face your fears in steps and stages, dropping any unnecessary signs of anxiety such as gripping objects for safety or averting your gaze from people.
• Repeat as much as possible.  Keep accepting your anxiety, watching it from a detached perspective, and acting as if you’re better until it becomes second nature and your feelings change.
• Expect realistic improvement.  Be hopeful and confident but don’t rush things.  Be realistic and expect possible setbacks but see them as temporary, surmountable, and opportunities to improve your coping skills.  Expect that anxiety may return, because it’s human nature, but also expect that you can learn to cope and make more and more progress if you persevere.

In other words, begin by accepting things, watching the symptoms of anxiety without worrying about them, and acting as if you were feeling better already.  To begin with, adopting this mind-set might take some effort and you’ll need to keep reminding yourself to do it, but it soon becomes easier and easier until it has evolved into a habit and something you’ll find yourself doing automatically.  It takes a lot of fuel to get a steam engine to start moving but a lot less fuel to keep it going once it’s started rolling.  It sometimes takes a lot of motivation to begin learning new thinking habits but it takes less and less effort with each attempt – the main thing is to take the first step and get the process started.  So why don’t you begin right now and see what happens if you put the AWARE strategy into practice as often as possible over the next few days or weeks?

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

For more information see my longer article on this subject,

James Braid on Hypnotic Meditation

Most scholars assume that hypnotism originated in 1841, in the work of James Braid, as a psychological and physiological system contrasted with the more “occult” or supernatural theories of Franz Mesmer and his followers, the “animal mangetists”.  Braid originally saw Mesmerism as the predecessor and closest analogy to his method of hypnotism.  However, within three years of his discovery, the similarities between hypnotism and various Oriental meditation practices was brought to Braid’s attention.  At this time, in the 1840s, knowledge of Oriental meditation was very limited in England.  However, Victorian soldiers and officials of the East India company sent word back from the further reaches of the empire.  Braid explains, in his final essay, On Hypnotism (1860), written as a summary of his life’s work for the French Academy of Sciences,

I had already worked for three years to define hypnotism, the process which consists in fixing the eyes on a point and concentrating the attention, and I had demonstrated that it was an influence of a subjective nature which caused the sleep, when, in 1844, by carrying out research for a history of magic and witchcraft, as well as Mesmerism and hypnotism, I discovered in The History of Hindoos by [William] Ward and in the Dubistan (History of the religious sects in India) [Dabistān-i Mazāhib, a 17^th century Persian religious text] developments which, through the practices of Fakirs and Yogins [Sufi and Hindu mystics], wholly confirmed my subjective theory.

Braid contrasted his “subjective” theory of hypnotism with the older “objective” theory of the Mesmerists.  By this he simply meant that whereas the Mesmerists believed that they were putting their subjects into a trance by channeling an invisible force, “animal magnetism”, into their bodies, Braid and other sceptics disputed the objective reality of this force and argued instead that hypnotism was mainly the result of the psychological (subjective) activity of the hypnotic subject themselves.  In other words, as many hypnotists put it today, “All hypnosis is self-hypnosis.”

Indeed, it is notable that there was no such concept or even expression as “self-magnetism” or “self-mesmerism”.  Braid, as well as introducing the concept of hypnotism, also coined the term “self-hypnotism” to refer to the fact that one could hypnotise oneself, and he recounts, in a memorable passage, how he used self-hypnotism to manage his own severe attacks of rheumatic pain.  Indeed, as Braid defined hypnotism as a state of focused attention upon a single dominant idea or mental image, accompanied by expectation of a response, hypnotism and self-hypnotism were never really two distinct activities.  Hypnotism was seen by Braid as a process whereby someone, the hypnotist, assists someone else, the hypnotic subject, to focus their attention for a prolonged period on a single train of thought with a sense of growing confidence in some response occuring.  Hypnotism is really just assisted or guided self-hypnosis according to this, the original theory.  The analogy with yogic meditation soon became obvious to Braid,

The Fakirs and Yogins have caused ecstatic trance in themselves for 2,400 years, for religious purpose, by a process quite similar to that which I taught my patients so they could hypnotise themselves using, i.e., continual fixation upon the end of the nose or another part of the body or an imaginary object, and with intense attention and while holding or slowing down their breath. 

Indeed, Braid usually helped people to focus their attention, inducing hypnotism, by asking them to stare patiently at a single point, e.g., the tip of his silver lancet case, or the top of a bottle, or a chandalier in one case.  However, he felt the object of concentration, in this initial (induction) stage, was irrelevant, so long as it was relatively “unexciting”, simple and bland enough for one to focus upon without distraction, to the exclusion of other things.  Braid observed that when this was done for a few minutes, the eyes would close and people would often report very vivid and spontaneous bodily sensations of an unusual nature, especially if their attention was drawn to their body and their awareness and expectation heightened.  However, he also observed that this “diamond glare” of attention, as one of his followers put it, could be transposed onto some positively therapeutic idea suggested by the hypnotist, or chosen by the subject, such as the idea or image of the body healing some disease or simply a general sense of confidence and wellbeing.

Moreover, even in his earliest writings, Braid refers to hypnotism being induced by means of focusing the gaze on the tip of one’s own finger, or some other part of the body, including the centre of the forehead.  He was struck by the similarity between this method and the Oriental practice of focusing attention upon the tip of one’s nose or the centre of the forehead in meditation that he soon came to see Oriental meditation as the true precursor of hypnotism, and a closer analogy to it than Mesmerism.  Both hypnotism and meditation could be practised by oneself, and were understood as psychological and physiological activities inter-acting, mind-body techniques, whereas animal magnetism was (falsely) assumed to require the presence of a skilled Mesmerist.  Hence, the analogy with meditation provided Braid with unlikely support for his debunking of Mesmerism.

I did not know of the practices of Fakirs and Yogins, when I published my method of hypnotising; they confirm, in the most satisfactory manner, my subjective theory, at the expense of the objective theory of the magnetisers. 

From the point at which he discovered these books on meditation and began writing articles about them, Braid was undoubtedly encouraged to define hypnotism more and more as a form of “mental abstraction” or “monoideism”, as he later called it, meaning focused attention upon a single idea, image, or train of thought.

Many hypnotherapists today, and their clients, have been exposed to yogic or Buddhist meditation techniques, etc., and immediately intuit some similarity between the theory and practice of hypnotism and those of meditation.  It should further reinforce that observation for them to realise that the founder of hypnotherapy, almost from the outset, was aware of this connection and that hypnotism itself evolved, in part, under the influence of Oriental meditation techniques.

Copyright (c) Donald Robertson, 2008-2009

A.E. van Vogt was a popular science fiction influenced by General Semantics, who co-authored a serious textbook on clinical hypnotherapy.  This excerpt serves to illustrate the technique of symbol suggestion in circulation among hypnotherapists as far back as the New Nancy School.  This simple technique can be used in self-hypnosis training and resembles the use of techniques in other models of therapy, such as collapsed coping statements in CBT. 

Mechanics of Auto-Suggestion

(Excerpt from Cooke & van Vogt, The Hypnotism Handbook, 1956) 

In formulating suggestions for the patient to use in auto-hypnosis, the following rules apply:

1. Write it. Write the suggestion out in accordance with the laws of hetero-hypnotic therapy […]. Writing forces us to crystallize our ideas. It makes us analyse the problem that we are facing, and is an aid to clear thinking.

2. Symbolise it.  Give it a key word or idea, a code word. By definition, then, the symbol represents the entire formulation, exactly as in a trans-oceanic cable code a nonsense word may represent a complex sentence or idea. Select a simple word, preferably (but not necessarily) one that carries out the implication of the entire suggestion. For example, a therapy typed out single space and occupying a page which is designed to help a patient overcome feelings of inferiority could be symbolized with the word, “Confidence.”

3. Edit it.  Read the written suggestion to insure that it complies with the basic laws. Revise it. Reconstruct it. Expand it. Condense it. Recopy the revised version and destroy the first draft.

4. Read it aloud.  Before hypnotizing yourself, carefully read the entire suggestion to your self aloud. When in the presence of others where reading might be impossible, the suggestion can be read silently but very carefully. Reading aloud is preferable because it compels the uttering of every word. In reading silently, we are accustomed to scanning and skipping. When a suggestion has been properly edited, every word is important.

5. Hypnotise yourself.  Use the particular method that has been taught you.

6. Think the symbol. Or whisper it to yourself. […] You have given yourself the suggestion fully and forcefully as a pre-hypnotic suggestion. You have, so to speak, loaded the gun. When you think the symbol, you are merely pulling the trigger on a gun which is already loaded.  An alternate method […] is to roll the paper containing the suggestion and hold it in one hand or tape it to the hand. The presence of the paper, which has been previously read, serves as a trigger.

Symbol Suggestion in The New Nancy School

Charles Baudouin explained how various methods in yoga, such as repetitively chanting the Hindu sacred syllable AUM, can be seen as means of inducing a state of relaxed concentration similar to hypnosis. 

Let us return to autohypnosis, as described earlier in our own text.  Since it can be induced by immobilising the attention on a mental state, why should we not choose, for this mental state (in preference to the bead-telling or to the counting), the very idea which is to be the object of the suggestion?  There is, in fact, no reason to the contrary, provided that the idea fulfils the requisite conditions, provided that it holds the attention rather than that the attention holds it.  We must be able to think of it mechanically; ere long in spite of ourselves, as if we were obsessed by it; in the same way as that in which we listen to the sound of water running.

                A very simple means of securing this is to condense the idea which is to be the object of the suggestion, to sum it up in a brief phrase which can readily be graven on the memory, and to repeat it over and over again like a lullaby.  The state of hypnosis thereupon ensues, with the effortless contention characteristic of the condition.  We pass unawares into the preliminary stage of hypnosis.  Relaxation occurs without our noticing it; reverie is neutralised by the presence of an idea which makes around itself a mental void.  The states we have analysed above are now synthesised into a single state which shares the characters of them all; which exhibits phases recalling now one, now another; but which differs from each.  This condition is one of pre-eminent autosuggestibility.  If we graft it upon a condition of spontaneous outcropping, as upon the morning and evening states bordering upon sleep, we shall obtain maximum results.  But it may also be usefully attained during the waking hours.  This method of repeating a phrase has often been recommended by American writers. […]

                Let us add that, to prevent the mind from wandering, it may be well to repeat the phrase aloud, or at least to sketch its pronunciation with lips and tongue as we utter it mentally.  This motor accompaniment favours the acquirement of the habit we wish to form; gives it a certain solidity; and acts as a leash or leading string whereby, without effort, our thought is guided towards its object. (Baudouin, 1920: 151).

The technique also resembles, in some respects, the “Relaxation Response” method made famous by Herbert Benson in his research upon comparative relaxation and meditation techniques, and widely-employed in the field of stress management.

Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem. (Horace)
“Remember to keep a calm and balanced mind in the face of adversity.”

Copright (c) Donald Robertson 2008.  All rights reserved.
This material is based upon the forthcoming book, Philosophy & CBT, due for publication in 2009 by Karnac.

One of the most fundamental techniques of classical philosophical therapy was the method known as premeditatio mallorum, which means preparing the mind in advance to cope with adversity.  For simplicity, we can refer to this notion simply as “philosophical premeditation.” 

      Essentially the technique of philosophical premeditation involves visualising a future catastrophe as if it were happening now and restoring emotional calm by repeating appropriate principles of living, i.e., positive affirmations.  These principles were usually called “dogmas” or “precepts”, but also referred to as maxims, formulas, sayings, etc.  They are symbolically described as the “weapons” of the Stoic warrior.  A well-known children’s fable of Aesop (c. 620-560 BC), who lived long before the first recorded philosophers, puts the notion beautifully well,

 A wild boar was sharpening his tusks against a tree when a fox came by and asked him why he was doing this. 

“I don’t see the reason,” remarked the fox, “there are no hunters nor hounds in sight.  In fact, right now I can’t see any threat at all.”

“True,” replied the boar, “but when danger does arise, I’ll have other things on my mind than sharpening my weapons.”

There are countless references to the concept of mental preparation in classical philosophy, poetry, and literature.  It is perhaps one of the most characteristic techniques of Stoic psychotherapy, although it’s common to other Socratic sects, even the Stoics’ great rival, the school of Epicurus,

I have anticipated you, Fortune, and entrenched myself against all your secret attacks.  And we will not give ourselves up as captives to you or to any other circumstance.  (Epicurus et al., Vatican Sayings, 47)

Indeed, the great Stoic teacher Epictetus goes so far as to define (practical) philosophy in terms of this ability, “But what is it to study philosophy?  Is it not to prepare yourself for future events?”  (Epictetus, 3:10). 

It is perhaps because of the centrality of mental preparation to classical philosophy that, in modern usage, the adjectives, “Stoical” and “Philosophical” can both be used to mean the same thing: “calm in the face of adversity.” 

      The Twentieth century French philosopher, Foucault, had a great interest in this area and discusses classical philosophical meditation at length in one of his last lectures.  He describes the premeditatio mallorum of the Stoics as a meditation divided into three distinct processes,

First, it is not a question of imagining the future as it is likely to turn out but to imagine the worst that can happen, even if there’s little chance it will turn out that way -the worst as certainty, as actualising what could happen, not as calculation of probability.

Second, one shouldn’t envisage things as possibly taking place in the distant future but as already actual and in the process of taking place.  For example, imagining not that one might be exiled but rather that one is already exiled, subjected to torture, and dying.

Third, one does this not in order to experience inarticulate sufferings but in order to convince oneself that they are not real ills.  The reduction of all that is possible, of all the duration and of all the misfortunes, reveals not something bad but what we have to accept.  (Foucault, Technologies of the Self, my formatting.)

By premeditatio mallorum we are able to employ our current mental resources, calmly meditating upon relevant maxims or affirmations, while anticipating a future event.

      As Foucault notes, the Stoics divided their exercises into meditatio, a word which can mean both “preparation” and “meditation”, and gymnasia, practical training through activity.  “While meditatio is an imaginary experience that trains thought, gymnasia is training in a real situation, even if it’s been artificially induced.”  (Foucault, Technologies of the Self).  A similar distinction is found in modern CBT where exposure to stressful events can be either in vitro (in the laboratory of the mind) or in vivo (in real life), i.e., in imagination or through behavioural assignments in the real world.  A person can confront a fear of enclosed spaces, e.g., first of all by imagining themselves in a place such as an elevator, and subsequently, when able, by placing themselves in certain confined situations in reality something which is normally done in progressive steps moving from the least to the most challenging types of situation.

      The philosophers, unlike most modern therapists, took this notion to the extreme.  As Foucault writes, “The meditation on death is the culmination of all these exercises.”  They reasoned that if they could overcome their fear of future events in this way they should focus upon conquering man’s greatest fear, the fear of death.   “The heart which has purged itself of the fear of death,” writes Seneca, “no dread dares to enter.”  Hence, the equally famous philosophical technique of the meditation on death (melete thanatou) can be seen as the archetypal form of the premeditatio mallorum. 

      It is said that ancient Roman generals had servants who whispered memento mori (“remember thou must die”) in their ears to help them moderate their pride following a great triumph.  This phrase has become part of our common cultural heritage and is still used to describe a whole genre of artwork which is intended as a meditation on our own mortality, from the Vanitas paintings of the Renaissance to the preserved animal cadavers of Damien Hirst.  This does not intend a morbid or melancholic state.  The ideal of the Stoic Sage, exemplified by Socrates, was both to love life and yet be unafraid of death.  “A person who has learned how to meet his death,” writes Seneca, “has unlearned how to be a slave.”

Eysenck & Cicero

The psychologist Hans Eysenck, who has a claim to be one of the founders of behaviour therapy, explicitly referred to the precedent for “exposure therapy” in philosophical literature.  In his autobiography, Eysenck claims that a good case can be made for saying that the German author Goethe “not only used methods of behaviour therapy, but also stated the basic premise on which these are based in a quite explicit fashion.” (Eysenck, 1990, p. 136).  Goethe describes how he employed in vivo exposure therapy methods, facing his fear of heights, loud noises, and blood, until they troubled him no longer.  Eysenck quotes Goethe’s finding: “Such troublesome and painful sensations I repeated until the impressions became quite indifferent to me, and I have since then derived great advantage from this training.” (quoted in Eysenck, 1990, p. 137)  However, Goethe also attempted to generalise this achievement to a wider range of fears, 

But I sought to steel myself not only against these impressions on the senses, but also against the infections of the imagination.  The awful and shuddering impressions of the darkness in churchyards, solitary places, churches and chapels by night, and whatever may be connected with them, I contrived to render likewise indifferent and in this, also, I went so far that day and night, and every locality were quite the same to me; so that even when, in later times, a desire came over me once more to feel in such scenes the pleasing shudder of youth, I could scarcely force this, in any degree, by the strangest and most fearful images which I called up. (Goethe in Eysenck, 1990, p. 137) 

Eysenck comments, “The treatment procedures used by Goethe are currently known as ‘reciprocal inhibition’ and ‘flooding with response prevention’.” (Eysenck, 1990, p. 137).  However, he adds that the same techniques have a precedent going back several thousand years earlier and provides his own translation of a Latin text. 

These ancient theories were Greek in origin, but were voiced in their most convincing form by Marcus Tullius Cicero, in his Tuscularum Disputationum [The Tusculan Disputations].  In the first place he points out that ‘Ab earum rerum est absentium metus, quarum est aegretudo’: in neurotic disorders, anxiety is felt of things not present, the presence of which causes grief, or distress.  This suggests immediately a learning process by means of which the distress properly associated with the ‘thing present’ (the unconditioned stimulus, in modern parlance) is evoked when the ‘thing’ is not present; that is, through a conditioned stimulus.  Now if we can remove the distress reaction [to the thing’s real presence], then the neurotic anxiety [experienced in its absence] also will be taken away: ‘Sublata igitur aegritudine, eadem impendentes et venientes timemus.’  This of course suggests a method of extinction, whether through ‘desensitisation’, or ‘flooding’, or ‘modelling’. (Eysenck, 1990, p. 138)

Eysenck also finds in Cicero a precursor of his own theory of trait “neuroticism”, a general emotional instability and vulnerability to disturbance, which Eysenck considered to be largely genetically determined. 

Cicero finally caps his account by appealing to individual differences: ‘At qui in quem cadit aegritudo, in eundem timor; quarum enim rerum praesentia sumus in aegritudine, eadem impendentes et venientes timemus.’  Translated freely, this states that the man who is easily distressed is also an easy prey to anxiety and fear.  For when stimuli cause distress by their presence, we are also afraid of the menace of their approach.  In other words, people who have strong fear reactions to actual dangers and stressful situations also show strong learned anxieties in the absence of these stimuli.  We cannot follow Cicero into the details of his discussion, but the elements of our modern way of looking at neurosis are certainly contained in his account. (Eysenck, 1990, p. 138)

This occurs in Cicero’s discussion of Platonic and Stoic theories regarding emotional suffering and its cure.  Eysenck therefore makes it clear that he considers Cicero to be describing a theory and practice similar to his own and to those of modern behaviour therapists in general.

Rational-Emotive Imagery (REI)

Albert Ellis, the founder of REBT, developed an influential technique known as Rational Emotive Imagery (REI); this is the main imagery technique used by his school of therapy.  There are a number of variations of this technique.  However, the basic formula can be described as follows.

      REI helps the client to question the validity of negative cognitions.  An anticipated activating event (A) is pictured, as if happening now, while the client mentally rehearses changing his negative emotions and behavioural reactions (C) by swapping his negative cognition (B) for a positive one.  Ellis describes the technique in the following words in his advice to patients, 

Use rational-emotive imagery to vividly imagine unpleasant activating events before they happen; let yourself feel unhealthily upset (anxious, depressed, enraged, or guilty) as you imagine them; then work on your feelings to change them to appropriate emotions (concern, sadness, healthy anger, or remorse) as you keep imagining some of the worst things happening.  Don’t give up until you actually do change your feelings.  (Ellis, How to Maintain and Enhance your Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Gains)

This is achieved as follows, according to some REBT practitioners, 

[…] the client is instructed to imagine a feared situation and simultaneously repeats very forcefully to herself (either aloud or internally depending upon the situation) a previously negotiated helpful coping statement.  This helps clients to experience less anxiety and prepares them for difficult situations or it can be used to help them deal with how they behaved in an earlier situation.  (Curwen et al., 2000: 119-120)

As with most techniques in CBT, subjective measurements are taken before, during and after the exercise to make sure it is being done effectively.  Lack of change on a SUD scale, e.g., might suggest that the coping statement needs to be discussed and possibly changed.

      The basic formula is sometimes expressed in the acronym “FEAR” by modern therapists: “Face Everything And Recover.”  Meaning that by patiently and systematically confronting our fears, and accepting the situation, anxiety and other negative feelings will usually recede.  The act of confronting fears in reality or in imagination is known as “exposure” therapy.  It leads to what behaviourists call “habituation” or “extinction”, i.e., getting used to the situation, which tends to take the form of “desensitisation”, i.e., a reduction in the level of nervous arousal.

      Another useful version of the acronym FEAR, which relates to cognitive more than behavioural therapy, is “False Evidence Appearing Real.”  This can be interpreted very simply, in CBT terminology, as “thinking errors appearing real.”  As most of our fears are the result of thinking errors, as described in the ABC model, it follows that the problem situation itself is seldom as inherently frightening as we assume. 

Russell: The Conquest of Happiness

The influence of the Stoic tradition can clearly be seen in the writings of Bertrand Russell, one of the most influential philosophers of the Twentieth century.  Russell wrote one of the earliest modern self-help books, The Conquest of Happiness (1930).  He describes a philosophical method of overcoming anxiety and worry, indistinguishable from the premeditatio mallorum.  He also provides, arguably, the most lucid explanation of exposure therapy that one could wish for, 

Worry is a form of fear, and all forms of fear produce fatigue.  A man who has learnt not to feel fear will find the fatigue of daily life greatly diminished.  Now fear, in its most harmful form arises where there is some danger which we are unwilling to face. At odd moments horrible thoughts dart into our minds; what they are depends upon the person, but almost everybody has some kind of lurking fear. (Russell, 1930: 60)

 Russell provides his own examples, but he emphasises that this technique is part of a very general one for overcoming fear of all kinds, 

Probably all these people employ the wrong technique for dealing with their fear; whenever it comes into their mind, they try to think of something else; they distract their thoughts with amusement or work, or what not.  Now every kind of fears grows worse by not being looked at.  The effort of turning away one’s thoughts is a tribute to the horribleness of the spectre from which one is averting one’s gaze; the proper course with every kind of fear is to think about it rationally and calmly, but with great concentration, until it becomes completely familiar.  In the end familiarity will blunt its terrors; the whole subject will become boring, and our thoughts will turn away from it, not, as formerly, by an effort of will, but through mere lack of interest in the topic.  When you find yourself inclined to brood on anything, no matter what, the best plan always is to think about it even more than you naturally would until at last its morbid fascination is worn off.  (Russell, 1930: 60) 

Russell provides the following explanation of the technique itself, 

When some misfortune threatens, consider seriously and deliberately what is the very worst that could possibly happen.  Having looked this possible misfortune in the face, give yourself sound reasons for thinking that after all it would be no such very terrible disaster.  Such reasons always exist, since at the worst nothing that happens to oneself has any cosmic importance.  When you have looked for some time steadily at the worst possibility and have said to yourself with real conviction, “Well, after all, that would not matter so very much”, you will find that your worry diminishes to a quite extraordinary extent.  It may be necessary to repeat the process a few times, but in the end, if you have shirked nothing in facing the worst possible issue, you will find that your worry disappears altogether, and is replaced by a kind of exhilaration.  (Russell, 1930: 59-60)

 Spinoza: Remedia Affectuum (Remedies for the Emotions)

In the Seventeenth century, the Dutch thinker Spinoza, whom Russell greatly admired and studied in depth, produced a hugely influential work of philosophical therapy, the Ethics.  Spinoza was greatly influenced by classical literature on philosophical therapy and has, with some justification, been called “more stoic than the stoics.”  He recommends that “rules of living”, effectively affirmations similar to the Stoic precepts, should be internalised.

The best thing then we can bring about, as long as we have no perfect knowledge of our emotions is to conceive some right manner of living or certain rules of life, to commit them to memory, and to apply them continuously to the particular things which come in our way frequently in life, so that our imagination may be extensively affected by them and they may be always at hand for us.  (Spinoza, Ethics, V.10.n.)

Again, like the Stoics, Spinoza suggests that we mentally prepare for the typical problems that people are likely to encounter in life, 

But in order that this rule may be always at hand for us when we need it, we must often think of and meditate on the common injuries done to men, and in what manner and according to what method they may best be avoided [through the appropriate rule].  For thus we unite the [mental] image of the injury to the imagination of this rule, and it will always be at hand when an injury is done to us. (Ibid.) 

Spinoza first of all addresses the problem of irrational anger, and the principles which help us to moderate it in this way, adding “if the anger which arises from the greatest injuries is not easily overcome, it will nevertheless be overcome, although not without a wavering of the mind, in a far less space of time than if we had not previously meditated on these things.”  From anger he proceeds to discuss the conquest of fear, 

We must think of courage in the same manner in order to lay aside fear, that is, we must enumerate and often imagine the common perils of life and in what manner they may best be avoided and overcome by presence of mind and courage.  (Ibid.) 

He concludes this section on emotional remedies with an encouraging word for the student, 

And he that will diligently observe what is said here (for it is not difficult) and make use of it, will be able in a short space of time to direct his actions for the most part according to the command of reason. (Ibid.) 

The Ancient Origins of the Premeditatio

It is possible that the philosophical practice of mental preparation began with the most ancient of Western philosophers, the Pythagoreans, who meditated upon short, symbolic phrases, called “acusmata“, meaning “things listened to.”  Some writers suggest that the Pythagoreans would begin each morning by mentally rehearsing the day ahead and preparing themselves with the ideas which would help them act in an enlightened way.  Pythagoras flourished around 500BC, however, a similar daily regime seems also to have been adopted by the Stoics, and to still be in use by them over half a century later.

      Seneca, a Stoic philosopher and one of the greatest and most influential essayists of all time, was a Roman politician at time Jesus Christ and his disciples purportedly lived.  He discusses the exercise of mental preparation many times in relation to distressing life events, 

[…] we need to envisage every possibility and to strengthen the spirit to deal with the things which may conceivably come about.  Rehearse them in your mind: exile, torture, war, shipwreck.  (Seneca, Letter XCI) 

With regard to such blows of fate, which were common risks during his lifetime, Seneca writes, 

Escape them you cannot, scorn them you can.  And scorn them you will if by constant reflection you have anticipated future happenings.  Everyone faces up more bravely to a thing for which he has long prepared himself, sufferings, even, being withstood if they have been trained for in advance.  Those who are unprepared, on the other hand, are panic-stricken by the most insignificant happenings.  We must see to it that nothing takes us by surprise.  And since it is invariably unfamiliarity that makes a thing more formidable than it really is, this habit of continual reflection will ensure that no form of adversity finds you a complete beginner.  (Seneca, Letter CVII) 

Plutarch, a Roman philosopher of the early second century AD, writes in his essay On Contentment, 

Whoever it was who said, “Fortune, I have made a pre-emptive strike against you, and I have deprived you of every single loophole,” was not basing his confidence on bolts, locks and fortifications, but on principles and arguments which are available to anyone who wants them.  […] a mind which trains and strains itself to use rationality to conceive an image of illness and pain and exile will find that there is plenty of unreality, superficiality and unsoundness in the apparent problems and horrors each of them has to offer, as detailed rational argument demonstrates.  (Plutarch, On Contentment, 476C) 

He adds, “distress can be avoided by the beneficial practice of training oneself to gain the ability to look straight at fortune with open eyes.”  Likewise, the Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius opens his personal therapeutic journal with a record of his use of mental preparation.  He writes to himself, 

Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness […] 

After reminding himself of the possible challenges he will face, as Emperor and general, he proceeds to rehearse his coping strategies, the beliefs which will help him see things more constructively, 

[…] none of those things can injure me, for nobody can implicate me in what is degrading.  Neither can I be angry with my brother or fall foul of him; for he and I were born to work together, like a man’s two hands, feet, or eyelids, or like the upper and lower rows of his teeth.  (Marcus Aurelius, 2:1) 

Marcus makes it clear that his mental preparation involves having his principles “ready to hand” (procheira), 

Take no enterprise in hand at haphazard, or without regard to the principles governing its proper execution.  (Marcus Aurelius, 4:2) 

The principles of right action are clearly thought of as affirmations or autosuggestions, by repeating them and contemplating them deeply, the Stoic absorbs their meaning at an experiential level. 

Your mind will be like its habitual thoughts; for the soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.   (Marcus Aurelius, 5:16) 

Positive affirmations such as these, however, have to be constantly reinforced, 

Principles can only lose their vitality when the first impressions from which they derive have sunk into extinction; and it is for you to keep fanning these continually into fresh flame.   (Marcus Aurelius, 7:2)

These are just a few of the comments found in classical authors which clearly relate to this theme of premeditation as a psychological and therapeutic exercise.  The analogies with modern psychotherapy are very apparent, as the remarks by Eysenck and Ellis show.  However, a great many other links can be found, or forged, between ancient and modern thought with regard to the therapy of the soul.

James Braid on Hypnotic Meditation

Copyright © Donald Robertson, 2009.  All rights reserved.

Mental equanimity may be attained by regulating the exhalation and restraint of the breath.  Or the wayward mind may be pacified by focusing attention upon a single object. […] Alternatively, one can meditate by focusing attention upon the experience of dreaming, or the state of dreamless sleep [yoga nidra]. – Patañjali, Yoga Sutras, c. 250 B.C., § 1.34-38 

The development of hypnotism, as opposed to Mesmerism, in the middle of the 19^th century, involved a number of comparisons made with Oriental meditation techniques such as Hindu yoga.  James Braid saw the similarities between the effects of meditation and hypnotism, both psychological and physiological, as providing indirect support for his claim that they were produced by the mind and behaviour of the subject rather than by “animal magnetism” or any special power of the operator, as the Mesmerists had formerly maintained.  Though Braid himself had access to very limited information about eastern meditation practices, he perceived a close analogy with self-hypnosis which appears to have influenced the early development of hypnotherapy theory and practice. 

In his book Magic, Witchcraft, Animal Magnetism, etc. (1852), James Braid, the founding father of hypnotherapy, defined hypnotism as a state of focused attention upon a single idea or mental image. 

I feel pretty confident that whoever will undertake the investigation of hypnotic phenomena with a candid mind, and untrammelled by any previous prejudices in favour of the mystical and transcendental, may very soon satisfy himself that the real origin and essence of the hypnotic condition, is the induction of a habit of abstraction or mental concentration, in which, as in reverie or spontaneous abstraction, the powers of the mind are so much engrossed with a single idea or train of thought, as, for the nonce, to render the individual unconscious of, or indifferently conscious to, all other ideas, impressions, or trains of thought.  The hypnotic sleep, therefore, is the very antithesis or opposite mental and physical condition to that which precedes and accompanies common sleep; for the latter arises from a diffusive state of mind, or complete loss of power of fixing the attention, with suspension of voluntary power. (Braid, 1852) 

As Braid was eager to clarify, although the Greek word hypnos does mean “sleep”, in his view hypnosis was fundamentally a state of conscious attention, virtually the opposite of normal sleep.  Moreover, Braid quotes the following colourful account from a book written by one of his own subjects, the doctor and author J. J. G. Wilkinson, 

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. […] 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.  (Wilkinson, 1851) 

Hence, this is one of the earliest reports by a hypnotised subject reflecting upon their own experience, having actually undergone hypnotisation.  

Braid explains that a great many effects may be induced in this “state of mental concentration”, by means of spontaneous ideas or those suggested by the hypnotist.  Again, he illustrates this with a quotation from Wilkinson’s own account after being hypnotised, 

The preliminary state (of hypnotism) 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 to 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 with a force of leisure of which our distracted life affords only the rudiments.  External influences are sensated, sympathized 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 exultation, so also smells and touches.  In short, the whole man appears to be given to each perception, the body trembles like down with the wafts of the atmosphere, the world plays upon it as upon a spiritual instrument finely attuned. (Wilkinson, 1851) 

However, Braid qualifies Wilkinson’s account slightly by adding, 

The above is a beautiful description painted in elegant and most felicitous language, of the phenomena manifested by a certain class of patients, and at a certain stage of the sleep; but at another stage the very opposite state manifests itself: for the abstraction may be so intense as to render the patient unconscious even of inflictions the most severe; and the muscles may be locked in immovable, cataleptic rigidity, or dissolved in the most entire passive flaccidity according to predominant ideas or impressions on the senses, which immediately preceded the full intensity of the all-absorbing abstraction. 

As is the case in reverie or abstraction, so also is it in the hypnotic state – there are different degrees of mental concentration; so that from some of them, the patient may be aroused by the slightest impression – whilst in other stages, he can only be influenced by very powerful impressions on the organs of sense.  Moreover, in the hypnotic condition, as in the state of reverie or abstraction, the subject may be so partially engrossed in his train of thought as to be susceptible of receiving suggestions from others – through words spoken or movements made in his presence – which shall involuntarily or unconsciously change his current of thought and action, without entirely dissipating his condition of mental abstraction. (Braid, 1852) 

So how does this state of heightened mental concentration relate to the practice of meditation?  Ornstein’s survey of meditation practices, in The Psychology of Consciousness (1977), concluded, 

The common element in these diverse practices seems to be the active restriction of awareness to a single, unchanging process and the withdrawal of attention from ordinary thought.  It does not seem to matter which actual physical practice is followed; whether one symbol or another is employed; whether the visual system is used or body movements repeated; whether the awareness is focused on a limb or on a sound or on a word or on a prayer. […] The instructions for meditation are always consistent with this surmise: one is instructed always to rid awareness of any thought save the object of meditation, to shut oneself off from the main flow of ongoing external activity and to pay attention only to the object or process of meditation.  Almost any process or object seems usable and has probably been used.  (Ornstein, 1977: 171-172). 

The analogy with hypnotism is obvious.  However, Braid only became acquainted with literature describing oriental meditation techniques around 1844, three years after his discovery of hypnotism, and a year after publishing his best-known book on hypnosis, Neurypnology (1843).  He first discusses the relationship between hypnotism and meditation in some detail in a lengthy serialised article, published in The Medical Times between 1844 and 1845, entitled “Magic, Mesmerism, Hypnotism, etc., Historically & Physiologically Considered.” 

Braid seized upon the similarity between certain yogic meditation techniques and his own method of hypnotism as evidence in favour of his theory and against that of Mesmer.  He rightly pointed out that most traditional accounts of Oriental meditation resemble self-induced hypnosis, without the aid of another person.  The Mesmerists, who claimed that the effects they produced were due to a magnetic force channelled from the body of the operator into that of the subject, found it awkward, though arguably not impossible, to explain self-hypnosis in such terms.  Braid, who objected that the effects of Mesmerism were due to focused attention, expectation, imagination, etc., could easily account for self-hypnosis, or the existence of similar experiences in solitary meditation.  Indeed, though it was left to later hypnotists to introduce this phrase, Braid appears to argue that all hypnosis is essentially self-hypnosis.  This emphasis upon what he calls the “subjective” nature of hypnotism is central to Braid’s attack on Mesmerism.  However, once he discovered these apparent parallels with eastern meditation techniques, Braid began to consistently assert that hypnotism was more closely related to them than to animal magnetism. 

Inasmuch as patients can throw themselves into the nervous sleep, and manifest all the usual phenomena of Mesmerism, through their own unaided efforts, as I have so repeatedly proved by causing them to maintain a steady fixed gaze at any point, concentrating their whole mental energies on the idea of the object looked at; or that the same may arise by the patient looking at the point of his own finger, or as the Magi of Persia and Yogi of India have practised for the last 2,400 years, for religious purposes, throwing themselves into their ecstatic trances by each maintaining a steady fixed gaze at the tip of his own nose; it is obvious that there is no need for an exoteric influence to produce the phenomena of Mesmerism.  […]  The great object in all these processes is to induce a habit of abstraction or concentration of attention, in which the subject is entirely absorbed with one idea, or train of ideas, whilst he is unconscious of, or indifferently conscious to, every other object, purpose, or action.  (Braid, 1846) 

Braid’s interest in meditation really developed when he was introduced to the Dabistān-i Mazāhib, the “School of Religions”, an ancient Persian text describing a variety of Oriental religious practices.                                                                                            

Last May [1843], a gentleman residing in Edinburgh, personally unknown to me, who had long resided in India, favoured me with a letter expressing his approbation of the views which I had published on the nature and causes of hypnotic and mesmeric phenomena.  In corroboration of my views, he referred to what he had previously witnessed in oriental regions, and recommended me to look into the “Dabistan,” a book lately published, for additional proof to the same effect.  On much recommendation I immediately sent for a copy of the “Dabistan”, in which I found many statements corroborative of the fact, that the eastern saints are all self-hypnotisers, adopting means essentially the same as those which I had recommended for similar purposes. (Braid, 1844) 

However, Braid felt that the effects of yogic meditation, like those of Mesmerism, were better explained in terms of established psychological and physiological principles. 

Whilst there is this remarkable coincidence, however, between my own views and theirs, as to the modes of inducing the sleep, and some of the phenomena, in the sequel it will be found that our theoretical views as to the nature and cause of the subsequent and ulterior phenomena, are “wide as the poles asunder.” (Braid, 1844) 

Braid believed that a form of meditation, resembling his self-hypnosis, may have originally developed in ancient Persia among the religious practices of the Zoroastrian Magi, later travelling to India where it formed the basis of Hindu yoga, and being carried westward to the Graeco-Roman world, by sages such as Pythagoras of Samos, in the sixth century B.C.[1] 

So far as can be traced, the Magi of Persia were the first who, by artificial contrivance, for religious purposes, threw themselves into a state of self-hypnotism, or ecstatic trance.  That for the accomplishment of this, they resorted to means essentially the same as those which observation and experience had led me to adopt for the like purposes – and that without any knowledge on my part of their notions or practice – namely, by fixing the sight and thoughts on an object, and suppressing the respiration. (Braid, 1844) 

Braid’s own method, at this stage, also consisted of asking clients to fix their gaze and attention on a single point, while gradually “suppressing” or “restraining” their breathing, a point frequently overlooked by later hypnotists.  This approach had simply evolved from his own experiments with hypnotism, and attempts to provide a more rational explanation for Mesmerism. 

From a very early period of my attention to the subject, I observed the greater difficulty of hypnotising patients who breathed quickly, and therefore desired them to suppress their respiration. (Braid, 1844) 

Once this state of focused attention had been induced it could either be carried on toward a condition resembling sleep or else attention could be transferred onto a single dominant idea for therapeutic purposes. 

Thus, by exciting, and allowing it time to develop itself, any function or emotion which it is desirable to arouse into greater activity; by keeping it in the state of activity, up to the moment of awaking the patient; the impression will be carried into that state, as certainly as a person may be affected the following day by an impressive dream of the previous night. (Braid, 1844) 

Braid saw a striking parallel between his own method of inducing hypnotism and certain methods of meditation described in the ancient oriental texts he had stumbled across.  In his book The Power of the Mind (1846) Braid writes of the meditation techniques used in ancient yoga, “The great object in all these processes is to induce a habit of abstraction or concentration of attention, in which the subject is entirely absorbed with one idea, or train of ideas, whilst he is unconscious of, or indifferently conscious to, every other object, purpose, or action.” 

By the term “abstraction”, which he frequently employs, Braid and his contemporaries simply meant a state of mental concentration in which the attention is given to a single idea or train of thought to the exclusion of others.  We might substitute the phrases “selective awareness”, “focused attention”, or “mental absorption.”  Braid’s “abstraction” has two faces, involving both attention to certain ideas and inattention to others, i.e., a kind of dissociation from any potential distractions.  Braid does not use the term “meditation” himself, but he does quote from another author who does, and Braid equates this account of yogic meditation with his own concepts of hypnotism and mental abstraction.  So we can probably say that Braid saw “meditation” and “mental abstraction” as very similar, if not identical, concepts. 

Braid originally studied the effect of fixing the attention upon the gaze of another person, a practice common in Mesmerism.  He then demonstrated that staring upon an inanimate object had the same effect, to which end he employed the top of a bottle, a cork strapped to the subject’s forehead, a chandelier, the tip of the subject’s own finger, his lancet case, and various ornaments and arbitrary objects.  Braid mentions that the yogis of India are frequently described as fixing their gaze upon a part of their body such as the tip of their own nose, the centre of their forehead, or their navel.  However, Braid recognised that physical fixation of the gaze was not essential, and that the words of a simple rhyme (like an Indian mantra) or the mental image of a bright star could serve a similar purpose as the object of mental fixation for inducing hypnotism.  More or less anything, in fact, can be used as the object of concentration if the aim is to pacify the mind by contemplation of something monotonous, or even to induce a state of sleep.  

All that is required for this is simply to place himself in a comfortable posture in bed, and then to close the eyelids, and turn up the eyeballs gently, as if looking at a distant object, such as an imaginary star, situated somewhat above and behind the forehead, giving the whole concentrated attention of the mind to the idea of maintaining a steady view of the star, and breathing softly, as if in profound attention, the mind at the same time yielding to the idea that sleep will ensue, and to the tendency to somnolence which will creep upon him whilst engaged in this act of fixed attention.  Or it may be done with still more success, in certain individuals, by their placing some small, bright object in a similar aspect with a distant light falling thereon, the party looking at the object with open eyes, fixed attention, and suppressed [i.e., relaxed] respiration.  Other modes of producing a state of mental concentration directed to some unexciting and empty thing, and thus shutting out the influence of other sensible impressions, may also prove successful for inducing calm sleep, by monotonising the mind – just as we see effected in the case of children, who are sent to sleep by rocking, patting, or gentle rubbing, or monotonous, unexciting lullabies – but none are so speedy and certain in their effects, with patients generally, as the modes which I have briefly explained.  Mr. Walker’s method of procuring “sleep at will”, by desiring the patient to maintain a fixed act of attention, by imagining himself watching his breath issuing slowly from his nostrils, after having placed his body in a comfortable position in bed – and which was first published to the world by Dr. Binns, a few years ago – is essentially the same as my own method, which I had promulgated some time prior to the publication of the first edition of Dr. Binns’s work on sleep. (Braid, 1852) 

Braid thought that the tranquilising effect of focusing the gaze, or attention, upon a single monotonous object could, with practice, be carried so far as to induce a hypnotic “coma” state resembling the physiological condition of hibernating animals.  He was particularly intrigued by various stories reported by British colonialists in India regarding the supposed burial alive of fakirs, who could apparently slow down their physiological functioning to the brink of death for many days in order to be resuscitated at a later date.  Braid later published a short book entitled Observations on Trance or Human Hybernation (1850) discussing this alleged phenomenon in some detail. 

Braid interpreted the effects of both hypnotism and meditation from a sceptical or “common sense” perspective, rejecting any supernatural claims and preferring to try a “psycho-physiological” interpretation first of all.  

I have seen no reason to believe, that either hypnotism or mesmerism adds a single new faculty, either mental or physical, to the subject; but, by their influence, we acquire the power of throwing them into new ratios, and producing very different results from the normal condition, by exciting or depressing natural functions, in an extraordinary degree.  This is accomplished chiefly through the law of concentration, aided by the state of the respiration and circulation; increasing or diminishing the force and velocity of the circulation, as well as by altering the quality of the blood, by rendering it either more or less arterialised [i.e., oxygenated] than in the normal condition, and consequently capable of exciting or depressing function in a corresponding degree.  There is no difficulty in demonstrating that we have the power of doing this, to the satisfaction of any intelligent and unprejudiced person. (Braid, 1844) 

Braid’s theory of hypnotism held that by focusing the attention upon a repetitive idea or unexciting object a state resembling profound sleep could be induced, or that the opposite state, of nervous tension could be induced by focusing attention upon the idea of doing so.  Moreover, any number of psychological or physiological changes could be induced by shifting the attention onto specific “dominant ideas” or mental images, which we would now call “autosuggestion.”  Indeed, whereas the Mesmerists had relatively neglected the solitary use of such methods, in Observations on Trance (1850), following his discussion of the trances of the Indian fakirs, Braid provides an account of his own use of self-hypnosis to overcome rheumatic pain. 

It is commonly said that seeing is believing, but feeling is the very truth.  I shall, therefore, give the result of my experience of hypnotism in my own person.  In the middle of September, 1844, I suffered from a most severe attack of rheumatism, implicating the left side of the neck and chest, and the left arm.  At first the pain was moderately severe, and I took some medicine to remove it; but, instead of this, it became more and more violent, and had tormented me for three days, and was so excruciating, that it entirely deprived me of sleep for three nights successively, and on the last of the three nights I could not remain in any one posture for five minutes, from the severity of the pain.  On the forenoon of the next day, whilst visiting my patients, every jolt of the carriage I could only compare to several sharp instruments being thrust through my shoulder, neck, and chest.  A full inspiration was attended with stabbing pain, such as is experienced in pleurisy.  When I returned home for dinner I could neither turn my head, lift my arm, nor draw a breath, without suffering extreme pain.  In this condition I resolved to try the effects of hypnotism.  I requested two friends, who were present, and who both understood the system, to watch the effects, and arouse me when I had passed sufficiently into the condition; and, with their assurance that they would give strict attention to their charge, I sat down and hypnotised myself, extending the extremities.  At the expiration of nine minutes they aroused me, and, to my agreeable surprise, I was quite free from pain, being able to move in any way with perfect ease.  I say agreeably surprised, on this account; I had seen like results with many patients; but it is one thing to hear of pain, and another to feel it.  My suffering was so exquisite that I could not imagine anyone else ever suffered so intensely as myself on that occasion; and, therefore, I merely expected a mitigation, so that I was truly agreeably surprised to find myself quite free from pain.  I continued quite easy all the afternoon, slept comfortably all night, and the following morning felt a little stiffness, but no pain.  A week thereafter I had a slight return, which I removed by hypnotising myself once more; and I have remained quite free from rheumatism ever since, now nearly six years.  Was there the slightest room to doubt the value and efficacy of hypnotism in this case? 

However, Braid was emphatic that hypnotism was essentially an extension of ordinary psychological and physiological functioning.  In particular, the effect of focused attention upon a dominant idea is merely a means of amplifying the familiar effects of suggestion and mental association which we observe in everyday life. 

To a certain extent, this fact of excited attention, altering function, is realised even in the waking condition, as is manifest by the rush of milk to the breast of the nurse on seeing, hearing, or even thinking of her child; the flow of saliva, from the sight, or smell, or thought of savoury food; and the tendency to perform other functions, from mental impressions, associated with them, arising in the mind, by whatever means excited. […] Hypnotism merely enables us to control and direct the natural functions, either exciting or depressing them, as required, with more certainty and intensity than in the normal waking condition. 

I might further illustrate the power of the mind in influencing function: by shedding tears from grief; blushing from shame; pallor and palpitation from fear; fainting from disagreeable sights, odours, or even the thoughts of such; the effects of painful intelligence [i.e., unpleasant information], in instantly destroying the keenest appetite; excessive joy, or sorrow, or anger, suddenly producing most grave diseases, mental or physical, or even death. (Braid, 1844) 

Braid had argued that the real physical and mental effects of “bread pills” and other placebo therapies, including homeopathy, were also due to expectation and dominant ideas. 

Braid quotes from the English missionary William Ward’s four-volume A View of the History, Literature and Religion of the Hindoos (1811)[2], and inserts his commentary upon the effects of meditation recounted by the ancient teachers of yoga.  Braid claims that these observations confirm “the fact of the Yogi being all self-hypnotisers, by inducing a state of intense abstraction, from a steady fixed gaze at an object, with a suppressed state of the respiration.”  For example, one of the applications of yogic meditation consists of evoking positive emotions to counter-act and oppose negative ones, a strategy frequently employed in modern psychotherapy.  

Through meditation on the opposite of the source of power (as by meditating on benevolence revenge is destroyed), the Yogi is greatly assisted in his efforts to attain perfect victory. (Braid, 1844) 

Braid argues that when a yogi enters into this state of self-hypnosis, or meditation, his expectations and associations to the state, combined with a lively imagination and focused attention, will frequently result in a variety of dramatic subjective experiences, including hallucinations easily confused with supernatural phenomena.  

Now, accordingly, most of the wonders just to be transcribed, and which the Hindus take to be realities, I can very readily exhibit with many patients; but I explain them merely as vivid mental pictures, or dreams. (Braid, 1844) 

The ancient Hindu sages claimed that during meditation they achieved clairvoyant powers which allowed them to see the interior of the body functioning, and built a primitive science of anatomy and physiology derived from these visions and intuitions.  Braid, quite astutely, uses this fact to illustrate how easily subjective experiences resulting from meditation or hypnotism can be mistaken.  These physical theories, for all their sophistication, were demonstrably false.  In fact, despite many sages meditating upon the concept of human anatomy over a period of three thousand years, Oriental theories were no more accurate than those developed in European countries.  William Harvey discovered the circulatory system by experimental means in 1616.  By contrast, as Braid notes, the yogic sages’ meditations had led them to conclude that the arteries were filled with air rather than blood.  

What follow are a small selection of the yogic powers quoted by Braid with his comments, reducing them to subjective feelings induced by self-hypnosis.  Some of these experiences are quite fantastical and probably mere curiosities; however, others probably have legitimate applications in modern hypnotherapy when presented in the “common sense” way described by Braid.  For example,  

The Yogi who has perfected himself in the three parts of samyama [i.e., yogic self-mastery and meditation] obtains a knowledge of the past and of the future; 

While he accepts that these experiences seem to occur in meditation, and can be induced in self-hypnosis, Braid attributes the apparent insight into the past to “quickened memory” and enhanced foresight to “excited imagination.” 

He who applies samyama to discover the thoughts of others will know the thoughts of all. […] He who applies samyama to that compassion which has respect to the miserable, will secure the friendship of all. 

Braid agrees that the subjective feeling of gaining insight into others thoughts can be induced, writing “He will believe and talk as if he did so.”  Of the feeling of compassion, he writes, “The excitement of this feeling of benevolence being carried into the waking condition, as already explained.”  

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 mental imagery, imitation, focused attention, etc., Braid believed that people could actually increase their physical strength, albeit within more realistic bounds.  He writes, “Through this and the law of concentration, I have seen a young woman carry a man or woman in her arms as cleverly as if they had been boys or girls.”  

By a similar application of samyama to the cup at the bottom of the throat, he will overcome hunger and thirst by meditating on the nerve cord, which exists a little below the throat, he will obtain a fixed and unbroken posture in the act of yoga;  

As a result of belief and focused imagination, meditation or self-hypnosis may be able to suppress the feelings of hunger or thirst, or to modify one’s posture.  

He who, in the same manner, meditated on the ear and its vacuum, will hear the softest and most distant sounds, as well as those uttered in the celestial regions, etc.   

Braid had carried out many experiments upon the apparent increase in sensitivity induced by hypnotism, and therefore writes, “This accords with my proposition that calling attention to any organ or function will exalt the energy of the function positively, as well as excite ideas connected with such organ or function.” 

Braid’s reading of both the Dabistan and Ward’s account of Hindu meditation practices therefore led him to conclude, regarding the use of self-hypnosis among ancient sages, 

That the extremely vivid state of their imagination, leads them to believe as reality, whatever ideas are suggested to their minds; and their extreme docility, sympathy, and imitation, induce them instantly to manifest themselves as actively engaged in the scene so vividly portrayed before their fervid imagination. 

That this is accomplished chiefly through the law of concentration, and mental impression, changing physical action, according to the quantity and quality of the blood passing through any particular organ or part in a given time.  

That the notion of spiritual abilities, the soul leaving the body on voyages of discovery to the uttermost parts of creation, seeing through opaque bodies, correct thought-reading, universal lucidity, and a host of omniscient and omnipotent attributes, are mere delusions – being nothing more than vivid mental pictures or dreams. 

That the senses may not only be abnormally quickened, as is the case at one stage; but, at another, they may be rendered so torpid, as to be quite unimpressionable to mechanical or chemical stimuli.  That by judicious management this influence is capable of being rendered a powerful therapeutic agent, either exciting or depressing the natural functions in an extraordinary degree. (Braid, 1844) 

Modern practitioners of yoga, or other forms of meditation, may find in Braid’s hypnotism a theory and practice more aligned with Western psychology and physiology.  Despite the fact that hypnotism was, from its origin, compared with yogic meditation, this analogy has been subsequently neglected and has fallen into disuse.  Modern hypnotherapy has evolved in a different direction, and is probably less similar to traditional eastern meditation techniques than Braid’s original method was.  Braid’s definition of hypnotism as a state of concentration upon a single idea (which he terms “mental abstraction” or “monoideism”) lends itself to the comparison with concentrative meditation techniques. 

From traditional meditation practices, hypnotists might learn the value of teaching clients to persevere with concentration upon a single object or idea, especially an idea of therapeutic value, although the state of general tranquillity induced by means of fixed attention upon an unexciting object, such as meditation upon the tip of the nose or a point on the ceiling, may also be beneficial in many cases.  From hypnotism, on the other hand, meditation practitioners might learn more about the role of prior expectation, social imitation, mental imagery, and autosuggestion in determining the outcome of meditation techniques. 

[2] I have changed the transliteration of Sanskrit terms below, quoted from Ward, to be more consistent with modern versions.