A BRIEF EARLY HISTORY OF HYPNOSIS

Hypnosis has been with us since the dawn of recorded time. The word hypnosis is derived from the Greek word for sleep, hypnos, and yet the state of hypnosis is very different from sleep. Accounts of what we would now call Hypnosis can also be found in the Bible, the Talmud, and The Hindu Vedas written about 1500 BC.

A SELECTIVE MODERN WESTERN HISTORY OF HYPNOSIS

Dr. Franz Mesmer developed healing by 'animal magnetism' or mesmerism in 1775, which was later renamed hypnosis. Count Maxime de Puysegut discovered a form of deep trance he called somnambulism in 1784. The French have made many breakthroughs by such Frenchmen as Ambrose Liebeault (1823-1904), J.M. Charcot (1825-93) a Paris neurologist, and Charles Richet (1850-1935). The first reports of painless dentistry and surgery in France using magnetism was in 1821.