"Hypnotism, It's History, Practice and Theory,"

John Milne Bramwell (1852 – 1925) was a Scottish physician and author, born at Perth, and educated at the University of Edinburgh.
He collected the works of James Braid the founder of hypnotism and helped to revive and maintain Braid's legacy in Great Britain. He studied hypnotism thoroughly, including that employed in France at Paris and Nancy. He was himself renowned a practitioner of hypnotherapy.
Bramwell is best remembered for his classic text, "Hypnotism, It's History, Practice and Theory," which even to the present day remains one of the finest books ever written on hypnotism.

“Although Braid believed that hypnotic suggestion was a valuable remedy in functional nervous disorders, he did not regard it as a rival to other forms of treatment, nor wish in any way to separate its practice from that of medicine in general. He held that whoever talked of a "universal remedy" was either a fool or a knave: similar diseases often arose from opposite pathological conditions, and the treatment ought to be varied accordingly. He objected being called a hypnotist; he was, he said, no more a "hypnotic" than a "castor-oil" doctor.” — John Milne Bramwell

Using a disk to rivet the attention.

Ideo-motor reflex

The ideo-motor response (or "ideo-motor reflex"), often abbreviated to IMR, is a concept in hypnosis and psychological research. It is derived from the terms 'ideo' (idea, or mental representation) and 'motor' (muscular action). The phrase is most commonly used in reference to the process whereby a thought or mental image brings about a seemingly "reflexive" or automatic muscular reaction, often of minuscule degree, and potentially outside of the awareness of the subject.

The cognate term "ideo-dynamic response" (or "reflex") extends to the description of all bodily reactions caused in a similar manner by certain ideas, e.g., the salivation often caused by imagining sucking a lemon, which is a secretory response. Here, "ideo-dynamic" means "the power of an idea (over the body)". In the Victorian psychological terminology from which this concept derives, an "idea" may include any mental representation, e.g., a mental image or memory, etc.

The ideo-dynamic response became the original neuro-psychological theory of suggestion in hypnotism.

The term "ideo-motor reflex" or "ideo-motor response" was introduced in the 1840s by the eminent Victorian physiologist and psychologist William Benjamin Carpenter[1].
See http://goalhypnosis.blogspot.com/2011/03/adaptive-unconscious.html
Carpenter was a friend and collaborator of James Braid.


James Braid (1795 –1860) was a Scottish physician and surgeon, specializing in eye and muscular conditions, Braid was an important and influential pioneer of hypnotism and hypnotherapy. Braid adopted the term "hypnotism" as an abbreviation for "neuro-hypnotism" or nervous sleep (that is, sleep of the nerves), in his lectures of 1841-2, and it is from his influential work that others derived the term "hypnosis" in the 1880s. Braid is regarded by many as the first genuine "hypnotherapist" and the "Father of Modern Hypnotism".

In The Physiology of Fascination (1855), Braid wrote:
“In order that I may do full justice to two esteemed friends, I beg to state, in connection with this term monoideo-dynamics, that, several years ago, Dr. W. B. Carpenter[1] introduced the term ideo-motor to characterise the reflex or automatic muscular motions which arise merely from ideas associated with motion existing in the mind, without any conscious effort of volition. In 1853, in referring to this term, Dr. Noble[2] said, “Ideo-dynamic would probably constitute a phraseology more appropriate, as applicable to a wider range of phenomena.” In this opinion I quite concurred, because I was well aware that an idea could arrest as well as excite motion automatically, not only in the muscles of voluntary motion, but also as regards the condition of every other function of the body. I have, therefore, adopted the term monoideo-dynamics, as still more comprehensive and characteristic as regards the true mental relations which subsist during all dynamic changes which take place, in every other function of the body, as well as in the muscles of voluntary motion."
[1] The ideo-motor reflex. Diagram from Carpenter's The Principles of Mental Physiology (1874).
[2] Daniel Noble (1810 - 1885) was a Catholic physician. A friend of surgeon James Braid and physiologist William Benjamin Carpenter, he is distinguished for his contributions to the study of mental illness and epidemic diseases.

James Braid

Braid was a Manchester doctor of sceptical temperament and really scientific outlook. Braid found in 1841 that by fixing his eyes on those of a relaxed patient, or getting the patient to gaze at some bright object until the eye-muscles tired, he could induce a condition that looked like sleep.
It is to Braid we owe the word "hypnotism" (aTiros = sleep). He further discovered that in this state of induced sleep the patient exhibited characteristics that made his sleep different from the natural type. He was still en rapport with the hypnotist, was extremely suggestible to anything the hypnotist said, but oblivious of all else. Ideas suggested to the patient by the hypnotist, if reasonable, were carried out. Ideas suggested by another person were apparently unheard, unless the hypnotist told the patient to hear and heed them. If paralysis of a certain limb were suggested to the patient, then he appeared paralysed in that limb, but, more usefully, symptoms of diseases from which he was suffering when he came to Braid were diminished and often removed during the hypnotic state.
Leslie D. Weatherhead, Psychology, Religion and Healing (1952)