“Surgical Operations in the Mesmeric State without Pain”

Mesmerist physician Professor John Elliotson was the author of “Surgical Operations in the Mesmeric State without Pain” (1843).
Professor Elliotson's application of "animal magnestism" scandalised the hospital medical committee. Rather than abandon his mesmerist techniques as instructed, however, he resigned his offices to pursue his mesmerist practice. Elliotson edited a mesmerist magazine, The Zoist. In 1849, he founded a mesmeric hospital. Elliotson was also founding member of the Phrenological Society (1838).
When the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal [quoted in the British Medical Surgical Journal (1846)35:542] asserted that, compared to ether, mesmerism could perform "a thousand times greater wonders, and without any of the dangers", Elliotson heartily agreed. Mesmerism was undoubtedly useful in a minority of cases for minor surgery and perhaps the presence of a charismatic physician. Yet as the century wore on, most patients - and their surgeons - preferred to take their chances with anaesthetics rather than any form of hypnosis.

S.J. Van Pelt

S.J. Van Pelt, former president of the British Society of Medical Hypnotists and author of numerous books on hypnosis wrote: “Nobody, no matter how fanatically opposed to hypnotism, can deny that hypnosis is the most powerful and effective method of controlling the mind, and through the mind, the whole body.”

Dr. S. J. Van Pelt was an Australian physician who established practice in London was the world's first modern full-time medical hypnotist. Limiting his practice to the use of hypnosis in medicine, Dr. Van Pelt built up an enviable reputation at a time when the rest of the world was very suspicious of the new modality. He became the first and lifetime president of the British Society of Medical Hypnotism, and the Editor of the British Journal of Medical Hypnotism.
“Secrets of Hypnotism”(1958)
“Hypnotism and the Power Within”(1966)

“This is the great error of our day in the treatment of the human body that physicians separate the soul from the body."
PLATO

“The Intimate Casebook of a Hypnotist”

Arthur Ellen was a hypnotist who, during his 46-year career, freed noted ballplayers including Nolan Ryan, Orlando Cepeda, Roberto Clemente and Maury Wills of their pre-game jitters. Ellen, who lived in Northridge, also helped Hollywood actors, such as Tony Curtis and Eddie Albert, settle down so they could memorize scripts. But he also worked to free patients of more common fears, from medical shots to dentist drills, from claustrophobia to agoraphobia.

“The Intimate Casebook of a Hypnotist”.(1968)

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)

Hypnosis:1890

By about the year 1890 hypnotic treatment had a wide vogue all over the civilised world. We read of Braid and Lloyd Tuckey in England, Esdaile in India, Sturgis, Warren, Flower, Osgood Mason, Boris Sidis and Morton Prince in America, Charcot, Bernheim, Liebault in France, Forel and Du Bois 2 in Switzerland, Moll, Grossmann and Schultz in Germany, Delboeuf in Belgium, De Jong and Van Renterghem in Holland, Wetterstrand in Sweden, Bianchi and Fianzi in Italy, Carophilis in Greece, Strogentzy, Tokarsky and Bechterew in Russia, and the mere list of names and countries shows how widespread the knowledge and use of hypnotism had become.
Leslie D. Weatherhead, Psychology, Religion and Healing (1952)

So you want to take a hypnosis course.

Search for hypnosis associations in your Country, Province/State.

Look for hypnosis courses in your City, Province or State.

What associations is the instructor a member of?
Where is the association headquartered?
How many members are there?
Is there a convention?
How many instructors affiliated with that association are in your area? Country? Province/State?
Does the instructor do hypnosis full time?

• Is their website strictly dedicated to hypnosis? (You may believe in Psychics, New Age or Holistic alternatives but the reality is the majority of people don't).


• Are they on YouTube?


• Look/Sound/Feel too good to be true?


• Look/Sound/Feel a little too slick? Too well packaged?


• Does the instructor have a recent, current picture?


• Have they written a book? Does it make sense to you?

Compare course content of a few instructors.

• Are they comparable?


• How many hours?


• Is the course recognized? By whom?


• Where is it being taught? Classroom setting? In a house?


• Can you meet them in advance?

When you see the workbook or manual.

• Is it professionally printed?


• Are there blank pages?


• Is there an index?

I've heard of one course where the content included a "Master Cleanse" and "Grapefruit (Liver) cleanse". What does that have to do with hypnosis? Tarot cards were pulled out. Again, what does that have to do with hypnosis?

Clinical Hypnosis IS NOT Stage Hypnosis.
I've seen the content for a few Masters courses.
One includes case studies and no stage hypnosis.
Another includes stage hypnosis but no case studies.
What is standard within your association? Which one would you choose?
Does the instructor teaching stage hypnosis actually do it?


If you go for a session with a Hypnotherapist or phone for a session they shouldn't be selling you a course.

Choose a professional learning environment.

Once you're there.
Watch for body language, comments about peers, rolling the eyes, etc.
Is the material being taught in a cohesive, structured manner? Remember, you have to be able to do it.
Take your time, do your homework, have fun and enjoy.

People get caught up in the moment during group workshops and then a week later it's "Now What". That's okay.

If it doesn't work out:
admit it,
move on.
Are you going to recommend that course and person to others? Probably not.
Re-assess your training needs if you need to.

Suggestion and autosuggestion

Suggestion and autosuggestion : a psychological and pedagogical study based upon the investigations made by the new Nancy School (1921)by Charles Baudouin

The Nancy School was an early French suggestion-centred school of psychotherapy founded in 1866 by Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault, a follower of the theory of Abbé Faria, in the city of Nancy.

Three of the most essential and novel features in the teaching of the New Nancy School :
1. The main factor in hypnotic phenomena is not heterosuggestion but autosuggestion; and, as a corollary, the chief advantages of psychotherapeutics can be secured without a suggester and without the more salient features of the hypnotic state.

2. Of fundamental importance to success is the recognition of what Coue terms “the law of reversed effort” , the law that so long as the imagination is adverse, so long as a countersuggestion is at work, effort of the conscious will acts by contraries. We must think rightly, or rather must imagine rightly, before we can will rightly. In a word, our formula must not be, “who wills can”;

but “who thinks can"

or “who imagines can."

3. The most significant phenomena of autosuggestion occur in the domain of the subconscious (unconscious). The new powers which autosuggestion offers to mankind are based upon the acquirement of a reflective control of the operations of the subconscious. Herein, as Baudouin shows in his Preface and his Conclusion, the teachings of the New Nancy School at once confirm and supplement the theories of the Freudians and the data of psychoanalysis.

Abbé Faria

Abbé Faria (Abade Faria in Portuguese), or Abbé (Abbot) José Custódio de Faria, (1746 - 1819), was a colourful Goan Catholic monk who was one of the pioneers of the scientific study of hypnotism, following on from the work of Franz Anton Mesmer. Unlike Mesmer, who claimed that hypnosis was mediated by "animal magnetism", Faria understood that it worked purely by the power of suggestion. In the early 19th century, Abbé Faria introduced oriental hypnosis to Paris.

Oriental Hypnosis

Oriental Hypnosis is an old Indian method of healing practiced by Sadhus, Fakirs, Yogis and sannyasis (Sannyasa). These people indulge in self hypnosis by practicing rhythmic breathing exercise method like pranayama and meditation etc.

For hetero hypnosis they used threatening stare and suggestive techniques like loud command “sleep” etc. to bring out the subjects imagination generated from within the mind.

Bharathiya Mantravidya (Indian Sacred murmuring art) includes autosuggestion, authoritarian suggestion, hypnosis, tanta rituals and trance ceremonies.

In Hinduism, sadhu, or shadhu is a common term for a mystic, an ascetic, practitioner of yoga (yogi) and/or wandering monks. The sadhu is solely dedicated to achieving the fourth and final Hindu goal of life, moksha (liberation), through meditation and contemplation of Brahman. Sadhus often wear ochre-colored clothing, symbolizing renunciation.

Power of Suggestion.

Points programs, points cards are forms of the Power of Suggestion inducing you to buy/collect.

Do you really need it?

Thomas Parker Boyd

(1864-1936)

"One day, when a family member was very sick, I prayed. I promised that if the Great Physician would come out of the Unseen and touch the sick one back to life, I would go and do what I was called to do. Next morning the sick one was greatly improved and was soon well."

He attended the University of California and Church Divinity School of the Pacific where he earned a Doctorate in Divinity.

While serving as Rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco(1906), Dr. Boyd learned of work being done by the psychology department of the University of California, Berkeley, and introduced himself to and later worked with Dr. George M. Stratton, President of the American Psychological Association, and Professor of Psychology at U.C. Berkeley on the use of hypnosis to treat epilepsy.

Dr. Boyd studied psychology at U.C. Berkeley, earning himself another Doctorate. He then used hypnosis with other professors, clergymen and doctors on the West Coast.