Hypnosis Helpful Hints Blog

I follow other authorities on the subject in distinguishing between hypnotism, as a body and field of knowledge, and hypnosis, as a phenomenon and state. One hundred and fifty years ago F. A. Mesmer (1733-1815), a Viennese physician, attempted to raise the art of suggestion to the level of practical science. But the flavor of magic was strong with him, just as it was strong with many of his successors. A believer in a causal connection between heavenly bodies and human lives, Mesmer revived the spirit of ancient astrology and taught that there exists "a fluid universally diffused, so continuous as not to admit of a vacuum, incomparably subtle, and naturally susceptible of receiving, propagating, and communicating all motor disturbances." This fluid, according to Mesmer, accounted for the phenomena of magnetism; but it acquired a particular significance in the human being who has two magnetic poles (!?). As a result, "animal magnetism" becomes a power that can be accumulated, concentrated and transferred.

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