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A Brief History of Hypnosis
From ancient trance rituals to modern therapeutic practice
Hypnosis is one of the oldest therapeutic tools known to humanity — yet it remains one of the most misunderstood. Far from the stage-show spectacle many people picture, clinical hypnotherapy has a rich and serious history stretching back thousands of years. Understanding where it came from helps us appreciate why it works.
Ancient Origins — Sleep Temples and Sacred Trance
The earliest recorded use of trance-like states for healing dates back to ancient Egypt and Greece, around 3,000 BCE. Egyptian priests used 'sleep temples' — known as Serapeum — where the sick would enter an altered state of consciousness through chanting, rhythmic sound, and focused suggestion. It was believed that in this state, the gods could speak directly to the mind and body, facilitating healing.
The Greeks adopted similar practices in their Asclepion healing sanctuaries, dedicated to Asclepius, the god of medicine. Patients would undergo a ritual called 'incubation' — sleeping in a sacred space after fasting and prayer — during which healing dreams and visions were said to occur. These practices were not mere superstition; they were sophisticated uses of the mind's capacity for deep focused attention.
Franz Anton Mesmer and 'Animal Magnetism'
The modern story of hypnosis begins in 18th-century Europe with Franz Anton Mesmer (1734–1815), an Austrian physician who proposed that a universal magnetic fluid flowed through all living things. He believed that illness resulted from blockages in this fluid, and that a trained practitioner could restore balance through passes of the hands and focused intention. His patients often fell into dramatic trance states and reported remarkable recoveries.
Though Mesmer's theory of 'animal magnetism' was eventually debunked by a French Royal Commission in 1784 — which included Benjamin Franklin and Antoine Lavoisier — the commission acknowledged that the effects themselves were real. They concluded the results were produced by imagination rather than magnetism. In doing so, they inadvertently pointed toward the true mechanism: the power of the mind itself.
James Braid and the Birth of Hypnotism
It was Scottish surgeon James Braid (1795–1860) who gave us the word 'hypnosis', derived from Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep. Braid initially believed the state was a form of nervous sleep, but later revised his view, recognising it as a state of focused concentration rather than sleep. He coined the term 'monoideism' — the fixing of attention on a single idea — which remains central to our understanding today.
Braid's work was groundbreaking because it moved hypnosis away from mysticism and into the realm of science. He demonstrated that the effects could be produced without any magnetic passes or theatrical ritual — simply by having a subject fix their gaze on a small bright object. This laid the foundation for hypnosis as a legitimate medical and psychological tool.
Charcot, Freud, and the Psychological Turn
In the late 19th century, the French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot used hypnosis extensively in his work with patients at the Salpêtrière hospital in Paris. He believed hypnotic susceptibility was linked to hysteria — a view later challenged — but his public demonstrations brought hypnosis to the attention of the medical establishment and a young Sigmund Freud, who studied under him.
Freud initially used hypnosis in his early psychoanalytic work, recognising its power to access unconscious material. He later abandoned it in favour of free association, but his work helped establish the idea that the unconscious mind plays a central role in human behaviour — a concept that remains fundamental to hypnotherapy today.
The 20th Century — From Wartime to the Consulting Room
Hypnosis found renewed credibility during the First and Second World Wars, when it was used to treat shell shock and combat trauma — what we now call PTSD. Physicians discovered that hypnosis could help soldiers access and process traumatic memories that were otherwise inaccessible, providing relief from debilitating symptoms.
By the mid-20th century, both the British Medical Association (1955) and the American Medical Association (1958) formally recognised hypnosis as a valid therapeutic technique. This marked a turning point: hypnotherapy moved from the fringes into mainstream medicine and psychology, used for pain management, anxiety, phobias, habit change, and much more.
Milton Erickson and the Modern Era
No account of hypnosis history is complete without Milton H. Erickson (1901–1980), the American psychiatrist who revolutionised the field. Erickson developed a highly individualised, conversational approach to hypnotherapy — moving away from direct authoritarian commands toward indirect suggestion, metaphor, and storytelling. His work demonstrated that hypnosis did not require a formal induction or a deeply somnambulistic state; everyday conversation could be therapeutic.
Erickson's influence is felt in virtually every modern school of hypnotherapy, as well as in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and solution-focused therapy. He showed that the therapeutic relationship, the language used, and the client's own inner resources were the true agents of change — the hypnotherapist's role was to create the conditions for the client's own mind to heal itself.
Hypnotherapy Today
Today, hypnotherapy is a recognised and evidence-based therapeutic modality used by trained practitioners worldwide. Research has demonstrated its effectiveness for a wide range of conditions including anxiety, depression, chronic pain, irritable bowel syndrome, phobias, smoking cessation, weight management, and — increasingly — behavioural addictions such as problem gambling.
Modern neuroimaging studies have shown that hypnosis produces measurable changes in brain activity, particularly in areas associated with attention, self-awareness, and emotional regulation. Far from being a mysterious or supernatural phenomenon, hypnosis is now understood as a natural state of focused consciousness that most people can access — and that, in the right therapeutic context, can be profoundly transformative.
Experience Hypnotherapy for Yourself
At RebootNow.Life, Ernie Dalton draws on this rich tradition to help clients overcome gambling addiction and reclaim their lives. Book an introductory session today.
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