This work traces the history of hypnotism from its beginnings as "animal magnetism". It begins with a detailed description of Anton Mesmer's 1774 discovery and recounts the story of his life. The major alterations in Mesmer's theory made by a variety of early pioneers, including the supposed paranormal powers possessed by somnambulists, are then examined, with a fuller account of the tragedy of John Elliotson than has appeared elsewhere. James Braid's coining of the term "hypnotism" to replace "animal magnetism" introduces the modern era, and after an appreciation of Braid's work the dramatic demonstrations in Charcot's Clinic are described, with the subsequent exposure of his errors by Bernheim and others. The book concludes with an account of the therapeutic and experiment work of the 20th century and the practical ways in which hypnotism is being employed today.
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About the Author
Derek Forrest is a fellow of the British Psychological Society, the Psychological Society of Ireland, and the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He has more than forty years experience in the use of hypnotism in therapy.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
the best history of Hypnotism and Mesmerism I've ever read!,
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This review is from: Hypnotism: A History (Paperback)
I've been reading at Mesmerism and Hypnosis for years and this is the best single volume yet. This one gives a very clear lineal history of the transition from Mesmerism to Hypnotism, listing WHO added/deleted/discovered WHAT to the process.I think it would be most interesting to go back to the early practices and re-examine them for further use..the various practices did different things and had different uses! At any rate, you needn't hesitate to buy this one if the historical subject is on interest to you. Very highly recommended. Nicely done.
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Intermittently interesting, but extremely dishonest,
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This review is from: Hypnotism: A History (Paperback)
The book deals with the history of what is now called hypnotism from its beginnings as animal magnetism under Mesmer, to the present. One feature of that history is the appearance of what, for its first century, were called the "higher phenomena" of [animal] magnetism/mesmerism ~ telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis, contact with spirits; phenomena that are now mistakenly called paranormal (I say "mistakenly", because these phenomena are normal enough, just not as common as other phenomena that are called normal). These "higher phenomena" didn't occur regularly, & there were researchers & practitioners who never encountered them. But they occurred often enough, & spectacularly enough, that a history of the subject has to mention them & to deal with them.There are essentially three ways in which to approach the "higher phenomena". One can, on the basis of the evidence, simply accept them. Acceptance can be critical or uncritical, but given the immense amount of evidence for their occurrence, acceptance doesn't automatically imply the abeyance of one's critical faculties. One can be skeptical about them, & this is usually the case when one is honest enough not to reject the evidence out of hand, but finds oneself unable to square their occurrence with other views to which one is committed. One can debunk them. That is to say, having a strong prior commitment to a doctrine that one could no longer maintain if the occurrence of these "higher phenomena" were allowed, one refuses to accept the evidence as anything but an indication of how uncritical, deluded, self-deluded, deceptive, or naïve people can be. Since the best evidence is plentiful & quite strong, the debunker is unable to handle these matters honestly. He must impute the claims of having observed such phenomena to honest defects of character or circumstance. If that won't serve in a given case, then fraud in its several varieties is brought in to account for the phenomena. If that won't work, then the matter simply misrepresented. & if that won't work, then the matter is simply disregarded & passed over in silence. Forrest is a debunker, & he uses all four methods in his book to maintain that there are no "higher phenomena" in the history of magnetism/mesmerism/hypnotism. & as with practically all the work of debunkers, the result is intellectual dishonesty. To begin with, in dealing with any subject that involves significant consideration of the psychical, an author should have the decency to state in a preface his attitude towards such matters, & what he takes to be the justification of his attitude. The author's statements might affect a prospective buyer's choice: he might conclude that the author's views preclude an adequate or accurate treatment of the subject. Forrest says nothing about his attitudes concerning the psychical in his preface, & I regard that as a defect of the book. We first learn of Forrest's attitude in the following passage: "On one occasion Puységur was mentally rehearsing a song to himself, when Victor, in a crisis, began to sing the words aloud. Puységur considered this more than a remarkable coincidence, & before long had convinced himself that Victor could read his thoughts, because Victor would reply to his unspoken questions; furthermore, he found that he apparently had the power, by thinking, to stop Victor's thoughts whenever he wished, or to change them completely. Without postulating a telepathic possibility one can only presume that Puységur was unintentionally giving cues to Victor, either by faint whispering or by small movements of which he was himself unaware." [p 72] Apart from such a degree of tendentiousness in the language of the foregoing account as to misrepresent the matter, why is the possibility of telepathy dismissed out of hand? Forrest wants, for that occasion, to resort to co-incidence as an explanation. For other matters, he wants to presume actions that he has no right to presume. Not having been present, & having no evidence to warrant the claim, Forrest is in no position to claim that unintentional cues were given at any time. Since Forrest doesn't want to accuse Puységur of fraud & he doesn't want either to accept the possibility of telepathy or to overwork the claim of co-incidence, he has to go beyond his evidence to make claims that he can't justify. Forrest in fact knows nothing about unintentional cues, & has no evidence to back up his claims. His prior commitments, not anything in the subject itself, require him to go beyond the evidence in the way that he does. Telepathy in the foregoing is quite possible, & the reports suggest it. Co-incidence is a claim easy to assert on no grounds, & impossible to deny. Best would be to state what is reported to have happened without editorializing (of which the citation above is a mild sample in Forrest's discussion of Puységur), & let the reader draw his own conclusions. [To wit: On one occasion, Puységur was mentally rehearsing a song to himself, when Victor, in a crisis, began to sing the words aloud. Before long, Puységur found that Victor could read his thoughts, because Victor would reply to his unspoken questions; furthermore, he found that he could stop Victor's thoughts whenever he wished or to change them completely. ~ These are the reports.] Another tendentious account of a different sort: "[Baron du Potet] was not above using stage-tricks, as in his apparent demonstration of thought-transference [telepathy] between father & daughter somnambulists. The audience was assembled in a darkened room, from which two identically furnished & darkened rooms led off. Each subject was led to one of these rooms, &, at a signal from Du Potet, began to behave similarly, picking up a particular object & bringing it at exactly the same moment to the entrances to the audience's room, where the objects were illuminated by candles held up by the spectators. Both brought a cup & then a book, & then a fan, & so it went on. A simpler explanation than thought-transference would be to suppose prior instruction by Du Potet or collusion between the subjects, & the possible use of a mnemonic code to remember the order in which the objects were to be picked up." [p 124] If the subjects were indeed hypnotized, then collusion between them is quite unlikely. So this leaves the claim of fraud by du Potet. First, the psychical explanation is always the simplest explanation, as being the most direct. That is, what seems to have happened, actually did happen. If this conflicts with any preconceptions, so much the worse for the preconceptions. If there is something in science that doesn't allow it, so much the worse for science ~ which even at its best is incomplete, limited, & inadequate (incomplete, in that the sciences taken together do not provide a complete knowledge of the physical world; limited, in that the sciences taken together cover only those aspects of the physical world that can be brought under general rules [& therefore not such matters as history]; inadequate, in that, unless the totality of what exists is material, the sciences can give no accurate & balanced account of reality as a whole). Forrest's claim that fraud is a simpler explanation is wrong. On the other hand, to say that some explanation (whether psychical or not) is the simplest, is not to say that, in any given case, it's the correct explanation. It may be or it may not be. But the truth of the matter isn't determined by extraneous considerations like prior commitments, or indeed, even simplicity. Second, Forrest has absolutely no reason to suggest fraud on the part of du Potet even as a possible explanation. Ignoring any sources outside Forrest's book, nothing else that Forrest mentions about du Potet earlier in this chapter & in later chapters remotely suggests fraud, & actually implies the opposite. Indeed, later, on the same page, Forrest cites without objection the following testimonial to du Potet's character: "I really believe him to be an honest, enthusiastic man, engaged with his whole soul in pursuing what seems to him the most important of all discoveries. [...] He is honest, I am sure; how much truth he may possess I am at present quite unable to say." But when it suits Forrest's purposes (which is to say, when he can't come up with a genuine alternative explanation), he will ascribe fraud. The preceding material comes at the end of a chapter devoted to "Vision without eyes", in which Forrest discusses a number of incidents in order to debunk all claims of telepathy & clairvoyance. The foregoing citations from Forrest's text show plainly that he can't state matters simply when he deals with the psychical, but has to impose a good deal of editorializing, & at least his account of Mlle Pigeaire additionally contains some mistakes that benefit his argument. But Forrest's efforts to debunk the evidence will be persuasive only to those unfamiliar with the evidence of psychical research, especially that concerning clairvoyance, since all his arguments can be decisively rebutted. This chapter is further weakened by significant omissions. The material presented gives the impression of mesmerism beginning in Austria with Mesmer, & then passing with him to France, before passing to Britain (& to some degree the United States), before going back to France ~ all between, roughly, 1765 & 1890. In fact, there was significant interest in mesmerism all over Europe beginning right after the Napoleonic Wars, & much important work was done in Germany, Russia, & Scandinavia. The reader would not even begin to suspect that. Moreover, in the work done elsewhere on the continent, the "higher phenomena" weren't absent, & the evidences for them were sometimes better than those to be found in France. Second, Forrest says nothing about one of... Read more ›
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