CHAPTER II
MESMERISM AND HYPNOTISM—HISTORY AND THERAPEUTIC EFFECTS.
No department of psychical research is at present exciting so widespread an interest as that which is known under the name of Hypnotism; and inquiries are constantly made by those to whom the subject is new, regarding its nature and effects, and also how, if at all, it differs from the mesmerism and animal magnetism of many years ago.
Unfortunately, these questions are more easily asked than answered, and well-informed persons, and even those considered experts in the subject, would doubtless give different and perhaps opposing answers to them. A short historical sketch may help in forming an opinion.
From the remotest periods of human history to the present time, certain peculiar and unusual conditions of mind, sometimes associated with abnormal conditions of body, have been observed, during which unusual conditions, words have unconsciously been spoken, sometimes seemingly meaningless, but sometimes conveying knowledge of events at that moment taking place at a distance, sometimes foretelling future events, and sometimes words of warning, instruction, or command.
The Egyptians and Assyrians had their magi, the Greeks and Romans their oracles, the Hebrews their seers and prophets, every great religion its inspired teachers, and every savage nation had, under some name, its seer or medicine-man.
Socrates had his dæmon, Joan of Arc her voices and visions, the Highlanders their second sight, Spiritualists their mediums and “controls.” Even Sitting Bull had his vision in which he foresaw the approach and destruction of Custer’s army.
Until a little more than a hundred years ago all persons affected in any of these unusual ways were supposed to be endowed with some sort of supernatural power, or to be under external and supernatural influence, either divine or satanic.
About 1773 Mesmer, an educated German physician, philosopher, and mystic, commenced the practice of curing disease by means of magnets passed over the affected parts and over the body of the patient from head to foot. Afterward seeing Gassner, a Swabian priest, curing his patients by command, and applying his hands to the affected parts, he discarded his magnets, concluding that the healing power or influence was not in them, but in himself; and he called that influence animal magnetism.