Chapter 3

The History of Hypnosis

The year is 1863. George is a medical student and is extremely proud of his chosen profession. He believes the advancements he is experiencing during his age, during his prime, will make history. Every day, George feels blessed to sit inside the auditorium with his contemporaries. He hears the best minds speak, and watches them perform procedures, and he occasionally asks questions as the procedures are taking place. There’s nothing quite like it. While the seats may be worn, stiff, and uncomfortable, George hardly notices.

The room itself is quite cold. George wears a coat and gloves with the fingertips cut off so that he can write as quickly as possible. He leans in as if the closer he can get, the more details he will remember. Every day, he learns more about the fascinating composite of parts that is the human body. He learns about the electric nature of the brain, he sees how far humanity has come in our understanding, and he discovers how much we still don’t know.

Today, though, what George saw was truly astounding. A guest lecturer was asked to demonstrate the power of the mind. They joked about it, George and his friend Ryan, while finishing off their cigarettes on the oval before entering class. “The power of the mind” seemed a redundant phrase to them, even laughable. The mind itself is only power. It’s simply unlimited potential. Still, for all of their jokes, they’d never miss a class.

The lecturer began by explaining that his patient was allergic to the anesthesia that had become popular in recent years. The patient was in need of surgery to remove a tumor. George and his classmates braced themselves for what would ensue. They had all seen a number of surgeries without anesthesia as it was not always easy to come by. The screams were not easily forgotten.

Then, the most peculiar thing began to happen. The lecturer began to speak to the patient in a slow, monotone voice, quite different from that of his natural speaking cadence. He began telling the patient to relax deeply all parts of the body. He then told the patient that his eyes were tired, and they would not open, no matter how hard he tried. George watched as the patient attempted to open his eyes. He saw the patient try his damnedest as his eyebrows rose, creating visible creases, yet the eyes remained closed. There was a whisper running through the auditorium. The lecturer continued; he lifted the patient’s arm, and as he let it go, he said, “Even deeper now.” The arm dropped down with a heavy thump into the patient’s lap, like a wet towel. It almost appeared as if the patient were in a very deep sleep, but the lecturer asked him to share with us how he was feeling. And he spoke! The patient said, “Calm… light.” The lecturer said, “Very good. You’re doing very well.”

He then told the patient that there was a dial inside his body, specifically where the surgery would take place. He gently pressed that point on the body and told the patient that he could turn the dial from ten, which would be 100 percent full sensation, all the way down to zero, where he would feel nothing. The lecturer then moved the patient’s hand over to a small pad of paper on the table beside the hospital bed. He placed a pen in the patient’s hand and asked him to write his level of sensation. The lecturer counted from ten to zero slowly, pressing the same spot, as the patient wrote each number on the pad until he reached that level of sensation. When he reached the level of zero, the lecturer asked the patient whether he could feel the pressure. He wrote “0” again. Then, George and his classmates all arose to their feet and cheered. The patient did not move a muscle, despite our noise.

The lecturer made an incision, and the patient did not flinch. When asked his level of sensation, he wrote “1.” The entire surgery took place without anesthesia! The tumor was removed, and the patient continued to breathe peacefully. The highest number the patient ever wrote was a “3,” but on the whole, he mostly maintained a level of zero to one. George was astonished! After the stitches were sewn, the patient was then brought back to total awareness. The lecturer counted from zero up to ten, and the patient opened his eyes. And of all things, he smiled. He was asked to explain what the procedure had been like for him. He said he could feel the discomfort at the point of incision at about a level five, but during the surgery itself, it never reached above a three. He said the entire time that he knew he was in the room being watched by all of the students, but that it just didn’t seem to matter much. Instead, he imagined he was on the beach, as the lecturer had told him to do. He somehow was both on the beach with his feet in the ocean, while also being watched by a room full of students. He was deeply relaxed and felt relatively peaceful at all times. After resounding cheers, congratulations, and thanks, the patient was wheeled into a recovery room.

The lecturer remained behind to answer questions. George then learned he was a physician who had been introduced to the “power of the mind,” as he calls it, while treating soldiers on the front line. He was head of surgery at an outfit that ran out of anesthetic supply for more than two weeks. It was rumored that a local man in a nearby village was trained in the “art of the mind” and that he could train people to decrease pain levels in their own body. The surgeon studied with this man, and together, they used this process in hundreds of surgeries moving forward. In fact, the recovery rates of the men were found to be faster than with the use of anesthesia. As a result, even once his anesthesia supplies had been refilled, the surgeon opted to continue with this procedure over the others.

He urged George and his classmates to study the mechanisms of deep relaxation, focused concentration, and the power of suggestion. He told them they needed to understand that the pain centers of their clients are located in their minds. In fact, their entire perception of reality is found within the mind, and by harnessing these centers, they can accomplish what was never thought possible. Needless to say, George was thrilled that he and his contemporaries witnessed this powerful tool—“hypnosis” the surgeon called it—and that all medicine would now and forever be informed by the power of the mind.

The Evolution of Hypnotherapy

This story is loosely based on what I imagine it must have been like for hypnosis pioneer James Braid as he watched the presentation by Charles Lafontaine at the Manchester Athenaeum, on Saturday, November 13, 1841, which pivoted his career focus to hypnosis for the rest of his life.¹ Braid and many of his contemporaries believed that hypnosis would become a cornerstone of medicine during their lifetime. Sadly, and for many of the reasons we will discuss in this chapter, that clearly was not the case.

Even though it has been 175 years since James Braid sat in that lecture hall, hypnosis is still not a cornerstone of medicine, nor is it yet a mainstream stand-alone healing practice; however, during just the years that I have been a hypnotherapist, I have noticed that the use of hypnotherapy has begun to expand rapidly. More and more physicians and dentists are using hypnosis in their offices. The popular BBC documentary Science of Hypnosis² filmed a live teeth extraction and implant placement with no anesthetic, just hypnosis; and Oncology Nurse Advisor reports the increasing use of hypnosis in cancer treatment.³ Fortune 500 companies are bringing in HypnoCoaches for their top executives, and reality TV shows are producing episodes where lead talent overcome adversity with the use of hypnosis. While hypnotherapy is finally experiencing the boom its efficacy should have always warranted, this is by no means a new tool, nor is it the first time hypnosis experienced popularity. My hope is that by my sharing with you the history and efficacy of hypnosis through the ages, you will be even more inspired to continue using hypnosis in your daily life.

The textbook Hypnosis and Communication in Dental Practice provides a wonderful summary of the history of hypnosis and tells us that this tool actually dates back to ca. 1550 B.C. in the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus, an ancient medical text, which tells us that powerful suggestions were read to deeply relaxed patients inside the “Temples of Sleep.” Who wouldn’t want a day pass to the Temples of Sleep? While they sound absolutely dreamy, this is not exactly where locals went to take a nap, but instead where they would relax deeply and receive suggestions that were considered to be medicinal. Sound familiar?

During this same time in history, the Romans also began building temples for similar “sleep” rituals. My ancestors, the Celtic Druids, who inhabited what are now Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Great Britain, had their own Druidic healing rituals specifically for their version of “sleep” temples. So, I guess this “talking to people with their eyes closed” thing runs in the family.

We now know that “sleep temples” existed in multiple locations throughout the world at the same time in history and that the results their patrons experienced were so powerful that their healing impact is known even today. So, what happened? As Christianity started to spread throughout Europe, sleep temples, along with a multitude of other natural healing techniques, quickly became regarded as witchcraft and were outlawed. The Handbook of Contemporary Clinical Hypnosis explains what happened in the following way, “With the rise of Christianity healing was seen as a miracle or a gift from God, trance states as evil and practiced by witches and illness and suffering as part of humankind’s payment for being born with original sin—just punishment for wrongdoing.”… “In medieval times in the western world there was a resurgence of the belief that mental illness was linked with demonic possession, and the afflicted would be required to undergo ritual exorcism or tortured to expel the demons involved.”⁴ In short, the Church unleashed a smear campaign ensuring that there would only be one source of miraculous healing in town. Sadly, this was the start of a centuries-long public relations battle that hypnotherapy historically lost, at least until recent history. And if I have anything to say about it, the truth about hypnosis will once and for all replace the lies conjured up during these manipulative times.

For hundreds of years, the techniques used in ancient sleep temples were unknown to the general public, but a resurgence began in the 1700s. Franz Anton Mesmer (1734–1815), from whom the word mesmerize was derived, began using tools similar to what were described in the ancient sleep temples to great effect. However, as time went on, his practices expanded to include bizarre dramatics such as wearing a black cloak during his presentations and tying up his clients with ropes. The Church eventually declared that mesmerism was also part of the occult. However, as we’ve discussed, hypnosis is a natural state that we enter into and out of all day long. It doesn’t require a swinging watch, a fancy cloak, or a rope for it to work.

The term hypnosis wasn’t coined until 1843 by Scottish physician James Braid. Unfortunately, from the very beginning, the word has been a misnomer and has added to the misunderstanding of this tool. Hypnos was a god in Greek mythology. He was the physical personification of sleep, so from the very beginning, the deeply relaxed and peaceful state reached through hypnosis was confused with actual sleep.

Hypnosis: The First Anesthesia

Anesthesia was first used during surgery in 1846. Before the advent of anesthesia, it was a common practice in the medical field to use hypnosis during surgical and dental procedures throughout Europe. John Elliotson (1791–1868), an English professor of medicine, claimed to have performed over four hundred successful operations on patients with the use of hypnosis. Amputations under hypnosis were common during World War I (1914–1918), as well as many dental extractions and surgeries, including the removal of tumors.⁵ Hypnosis was also used to treat soldiers suffering from shell shock resulting from that war. Unfortunately this was not so that they could heal and return to a normal life, but so that they could return quickly to the battlefield. While the motive may not have been the most admirable, it’s exciting to know that hypnosis was being used in the aid of PTSD patients as early as World War I.

James Braid, who inspired our opening story, published a book in 1843 called Neurypnology or the Rationale of Nervous Sleep, which cemented the word hypnosis in the medical field. He had been performing successful surgeries and dental extractions for years with hypnosis as his sole form of anesthesia. He was a pioneer who was one of the first doctors to “recognize that hypnosis was brought about by focus of attention and heightened suggestibility.”⁶

This was the beginning of modern-day hypnotherapy.

Other medical doctors of this time were exploring hypnotherapy, including Pierre Janet, a doctor who worked at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris. He “developed a theory of dissociation, proposing that in hypnosis the conscious mind becomes suppressed, allowing the unconscious mind to surface.”⁷

Around this same time of the late 1880s, Sigmund Freud became interested in studying hypnosis with Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot, who also worked at Pitié-Salpêtrière. Dr. Charcot was studying with Dr. Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault and Professor Hippolyte Bernheim.

Freud was all but moved to tears the first time he sat in the audience of a medical hypnosis presentation. He wrote, “With the idea of perfecting my hypnotic technique, I made a journey to Nancy in the summer of 1889 and spent several weeks there. I witnessed the moving spectacle of old Liébeault working among the poor women and children of the labouring classes. I was a spectator of Bernheim’s astonishing experiments upon his hospital patients, and I received the proudest impression of the possibility that there could be powerful mental processes which nevertheless remained hidden from the consciousness of men.”⁸ This resulted in Freud’s using hypnosis as his inspiration for his regression technique known as “the talking cure,” which uncovered patients’ suppressed memories.

Stage Act Versus Hypnotherapy

Medical demonstrations of hypnosis, such as the ones described in the story at the start of this chapter and by Freud, were commonplace in the 1800s. Eventually, these gave way to the use of hypnosis on a very different kind of stage. In my opinion, stage hypnosis has done as much to damage the image of hypnosis as the early Church. While I understand how humorous these shows can be and that laughter is healing in and of itself, the view of hypnosis presented in these shows creates a false and distorted idea of how it works. It makes the volunteer look like a victim succumbing to the hypnotist’s will, and that image couldn’t be further from the truth. More important, it skews the positive benefits that hypnosis produces within a clinical environment.

This section is probably going to upset a lot of my colleagues who are fabulous stage hypnotists and who always incorporate healing into their stage shows. A lot of stage hypnotists have great intentions, and if you just hired one for your next off-campus retreat, you’re probably going to have a wonderful time, as many of them do genuinely care about helping their audiences. Still, I believe the following needs to be said.

I love to laugh. When I want to relax or feel better, I often turn to YouTube and binge-watch Grace Helbig for way too long, or I embark upon the bliss of rewatching 30 Rock until it so cruelly and abruptly ends in the middle of the seventh season. The jokes of my favorite comedians don’t hurt us. Sure, Grace Helbig, Jon Stewart, Kathleen Madigan, and Tina Fey may hit us in a place that causes us to squirm, but they don’t hurt us in the sense that they don’t distort a tool that heals bones faster, stops the leading cause of lung cancer and emphysema in its tracks, and sets people free from lifelong phobias.

The Church hasn’t officially condemned hypnosis for about a century, so few people are avoiding it due to the sermon they heard last Sunday. It’s because of stage hypnosis and how the tool is portrayed in the media. This is what has caused people to equate one of the most powerful tools for healing with clucking chickens. People who could have quit smoking years ago haven’t because they believe hypnosis is mind control, due to such movies as Now You See Me 2. They are told in such films as Office Space that when they go into a state of hypnosis, they will never come out. Shallow Hal attempted to teach us that hypnosis can make one see all overweight women as thin. And the most heinous and upsetting example to date, the movie Get Out, had me in tears inside the theater while I witnessed such a horrific and false presentation of hypnosis even as late as the year 2017.

I honestly cannot believe there hasn’t been a class-action lawsuit yet to stop producers and screenwriters from the lazy and irresponsible use of hypnosis to explain why a character is behaving in a way they normally wouldn’t. Imagine if every single time a chiropractor were depicted in a movie they were seen crushing the bones of a patient, it would absolutely negatively impact the world’s view of the entire field of chiropractics and less people would be seeking out adjustments that could possibly bring them relief. Well, every single time hypnosis is depicted in a film or on a Vegas stage show, it is represented in a false, negative, and creepy way, and as a result, people who could have been free from the problems that plague them continue to suffer. Clearly, I’m sick of it.

Often when I share this sentiment online, I receive some criticism telling me to relax because, “I know it’s just a movie, I know it’s not real!” And, be that as it may, even if the viewer doesn’t actually believe hypnosis does these things and they realize this is all a device being amplified for the purpose of “entertainment,” it certainly doesn’t give the impression that hypnosis can help them overcome their fear of speaking in public, or that it will increase the likelihood of survival by two times for breast cancer patients. After someone watches Get Out, what is the likelihood that they will even bother to see whether the insomnia they’ve suffered for years could be cured in a matter of hours? Mainstream media has skewed the regular movie-goer’s possibility of even considering such a positive, potential outcome.

I’m not claiming that hypnotherapy can help everyone on the planet with every issue 100 percent of the time. It isn’t magic, and results vary just as with most health and wellness treatments of any kind. But to negate the power of this tool altogether is just as harmful as dismissing the power of Alcoholics Anonymous even if only a percentage of participants maintain sobriety. The people who don’t relapse find true freedom. Not everyone who experiences an adjustment with a chiropractor or a session with an acupuncturist can claim it was life-changing, but there are those who have treatments like these regularly and swear by them. Essentially, like anything worthwhile, hypnosis works if you work it and more people will “work it” if they’re being told the truth about its potential use in their life, versus the nonsensical display perpetuated by stage hypnotists and Hollywood.

I recently was asked to hypnotize a reality TV star on a Kardashians-esque show. While speaking with the producer, he kept mentioning that he would like to make the scene a little more visual. Could we expose the client to her phobia so that we could watch her freak out? Could I give her a cue after the session so that she would do something bizarre without realizing it? Could I make it so that she would forget the entire session, but all of sudden be over the phobia and not know why? How could we make it more “interesting for the audience,” a.k.a. more dramatic and better for ratings? I had to explain to the producer that we were fundamentally at odds. His job is to make sure people watch the show because it’s shocking. My job, as I see it, is a vendetta against all of the gimmicks that make hypnosis such a popular device in Hollywood movies. Although it’s my mission to make hypnosis mainstream, and media exposure is a great way to reach the masses, I had to turn the show down. Luckily, only a few months later I was invited to help a woman overcome her sugar addiction on CBS’s hit show The Doctors, and that experience was a wonderful way to share with a massive audience just how natural, normal, and powerful hypnosis can be. I am very grateful to the The Doctors for portraying hypnosis in such a positive light.

The fact of the matter is that clinical hypnosis is actually fairly boring to watch. There’s nothing exceptionally visually interesting about it. That’s because it’s simply meditation with a goal. I understand the allure and convenience of using a tool in a script that allows the audience to think to itself, “That character would never do that, but he was hypnotized. So, I’m going to suspend my disbelief and continue to watch the movie without questioning the plot.” However, perpetuating the ideas about hypnosis put forth in Hollywood and stage hypnosis actively hurts the audience because it causes viewers not to consider a viable option that could drastically improve their lives. Once I saw Alexandre break through his paralysis, I came to find stage hypnosis upsetting and not remotely worth the laughs.

Now that we’re all clear on my opinion of stage hypnosis, let’s discuss what stage hypnosis actually is. Stage hypnotists conduct a number of “suggestibility tests” to find out which people in the audience are a little bit suggestible, a good amount suggestible, or whether they are natural somnambulists. The hypnotists remember who those people are so that when they ask for volunteers, they only bring to the stage those people who were at least moderately suggestible. The key point to remember here is that they ask for volunteers—people who already know they will be asked to do ridiculous things and are okay with this prospect in advance.

Then, throughout the show, the hypnotist removes the people from the stage who are not accepting the suggestions so that by the end of the show, all you’re watching is someone of a high level of suggestibility who wants to comply with the suggestions he or she is being given.

Now that you understand that people clucking like chickens are only doing it because they want to, let me step down from my rather large stage hypnosis soapbox and introduce you to one of the greatest hypnotherapists of all time.

Contemporary Practice

Milton Erickson (1901–1980) is a hero to many hypnotherapists. Although he is the father of modern-day hypnotherapy, Ericksonian hypnosis is, interestingly enough, known as being “maternal” in nature, as compared to the “paternal” authoritarian hypnosis of the past. A domineering man screaming “Sleep!” at the top of his lungs gave way to Erickson’s “You may notice you have already begun to relax.”

Erickson studied psychology and psychiatry, and he competently wrote about “trance induction, experimental work exploring the possibilities and limits of the hypnotic experience, and investigations of the nature of the relationship between hypnotist and subject.”⁹

The legitimacy of clinical hypnosis began to take root in the modern medical field with such figures as Erickson sharing positive data and leading the way with his cutting-edge techniques. Ericksonian technique includes a lot of storytelling, the use of archetypes, and supporting the client as they come to their own insights and conclusions. Rather than the hypnotist doing something to or for the client, in Ericksonian hypnosis, the client and hypnotherapist learn and discover together as the client heals him- or herself. This is the kind of gentle, subtle, and yet powerful hypnosis that’s making its way into the mainstream.

In 1958, the American Psychological Association established a certifying board of examiners in both clinical and experimental hypnosis. Ten years later in 1968, the British Society of Medical and Dental Hypnosis was established.

A few of today’s key figures of contemporary hypnotherapy include superstar hypnotherapists Marie “Mickey” Mongan (the founder of HypnoBirthing), Dr. Herbert Spiegel, Dr. David Spiegel, Wendi Fressien, Steve G. Jones, and Paul McKenna, who have reached millions with their studies, books, and recordings and paved the way for many of us at a time when hypnotherapy was considered far more bizarre than it is now. Other contemporary hypnotherapists I’ve had the pleasure to work and study with personally include Paul Aurand, Sophia Kramer, Dr. Vivian Keeler, Sarojini Alva Changkakoti, Randi Light, Martin Peterson, Dr. Shelley Stockwell-Nicholas, and George Bien, to name a few. While each one of these hypnotherapists has a unique practice and may hold views that are very different from what I’ve written here, without them and dozens more, we wouldn’t be in the position we are now to welcome hypnosis into the mainstream. I’m standing on the shoulders of hypno-giants, and I’m grateful. Speaking of gratitude, let’s move on to this chapter’s self-hypnosis process.

Self-Hypnosis Process: Infinite Gratitude

I suggest reading through the following directions two or three times before beginning so that you will be able to follow along easily. Remember, there are video tutorials and audio recordings available to you at www.CloseYourEyesGetFree.com that will help you to become a self-hypnosis pro in no time at all.

• Begin by making note of your starting stress level. 10 = a full-blown panic attack and 0 = zero stress, no stress at all, the most relaxed a person can possibly be. Remember this number.

• Sit in a comfortable chair and place your feet flat on the ground, rest your hands gently in your lap.

• With your spine straight but comfortable, take 4 deep, slow breaths, inhaling through the nose for 4 counts and exhaling out the nose for 8 counts.

• Close your eyes and imagine gentle roots growing from the bottom of your feet down into the center of the Earth, grounding you.

• Bring all of your focus and awareness and attention to the palms of your hands. Perhaps you can feel your palms tingling, perhaps you can feel your heartbeat in your hands, perhaps you notice a sensation of expansion in your hands. Just notice and breathe for a few moments (you can choose whatever length of time feels best, about 30 seconds is my personal favorite).

• With your eyes closed, count down from 10 to 1, saying “I am going deeper and deeper” after each number: Ten, I am going deeper and deeper. Nine, I am going deeper and deeper. Eight, I am going deeper and deeper. Seven, I am going deeper and deeper. Six, I am going deeper and deeper. Five, I am going deeper and deeper. Four, I am going deeper and deeper. Three, I am going deeper and deeper. Two, I am going deeper and deeper. One, I am going deeper and deeper…

• With your eyes closed, repeat the following hypno-affirmations silently in your mind or out loud, 10 times: I am grateful for (choose a person). I am grateful for (choose a place). I am grateful for (choose a body part).

• Take another nice, deep, letting-go breath and with your eyes closed imagine experiencing immense gratitude for the rest of your day until you curl up into bed tonight. Allow that gratitude to consume you as you vividly imagine yourself hugging and high-fiving and laughing with all of the people, places, and things you are grateful for.

• Once you’ve spent 1–2 minutes imagining the rest of your day filled gratitude, put a gentle smile on your lips.

• Open your eyes, stretch your arms over the top of your head, and say, “Yes!”

• Notice your new number on the scale (remember 0 = zero stress, the most relaxed you can be) and congratulate yourself on how quickly you improved your state!

Here is a simple summary for the process in case you need to peek your eyes open at any point for a quick reminder:

• Notice starting stress level from 0 to 10.

• Take 4 deep, slow breaths.

• Grow roots.

• Notice your palms.

• Count down from 10 to 1 saying, “I am going deeper and deeper” after each number.

• Repeat the hypno-affirmations “I am grateful for (choose a person). I am grateful for (choose a place). I am grateful for (choose a body part)” 10 times.

• Imagine being filled with gratitude for the rest of the day.

• Smile while opening your eyes and say, “Yes!”

• Notice new number on the scale of 0 to 10.

• Congratulate yourself for improving your state so quickly!

In this self-hypnosis script we added one new step, which is to bring our focus and awareness and attention to the palm of our hands. Let’s discuss why:

Why do we bring our attention to the palm of our hands?

This is a wonderful technique I learned from reading Eckhart Tolle’s books. Bringing your focus and awareness and attention to the sensations in your palms is one of the fastest ways to return to the present moment. The present moment is the only time where lasting transformation can take place (as it is the only time that actually exists!) and so this step helps to bring us back from worrying about the past or obsessing about the future into the one moment where we can actually improve our lives, right now.

Next Steps

Excellent! You have completed the Infinite Gratitude self-hypnosis process!

• Now, go ahead and visit www.CloseYourEyesGetFree .com to access this chapter’s hypnosis recording. Pop in your headphones, sit back, relax, and Close Your Eyes, Get Free.

• After you listen to the recording, please let me know how it went! Using the hashtag #CloseYourEyesGetFree on Instagram or Twitter, message me @GraceSmithTV your starting and ending numbers on the stress scale. By using the hashtag, you’ll get to see how other readers are improving right alongside you, plus I will have an opportunity to cheer you on!

• Move on to Chapter 4 and look out for all of the wonderful benefits you’re already starting to receive as a result of learning the power of hypnosis.