Who discovered hypnosis?
The beginnings of hypnosis is lost in the mists of prehistory. When we look at the cave paintings we can imagine they were used for visualization work to “magically” increase their success in hunts. We note that various native religion “medicine men” or Shamans use trance work and altered states of consciousness for their healing and spirituality. We guess this has been going on for millennia. The Egyptians 5000 years ago and later the Greeks had “dream temples” which used many modern hypnotic techniques. The various Greek oracles used the trance state to get in touch with “other worldly” realities. Modern hypnosis began with Mesmer. For many years it was called Mesmerism or animal magnetism which is the term that Mesmer himself used. The term hypnosis was coined by James Braid. Braid first used the term monoideaism for the concentration of consciousness and then later he renamed it hypnosis wrongly after Hypnos the god of sleep. I write wrongly since because hypnosis is a totally diff
