History of hypnosis starts from the early ages of history. In ancient times, people used different forms of hypnosis techniques. Below I will discuss the ancient history of hypnosis and how it has been used in ancient civilizations.
In ancient civilizations, hypnosis was mainly used for healing purposes, especially in the religious ceremonies. People who applied hypnosis were referred as the witch doctors, medicine men, healers, shamans etc.
The earliest evidence of hypnosis was found among shamans. Shaman paid special attention to the concentration during the healing. He did not use any chemicals or alcoholic substances in the first 24 hours of the process. Because he needed strong concentration, so he avoided anything distracting.
In the healing process, shaman tried to make himself as comfortable as possible, which helped him to become strongly focused. Only after this he started the healing process.
All the activities during the healing process were rhythmic and monotonous. The repetition and constancy allowed shaman's subconscious mind to become strongly focused which helped him to connect with the spirit of the patients and heal them this way. So, shaman entered in a powerful process of visualization and suggestion during which he willed the sick person to be healed.
The hypnosis experience of shamans has been widely used for creating modern hypnosis models. The father of modern hypnosis - Franz Anton Mesmer researched the techniques of shamans and used them to improve his famous hypnosis theory - animal magnetism.
Hypnosis techniques have been widely used in ancient places such as Egypt, Greece and others. There are lots of helpful hypnosis tips and techniques in an Egyptian medical text - Ebers Papyrus which is the first written record of hypnosis techniques.
In Ancient Greece, there was The God of Sleeping - Hypnos. The words hypnosis and hypnotism come from this Greek name.
Sleep temples played an important role in the ancient societies. People believed the power of sleep temples and went there for healing purposes.
Avicenna made a distinction between sleep and hypnosis. In his "Book of Healing" he talks about the hypnotic process and how one can create conditions in another person to accept the reality of hypnosis.
In ancient civilizations, hypnosis like techniques were used to put people into a sleep, not in a hypnotic trance. Today, it is commonly accepted that hypnosis is much more different than sleep, but the ancient hypnosis techniques are still very helpful for learning and understanding the hypnotic process.
This is an overview of ancient hypnosis history and how it was in the past. Learning ancient history of hypnosis helps to improve the new hypnosis techniques and understand the modern hypnosis better.
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