ABSTRACT
Hypnotism, as a device for inducing a sleep-like trance, is an age-old technique. In general it depends on the abilities of the hypnotist to relax his patient and allow him to enter a mental state where he becomes more suggestible to commands. As an object of amusement post-hypnotic suggestion has often been used as a stage act. Dr Harvey Doney of the Toronto Rehabilitation Centre has used hypnotism to suggest to heart victims that clean fresh air was coursing into their lungs and filling their bodies with oxygen and energy. Hypnotism has also been successfully used as an anaesthetic in surgical operations, and by dentists. It has also been found that very difficult childbirths can be rendered painless by hypnosis. As an occult technique, hypnotism has not attracted as much attention as might be expected, mainly because it places the ‘patient’ in a state of passive helplessness. Thus, magic makes use only of hypnotic suggestion as an adjunct to visualization.
