http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnotism
Hypnosis >From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (Redirected from Hypnotism) Hypnosis is a psychological state whose existence and effects are strongly debated. Some believe that it is a state under which the subject's mind becomes so suggestible that the hypnotist, the one who induces the state, can command behavior that the subject would not choose to perform in a conscious state (even behavior to be performed after the subject has left the hypnotic state, through post-hypnotic suggestion,) or even behavior the subject would be incapable of in a conscious state, such as not feeling pain, manifesting skin blisters as if the subject had been burned, or recalling things the subject's conscious memory does not retain. However, there is strong dispute and skepticism about what behavior and effects hypnosis can induce; some believe that the state does not actually exist, and that all effects of 'hypnotism' that have been observed are in actuality a combination of subjects' expectations (based on their beliefs of hypnotism's effects) and their desire to please the hypnotist (see Hawthorne Effect). Not surprisingly, given the disagreements described above, there is also wide disagreement about whether it has uses in fields such as mental health, medicine and law enforcement. Some promote hypnotism as a powerful tool for therapists to treat patients, claiming that it can bring up to consciousness painful repressed memories. Some even claim that it can retrieve repressed memories of alien abductions, Satanic ritual abuse, or memories from past lives. Others point to this very fact, that subjects under hypnosis can develop and come to wholly believe in "memories" that are implausible (or even proven false by existing evidence), as proof that hypnosis is, if it even exists, a tool proved too unreliable to be safely used in any important undertaking. Early efforts Scientists first became involved in hypnosis around 1770, when Dr. Franz Mesmer started investigating an effect he called "animal magnetism" or "mesmerism" (the latter name still remaining popular today). In the early 19th century, Abbé Faria continued the scientific study of hypnosis. Unlike Mesmer, who claimed that hypnosis was mediated by "animal magnetism", Faria claimed that it worked purely by the power of suggestion. In the 1840s and 1850s, Carl Reichenbach began experiments to find any scientific validity to "mesmeric" energy, which he termed Odic force. Although his conclusions were quickly rejected in the scientific community, they did undermine Mesmer's claims of mind control. ................. This is what Wikipedia says of Abbe Faria (you can go and edit the page, if the inputs are useful, it will be retained): Abbé Faria >From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Abbé Faria, or José Custódio de Faria, (1756-1819) was an Indo-Portuguese monk who was one of the pioneers of the scientific study of hypnotism, following on from the work of Franz Anton Mesmer. Unlike Mesmer, who claimed that hypnosis was mediated by "animal magnetism", Faria understood that it worked purely by the power of suggestion. Abbé Faria was the first to affect a breach in the theory of the "magnetic fluid," to place in relief the importance of suggestion, and to demonstrate the existence of "auto-suggestion"; he also established that nervous sleep belongs to the natural order. From his earliest magnetizing séances, in 1814, he boldly developed his doctrine. Nothing comes from the magnetizer; everything comes from the subject and takes place in his imagination (The Indian concept Sammohan Bhavana shakti) Magnetism is only a form of sleep. Although of the moral order, the magnetic action is often aided by physical, or rather by physiological, means -- fixedness of look and cerebral fatigue. Faria changed the terminology of mesmerism. Previously focus was on the "concentration" of the subject. In Faria's terminology the operator became "the concentrator" and somnambulism was viewed as a lucid sleep. The Indian method of hypnosis used by Faria is command, following expectancy. José Custódio de Faria was born in Candolin at Goa, India on May 31, 1756. His father was Caetano Victorino de Faria, an Indian Brahmin. Faria reached Lisbon in 1771. He participated in "Pintos conspiracy" in 1787, and gone to France in 1788. Faria joined with revolutionaries during the French Revolution in 1789 and was jailed by the Imperial government. He died in France on September 30, 1819. His book "On the causing lucid sleep" was published in 1820. There is a striking bronze statue of him in Panjim, India, next to the Government Secretariat Goa, sculpted in 1945 by Ramchandra Pandurang Kamat of Madkai. http://www.dommartin.cc/Literature/AbbeFaria.html Alexandre Dumas used a fictionalised version of the Abbé in his novel "The Count of Monte Cristo". Faria was a prisoner of the Château d'If (as was the real Abbé) who taught the main character, Edmond Dantès, mathematics, science and foreign languages, and helped him to escape from the island prison. He told Dantés about a hidden hoard of jewels on Monte Cristo, a small island near the Italian coast. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abb%C3%A9_Faria
