According to some sources, hypnotism has a long history and has been utilized by humans since people first began settling into tribes (LeCron & Bordeaux, 1949; LeCron, 1954). The modern definition of hypnosis is that it is a "state of attentive, receptive concentration with a relative suspension of peripheral awareness," and there is said to be a record of people entering trance-like states in China as early as the eighteenth
             century B.C. while attempting to commune with the dead (LeCron, 1954; Spiegel & Maldonado, 1999, p. 1244). Forms of hypnotism have long been used by religious and spiritual leaders, whether those be priests, shamans, or others. Hypnotism and trance states can even be found in early Judeo-Christian faith, as there are accounts of such phenomena in the Old Testament (LeCron, 1954). It is speculated that these early civilizations used hypnotism as a form of anesthesia and a means of healing (LeCron & Bordeaux, 1949). For instance, the Druids seemed to have used hypnosis as a means of making people forget troubling events, allowing them to heal and overcome their woes (LeCron, 1954). We will see that as the history of hypnotism progresses; hypnosis will be used for these same sorts of purposes.
             While it is acknowledged that hypnotism has this extensive history, most accounts of hypnosis begin with Franz Anton Mesmer, a medical student at the University of Vienna in 1760. After six years at the University, Mesmer completed his dissertation, which was titled On the Influence of the Planets. Though the title might lead potential readers to believe his work was about astronomy or astrology, Mesmer was studying the effects that the gravitation of the sun and the moon may have had on the human body (Forrest, 1999). Mesmer had become quite interested in the relative discoveries of gravitation, electricity, and magnetism (Goodwin, 1999). In this work on his thesis, Mesmer was studying the possibil...