Hypnosis History
While modern hypnosis is relatively new, forms of the practice have been around in nature since, well, forever. Hibernation can be construed as a hypnosis-like state (Hypnotic World). And man was not far behind.
If Franz Mesmer is the father of hypnosis, then the Egyptians were the great great grandfathers. A 3rd century papyrus discovered describes something eerily similar to hypnosis: "You take a boy and sit him upon another new brick, his face being turned to the lamp and you close his eyes and recite these things which are written above down into the boy's head, seven times. You make him open his eyes. You say to him: 'Do you see the light?' When he says to you, 'I see the light in the flame of the lamp', you cry at that moment, saying 'Heoue' nine times. You ask him concerning everything that you wish" (Hypnotic World, from Robin Waterfield's novel The Story of Hypnosis).
In the 1600s, "hypnotizing" chickens became a common way to help them lay eggs (Daniel Olson). In the mid-1700s, what would inspire modern hypnosis was born with the help of one man. Franz Anton Mesmer, an Austrian doctor, started a theory known as animal magnetism. It sounds very ethereal, but the theory concerned "a universal fluid present in everything with uniform characteristic at all levels of creation with magnetic vibrations" and used this to cure "a young girl of convulsions by placing magnets on her thighs and stomach," and started to fashion a reputation for himself (Daniel Olson). He began "attracting followers to many spiritualist, religious, and scientific variations of mesmerism" (Hypnosis.com). Soon, Marie Antoinette offered Mesmer a life pension and a clinic, but Mesmer refused the government supervision, causing a controversy that led to a 1784 commission to investigate what would become known as mesmerism (Hypnotic World).
In conclusion, despite many patients who had been helped, the report stated that "animal magnetism and the magnetic field were figments of the imagination, and Mesmer’s practices and theories were regarded as worthless" (Hypnotic World). This led to Mesmer losing his legitimacy; he lost his license to practice medicine, and he never really recovered. He moved into the forest and was later imprisoned for his politics for a stay, and when released, cared for the impoverished until he died in 1815 rather than taking an offer to teach in Berlin by the King of Prussia (Daniel Olson).
Due to its origins, hypnosis became split between a "subject of scientific investigation and as an adjunct to medical treatment, and those who considered it a tool for personal or spiritual fulfillment, or for esoteric investigations of religious or 'magical' nature" (Hypnosis.com). Mesmer's process was theatrical and unscientific, which, in addition to its cult and magical followings, lended hypnosis to being labeled as a hoax for a long time (and still today in many circles).