The History of Hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy is not just a modern therapeutic tool — its roots stretch deep into human history, entwined with shamanic traditions, temple sleep, and ritual dream incubation. In these ancient practices we find striking parallels to what we today call hypnosis: altered states of consciousness, suggestion, symbolic healing, and a belief in the mind/body/spirit unity. Below are some of the most compelling ancient sources and what they tell us about hypnotherapy’s heritage.

Shamanism: The Proto-Hypnotherapy

• Shamans in many tribal cultures (Siberia, Indigenous Americas, parts of Africa, Australasia) have, for millennia, used trance states for healing, divination, pain relief, and psychological repair. The trance may be induced by drumming, dance, fasting, substances, isolation, or ritual. The shaman acquires a “non-ordinary state of consciousness” (NOME, altered awareness) and then works by suggestion, symbolic imagery, journeying — similar in its effect to guided imagery or hypnotic suggestion.

• These practices emphasize holistic healing: the illness is not simply in the body, but in the spirit, mind, community or environment. This worldview persists in many modern hypnotherapy integrative models.

Ancient Egypt: Incubation, Sleep Temples & Priestly Healing

Egypt provides some of the earliest named instances of what we might call hypnotherapy-like practice.

• The concept of incubation or temple sleep featured in Egyptian temples (such as those devoted to Imhotep and other healing deities). Incubation involved lying down (often overnight), sometimes after purification rituals such as fasting, cleansing, baths, chanting, and prayer, then allowing dreams and trance-like states to emerge. The priestly healers would interpret dreams or visions to diagnose and treat disease.

• The Ebers Papyrus (circa 1550 BC) is often cited in literature as containing references to hypnotic-like techniques. One version is that it includes directives such as “to place hands on him, to quiet pain, to speak to the mind of the person that the pain shall go away”—which mirrors suggestion therapy. However, scholars debate how explicitly “hypnosis” is represented versus religious or magical ritual.

• The Sleep Temples associated with Imhotep served as centres where psychological, emotional, and physical healing were conflated. It was believed that through divine visitation in sleep, the sufferer would receive knowledge or a cure. Chanting, rituals, and symbolic acts provided a structure similar to modern induction and suggestion.

Ancient Greece: Iatromantis, Asclepieia & Incubation

The Greek world also contributed heavily to what later became hypnotherapy, integrating spiritual, philosophical, and healing traditions.

• The Greeks built Asclepieia (temples of Asclepius, the god of healing), where sufferers would go to be cured. A core part of healing was the incubation (ἐγκοίμησις, enkoimesis), meaning to “lie down,” often in a temple setting, after ritual purification. Sleep, dreams, prayer, vision – these were used to produce healing.

• There are figures called iatromantis (“physician-seer”) who functioned somewhat like shaman/healers. These healer-prophets used ritual, meditation, altered states (incubation, visionary dreams) to diagnose and heal. Philosophical currents (pre-Socratic) had overlap with these practices.

• Mythology also provides symbolic lineage: Hypnos, Greek god of Sleep, whose name gives us the root of “hypnosis.” His mythic dwelling by the river Lethe, his associations with dreams, forgetfulness, and passage between waking and sleeping, reflect ancient understandings of consciousness, suggestion, and the liminal states between sleep and wakefulness.

1027 Onwards

In 1027 ‘The Book of Healing’ had mentions of hypnotherapy.

In 1734 Franz Mesmer a German doctor termed his practices as mesmertism and used magnets to control human energy frequencies for healing purposes, proposing healing is an energy exchange, and a researcher called Sandby in 1848 found links to Buddhist meditation. Eastern meditation has also been suggested in the scientific community as the original origin of hypnosis. Additionally, Esdaile in 1805 preformed major operations using mesmeric sleep as anaesthetic to stop people feeling pain. Mesmer, Freud, Dave Elman (1960’s) and Milton Erikson (1930’s) are the main stays of modern hypnotherapy as well as, Jacobson 1929, who implemented physical muscle relaxation (PMR) is not needed as simple suggestions can relax the body, for instance rather than physically tensing and relaxing your toes, you can simply tell your brain to relax your toes. In 1843, James Braid, a Scottish surgeon, coined the term “hypnotism” (from the Greek hypnos, meaning sleep), distinguishing it from Mesmer’s magnetic theories. Braid recognized hypnosis as a mental state — not a physical force — and he developed early therapeutic techniques based on focused attention and suggestion. His work laid the scientific foundation for what would later become clinical hypnotherapy.

In 1955 the British Medical Association conducted a review of the scientific evidence and concluded that hypnosis was a valuable therapeutic tool, especially in pain management and psychosomatic disorders. The American Medical Association followed suit in 1958, recognizing hypnotherapy as a legitimate medical procedure.

This marked the turning point where hypnosis moved from mysticism to medicine — from the fringes to the clinic. Hypnotherapy is now being trialed as a treatment in the NHS (April 2025). Despite the negative stigma associated with of Stage Hypnosis, the neuropsychology of hypnotherapy is becoming apparent.

Why These Ancient Practices Matter Today

These ancient systems are not just curiosities; they show that hypnotherapy is rooted in humanity’s earliest attempts to harness the mind body connection.

1. Techniques of suggestion and dreams: Temple sleep/incubation used suggestions—implicit or explicit—that the sufferer would receive healing via dreams or divine visitation. Modern hypnotherapy uses verbal suggestions (direct, indirect) in trance to access subconscious resources.

2. Rituals, symbols, purification: The priestly rituals of cleansing, fasting, symbolic acts set the stage for altered consciousness. In modern practice, setting, and preparation (hypnotic induction) are psychologically meaningful and help shift mindset.

3. Altered consciousness as healing: Ancient healers believed certain states between wake and sleep (trance, dream, vision) are powerful for insight, healing, resolving trauma, illness. Hypnotherapy recognizes similar states (hypnotic trance, guided imagery, altered awareness) and uses them for therapy.

4. Holism: These systems did not separate mind and body; illness might be caused by spiritual imbalance, psychological conflict, environmental factors. Modern integrative hypnotherapy often acknowledges how psychological, emotional, social, and physiological factors interplay.

Why Ancient Wisdom Strengthens Modern Practice

When we understand hypnotherapy’s deep lineage in shamanic and temple traditions, it becomes more than a technique; it connects us to universal human experiences of healing, altered consciousness, and inner wisdom. For those seeking therapy:

• Hypnotherapy is not “new age fluff” — it stands on a foundation laid over thousands of years, in many cultures.

• Its strength is in accessing parts of human experience (dream, myth, subconscious) that conventional talk therapy or medication may struggle to reach.

• It offers a way to integrate psyche, body, and suggestion in healing — giving depth and richness to psychological transformation.

References

NHS Trial April 2025 Somerset NHS trial shows hypnotherapy could help manage pain

1. Eliade, M. (1964). Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Princeton University Press.
   → Foundational anthropological study exploring trance, altered states, and healing rituals across global shamanic traditions.

2. Walsh, R. (1990). The Spirit of Shamanism. Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam.
   → Explains how rhythmic induction and suggestion in shamanic ceremonies parallel modern hypnotherapeutic induction.

3. Krippner, S. (2007). “The Varieties of Shamanic Experience.” Anthropology of Consciousness, 18(1), 1–15.
   → Discusses shamanic altered states as “controlled dissociation,” comparable to hypnotic states.

4. Nunn, J. F. (1996). Ancient Egyptian Medicine. University of Oklahoma Press.
   → Documents temple healing rituals, incubation, and priestly use of suggestion and symbolism for therapeutic purposes.

5. Meier, P. (1992). “Dream Incubation and Ancient Egyptian Healing Temples.” The Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 47(4), 362–378.
   → Explores how incubation and dream analysis were used in Egyptian sleep temples.

6. Ebers Papyrus (c.1550 BCE). Translated in: Ebbell, B. (1937). The Papyrus Ebers. Oxford University Press.
   → Includes references to incantations and verbal suggestions aimed at healing — interpreted by some as early hypnotic forms.

7. Goodman, F. (1988). How About Demons? Possession and Exorcism in the Modern World. Indiana University Press.
   → Draws parallels between ancient Egyptian trance healing and later therapeutic suggestion.

8. Dodds, E. R. (1951). The Greeks and the Irrational. University of California Press.
   → Classic text on how Greek healing and mysticism intersected with altered states, prophecy, and ritual purification.

9. Edelstein, E. J., & Edelstein, L. (1945). Asclepius: A Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonies. Johns Hopkins Press.
   → Primary scholarly source on Asclepian temple healing and incubation practices.

10. Pilch, J. J. (2000). Healing in the New Testament: Insights from Medical and Mediterranean Anthropology. Fortress Press.
    → Analyzes the continuity between Greek dream incubation and later faith-healing traditions.

11. Berrisford, J. M. (2018). “Incubation and the Iatromantis: Trance Healing in Ancient Greece.” Journal of Consciousness Studies, 25(11–12), 98–117.
    → Scholarly comparison between Greek incubation rituals and modern trance therapy.

12. Bremmer, J. N. (1994). Greek Religion and Culture, the Bible and the Ancient Near East. Brill.
    → Discusses cultural continuities between Near Eastern temple healing and Greek dream therapy.

13. Braid, J. (1843). Neurypnology: Or the Rationale of Nervous Sleep Considered in Relation with Animal Magnetism. John Churchill.
    → The first systematic study of hypnotism, reframing it as a psychological rather than magnetic phenomenon.

14. Gravitz, M. A., & Gerton, M. I. (1984). “Origins of Hypnosis: Mesmer to Freud.” American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 26(3), 165–174.

15. Heap, M., & Aravind, K. K. (2002). Hartland’s Medical and Dental Hypnosis. Churchill Livingstone.
    → Recognized modern textbook linking ancient suggestion methods with clinical hypnotherapy.

16. Nash, M. R., & Barnier, A. J. (Eds.). (2008). The Oxford Handbook of Hypnosis: Theory, Research, and Practice. Oxford University Press.

17. Oakley, D. A., & Halligan, P. W. (2013). “Hypnotic Suggestion: Opportunities for Cognitive Neuroscience.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 14(8), 565–576.
    → Modern neuroscience evidence for altered states and suggestion mechanisms in hypnosis.

18. Image taken from:

    Facco, E., & Tagliagambe, S. (2021). Learning from the past: from incubation in ancient Egypt and Greece to modern hypnosis. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 8(7), 268–285. https://doi.org/10.14738/assrj.87.10541 06.06.2024