Hypnosis Recently, I was watching an episode of the Ricki Lake Show that featured a master hypnotist. Glued to the television, I witnessed a group of volunteers make fools of themselves - dancing with mops, impersonating animals, and other abnormal acts. Thus, my curiosity peaked. Over the years, hypnosis has been a topic studied by scientists, doctors, philosophers, new agers, and those such as myself. The Encarta Encyclopedia defines hypnosis as, "an altered state of …showed first 75 words of 618 total…

…showed last 75 words of 618 total…history of begins in 1734 with a man named Franz Anton Mesmer. Although, he was eventually disavowed by the scientific community because of his unorthodox methods that made him more of a mysticist than a scientist, he is generally known as the father of hypnotism. Mesmer called his methods mesmerism, thus came the word mesmerize. But the name didn't stick, it later changed to hypnosis, its name being derived from Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep.