Did Hypnotism Originate as a Form of Meditation?
This short article explains how hypnotism actually originated, in part, under the influence of Oriental meditation techniques, described in the writings of James Braid, the founder of hypnotherapy.
Donald Robertson
James Braid on Hypnotic Meditation
James Braid, the founder of hypnotherapy, was unaware of oriental meditation techniques until a few years after introducing his technique of eye-fixation hypnotism. He subsequently embraced the notion that hypnotism and yogic meditation were distant cousins, and even that they were more closely-related than hypnotism and its immediate precursor, Mesmer’s animal magnetism.