An ABC of Witchcraft Past and Present - Doreen Valiente 2018

Hypnosis, Witchcraft and

There is no doubt that, under many different names, hypnosis has been known from very early times and practised as a secret technique of magic.

Given a knowledge of hypnosis, and of post-hypnotic suggestion, many strange tales of alleged bewitchments begin to make sense. There are the stories, for instance, of witches who relieved women from the pains of childbirth by casting the pains upon a dog or a cat. The woman was hypnotised, and then told that this had been done. She felt better, and the dog or cat was none the worse.

In some cases, however, the witch went a step further, and cast the pains upon the woman’s husband. Suggestion skilfully applied can be a very powerful thing! If the husband saw that his wife’s pain was relieved he would assume that the spell was working, and start to suffer accordingly; which was not a bad idea in the case of a man who forced upon his wife one pregnancy after another.

Suggestion has played a very big part in the practice of witches and magicians of all kinds, the world over. For this reason, the village ’wise woman’, white witch, or ’cunning man’ would take care to have a show of occult lore to meet the eye of the visitor to their cottage. There would, for instance, be jars of dried herbs on shelves; a few strange objects, such as preserved snakes or mummified bats, on display; perhaps a human skull or two; and some impressive-looking tome such as Culpeper’s Herbal or Lilly’s Astrology (whether the witch could read it or not). The rustic visitor would be suitably overawed; especially if the witch proceeded to tell them some simple facts about themselves, which they would assume had been gained by clairvoyance.

The ’cunning man’ or ’wise woman’ might even know enough about their affairs, unknown to them, to make a shrewd guess at what they had come for. This would really amaze their minds; and from then on the visitor would be as putty in the spell-binder’s hands. Actually, the thing is not so difficult, especially in a small village where gossip is one of the few recreations. The famous voodoo priestess, Marie Laveau of New Orleans, employed a regular corps of intelligence agents, recruited among the house servants of leading families, to glean information with which to startle her fashionable clients.

Of course, suggestion can be used, like any other power, for bad ends or for good. Actually, the village witch, with her knowledge of herbal medicines, her experience in midwifery (there was an old saying, “The better the midwife, the bettter the witch”) and her use of hypnosis and practical psychology, as we call them today, probably did far more good than harm. The famous medieval doctor, Paracelsus, who has been called the father of modern surgery, admitted that he had gained a good deal of knowledge from witches.

It is recorded that in 1570 the Vicar of St. Dunstan’s, near Canterbury, complained to the authorities about an imprisoned witch in Canterbury who was being treated far too leniently. Apparently, the keeper of the jail there had publicly remarked that “the witch did more good by her physic than Mr. Pundall and Mr. Wood being preachers of God’s word”; and the preachers were much offended.

One of the means witches used to induce hypnosis was to get their patient to gaze steadily at the bright blade of a sword or a knife. A compendium of the laws of England, made in the thirteenth century, condemns the practice of “enchantment, as those who send people to sleep”. The actual methods of doing this were kept as a great magical secret; and it was not until the early years of the nineteenth century that medical hypnosis began to be seriously studied by doctors, in the teeth of fierce opposition from those who regarded it as black magic.

One of the pioneers of medical hypnosis was Dr. James Braid, who was actually the first person to use the word ’hypnotism’, in 1843; and he re-discovered one of the methods witches had been using for centuries; namely, that of getting his patient to gaze steadily at a bright object. Here in his own words, is Dr. Braid’s method:

Take any bright object (I generally use my lancet case) between the thumb and fore and middle fingers of the left hand; hold it from about eight to fifteen inches from the eyes, at such a position above the forehead as may be necessary to produce the greatest possible strain upon the eyes and the eyelids, and enable the patient to maintain a steady, fixed stare at the object. The patient must be made to understand that he must keep the eyes steadily fixed on the object. It will be observed that, owing to the consensual adjustment of the eyes, the pupils will be at first contracted, they will shortly begin to dilate, and after they have done so to a considerable extent, and have assumed a very wary position, if the fore and middle fingers of the right hand, extended and a little separated, are carried from the object towards the eyes, most likely the eyelid will close involuntarily, with a vibratory motion. If this is not the case, or the patient allows the eyeballs to move, desire him to begin again, giving him to understand that he is to allow the eyelids to close when the fingers are again carried to the eyes, but that the eyeballs must be kept fixed on the same position, and the mind riveted to the one idea of the object held above the eyes.

Another means used by witches to induce hypnosis in this way, as well as the knife or sword-blade, was the bright shiny ball known as a witch ball. These are often seen today hanging up in antique shops. They vary in size and colour, from the massive ones suspended by a chain, to others which are quite small, no larger than the Christmas tree decorations which they probably originated. (See WITCH BALLS.)

Witches, however, put these balls to definite magical uses, one of which was the induction of hypnosis as stated above. The shining ball was hung from the ceiling, or some convenient suspension, and the subject was told to sit in a chair, relax, and look upwards at it. In a candlelit cottage, with the light carefully arranged and a scent of herbs and incense in the air, this was an effective method of inducing trance.

A few years ago the Brighton Evening Argus featured a story about a local dentist, who was using hypnosis in his practice and finding it very helpful. His method of inducing the hypnotic state in his patients was the very thing the witches used to use—a shiny silver witch ball, hung from the ceiling of his surgery! The newspaper story gave no indication that the dentist realised this; but he was, in fact, using the witch ball in the traditional way.

Truly, “there is nothing new except what has been forgotten”.

Many old writers go into long arguments about whether or not witches could turn people into animals. Given a knowledge of hypnosis, a powerful practitioner could certainly have made a person believe that he had been turned into an animal. Some of the old time stage mesmerists regularly did this sort of thing as part of their entertainment; and if they could do it, a witch could also, especially in the days when almost everyone implicitly believed that such transformations were possible. The stage mesmerist’s subject would have realised afterwards that he had been the victim of an illusion; but the person whom the witch spell-bound generally knew nothing of such powers other than as witchcraft.

However, long before the days of Friedrich Anton Mesmer (1733—1815), who is generally regarded as the originator of mesmerism (the old term for hypnosis), some intelligent men had realised that this supposed diabolical power of witchcraft was simply a fact in nature.

Van Helmont, for instance, called it ’magnetism’, and stated that it was active everywhere and had nothing new but the name; “it is a paradox only to those who ridicule everything, and who attribute to the power of Satan whatever they are unable to explain”. Like Mesmer, the early students of this subject regarded the effects as being produced by a kind of invisible fluid, which passed from one person to another, and which they compared to the force emanating from a magnet; hence the word ’magnetism’ being used in this context. Most modern hypnotists discount this idea; but many occultists consider it to contain some truth.