James Braid (surgeon) facts for kids

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Quick facts for kids James Braid

Born	(1795-06-19)19 June 1795 Portmoak, Kinross-shire, Scotland
Died	25 March 1860(1860-03-25) (aged 64) Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, England
Alma mater	University of Edinburgh
Known for	Surgery hypnotism
Scientific career
Fields	Medicine natural history
Institutions	Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh Wernerian Natural History Society
Influences	Thomas Brown, Charles Lafontaine
Influenced	Étienne Eugène Azam Pierre Paul Broca Joseph Pierre Durand de Gros Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault John Milne Bramwell

James Braid (19 June 1795 – 25 March 1860) was a Scottish surgeon, natural philosopher, and "gentleman scientist".

He was a significant innovator in the treatment of clubfoot, spinal curvature, knock-knees, bandy legs, and squint; a significant pioneer of hypnotism and hypnotherapy, and an important and influential pioneer in the adoption of both hypnotic anaesthesia and chemical anaesthesia. He is regarded by some, such as Kroger (2008, p. 3), as the "Father of Modern Hypnotism"; however, in relation to the issue of there being significant connections between Braid's "hypnotism" and "modern hypnotism" (as practised), let alone "identity", Weitzenhoffer (2000, p. 3) urges the utmost caution in making any such assumption:

Early life

Braid was the third son, and the seventh and youngest child, of James Braid (c. 1761–184?) and Anne Suttie (c. 1761–?). He was born at Ryelaw House, in the Parish of Portmoak, Kinross, Scotland on 19 June 1795.

On 17 November 1813, at the age of 18, Braid married Margaret Mason (1792–1869), aged 21, the daughter of Robert Mason (?–1813) and Helen Mason, née Smith. They had two children, both of whom were born at Leadhills in Lanarkshire: Anne Daniel, née Braid (1820–1881), and James Braid (1822–1882).

Education

Braid was apprenticed to the Leith surgeons Thomas and Charles Anderson (i.e., both father and son). As part of that apprenticeship, Braid also attended the University of Edinburgh from 1812 to 1814, where he was also influenced by Thomas Brown, M.D. (1778–1820), who held the chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh from 1808 to 1820.

Braid obtained the diploma of the Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of the City of Edinburgh, the Lic.R.C.S. (Edin), in 1815, which entitled him to refer to himself as a member of the college (rather than a fellow).

Surgeon

Braid was appointed surgeon to Lord Hopetoun's mines at Leadhills, Lanarkshire, in 1816. In 1825, he set up in private practice at Dumfries, where he also "encountered the exceptional surgeon, William Maxwell, MD (1760–1834)".

One of his Dumfries' patients, Alexander Petty (1778–1864), a Scot, employed as a traveller for Scarr, Petty and Swain, a firm of Manchester tailors, invited Braid to move his practice to Manchester, England. Braid moved to Manchester in 1828, continuing to practise from there until his death in 1860.

Braid was a well-respected, highly skilled, and very successful surgeon,

"[and] though he was best known in the medical world for his theory and practice of hypnotism, he had also obtained wonderfully successful results by operation in cases of club foot and other deformities, which brought him patients from every part of the kingdom. Up to 1841 [viz., when he first encountered hypnotism] he had operated on 262 cases of talipes, 700 cases of strabismus, and 23 cases of spinal curvature."

Learned Society and Technical Institute Affiliations

Braid was a member of a number of prestigious "learned societies" and technical/educational institutions: a member of both the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, a Corresponding Member of both the Wernerian Natural History Society of Edinburgh (in 1824), and the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh (in 1854), a Member of the Manchester Athenæum, and the Honorary Curator of the museum of the Manchester Natural History Society.

Mesmerism

Braid first observed the operation of animal magnetism, when he attended a public performance by the travelling French magnetic demonstrator Charles Lafontaine (1803–1892) at the Manchester Athenæum on Saturday, 13 November 1841.

In Neurypnology (1843, pp. 34–35) he states that, prior to his encounter with Lafontaine, he had already been totally convinced by a four-part investigation of Animal Magnetism published in The London Medical Gazette (i.e., Anon, 1838) that there was no evidence of the existence of any magnetic agency for any such phenomena. The final article's last paragraph read:

This, then, [in conclusion,] is our case. Every credible effect of magnetism has occurred, and every incredible is said to have occurred, in cases where no magnetic influence has been exerted, but in all which, excited imagination, irritation, or some powerful mental impression, has operated: where the mind has been alone acted on, magnetic effects have been produced without magnetic manipulations: where magnetic manipulations have been employed, unknown, and therefore without the assistance of the mind, no result has ever been produced. Why, then, imagine a new agent, which cannot act by itself, and which has never yet even seemed to produce a new phenomenon?

And, along with the strong impression made upon Braid by the Medical Gazette's article, there was also the more recent impressions made by Thomas Wakley's exposure of the comprehensive fraud of John Elliotson's subjects, the Okey sisters,

[all of which] determined me to consider the whole as a system of collusion or illusion, or of excited imagination, sympathy, or imitation. I therefore abandoned the subject as unworthy of farther investigation, until I attended the conversazioni of Lafontaine, where I saw one fact, the inability of a patient to open his eyelids, which arrested my attention; I felt convinced it was not to be attributed to any of the causes referred to, and I therefore instituted experiments to determine the question; and exhibited the results to the public in a few days after. – (Braid, Neurypnology (1843), p. 35; emphasis added).

Braid always maintained that he had gone to Lafontaine's demonstration as an open-minded sceptic, eager to examine the presented evidence at first hand – that is, rather than "entirely [depending] on reading or hearsay evidence for his knowledge of it" – and, then, from that evidence, form a considered opinion of Lafontaine's work. He was neither a closed-minded cynic intent on destroying Lafontaine, nor a deluded and naïvely credulous believer seeking authorization of his already formed belief.

Braid was amongst the medical men who were invited onto the platform by Lafontaine. Braid examined the physical condition of Lafontaine's magnetised subjects (especially their eyes and their eyelids) and concluded that they were, indeed, in quite a different physical state. Braid always stressed the significance of attending Lafontaine's conversazione.

Hypnotism

Lafontaine

Braid attended two more of Lafontaine's demonstrations; and, by the third demonstration (on Saturday 20 November 1841), Braid was convinced of the veracity of some of Lafontaine's effects and phenomena (see Yeates, 2018b, pp. 56–63).

In particular, whilst Braid was entirely convinced that a transformation from, so to speak, condition₁ to condition₂, and back to condition₁ had really taken place, he was also entirely convinced that no magnetic agency of any sort (as Lafontaine emphatically claimed) was responsible for the (veridical) events he had witnessed at first hand. He also rejected outright the assertion that the transformation in question had "proceeded from, or [had been] excited into action by another [person]" (Neurypnology, p. 32).

Braid's experimentum crucis

Braid's "upwards and inwards squint" induction method, as demonstrated by James Coates (1843–1933) in 1904.

Braid then performed his own experimentum crucis. Operating on the principle of Occam's Razor (that 'entities ought not to be multiplied beyond necessity'), and recognising that he could diminish, rather than multiply entities, he made an extraordinary decision to perform a role-reversal and treat the operator-subject interaction as subject-internal, operator-guided procedure; rather than, as Lafontaine supposed, an operator-centred, subject-external procedure. Braid emphatically proved his point by his self-experimentation with his "upwards and inwards squint".

The exceptional success of Braid's use of 'self-' or 'auto-hypnotism' (rather than 'hetero-hypnotism'), entirely by himself, on himself, and within his own home, clearly demonstrated that it had nothing whatsoever to do with the 'gaze', 'charisma', or 'magnetism' of the operator; all it needed was a subject's 'fixity of vision' on an 'object of concentration' at such a height and such a distance from the bridge of their nose that the desired 'upwards and inwards squint' was achieved. And, at the same time, by using himself as a subject, Braid also conclusively proved that none of Lafontaine's phenomena were due to magnetic agency.

"Auto-hypnotization" and "hetero-hypnotization"

Braid conducted a number of experiments with self-hypnotization upon himself, and, by now convinced that he had discovered the natural psycho-physiological mechanism underlying these quite genuine effects, he performed his first act of hetero-hypnotization at his own residence, before several witnesses, including Captain Thomas Brown (1785–1862) on Monday 22 November 1841 – his first hypnotic subject was Mr. J. A. Walker. (see Neurypnology, pp. 16–20.)

Absence of physical contact

The following Saturday, (27 November 1841) Braid delivered his first public lecture at the Manchester Athenæum, in which, amongst other things, he was able to demonstrate that he could replicate the effects produced by Lafontaine, without the need for any sort of physical contact between the operator and the subject.

Hugh M‘Neile's "Satanic Agency and Mesmerism" sermon

Hugh Boyd M‘Neile (at 65 yrs)

Braid's Satanic Agency and Mesmerism Reviewed (1842)

On the evening of Sunday, 10 April 1842, at St Jude's Church, Liverpool, the controversial cleric Hugh Boyd M‘Neile preached a sermon against Mesmerism for more than ninety minutes to a capacity congregation; and, according to most critics, it was a poorly argued and unimpressive performance.

M'Neile's core argument was that scripture asserts the existence of "satanic agency"; and, in the process of delivering his sermon, he provided examples of the various instantiations that "satanic agency" might manifest (observing times, divination, necromancy, etc.), and claimed that these were all forms of "witchcraft"; and, further, he asserted that, because scripture asserts that, as "latter times" approach, more and more evidence of "satanic agency" will appear, it was, M‘Neile asserted, ipso facto, transparently obvious that the exhibitions of Lafontaine and Braid, in Liverpool, at that very moment, were concrete examples of those particular instantiations.

He then moved into a confusing admixture of philippic (against Braid and Lafontaine), and polemic (against animal magnetism), wherein he concluded that all mesmeric phenomena were due to "satanic agency". In particular, he attacked Braid as a man, a scientist, a philosopher, and a medical professional. He claimed that Braid and Lafontaine were one and the same kind. He also threatened Braid's professional and social position by associating him with Satan; and, in the most ill-informed way, condemned Braid's important therapeutic work as having no clinical efficacy whatsoever.

The sermon was reported on at some length in the Liverpool Standard, two days later. Once Braid became fully aware of the newspaper reports of the conglomeration of matters that were reportedly raised in M‘Neile's sermon, and the misrepresentations and outright errors of fact that it allegedly contained, as well as the vicious nature of the insults, and the implicit and explicit threats which were levelled against Braid's own personal, spiritual, and professional well-being by M‘Neile, he sent a detailed private letter to M‘Neile accompanied by a newspaper account of a lecture he had delivered on the preceding Wednesday evening (13 April) at Macclesfield, and a cordial invitation (plus a free admission ticket) for M‘Neile to attend Braid's Liverpool lecture, on Thursday, 21 April.

Yet, despite Braid's courtesy, in raising his deeply felt concerns directly to M‘Neile, in private correspondence, M‘Neile did not acknowledge Braid's letter nor did he attend Braid's lecture. Further, in the face of all the evidence Braid had presented, and seemingly, without the slightest correction of its original contents, M‘Neile allowed the entire text of his original sermon, as it had been transcribed by a stenographer (more than 7,500 words), to be published on Wednesday, 4 May 1842. It was this 'most ungentlemanly' act of M‘Neile towards Braid, that forced Braid to publish his own response as a pamphlet; which he did on Saturday, 4 June 1842; a pamphlet which, in Crabtree's opinion is "a work of the greatest significance in the history of hypnotism, and of utmost rarity" (1988, p. 121).

British Association for the Advancement of Science

Soon after, he also wrote a report entitled "Practical Essay on the Curative Agency of Neuro-Hypnotism", which he applied to have read before the British Association for the Advancement of Science in June 1842. Despite being initially accepted for presentation, the paper was controversially rejected at the last moment; but Braid arranged for a series of Conversaziones [1] at which he presented its contents. Braid summarised and contrasted his own view with the other views prevailing at that time:

"The various theories at present entertained regarding the phenomena of mesmerism may be arranged thus: First, those who believe them to be owing entirely to a system of collusion and delusion; and a great majority of society may be ranked under this head. Second, those who believe them to be real phenomena, but produced solely by imagination, sympathy, and imitation. Third, the animal magnetists, or those who believe in some magnetic medium set in motion as the exciting cause of the mesmeric phenomena. Fourth, those who have adopted my views, that the phenomena are solely attributable to a peculiar physiological state of the brain and the spinal cord."

Terminology

Braid's initial set of precise technical terms:
Neurypnology (1843), pp. 12–13.

By, at least, 28 February 1842, Braid was using "Neurohypnology" (which he later shortened to "Neurypnology"); and, in a public lecture on Saturday, 12 March 1842, at the Manchester Athenæum, Braid explained his terminological developments as follows:

I therefore think it desirable to assume another name [than animal magnetism] for the phenomena, and have adopted neurohypnology – a word which will at once convey to every one at all acquainted with Greek, that it is the rationale or doctrine of nervous sleep; sleep being the most constant attendant and natural analogy to the primary phenomena of mesmerism; the prefix "nervous" distinguishing it from natural sleep. There are only two other words I propose by way of innovation, and those are hypnotism for magnetism and mesmerism, and hypnotised for magnetised and mesmerised.

It is important to recognize three things; namely, that:

(1) Braid was only using the term "sleep" metaphorically;

(2) despite the constant mistaken assertions in the modern literature, Braid did not, even on a single occasion, ever use the term hypnosis; and

(3) the term 'hypnosis' comes from the work of the Nancy School in the 1880s.

Although Braid was the first to use the terms hypnotism, hypnotise and hypnotist in English, the cognate terms hypnotique, hypnotisme, hypnotiste had been intentionally used by the French magnetist Baron Etienne Félix d'Henin de Cuvillers (1755–1841) at least as early as 1820. Braid, moreover, was the first person to use "hypnotism" in its modern sense, referring to a "psycho-physiological" theory rather than the "occult" theories of the magnetists.

In a letter written to the editor of The Lancet in 1845, Braid emphatically states that:

"I adopted the term "hypnotism" to prevent my being confounded with those who entertain those extreme notions [sc. that a mesmeriser's will has an "irresistible power… over his subjects" and that clairvoyance and other "higher phenomena" are routinely manifested by those in the mesmeric state], as well as to get rid of the erroneous theory about a magnetic fluid, or exoteric influence of any description being the cause of the sleep. I distinctly avowed that hypnotism laid no claim to produce any phenomena which were not "quite reconcilable with well-established physiological and psychological principles"; pointed out the various sources of fallacy which might have misled the mesmerists; [and] was the first to give a public explanation of the trick [by which a fraudulent subject had been able to deceive his mesmeriser]…

[Further, I have never been] a supporter of the imagination theory – i.e., that the induction of [hypnosis] in the first instance is merely the result of imagination. My belief is quite the contrary. I attribute it to the induction of a habit of intense abstraction, or concentration of attention, and maintain that it is most readily induced by causing the patient to fix his thoughts and sight on an object, and suppress his respiration."

Induction

In his first publication (i.e., Satanic Agency and Mesmerism Reviewed, etc.), he had also stressed the importance of the subject concentrating both vision and thought, referring to "the continued fixation of the mental and visual eye"

The concept of the mind's eye first appeared in English in Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale in his Canterbury Tales, where he speaks of a man "who was blind, and could only see with the eyes of his mind, with which all men see after they go blind". as a means of engaging a natural physiological mechanism that was already hard-wired into each human being:

"I shall merely add, that my experiments go to prove that it is a law in the animal economy that, by the continued fixation of the mental and visual eye on any object in itself not of an exciting nature, with absolute repose of body and general quietude, they become wearied; and, provided the patients rather favour than resist the feeling of stupor which they feel creeping over them during such experiment, a state of somnolency is induced, and that peculiar state of brain, and mobility of the nervous system, which render the patient liable to be directed so as to manifest the mesmeric phenomena. I consider it not so much the optic, as the motor and sympathetic nerves, and the mind, through which the impression is made. Such is the position I assume; and I feel so thoroughly convinced that it is a law of the animal economy, that such effects should follow such condition of mind and body, that I fear not to state, as my deliberate opinion, that this is a fact which cannot be controverted."

Neurypnology (1843).

In 1843 he published Neurypnology; or the Rationale of Nervous Sleep Considered in Relation with Animal Magnetism..., his first and only book-length exposition of his views. According to Bramwell, the work was popular from the outset, selling 800 copies within a few months of its publication.

Braid thought of hypnotism as producing a "nervous sleep" which differed from ordinary sleep. The most efficient way to produce it was through visual fixation on a small bright object held eighteen inches above and in front of the eyes. Braid regarded the physiological condition underlying hypnotism to be the over-exercising of the eye muscles through the straining of attention.

He completely rejected Franz Mesmer's idea that a magnetic fluid caused hypnotic phenomena, because anyone could produce them in "himself by attending strictly to the simple rules" that he had laid down. The (derogative) suggestion that Braidism be adopted as a synonym for "hypnotism" was rejected by Braid; and it was rarely used at the time of the suggestion, and is never used today.

Braid’s "sources of fallacy"

Nearly a year after the publication of Neurypnology, the secretary of the Royal Manchester Institution invited Braid to conduct a conversazione in the Institution's lecture theatre on Monday, 22 April 1844.

Braid spoke at considerable length to a very large audience on hypnotism; and also gave details of the important differences he had identified between his "hypnotism" and mesmerism/animal magnetism. According to the extensive press reports, "the interest felt by the members of the institution in the subject was manifested by the attendance of one of the largest audiences we ever recollect to have seen present".

In 1903, Bramwell published a list of eight "sources of fallacy" attributed to Braid; the final two having been directly paraphrased, by Bramwell, from other aspects of Braid's later works (see text at right).

In 1853, Braid investigated the phenomenon of "table-turning" and clearly confirmed Michael Faraday's conclusion that the phenomenon was entirely due to the ideo-motor influences of the participants, rather than to the agency of "mesmeric forces" – as was being widely asserted by, for example, John Elliotson and his followers.

The mono-ideo-dynamic principle

On 12 March 1852, convinced (as both a scientist and physiologist) of the genuineness of Braid's hypnotism, Braid's friend and colleague William Benjamin Carpenter presented a significant paper, "On the influence of Suggestion in Modifying and directing Muscular Movement, independently of Volition", to the Royal Institution of Great Britain (it was published later that year).

Carpenter explained that the "class of phenomena" associated with Braid's hypnotism were consequent upon a subject's concentration on a single, "dominant idea": namely, "the occupation of the mind by the ideas which have been suggested to it, and in the influence which these ideas exert upon the actions of the body". Moreover, Carpenter said, "it is not really the will of the operator which controls the sensations of the subject; but the suggestion of the operator which excites a corresponding idea": the suggested idea "not only [producing non-volitional] muscular movements [through this psychosomatic mechanism], but other bodily changes [as well]" (1852, p. 148).

In order to reconcile the observed hypnotic phenomena "with the known laws of nervous action" (p. 153), and without elaborating on mechanism, Carpenter identified a new psycho-physiological reflex activity – in addition to the already identified excito-motor (which was responsible for breathing, swallowing, etc.), and the sensori-motor (which was responsible for startle responses, etc.) – that of "the ideo-motor principle of action".

Braid immediately adopted Carpenter's ideo-motor terminology; and, in order to stress the importance (within Braid's own representation) of the single, "dominant" idea concept, Braid spoke of a "mono-ideo-motor principle of action". However, by 1855, based on suggestions that had been made to Carpenter by Daniel Noble, their friend in common – that Carpenter's innovation would be more accurately understood, and more accurately applied (viz., not just limited to divining rods and pendulums), if it were designated the "ideo-dynamic principle" – Braid was referring to a "mono-ideo-dynamic principle of action":

Death

Braid maintained an active interest in hypnotism until his death.

Just three days before his death he sent a (now lost) manuscript, that was written in English – usually referred to as On hypnotism – to the French surgeon Étienne Eugène Azam.

Braid died on 25 March 1860, in Manchester, after just a few hours of illness. According to some contemporary accounts he died from "apoplexy", and according to others he died from "heart disease". He was survived by his wife, his son James (a general practitioner, rather than a surgeon), and his daughter.

Influence

Braid's work had a strong influence on a number of important French medical figures, especially Étienne Eugène Azam (1822–1899) of Bordeaux (Braid's principal French "disciple"), the anatomist Pierre Paul Broca (1824–1880), the physiologist Joseph Pierre Durand de Gros (1826–1901), and the eminent hypnotherapist and co-founder of the Nancy School Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault (1823–1904).

Braid hypnotised the English Swedenborgian writer J.J.G. Wilkinson, who observed him hypnotising others several times, and began using hypnotism himself. Wilkinson soon became a passionate advocate of Braid's work and his published remarks on hypnotism were quoted enthusiastically by Braid several times in his later writings. However, Braid's legacy was maintained in Great Britain largely by John Milne Bramwell who collected all of his available works and published a biography and account of Braid's theory and practice as well as several books on hypnotism of his own (see below).

Works

Braid published many letters and articles in journals and newspapers; he also published several pamphlets, and a number of books (many of which were compendiums of his previously published works).

His first major publication was Neurypnology, or the Rationale of Nervous Sleep (1843), written less than two years after his discovery of hypnotism.

He continued revising his theories and his clinical applications of hypnotism, based on his experiments and his empirical experience. Six weeks before his death, in a letter to The Medical Circular, Braid spoke of continuously having the daily experience of applying hypnotism in his practice for nineteen years; and, in a letter to The Critic, written four weeks before his death (this was his last published letter), he spoke of how his experiments and clinical experience had convinced him that all of the effects of hypnotism were generated "by influences residing entirely within, and not without, the patient's own body".

In 1851 Garth Wilkinson published a description of Braid's "hypnotism", which Braid described, two years later, as "a beautiful description of [my system of] hypnotism".

In April 2009, Robertson published a reconstructed English version, backward translated from the French, of Braid's last (lost) manuscript, On Hypnotism, addressed by Braid to the French Academy of Sciences.

Bramwell: promoter and defender of Braid's heritage

J. Milne Bramwell (1852–1925).

John Milne Bramwell, M.B. C.M., a talented specialist medical hypnotist and hypnotherapist himself, made a deep study of Braid's works and helped to revive and maintain Braid's legacy in Great Britain.

Bramwell had studied medicine at Edinburgh University in the same student cohort as Braid's grandson, Charles.

Consequently, due to his Edinburgh studies – especially those with John Hughes Bennett (1812–1875), author of The Mesmeric Mania of 1851, With a Physiological Explanation of the Phenomena Produced (1851) – Bramwell was very familiar with Braid and his work; and, more significantly, through Charles Braid, he also had unfettered access to those publications, records, papers, etc. of Braid that were still held by the Braid family. He was, perhaps, second only to Preyer in his wide-ranging familiarity with Braid and his works.

In 1896 Bramwell noted that, "[Braid’s name] is familiar to all students of hypnotism and is rarely mentioned by them without due credit being given to the important part he played in rescuing that science from ignorance and superstition". He found that almost all of those students believed that Braid "held many erroneous views" and that "the researches of more recent investigators [had] disproved [those erroneous views]".

Finding that "few seem to be acquainted with any of [Braid's] works except Neurypnology or with the fact that [Neurypnology] was only one of a long series on the subject of hypnotism, and that in the later ones his views completely changed", Bramwell was convinced that this ignorance of Braid, which sprang from "imperfect knowledge of his writings", was further compounded by at least three "universally adopted opinions"; viz., that Braid was English (Braid was a Scot), "believed in phrenology" (Braid did not), and "knew nothing of suggestion" (when, in fact, Braid was its strongest advocate, and, also, was first to apply the term "suggestion" to the practice).

In 1897, Bramwell wrote on Braid's work for an important French hypnotism journal ("James Braid: son œuvre et ses écrits"). He also wrote on hypnotism and suggestion, strongly emphasizing the importance of Braid and his work ("La Valeur Therapeutique de l'Hypnotisme et de la Suggestion"). In his response, Bernheim repeated his entirely mistaken view that Braid knew nothing of suggestion (""A propos de l'étude sur James Braid par le Dr. Milne Bramwell, etc."). Bramwell's response ("James Braid et la Suggestion, etc.") to Bernheim's misrepresentation was emphatic:

"I answered [Bernheim], giving quotations from Braid's published works, which clearly showed that he not only employed suggestion as intelligently as the members of the Nancy school now do, but also that his conception of its nature was clearer than theirs" (Hypnotism, etc. (1913), p. 28).

James Braid Society

In 1997 Braid's part in developing hypnosis for therapeutic purposes was recognised and commemorated by the creation of the James Braid Society, a discussion group for those "involved or concerned in the ethical uses of hypnosis". The society meets once a month in central London, usually for a presentation on some aspect of hypnotherapy.