Stage hypnosis evolved out of much older shows conducted by mesmerists and other performers in the 18th and 19th centuries. Scottish surgeon
James Braid developed his technique of
hypnosis after witnessing a stage performance by the traveling Swiss magnetic demonstrator
Charles Lafontaine (1803–1892) in November 1841. Braid was well aware of similar performances by "electro-biologists" in his day; e.g., Braid published the contents of an advertising hand-bill for an "electro-biology" performance by a visiting American, George W. Stone, on 12 March 1851, which, as well as clearly emphasizing that Stone was claiming to use volunteers from the audience, rather than his own stooges/assistants, details some of the phenomena that Stone's audience might have expected to have displayed to them. Persons in a perfectly wakeful state, of well-known character and standing in society, who come forward voluntarily from among the audience, will be experimented upon. They will be deprived of the power of speech, hearing, sight. Their voluntary motions will be completely controlled, so that, they can neither rise up nor sit down, except at the will of the operator; their memory will be taken away, so that they will forget their own name and that of their most intimate friends; they will be made to stammer, and to feel pain in any part of their body at the option of the operator – a walking stick will be made to appear a snake, the taste of water will be changed to vinegar, honey, coffee, milk, brandy, wormwood, lemonade, etc., etc., etc. These extraordinary experiments are really and truly performed without the aid of trick, collusion, or deception, in the slightest possible degree. These are identical to many of the demonstrations which became central to subsequent "stage hypnosis", in fact it seems that little changes except the name and the introduction of the hypnotic induction, etc. Likewise, the novelist
Mark Twain similarly recounts a mesmeric performance which clearly resembles 20th century stage hypnosis, in his autobiography. The absence of any reference to "hypnotism" in these early performances, indeed before the term was coined, and the fact that they often lacked anything resembling a modern hypnotic induction is consistent with the skeptical view, that stage hypnosis is primarily the result of ordinary suggestion rather than hypnotic trance. Indeed, early performers often claimed that they were influencing their subjects by means of telepathy and other supernatural powers. Others, however, were delivering performances that displayed the wide range of hypnotic manifestations to their audiences. In the United States, for example, in the 1890s, there was a small group of highly skilled stage hypnotists, all whom were managed by Thomas F. Adkin, who toured country-wide, playing to packed houses. Adkin's group included Sylvain A. Lee, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert L. Flint, and
Professor Xenophon LaMotte Sage.
20th century Throughout the 20th century, despite adopting the term "hypnotism", stage hypnotists continued to explain their performances to audiences by reference to supernatural powers and
animal magnetism. Ormond McGill, e.g., in his Encyclopedia of the subject wrote in 1996 that: Some have called this powerful transmission of thought from one person to another "thought projection". The mental energy used appears to be of two types: magnetic energy ... generated within the body and telepathic energy generated within the mind. ... The two work together as a unit in applying Power Hypnosis. The operation of the two energies in combination is what Mesmer referred to as "animal magnetism". However, this is not what Braid meant by "hypnotism", a term coined in opposition to theories of mesmerism, to stress the fact that the results were due to ordinary psychological and physiological processes, such as suggestion and focused attention, rather than telepathy or animal magnetism. Indeed, after meeting with Mr. Stone, experimenting with his own subjects, and presenting his findings on such performances to the
Royal Institution, Braid concludes, There is, therefore, both positive and negative proof in favour of my mental and suggestive theory, and in opposition to the magnetic, occult, or electric theories of the Mesmerists and electro-biologists. My theory, moreover, has this additional recommendation, that it is level to our comprehension, and adequate to account for all which is demonstrably true, without offering any violence to reason and common sense, or being at variance with generally admitted physiological and psychological principles. Stage hypnotism served as a central channel through which
psychical research was introduced and disseminated in early 20th-century China. ==Skepticism==