The word mesmerize is a verb meaning to hypnotize, to ethrall, to spellbind; fascinate, or to compel by fascination (Dictionary) . We use this word when we are completely spellbound by something in our sight. For example, when someone sees something fascinating such as jewlery, that person is mesmerized by the look of it. The word was made up in the 18th century, influenced by the name Franz Anton Mesmer (Tartakovsky). Mesmer believed that everything had a “magnetic fluid” meaning that it had to have some kind of a connection between dead or alive objects which he then called “animal magnetism” (Khertarpal). The word comes from Mesmer’s last name and his belief in “animal magnetism” which later on was called mesmerism (Vocabulary). Mesmerize became a word because of Mesmer’s research with “mesmerism” which led to other medical studies such as solving health issues, the self issues of individuals, and hypnosis. It became a word because of the research of Mesmer after his death and was popularized in the U.S by French physician Charles Payen, which expanded the research of Mesmer work (Tartakovsky). Through Mesmer’s research of “mesmerism” and its expansion across the U.S., it has become an everyday word.
Franz Anton Mesmer was born on May 23, 1734 in the village of Iznang, Switzerland. He was the third of nine children born of his Catholic parents, his mother Maia Ursela neé Michel and his father Anton Mesmer (Lowther). After doing basic studies at a religious school in Konstanz, Germany, Mesmer studied and received his doctorate philosophy at Jesuit University of Dilligen. In 1752, he later changed his major to theology and studied at the University of Ingostadt and received his doctorate, but would later change his majo...
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..., which would be named “mesmerism” (Sorel). Fifteen years after Mesmer’s death, the word mesmerism, which became a synonym for hypnosis, went to America and was then popularized by Charles Poyen a French physician at that time. Mesmerism was then used to help patients who needed to solve health, family, etc. problems which would casually work (Tartakovsky).
Although Franz Anton Mesmer, failed to expand his theory of “mesmerism” and did not know what he was practicing at the time was hypnotism, and was called a fraud at one point in his life, he did succeed in his name and practice that it became a everyday word people use. People use mesmerize when they are fascinated or hypnotized by something in their sight. And, in today’s era we honor Mesmer by something in our sight by using the word mesmerize just like he did when he was mesmerized by his own theory.
Everyone is in a consumer’s hypnosis, even if you think you are not. When you go to a store and pick one brand over the other, you are now under their spell. Spell/hypnosis is how companies get you to buy things over other companies and keep you hooked. Either through commercials or offering something that you think will make your life better by what they tell you. For example, you go to the store and you need to buy water, once you get to the lane and look, there are 10 different types of water you can buy.
It is so interesting to watch our brains in action. The watch trick where the magician pressed the watch into multiple peoples’ skin to make them feel as if their watch was still there was probably my favorite part. They compared it to how when we stare at a light or even the sun there is an after image of the bright light. When the magician does this he is creating an illusion through a diversion. How intelligent was the person who came up with the thought of using that concept in magic? As I was watching the marshmallow test being done on the children, I started wondering what I would do if I did the test without knowing anything prior. I think they should do a test on adolescents, but instead of using marshmallows use money or something that pertains to an older audience. Researchers from past studies have claimed that people who resisted the temptation have less financial issues and an overall better life. I think it would be interesting to have a group of scientists construct a test on adults and then compare it to how their life already is to determine if that theory could be proven otherwise. In the documentary, it explains how our perception is based mostly off of our memory, but some is based off of our senses. I think our senses create our memory. For instance, when we get a certain smell that brings us back to our childhood. Our memory is made up of our senses. I think it is crazy how it is proven that we are more likely to fall for someone who is similar to us. Usually you hear the saying “opposites attract”, so it is strange to see that perspective. Facial expressions play a huge part in how we appear to others. We judge people before we even know them, so when we see others facial expressions does that make us assume how they are based off the way we interpret their faces? Our brains know more than we do, however, they can be tricked. There
Every cultural tradition and major religion has formed the idea of possession and has had the need for some form of exorcism. Catholics, Jews, Hindus, Islam’s, Buddhists and scientists all have different views on exorcism. Although these religions believe in the idea of exorcism, science proves to have different explanations to this phenomenon.
Vanderlinden, J. and W. Vandereycken. "The (Limited) Possibilities of Hypnotherapy in the Treatment of Obesity."
Most doctors at the time treated hysteria as a physical illness, except Breuer and Freud. Freud and Breuer had a patient named “Anna O.” who they used hypnosis to treat. They published their findings in Studies in Hysteria, which talked about hypnosis to treat hysteria. In the case of Anna O., her symptoms were relieved after her hypnosis sessions. After disclosing information about her father’s death during hypnosis, Anna O. was able to feel her arm again and speak, which she wasn’t able to do previously. Freud’s work using hypnosis helped him understand the power of unconscious influences on behavior (Burger
He lived with this most of his life but he didn’t let it slow him down. He eventually joined his brother at a junior monastery founded by the Franciscans. He stayed with this order and became a Franciscan on September 4,1910. He took the name Maximilian Mary Kolbe to show his devotion to the Blessed Mother.
According to Freud, "the uncanny is that class of the frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar. (Freud 220) In other words, the uncanny can be expressed by "the distinction between imagination and reality is effaced" (Freud 244) and "an actual repression of some content thought and a return of this repressed content" (Freud 220). Moreover, he posits the uncanny moment as one in which two ostensibly opposing figures, elements, or definitions appear to coalesce, or in which one is mistaken for the other, revealing the fundamental instability of their distinction. (Alison 32) Besides, it involves the infantile complexes which was formerly repressed but are later revived and gen...
Hypnosis has been used for a wide range of problems from, opting to remove some symptoms of certain mental diseases, reducing stress and psychological traumas, and treating phobias, to aiming to cause weight loss and cure one from illness and diseases (Keller, 2008). Although hypnosis in general, is considered to be safe and totally harmless when controlled by a physician, the present era has attached danger to it, in that it creates delusions through other people’s lives. According to MacKenzie (2011), “Hypnosis has been perceived as clouding people’s imaginations while they undergo relaxation, both internally and externally. While under hypnosis we experience a heightened sense of imagination and are open to suggestions and changes.” Coker (2010) found Pseudoscience to encourage people to believe anything they want. “It supplies specious "arguments" for fooling yourself into thinking that any and all beliefs are equally valid...
Starting in chapter twenty-three until the final chapter, twenty- seven, Stoker mentions small, yet significant details that have a great influence on the outcome of the hypnosis. These small details illustrate how Stoker researched and understood how hypnosis worked and its final outcome. Analyzing these small details can hel...
Throughout history, explanations for mental illness have been described as supernatural, psychological, and biological. Prior to the early Greek physicians, the supernatural model of mental illness prevailed. Early humans did not have science to explain natural events so magic, mysticism, and superstition were used as a substitution. They believed in animism, the idea that all of nature is alive, and anthropomorphism, the tendency to project human features onto nature. Reification was also a popular belief that assumed if you can think of something, it exists. Sympathetic magic was the idea that one can heal and individual by influencing an object that is similar or closely associated to them (Frazer, 1890/1963). Primitive healers would often imitate the patient's ailments and then model the recovery. Reification also lead to the bel...
Franz Joseph Haydn was born on March 31, 1732, in the town of Rohrau in what is now Austria. His parents were Matthias Haydn and Maria Koller. Joseph’s father worked as a Cartwright, making and repairing wheels and carts while his mother was a cook in the Palace of Count Harrach. Matthias and Maria had twelve children of which only Haydn and his two other brothers survived. In 1754 Joseph’s mother died leading to his father to remarry and have five more children that didn’t make it. Music was brought into the family when Matthias got a harp on one of his travels and learned how to play it a little without knowing how to read music. Matthias harp playing lead to the father encouraging his sons to sing while he played. These family concerts spurred all three of the Haydn boys to have musical careers. This lead to Haydn’s parents discovering Joseph’s musical talents for which they sent Joseph, at the tender age of six to live in the Hainburg with his relative Johann Mathias Franck who was the local schoolmaster and choir director of the church. For the next two years Haydn was trained as a male soprano, a soloist, and to sing in church ...
Methods of hypnosis were originally used by Freud to find the cause for anxiety, but he dismissed them as being too inaccurate. He started to use methods of free association to delve into the patient's sub-conscious. By assessing the patient's reactions to the analyst's suggestions, Freud saw that the analyst could help the patient become consciously aware of his repressed childhood conflicts and impulses. By interpreting the patient's dreams, the analyst can provide an insight into the patient's conflicts as well. The therapist's interpretations of the patient's free associations and dreams are known as psychoanalysis.
When I saw Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring about five years ago at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., I felt something about the painting that I had never felt before when looking at artwork. I felt as if this girl, this young woman in the painting was real, hiding in the museum behind this canvas. She was in the flesh. Her skin was still dewy from three hundred-something years ago, the light across her face still glowing. She was in the round, her eyes followed mine, she was real. She was about to speak, she was in a moment of thought, she was in reflection. This girl was not crimson red or titanium white, she was flesh. Vermeer caught her, a butterfly in his hand. She was not just recorded on canvas, she was created on canvas. She was caught in a moment of stillness. Vermeer creates moments in his paintings. When viewing them, we step into a private, intimate setting, a story. Always, everything is quiet and calm. I realize now it is no wonder I had such a strong reaction to Vermeer the first time I saw him: he is a stillness seeker.
In 1885 he spent a year in Paris learning hypnosis from the neurologist Charcot; he then started using hypnosis with his patients in Vienna. However, he found its effects to be only temporary at best and it did not usually get to the root of the problem; nor was everybody capable of being hypnotised. Meanwhile Breuer, another Viennese doctor, was developing another method of therapy which he called the cathartic method, where patients would talk out their problems.
Psychoanalysis had its beginning with the discovery that a person in complete physical health could experience an illness with physical symptoms that stemmed from things trapped in the subconscious known as hysteria. Charcot, a French neurologist tried to liberate the mind through hypnosis. A Viennese physician, Josef Breuer, carried this purging further with a process based on his patient, Anna O., revealing her thoughts and feelings to him. Sigmund Freud took Breuer’s method and made generalizations that grew into conceptualizations and eventually into the theories of psychoanalysis. Freud would listen to his patients, and then use these thoughts to interpret what was happening in the unconscious part of their mind. This was explained as bringing the unconscious to consciousness so it could be dealt with through therapy. Breuer and Freud’s successes with this method led to the foundational publication of Studies in Hysteria in 1895. Freud continued his practice of theory until it became the system of psychology known as psychoanalysis, a system that is the single most influential theory of psychotherapy in our time. A brief look into psychoanalysis is seen through the foundations of Freud’s theory.