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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 12, No. 1

Publication Date: January 25, 2025

DOI:10.14738/assrj.121.18181.

Facco, E., Foppiani, E., & Granone, P. (2025). Hypnosis: The Modern Scientific Version of a Timeless Healing Technique. Advances in

Social Sciences Research Journal, 12(1). 124-145.

Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom

Hypnosis: The Modern Scientific Version of a Timeless Healing

Technique

Enrico Facco

Studium Patavinum - Dept. of Neurosciences,

University of Padova, Italy and Inst. F. Granone –

Italian Center of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis

(CIICS), Torino (Italy)

Ennio Foppiani

Inst. F. Granone - Italian Center of Clinical and

Experimental Hypnosis (CIICS), Torino (Italy)

Paolo Granone

Inst. F. Granone - Italian Center of Clinical and

Experimental Hypnosis (CIICS), Torino (Italy)

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to envisage possible commonalities between shamanic

rituals, incubation, meditation, lucid dreaming, and hypnosis – a well validated

therapeutic tool, though misunderstood in the past and still underused. The topic is

endowed with huge epistemological implications, calling for a transdisciplinary and

transcultural approach, in order to properly understand the essential common

aspects of these mind-body techniques and their potential for healing. Actually, the

Western rationalist thought has led to mental imagery being misunderstood and

prejudicially rejected as a worthless mind activity, while only in recent years

neurosciences have started to appraise its cognitive and metacognitive value. The

main common aspects of the above-mentioned techniques are eye closure and

mental imagery. The former allows to shift the focus of attention form the outer to

the inner words, a prerequisite to open the doors of mental imagery and plastic

monoideism. The resulting absorption and introspective activity in turn allow to get

a metacognitive control over mind and body, including neurovegetative system and

pain. Therefore, eye closure and mental imagery can be considered as the Ariadne

thread, able to guide us in the knowledge of the apparent labyrinth of healing

techniques that have accompanied the care of the sick in all cultures since time

immemorial.

Keywords: Epistemology, Hypnosis, Incubation, Lucid Dreaming, Meditation, Shamanism.

INTRODUCTION

I’m enough of an artist to draw freely on my imagination.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

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Facco, E., Foppiani, E., & Granone, P. (2025). Hypnosis: The Modern Scientific Version of a Timeless Healing Technique. Advances in Social Sciences

Research Journal, 12(1). 124-145.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.121.18181

Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

1

Albert Einstein

The origin of hypnosis – commonly attributed to Franz Anton Mesmer in late18th century – may

be stretched back to ancient Greek and Egyptian medicine and even earlier to prehistoric

shamanism, both Eastern and Western philosophies and medicines originate from [1]. The

topic includes a variety of techniques – especially incubation, meditation, lucid dreaming and

shamanic rituals. As a whole, they call for a transdisciplinary and transcultural approach in

order to understand possible commonalities of different techniques, albeit defined and

formalized in different and ostensibly incompatible ways in different cultures and times. These

techniques have been used all over the world since time immemorial to improve knowledge,

metacognition, spirituality and environmental adaptation, as well as to take care of the sick.

The therapeutic value of shamanic rituals and traditional healing techniques has been analyzed

by transcultural psychiatry, but has been neglected by the positivist inclination of 20th century

psychiatry – mainly conceiving psychiatric disorders as the result of individual biological

disorders, where the patient is conceived as a passive, helpless carrier of it [2,3].

This article is aimed to frame hypnosis in a broader context as the last, scientific version of a

timeless, fundamental way of healing probably originating in the prehistory and then spread all

over the world. Despite incubation, lucid dreaming and meditation are not the same as modern

hypnosis, they may share unexpected aspects worth to be stressed in order to envisage the

common mental processes involved in these techniques.

ORIGIN OF PHILOSOPHY AND MEDICINE

Shamans of all ages (the term shaman, from the Manchu-Tungus word šaman, means man of

knowledge) have probed the reality as a whole − including the visible and the invisible, ordinary

and non-ordinary experiences − in order to comprehend the relationship between the inner

and the outer world, the meaning of life and death, as well as cure diseased people. The term

shaman is broad and, according to Eliade, it is advisable to limit its meaning to those “specialists

of the sacred” who know how to employ the spiritual power and ecstasy for the benefit of

community [4]. Besides the administration of herbal medicines (including psychotropic agents)

and other remedies, their healing procedures and rites included the induction of trance in order

to exploit the potentialities of the soul of both the shaman (e.g., shamanic journeys) and the

patient (e.g., shamanic flights) in the process of healing.

Several data suggest that prehistoric pan-Asiatic shamanism may be considered as the source

of both Eastern and Western philosophies and medicines, as well as native American traditions.

In fact. the first Taoists lived in a region strongly tinged with shamanism [5,6]. In ancient

Greece, a connection route with shamanism was Pontic Olbia − a settlement of Miletus dating

back to the 7th century BC in the coast of the Black Sea close to the Dnepr river’s mouth − where

a strong shamanic tradition was present. It included the worship of Apollo Oulios, as well as

Orphic and Dyionisian mysteries, as suggested by graffiti hinting to life-death-life (i.e.,

reincarnation, a view also shared by Pitagoras, Plato and Empedocles) [7]. Apollo Oulios (a

name related to his role of healer) was also mentioned in Kos as well, the homeland of

1

Interview with G.S. Vierek quoted by Isaacson [1, p. 385]

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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol. 12, Issue 01, January-2025

Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom

Hippocrates [8]. From there it spread to the Ionian cities, where most pre-Socratic

philosophers lived [9–11]. Furthermore, a huge exchange of information between ancient

Greece and the East occurred before the birth of pre-Socratic philosophy, favored by trades

between Greece and India through Egypt, Persian Empire, and Phoenicia. Interestingly,

Parmenides, the great philosopher of Being, was also a great physician, founder of the Eleatic

Medical School. He had the title of Ouliadês (initiated to Apollo worship), iatros (physician),

iatromantis (healer) and phôlarchos (i.e., lord of borrows, a term and indicating his expertise in

incubation by referring to the borrows of snakes sacred to Apollo). In other words, he was a

great sage with shamanic gifts and this might be the reason why Plato named him “venerable

and awesome” in the Theaetetus (183e) [1,13–16]. According to Baldini, the concept of

iatromantis also included the capacity to travel with the soul while the body appeared to lie as

dead and come into contact with gods, in order to explore the secrets of the cosmos and

perform healings and wonders for the community [17].

The whole of these data strongly suggest that Greek culture and philosophy cannot be properly

understood unless oracles, incubation, and initiation rites to Mysteries are taken in due

account. For instance, the initiation to Eleusinian Mysteries included both katábasis (descent

to the underworld) and anábasis (ascent to the upper world) where the initiant experienced

visions and epoptéia (viz., enlightenment), a path paralleling shamanic journeys [11,18].

As far as American native populations are concerned, there is an increasing evidence of their

origin from Siberian population migrated to Americas through the Behring Straits during the

late glacial period (30,000-15,000 BC). This migration allowed humans to pass from Siberia to

the Pacific coast and Plains east of the Canadian Rockies. The first populations spread from

there to North, Central and South America, a fact supported by the genetic compatibility

between Native Americans and populations from Altai and Amur regions in south Siberia

[19,20].

Figure 1 schematically shows the origin and development of human culture from pan-Asiatic

pre-historic shamanism – including Eastern and Western philosophies and medicines, as well

as Native American cultures – up to the birth of the first European universities with their

medical schools. Traditional Chinese medicine belongs to Taoism and its origin is lost in the

mists of time. Likewise, āyurveda medicine [the term āyurveda, from theSanskrit āyus(life) and

veda (knowledge), means knowledge of life] belongs to Veda tradition and dates back to about

5,000 years BC. It shows several links with traditional Chinese medicine, probably favored by

exchange of information through the Silk Road and the spread of Buddhism to China, while

ayurvedic texts have also been translated into Chinese and Greek in 4th century BC [21,22].

Incubation was constantly practiced in ancient Egyptian and Greek medicines for about 3,000

years – from about 2,700 BC to the fifth century AC. However, with the advent of Christendom

paganism was canceled out – including Asclepius’ medicine and incubation – and Christian

physicians and monks started to take care of the sick [1]. Indeed, in the early stage incubation

was practiced in the Cosmedion Cosmas and Damian at Constantinople, in the shrine of the

Egyptian saints Cirus and John at Menouthis (close to Canopus), and in the sanctuaries of St.

Thecla at Seleucia and Aege as a syncretistic remnant of Asclepius’ medicine [14,23]. According

to tradition, the sick fell asleep in the church close to the altar or near the relics of the saints;

then the saints appeared and took care of the incubant by applying remedies, suggesting the