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September 21st, 2023 Public release.

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Books About Hypnotism

A bibliography compiled by catherine yronwode
Part Three

copyright 2022
Yronwode Institution for the Preservation and Popularization of Indigenous Ethnomagicology
(Y.I.P.P.I.E.)

The Hypnotism, Mesmerism, Auto-Suggestion, Hypnosis, Self-Hypnosis Bibliography is copyright 2022 by the Yronwode Institution for the Preservation and Popularization of Indigenous Ethnomagicology (Y.I.P.P.I.E.), and all rights are reserved. In other words, you may download The Hypnotism Bibliography and print it out at home for your own use, but you may not further copy it, because the copyright holder controls the copying rights. Specifically, you may not mirror The Hypnotism Bibliography to other web sites, you may not distribute it or publish it in print form (either for money or for free), and you may not electronically distribute it in e-lists, electronic forums, social media groups, or usenet (either for money or for free) without the express written permission of the copyright holder.

Thanks to my Patreon Supporters

This bibliography is taking a lot more time to compile than i thought it would. Cataloguing is not like free-flowing writing. Everything mst be as precise as possible, and that means a lot of side-research has to be done on the authors, in addition to writing a review and getting the cover scan made for each title. I sed to write catalogues for my parents' antiquarian book shop, back in the 19960s. My mother, a research librarian, taught me how. I got paid fifty cents an hour back then. With the help of my Patrons, i am doing a little better than that today, but it is still grinding work. .

Compiler's Notes on the Contents of This Bibliography:

Books are listed alphabetically by author's surname, but if an author has more than one title, the books for that author are in chronological order by publication date.

Hypnotism Bibliography Part One

Hypnotism Bibliography Part Two

Hypnotism Bibliography Part Three

Hypnotism Bibliography Part Four

For more information on hypnosis, click this link to read a brief article i wrote about hypnotism for the Association of Independent Readers and Rootworkers in 2021:

"Hypnosis Coaching and Training" by cat yronwode

The URL you are reading it at now is TEMPORARY. I will write several more parts to this bibliography for my Patrons on individual pages like this, and these will open to the public after one year, thanks to your kind financial support. I will compile all of the pages into one long page and unveil it to the public, with a new URL, at the Yronwode.org home page.

BOOK TITLES

Estabrooks, George H. Hypnotism. E. P. Dutton, 1943, with 10 printings by 1955; new edition (revised) 1957, and at least one more printing by 1959. Hardcover with dust jacket; early printings in pale blue cloth, revised printings in red cloth. Plume, 1959, reprint Paperback This book seems to have been quite popular, going through at least ten printings in 16 years, from a very well known mass-market publisher. However, it is extremely difficult to find it in the used book trade, and copies in less-than-steller condition, with torn or missing dust wrappers, have been known to fetch prices in the multiple hundreds of dollars. This has led to the unproven theory that at one time someone (cue the CIA) was buying up copies to use or to remove from circulation because the methods proposed were of national security importance. At the risk of sounding a bit like a nut case, i think there is some truth in the legend surrounding "Modern Hypnotism." To begin, Estabrooks is not telling you how to put your friend in a trance and have him crow like a rooster. He is all about post-hypnotic suggestions, hypnotism in crime, hypnotism in warfare, and, as he puts it, "This Man Hitler." Yes, he deals candidly and frankly with "forbidden" topics, such as mass hypnosis and the creation of suggestible killers. In his opinion, hypnosis is not inherently "safe." It can be used for nefarious purposes -- and he will show you how! It can be said, with some basis in fact, that this book, with its emphasis on mind control, was the springboard for the CIA's running of the notorious MKULTRA (Mind Kontrol Ultra) project of the 1950s and 1960s -- the top secret program that (may have) brought us two Kennedy assassinations, the King assassination, and the widespread use of LSD-25. George H. Estabrooks definitely opened that door. If nothing else, his ideas formed the basis for the semi-factual film "The Manchurian Candidate." See also the entry on Lesley Kuhn and Salvatore Russo, for another look at down this same rabbit hole.

Kuhn, Lesley and Russo, Salvatore (Editors). Modern Hypnosis. Psychological Library Publishers, New York, 1947 349 pages including a bibliography. Hardcover. Wilshire Books, North Hollywood, California, 1975 (with a forward by Melvin Powers and and an introduction by Andre Weitzenhoffer, PhD). Paperback Available through several print-on-demand publishers. Lesley Kuhm was the editor of the periodical "Your Mind: Psychology Digest" and Salvatore Russo was the Director of the Veterans Service Bureau of Trenton, New Jersey. Given those credentials, it is to be expected that their excellent compilation of previously published articles on hypnotism would be a definitive post-World-War-II spin on the subject, emphasizing the therapeutic aspects of hypnosis, in the fields of anesthesiology and psychology. This is not a book for the amateur hypnotist. It is dense, scholarly, and, perhaps, a little bit boring. It contains the very best thinking on the subject of hypnotism at mid-20th century, when hypnosis passed from being understood as a directed trance induced under the authority of an "operator," to being seen as a collaborative neuro-psychological venture conducted under the guidance of a professional hypnotherapist or a self-induced mental state-change learned by the study of effective techniques available in popular manuals of instruction. It was this last method that formed the basis for many popular post-War books on hypnotism, especially those published by Melvin Powers; in fact, Powers reprinted this book in 1975 under his Wilshire Books imprint! The cover shown here is from the Powers paperback edition pf 1975. As noted under the entry for George H. Estabrooks, the CIA knew that post-hypnotic suggestions were gaining favour in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder among ex-combat soldiers, so they came up with a program in which they tried to turn arms-trained veterans into hypnotic subjects who could be deployed to commit assassinations on command. This was not Kuhn and Russo's plan, but their book -- taken in conjunction with the contemporary work of Professor G. H. Estabrooks -- led hypnotism down a dark path for quite a while.

Orton, J. Louis. Hypnotism Made Practical. An edition of 1926 is mentioned by the author; the publisher is not stated, but probably Thorsons. Thorsons, London, At least 11 Thorson editions, through 1958: 1947 (6th ed.), 1949 (7th ed.), 1951 (8th ed.), 1952 (9th ed.), 1955 (10th ed.), 1958 (11th ed.) Hardcover with dust jacket. 170 pages. Melvin Powers, Revised and Augmented 6th edition, with a foreward by Melvin Powers, 1951. Harcover; pink cloth binding. Melvin Powers, Revised edition, with a foreward by Melvin Powers, 1957. Paperback with pictorial cover Melvin Powers, Revised edition, with a foreward by Melvin Powers, 1976, 1979. Paperback with a hot pink cover consisting only of typesetting. Here is one of my favourite books on Hypnotism. The author's experience with the subject reaches back to the early 20th century, when hypnosis was just making its first big impression on England and the United States. He notes that the first article he wrote about the topic -- "Hypnotism: What it Is and What it Does" was published in the "Weekly Times and Echo" on October 28th, 1911, and that it described his personal experiments, which he had begun in the year 1900 and concluded in 1909, at which point he felt he had enough experience to teach the subject to others. His first book, "Rational Hypnotism," was completed in 1910 and published in 1914. The first edition of "Hypnotism Made Practical" was released in 1926. This was a popular book. The publisher Thorsons noted in 1949 that "sales exceed 25,000 copies" -- and by 1958, on the occasion of printing the 11th edition, that "sales exceed 43,000 copies." And that was before Melvin Powers brought it out in hardcover and paperback and ran with it in three more editions and many printings for at least 20 more years. The covers shown here are for the 1949 Thorson's hardback edition, updated and revised by the author, and the 1957 paperback edition reprinted by Melvin Powers, with one of his typical Svengali-and-Trilby cover photos -- in this case derived from a photo that appeared in his own earlier book "Hypnotism Revealed." In 1976 Powers released a new edition which had a garish hot-pink cover whose only ornamentation consisted of minimalistic typesetting. This was reprinted in 1979. J. Louis Orton was a pioneer of the use of hypnotism for self-improvement, and "Practical Hypnotism" fits in well with his other books of self help: "Memory Efficiency and How to Obtain It," "Voice Culture Made Easy," and "The Cure of Stammering, Stuttering, and other Functional Speech Disorders." Orton emphasizes the transformative use of hypnotism in pain release, especially for childbirth and dentistry, and its employment in overcoming fear of performance, as well as its curative power in cases of speech disorders. His attitude is optimistic, without pretending that hypnotherapy is a panacea for all mental or physical afflictions. He has a philosophical turn of mind, and encourages practitioners to apply beneficial suggestions to the young, especially, to ease them into satisfying adulthood by lowering stress, because, "Every child should have the advantages that hypnotism offers." The major oddity about this book -- and the author would not be a typical British "nutter" without some strange idee-fixe -- is that Orton devotes quite a lot of space to his scheme to enlist the British Minister of transport, Mr. Hore-Belisha (he of the famous striped Belisha Beacons at pedestrian crosswalks), to lead the way to "Hypnotism and Road Safety" by commandeering the power of BBC radio to broadcast lullingly hypnotic messages about driver safety in order to put an end to traffic accidents. If only his dream had come true! The book concludes with a brief but useful glossary of terms, and upon closing the cover, i am left with the feeling that i just spent a couple of hours in the company of a pleasantly tweedy British man of extravagant intellect and energy, whose practical applications of mass hypnotism might well have changed our roadways -- if only Mr. Hore-Belisha and the BBC had taken his suggestions to heart.

Van Pelt, S.J.. Modern Hypnotism: Key to the Mind. Associated Booksellers, Westport, CT, 1956 90 pages, illustrated. Paperback. Dr. S. J. van Pelt was the president of the British Society of Medical Hypnotists, a member of the British Medical Association, a member of the Society for Clinical and Exceptional Hypnosis of New York, a member of the Society for the Study of Addiction to Alcohol and Other Drugs, a member of the National Association for Mental Health, and the editor of "The British Journal of Medical Hypnotism. From 1949 to 1956, when this book was published, he wrote and contributed to nine other books on the therapeutic and psychological uses of hypnotism, which i shall review if and when i find copies. Van Pelt's interests are in the use of hypnotism to assist patients to overcome addictions to alcohol and tobacco and to cure Freudian-style "neuroses," such as stammering, blushing, eating disorders ("obsessional neurosis"), male impotence, and female fear of sexual contact ("frigidity"). I cannot say that i like his anecdotal, breezy style of writing ("The Case of the Hero who was a Coward," "The Case of the Boy who thought he was a Girl"). Every story reeks of Freudian analysis and in many the mother is to blame for the patient's physical and mental ills. Worse, and most improbably, every chapter ends with the patient cured and "all smiles" after three to six hypnotic sessions. On the whole, i did not like this book nor did i find it of value. It may be someone else's cup of painless dentistry, but i found it useless and anti-inspirational.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to nagasiva yronwode for above-and-beyond scanning and organizational help.