Hypnosis

<p>Ever since Franz Anton Mesmer induced trance-like states in his Parisian subjects in the late eighteenth century, dressed in long purple robes, hypnosis has been associated with performance, power and the occult. </p><p> It has exerted a powerful hold over the cultural imagination, featuring in novels and films including Bram Stoker’s Dracula and George du Maurier’s Trilby - and it was even practiced by Charles Dickens himself.</p><p>But despite some debate within the medical establishment about the scientific validity of hypnosis, …