10 Most Compelling Pieces Of Evidence That Proves Hypnosis Is Real

2. It's Been Studied For Centuries

A lot of the CIA's dossier of evidence draws on the years and years of existing study of hypnosis. It's an argument made for UFOs and ghosts as well, but again, no smoke without fire. Why would people be so entranced, so intrigued by the idea of hypnosis, for records to have been passed down from as far back as the 18th century, if it wasn't real?

Almost every culture throughout history has stories of trances and states that are easily recognisable as hypnotism. India and China even have ancient records of hypnotism being used to relieve pain during surgery, years before they had anything approaching real anaesthetic. Not sure a dangling watch would calm anyone down...

From there the practice of using it in surgery was transported over to Europe. In 1974, a young man having an operation to remove a tumour was put under using hypnosis, and emerged safe and sound (because he was Jacob Grimm, of Grimm's Fairy Tales). It was even used to treat PTSD in the World Wars and the Korean War.