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Page 203
Healees, as well as hypnotic subjects, must also believe that the process is safe, appropriate, and in agreement with his or her wishes. 18 Above all, the concept of rapport is primary for both processes.
These concepts were not so well understood, but they were used by the French physician Jean-Martin Charcot and the Viennese doctor Josef Breuer, who are acknowledged as the founders of modern psychoanalysis, as well as the teachers of Sigmund Freud.19 Our interest in these practitioners is that they were the first healers to use suggestion in a clinical setting. Their experiments beginning in 1879 100 years after Mesmer  led them to discover that neurotic symptoms result from unconscious processes, and can be healed when they are brought to consciousness through the use of hypnosis. However, they thought that being in a hypnotized state was itself a diseased condition, and that hypnosis could only be used to cure extreme hysterical symptoms. Today we know that all illnesses have psychogenic components, so the term "neurotic symptoms" takes on new meaning.
We are aware that unconscious or autonomous processes affect our immune system, endocrine system, endorphins, blood flow, and muscle tension. We know from psychoneuroimmunology that we are often the victims of our own stray thoughts. Thus far in this chapter, we have been describing healing processes in which a healing practitioner was in proximity to the patient. However, the data from laboratory parapsychology experiments convincingly indicate that healers, doctors, or shamans can promote healing for a wide variety of illnesses and afflictions using distant mind-to-mind connections.
Suggestion at a Distance
Hypnosis is, of course, generally practiced in a face-to-face encounter, with the hypnotist talking directly to the patient. However, hypnosis research indicates that almost any person can cause another to become entranced, and that this effect can apparently be induced from a distance.
Hypnosis at a distance has been studied in the laboratory in Russia since the early part of the twentieth century. During the 1920s and '30s,

 
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