I was an Austrian physician who has been widely acknowledged as the "Father of Hypnosis".

I asserted that there was a "magnetic" fluid-like substance that permeated the air. I believed that your body's nervous system absorbed this fluid, and it was directly related to your condition of health.

Since I was a doctor, my focus was on how to heal. My magnetism theory stated that illness was caused by an imbalance of this magnetic fluid.

I treated my patients by attempting to affect this balance of "fluid." I attempted to affect this circulation by influencing my patients' magnetic flow with my own, as well as using magnets, water, and pieces of iron.

I found that by using these techniques some of my patients became well when other forms of medicine practiced in my day failed. However, scientists of today understand that what was really going on was that I was working with the power of suggestion.

Since suggestion is the power behind hypnotism, most historians who study the subject of hypnotism credit me with the start of the history of hypnosis, at least in the western world.