Quotes:Braid, James

Zirkoff, Boris

Braid, James. Physician and writer on hypnotism, b. at Rylaw House, Fifeshire, about 1795, the son of a landed proprietor in that country. After studies at the Univ, of Edinburgh, and a period of apprenticeship, he became surgeon to the miners employed in Lanarkshire, subsequently moving to Manchester, where he acquired considerable reputation as a physician. It was in 1841 that the subject of animal magnetism drew his special attention, and he engaged in its investigation with a truly scientific thoroughness. Certain phenomena of abnormal sleep and peculiar conditions of mind and body, induced by fixed gaze on any inanimate object, were called by him “neuro-hypnotism.” His research aroused violent opposition from various quarters, including the mesmerists of the time. Among the many works from his pen, one of the most important is *Neurypnology, or the Rationale of Nervous Sleep, considered in relation to Animal Magnetism (1843; new ed., with introd, by A. E. Waite, 1899). He also wrote Observations on Trance; or Human Hibernation, London, 1850. Braid died suddenly in Manchester on March 25, 1860.

Source: Boris de Zirkoff, «H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings», vol. 4, p. 636