Father Gassner, a Catholic priest, was contemporary with Mesmer, and was also very active in hypnosis. He apparently worked briefly with Mesmer, according to at least one historian. Gassner mastered the art of suggestion as a means of faith healing and was perhaps of the modern faith healers.

On at least one occasion, Gassner lowered a woman´s pulse rate and breathing until two horrified doctors, who were invited to the demonstration, pronounced her dead. Then, a couple of minutes later, he returned her bodily functions to normal and “brought her back to life” again. His parish couldn´t help but have belief that God had endowed him with heavenly powers, and the psychological advantage he then had was their tremendous conviction that something would happen.

As a religious authority as well, Gassner worked under the most favorable conditions possible for hypnotic response. People believed that he represented God´s authority over them and therefore expected things to happen when Father Gassner spoke.

Imagine the scenario and its dramatics. He did his trance induction in a dimly lit cathedral, circling his subjects while carrying a candle-lit, diamond-studded crucifix, and muttering “sleep” suggestions in Latin. And because of their belief, his subjects could easily imagine the power of God working through the priest. Thus, even difficult subjects were sent instantly to sleep by the touch of the cross, while the mere presence of this cross was enough to hypnotize most subjects. Gassner´s average trance induction time was an almost unbelievable seven seconds, again providing the effectiveness of belief, imagination, expectation and conviction.

Gassner was one of the first men to produce a quiet sleep in the hypnotic state, rather than the usual convulsion. Because of this great difference between his methods and those of the “magnetizers”, however, he was not considered to be a scientific researcher. Perhaps he most closely parallels the modern artistic group.