make the passes

make the passes

English

Verb

make the passes (third-person singular simple present makes the passes, present participle making the passes, simple past and past participle made the passes)

1. (hypnotism) To perform a hypnotic technique involving running the hands over the head and body of the subject.
   • 1837, anonymous, Means Without Living, Boston: Weeks, Jordan & Co., pp. 37-38,

     […] he did not stop to think, but hastened to make the ‘passes’ as the technical phrase styles certain unmeaning motions of the hands and arms.

   • 1838, “Animal Magnetism,” Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 5, No. 55, July 1838, p. 460,

     Every man and woman, it appears, may magnetize; but the number susceptible of the magnetic influence is much more limited. Every one may make the “passes;” but some mysterious or unexplained condition is necessary in order to imbibe the mysterious fluid. One patient will go into magnetic sleep in a minute or two; another will resist for hours […]

   • 1901, Henry Abbey, “Veera” in Phaëthon, with three other stories in verse and a prose contention, Kingston, NY: Styles & Kiersted, p. 62,

     Her story done, the maiden begg’d of me

     To set out for my kingdom, with the dawn.

     “Not yet,” said I, “not yet,” and then I made

     The passes with my hands and fix’d my will

     To sway her will, till, with a questioning glance,

     She fell into a calm, Mesmeric sleep.

   • 1962, Aldous Huxley, Island, London: Chatto & Windus, Chapter Eight, p. 126,

     At six, Dr Andrew came to the Raja’s room and, after a little cheerful talk, began to make the passes. In a few minutes the patient was in deep trance.

See also

• make a pass