make the passes
English
[edit]Verb
[edit]make the passes (third-person singular simple present makes the passes, present participle making the passes, simple past and past participle made the passes)
- (hypnotism) To perform a hypnotic technique involving running the hands over the head and body of the subject.
- 1837, anonymous author, Means Without Living[1], Boston: Weeks, Jordan & Co., pages 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 July, “Animal Magnetism”, in Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume 5, number 55, page 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,[2]
- 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, chapter 8, in Island[3], London: Chatto & Windus, page 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.