The earliest for of hypnosis must be what we would call religious ceremonies in primitive people. They chant, to drums, and before you know it, they are all in a form of trance. Medicine men of ancient Indian tribes, as well of African tribes, probably used such methods which could then , as in modern hypnotherapy, help in the cure of there illness of mental disorder.

In Ancient Egyptian times, they created something called "Sleep Temples". These are believed to be somewhere you would go into a trance, although actual data is not accurate, the evidence does point to some sort of priest would induce a state where "evil" could be removed.

No much later, the then great Greeks took onboard these temples. Modern medicine is often referred to starting with Hippocrates, the Greek physician. He was known to have said "the affliction suffered by the body, the soul sees quite well with the eyes shut" sound familiar? The Greeks would later give rise to the name we now know as hypnosis, one of their Gods was called Hypnos.
As with many good idea's, when one great nation fall's, another rise's and takes over it's idea's. This was the same when the Romans started. Many of the Greeks became Roman slaves, and of course knowledge gets passed over. More records exist form Roman times than Greek, and so records exist on medical area's.

Suddenly came a new religion, no longer were there Gods for each area of life, there was one God, and along with that, he had sent someone to tell people what he wanted. There was now Christianity. What occurred before was classed as evil, or witchcraft. The trances that had previously been common place, were now to be held in secret.
There were a few small occurrences of people creating trances, but it was to be a man called Mesmer, who then created something we can realistically call hypnosis.

Franz Anton Mesmer is what you could call the starting point of Hypnosis, only he never called it that. Born in 1734, he was Ph D. He was aware of a Father Gassner who claimed he was able to remove "demons" by the use of the cross.
What he did was walk into a room with a gold crucifix, then he would touch the patient with the cross, they would fall to the floor and "die" only to be reborn without their demon's. Mesmer didn't believe that "demon's" or the cross had anything to do with it. He believed in something called animal magneti.
He believed that the Father magnetized the client, and that was what allowed the body to expel its problem's.
After he first published his account of Animal Magnetism in 1775, he became famous. This was helped for two reason's. Firstly the marvelous results he had, and secondly, he was a womaniser, or so we are lead to believe. He even, at one stage, ended up in the Austrian Imperial Embassy in Paris. He soon had a number of followers, who practiced Animal Magnetism around the world. Unfortunately he started to embellish his abilities, and when investigated by the French Government in 1784, he was called a fraud. This is when he first started to loose popularity.
Although he may seem a man after money, he did something that hadn't happened since Roman times, and bring trances to the notice of the medical profession.
We then move onto the Marquis de Puysegur, who is known for his instigation of 3 main features of Hypnosis, these are concentration of the senses on the operator, acceptance of suggestion without question, amnesia for events in a trance. At this point in history, from about 1814 onwards, a few names appear in the history of hypnosis. Abbe Faria first suggested that animal magnetism isn't what happened, but actually due to the suggestion's given. Mesmerism as it was now known, was now been investigated by majority of the leading nationalities medical fraternity.

James Braid then appears in history, back in 1841, and he named it Hypnosis, after the Greek God.. He referred to it as hypnosis in a meeting for the British Medical Journal held at Manchester. The meeting resulted in the BMJ rejecting it. The difference between Braid and Mesmer, is Braid was still considered highly in medical area's, for his work on Club foot, along with other area's of medicine. Later in his life, he realised that hypnosis was not really sleep but concentration of the mind. By this time Hypnosis was the known name , so when he tried to change its name to "Monoideism", he found he couldn't.
Next we come to John Elliotson, who also brought the stethoscope to England. He was known for writing a journal called "Zoist" which was published in 1843. He then went on to talk about Hypnosis at a meeting in 1846 (the Harveian Oration) and ended up being removed from the University College Hospital for the Oration.
The difference with Elliotson starts here. He went on to use Hypnosis, not only to show people, but in surgery. Remember anesthesia through drugs didn't exist at this time. He was best known for his work with children. The main difference of Elliotson and Braid is Elliotson continued to believe in clairvoyance, and other such strange and wonderful things

Although there are many I could mention, only a few will I. The first is a name in history that everyone knows, that is Sigmund Freud, he is known for his views on psychiatry, however he went on to dabble in hypnosis. As a hypnotist he wasn't very good, but what he did was bring it into the main stream of discussion. He later in life turned his back on hypnosis as such, but continued to use some of "hypnotherapy's" (as it is now known) basic skill's in his work.

Then comes the father of modern hypnosis, Milton Erickson. He was born in 1901 and died as recently as 1980. His life was far from simple, He had polio twice, suffered from dyslexia, colour blind and tone deaf and towards the end of his life, he found himself confined to a wheel chair. He was a renowned psychotherapist which he used in the development of Hypnosis. He designed a lot of the language used today in hypnosis, and the way to use them. The area's he felt a therapist needed to concentrate on were Language, Ambiguity, Metaphors and Rapport. These are what people use to this day.

Next is Richard Bandler and John Grindler, who actually started what was to become known as NLP - Neuro Linguistic Programming. Richard Bandler met John Grinder, at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Bandler and Grinder began to make a model of the language patterns used by Erickson.
Now in my eyes is someone who although not an instigator of any new techniques (to my knowledge) Paul Mckenna has created an image of hypnosis which has pushed hypnosis forward within the UK. He is known for his stage shows, also a highly respected hypnotherapist.
He provides, on his shows, not only entertainment, but during the show he will do a sketch showing the therapy side of hypnosis. For example, getting a celebrity who has a phobia, then returning to them near the end of the show, totally unafraid. By putting things like that, in with the normal stage show, it is getting over the real benefits as well as keeping the audience interested.