This article discusses the development of hypnotism in Santiago, Chile between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in order to problematize the conflicts that accompanied the arrival and appropriation of modern medicines, especially hypnotism, and the legitimization processes of professional medical knowledge. Through the study of four hypnotists, from lay and academic contexts-Enrique Onofroff, Leovigildo Maurcica, Augusto Orrego Luco, Octavio Maira- this study proposes that hypnosis developed in the country from a hybrid of knowledge nurtured by academic and professional medicine and speculative and recreational practices. From that perspective this article explores the efforts of the medical profession to restrict the scope of its practice, through laws and the construction of the figure of the illegal charlatan.