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Mesmer - 16/feb/2025
🕑 Added 2025-02-16 17:18:56 +0000 UTCFRANZ ANTON MESMER and ANIMAL MAGNETISM
Starts on hanegraaf 79
https://archive.org/details/mesmerismamerica0000full/page/n7/mode/2up
Darnton talks about the “18th century cult of nature”
In 1774, a young woman named Fracisca Osterlin suffered from constant vomiting and irritation of the bowels. She came to see a doctor named Franz Anton Mesmer. He fed her a solution continuing high amounts of iron, and then passed powerful magnets over her body. Osterlin said she felt her symptoms instantly vanish, and that it felt as if a current of some mysterious energy were travelling through her.
Mesmer believed that a “Impalpable fluid” permeates the entire universe. All maladies are the result of improper circulation of this fluid. All medicine is that which regulates the flow of this impalpable fluid. This fluid is magnetic, and thus Mesmer named his new theory of medicine Animal Magnetism.
Mesmer himself was a medieval mind trapped in an increasingly modern world. Born in 1734 in the german town of Iznang, he would study theology, and in 1776, he would publish a thesis on the influence of the planets on medicine. After his apparent success with Osterlin, he would develop a schema of medicine based on the principles of Animal Magnetism. This usually involved staring directly into his patients eyes, massaging them, waving magnetized wands over their skin, resting their feet in magnetized water, until they had a ‘crisis’ of some sort, after which the patient was declared cured.
Mesmer was explosively popular in Vienna. In 1775 Prince Elector Max Joseph of Bavaria would invite him to observe a priest performing healing via the laying of hands as part of a larger investigation of seances and exorcisms. Mesmer concluded that the priest was sincere, but didn’t realize that he was actually conducting the cosmic fluid.
This is how the theory of Animal Magnetism was truly born, out of a desire to rationally study phenomena like exorcisms through the lens of newly discovered phenomena like electricity and magnetism. This will be a major theme throughout the rest of history. If a new scientific phenomena is discovered, someone, somewhere will posit “What if that’s how the soul works?” Humorously, if the phenomena of faith healing works by the mechanism of Animal Magnetism, that makes Mesmer a faith healer. A contradiction that was not lost on the Viennese public. Mesmer gained a reputation as a miraculous healer, and significant public scrutiny as a charlatan, and subsequently hightailed it to Paris in 1777.
Parisians loved him. They loved him so much that Mesmer developed several methods of group cures in which several patients at once could stick their hands in a tub of magnetized water, hug a magnetized tree, or simply hold hands while one person was “mesmerized.” He was a sensation with the rich and well-to-do of France, and Mesmer charged prices to match. At one point, the brother of Louis XVI came to his clinic for treatment.
He was so famous that a comitte was convened to test whether or not Animal Magnetism was legit. This committee included scientific powerhouses like Antoine Lavoisier, Jean-Sylvaine Bailly, and Benjamin Franklin.
Their initial findings were paradoxical. They couldn’t prove the existence of the cosmic fluid, but they also couldn’t disprove the existence of the cosmic fluid. People seemed to be healed, but this was attributed to some “faculty of the imagination.” Mesmer was doing something, but the nature of that something was anyone’s guess. I will also mention that Mesmer’s cures could be dubiously sexual at some times, and this absolutely came up in the report. The committee issued a challenge to Mesmer. He was the one asserting the truth of the theory of Animal Magnetism, of course, surely he could produce some experimental proof?
1784 was peak mesmer. Challenged by the committee, and unable to properly respond, he eventually fell from grace. He died in seclusion in 1815.
Mesmer’s students would immediately pick up the torch. Armand Marie Jacques Chastenet, the Marquis de Puységur, would carry on Mesmer’s healing practices after his death. He had to stop for a bit between 1789 and 1799, but after the revolution was finished he revived the practice, calling it “Magnetic somnambulism.”
In 1837, the Frenchman Charles Poyen travelled to the good old USA, which had even less scrutiny in regards to medical practices compared to europe. Animal Magnetism was even more popular in the states. Many words have been written as to why, but I venture there are more material reasons for the popularity of Mesmerism. Medicine in 1837 sucked, and Americans love a con artist.
When homeopathy was invented in 1796, the vast majority of doctors in Europe were still following medieval doctrines of medicine. For all the innovations made by our dear friend Paracelsus, doctors often caused more harm than good. Homeopathy has no effect whatsoever, and was therefore often preferable to bloodletting and induced vomiting. Mesmerism benefitted from a similar relationship. It was often more popular than institutional medicine, simply because it was not making the problem worse. That said, Mesmer wouldn’t give you cocaine.
By 1837, the comission offered 3000 francs to anyone who could prove that they could read text through a solid opaque object. Nobody could. In 1842, the academy of medicine stopped accepting papers on animal magnetism. This did nothing to hamper the popularity of Animal Magnetism as a health doctrine.
In 1843, a scottish doctor student of Mesmeric doctrine named James Braid proposed a slightly modified form of Animal Magnetism. He called it “hypnosis.” He believed there was no occult phenomena behind mesmerism. No secret force or eternal impalpable fluid, just autosuggestion that resulted in somnambulism. Braid never outright rejected that there was no occult phenomena behind mesmerism. “ “He contented himself with saying that he had not produced these results with his particular method.” (Hanegraaff 78) This clever rebranding with more scientific-sounding terminology made Animal Magnetism –I mean hypnotism– acceptable to medical institutions of the time. This was not necessarily a bad thing. In 1878, a french doctor named Jean-Martin Charcot used the theory of hypnotism to study “hysterics” thus kickstarting the field of neurology.
None of this is to say that Mesmerism as a doctrine had a consistent throughline. After Mesmer’s death, Mesmerism was never just one thing. His students theories regularly conflicted and often directly contradicted each other. One could understand Mesmerism more as a spectrum between orthodox materialists like Charcot who rejected ideas of cosmic fluids for a more grounded “vital electricity”, to Puységur’s centrist “Psycho-Fluidists, which were both material and occult, and the unorthodox occultists.
Mesmeric doctrine hit western culture like a bomb. Its proponents saw it as a runway for exploring the mysterious potential of the human mind, its detractors saw it as a charlatanic perversion of science that must be stopped at all costs. They are both right!
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Experimented using magnets to treat diseases, a woman named Francisca Österlin said she felt her symptoms instantly vanish, and that it felt as if a current of something were traveling through her
The way he did this was supposedly by preparing a solution of iron, and manipulating it by dragging magnets over her body
Apparently it works. She felt her symptoms instantly vanish
Mesmer develops this theory of Animal Magnetism:
Impalpable fluid permeates the whole of the universe, connecting all things
All maladies are caused by improper circulation of this fluid
To heal is to re-balance these fluids
These theories are far more complex that you might first assume.
Mesmer increases in popularity
A prince called him up to observe a priest conducting the laying of hands
Mesmer concluded that the priest was sincere, but didn’t realize that he was actually concudcting the cosmic fluid
And thus mesmerism was born from an attempt to understand spiritual healing from a rational standpoint, and investigation into magnetic medicine
1777 Mesmer’s reputation grew, meaning he made enemies, and was forced to leave vienna.
1777 he settled in Place Vendôme, where he conducted a private practice.
His early successes made him popular with the rich and famous, and he charged prices to match
Ended up treating the king’s brother
A committee was convened to figure out if he was legit. This committee included Lavoisier, Jean-Sylvaine Bailly, and Ben Franklin.
The result was paradoxical. They couldn’t prove the existence of the cosmic fluid, but they also couldn’t disprove it. People seemed to be healed, but this was attributed to some faculty of the imagination. Also there was some weird sex stuff in Mesmer’s doctrine that absolutely came up in the report.
1784 was peak mesmer. Challenged by the committee, and unable to properly respond, he eventually fell from grace. He died in seclusion in 1815.
His students and adherents kept the belief alive
Armand Marie Jacques Chastenet, Marquis de Puységu, was a colonel and landowner who would practice on his employees
He had to stop his practice because of the revolution
But come the restoration he came back to france to practice his “Magnetic somnambulism”
1837, the commission offers 3000 francs to anyone who can prove they can read text through a solid opaque object.
Nobody could, and in 1842 the academy of medicine stopped accepting papers on animal magnetism in general
This did nothing for its popularity in popular culture at large lol
Also made its way over to the USA
“ For a nation with a mentality still firmly structured by religion, animal magnetism offered an understanding of the human spirit that was detached from theology but at the same time open to pneumatology.” Hanegraaf 78
And yeah thats the spiritualist movement
“In 1843, James Braid, a Scottish doctor, proposed the term “hypnosis” to define a practice inspired by magnetism, but more limited in its effects and different in its conception.” hanegraaf 78
Ah here we go. He believed there was no occult phenomena behind mesmerism. No secret force or occult fluid, just autosuggestion that resulted in somnambulism
According to hanegraaf he never outright rejected the possibility of magnetic phenomena either. “He contented himself with saying that he had not produced these results with his particular method.”
“After its English reform, a change of terminology, a selection of phenomena deemed acceptable, and a materialistic remodeling of its phenomenology, what was formerly known as magnetism was accepted by so-called official medicine.” Hanegraaf 79
Funny how often this happens
“It was in 1878 that, under Charcot’s leadership, hypnotism rocketed to success. First considered a useful tool for studying hysterics, the practice posed so many questions to psychology and medicine that it became, in the space of a decade, one of the biggest areas of research in the sciences of the mind.” Hanegraaf 79
Goddamn
None of this is to say that Magnetism/Mesmerism had a consistent throughline of thought. It was a big ol Rhizome of conflicting and diverging and re-combining theories.
One could describe it as a spectrum from Petetin’s orthodox materialists who rejected mesmer’s theory of cosmic fluid for a more materialist “vital electricity”, to Puységur’s centrist “Psycho-Fluidists”, to the unorthodox occultists.
The esoterists were dudes like Chevalier de Barberin and Jeanne Rochette, who were influenced by the doctrine of western esotericism. They induced somnambulistic states and communed with angels in a familiar channeler-and-scribe type relationship.
Some theorists wanted to root all of this in a biological element of the body. A doctor named Gmelin theorized that somnambulism was the result of movements in the cerebrospinal fluid
Eberhard Gmelin discussed his views in NeueUntersuchungen bei den thierischen Magnetismus(New Studies in Animal Magnetism, 1789) His views have caused many authors, such as Ricarda Huch, to affirm that most somnambulists were women or effeminate men
The american strain of somnambulist throught would eventually do away with the idea of needing a magnetizer altogether. Folks would claim to induce the states within themselves, by themselves.
The American version of the “Magnetic Heroes” represented in France by Alexis Didier or in Germany by Friederike Hauffe appeared in figures like → Andrew Jackson Davis (The Great Harmonia, 1852) and Phineas P. Quimby, whose new interpretation of magnetic healing was at the basis of the movement of “mind cure” (→ New Thought). Hanegtraaf 81
In conclusion, all of this was a significant challenge to the extant social order. Something that forced the gatekeepers of science to actually sit down and listen to people who were often grifters. It was one of the founding bricks of spiritualist philosophy, used to both generate evidence for the soul, and generate evidence to its non-existience. The effects of the movement have been subsumed into its own resurgence in the New Age, yet few are familiar with its tenants.
