Animal magnetism

"Animal Magnetism" redirects here. For other uses, see Animal Magnetism (disambiguation).

Hypnosis

Applications
Hypnotherapy Stage hypnosis Self-hypnosis
Origins
Animal magnetism Franz Mesmer History of hypnosis James Braid
Key figures
Marques of Puységur James Esdaile John Elliotson Jean-Martin Charcot Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault Hippolyte Bernheim Pierre Janet Sigmund Freud Émile Coué Morton Prince Clark L. Hull Andrew Salter Theodore R. Sarbin Milton H. Erickson Stephen Brooks Dave Elman Ernest Hilgard Martin Theodore Orne André Muller Weitzenhoffer Theodore Xenophon Barber Nicholas Spanos Irving Kirsch
Related topics
Hypnotic susceptibility Suggestion Post-hypnotic suggestion Age regression in therapy Neuro-linguistic programming Hypnotherapy in the UK
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Animal magnetism (French: magnétisme animal; Latin: magnetismus animalis), in modern usage, refers to a person's sexual attractiveness or raw charisma. As postulated by Franz Mesmer in the 18th century, the term referred to a supposed magnetic fluid or ethereal medium believed to reside in the bodies of animate beings (i.e., those who breathe). The term is translated from Mesmer's magnétisme animal. Mesmer chose the word animal to distinguish his supposed vital magnetic force from those referred to at that time as "mineral magnetism", "cosmic magnetism" and "planetary magnetism". The theory became the basis of treatment in Europe and the United States that sometimes depended on "laying on of hands," and was popular into the nineteenth century.

Definition and Meanings of "Animal Magnetism"

According to Adam Crabtree , more than 1500 books have been published on Animal Magnetism and related subjects until 1926. Many other books have been published after this date and/or are not included in his bibliography.

Therefore there are naturally many variations for the use of the term "Animal Magnetism" and "Mesmerism". According to various researchers , the term "animal magnetism" has at least four different levels of meaning: a general universal principle , a specific method of vitalistic cure, a specific state of being and of consciousness (the somnambulism) and a cultural aspect.

• Firstly, animal magnetism as a general vital universal principle: animal magnetism is for Mesmer a principle that touches both man and the universe at all levels: psychological, human and cosmological. For Mesmer, animal magnetism is mainly a theory to describe the entanglement between man and universe. For him a subtle fluid, source of life and health, fill the cosmos and moves in it. This fluid is also the basis of the cosmos as it is the basis of which matter is constituted. This fluid is also a sort of energy or life force. When this fluid circulates, living beings are healthy. When it is blocked we experience sickness. This theory is largely inspired by ancient doctrines and Renaissance concepts. Scholars such as Meheust say that it would be interesting to compare it with the chinese concept of Chi, or "vital energy".

• Secondly, animal magnetism as a system of cure : Animal magnetism is defined by Mesmer in an even more restricted sense. For him, it is the capability present in all men, (but mostly developed in those working as magnetists), to use the vital fluid or life force for therapeutical purposes. According to this theory, the magnetizer is able to direct his vital fluid toward the sick person, and heal him. This second definition was often adopted even by those magnetists who did not accept the preceding larger theory. For example baron DuPotet says: the fluid is not a substance that can be weighted, measured, condensed, it is a vital force

• There is also a variation of this second complementary definition with a subjective meaning: Animal magnetism as a subjective sensitivity. Mesmer says that as the fluid (or life force) can only be perceived by the senses in a subjective way, animal magnetism is also this sensibility, that he calls "a sixth sense". He says: Magnetism can be compared to a sixth sense. The senses are neither defined nor described. They are rather felt. One cannot explain to a blind man what colours are. One would need for him to be able to “feel”, them, that is, to see them. The same holds true for magnetism. It must be mainly transmitted through inward feeling. It is only feeling that can make the theory of it understandable . This subjective approach is also used by Deleuze: Mr. Mesmer showed in us something that we didn't suppose: let's try to use this faculty to help other people without worrying about the system .

• Thirdly, after 1784, and following the workings of Puysegur, who developed "magnetic somnambulism", the words "animal magnetism" were also being used for the concepts relating to the phenomena of "somnambulism" that de Puysegur firstly described; in this case in English the expression is even more misleading, in that "mesmeric state" or "mesmeric sleep" is used to define the state of somnambulic consciousness developed through the help of the magnetizer. In this case the term mesmerism, even if validated by use, contains an anachronism. In fact, even if Mesmer acknowledged the state as somnambulism, it wasn't he who produced it, and moreover he has never claimed to have discovered it. He simply considered it as one of the many manifestations (crises) in which animal magnetism could manifest itself but did not consider it as a specific state. And it is a paradox, but the term animal magnetism and even more so "mesmerism" found in English literature, are instead more frequently used to indicate techniques utilized neither by Mesmer nor his theory, but for indicating this kind of somnambulism and this specific somnambulic state

• Finally, the expression "animal magnetism" is used for defining all cultural phenomena that originated from Mesmer and the reflections about somnambulism.

"Mesmerism"

A tendency emerged amongst British magnetizers to call their clinical techniques mesmerism; they wanted to distance themselves from the theoretical orientation of animal magnetism that was based on the concept of "magnetic fluid". At the time, some magnetizers attempted to channel what they thought was a magnetic "fluid"; and, sometimes, they attempted this with the "laying on of hands". Reported effects included various feelings: intense heat, trembling, trances, and seizures.

Many practitioners came from a scientific basis, such as Joseph Philippe François Deleuze (1753–1835), a French physician, anatomist, and gynecologist. One of his pupils was Théodore Léger (1799–1853), who wrote that the label "mesmerism" was "most improper." (Léger moved to Texas around 1836.)

Noting that, by 1846, the term Galvanism had been replaced by electricity, Léger wrote that year:

MESMERISM, of all the names proposed [to replace the term animal magnetism], is decidedly the most improper; for, in the first place, no true science has ever been designated by the name of a man, whatever be the claims he could urge in his favor; and secondly, what are the claims of Mesmer for such an honor? He is not the inventor of the practical part of the science, since we can trace the practice of it through the most remote ages; and in that respect, the part which he introduced has been completely abandoned. He proposed for it a theory which is now [viz., 1846] exploded, and which, on account of his errors, has been fatal to our progress. He never spoke of the phenomena which have rehabilitated our cause among scientific men; and since nothing remains to be attributed to Mesmer, either in the practice and theory, or the discoveries that constitute our science, why should it be called MESMERISM?

Royal Commission

In 1784 a French Royal Commission appointed by Louis XVI studied Mesmer's magnetic fluid to try to establish it by scientific evidence.^{[citation needed]} The Commission included Majault, Benjamin Franklin, Jean Sylvain Bailly, J. B. Le Roy, Sallin, Jean Darcet, de Borey, Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, Antoine Lavoisier, Poissonnier, Caille, Mauduyt de la Varenne, Andry, and de Jussieu.^{[citation needed]}

Whilst the Commission agreed that the cures claimed by Mesmer were indeed cures^{[citation needed]}, the commission also concluded there was no evidence of the existence of his magnetic fluid, and that its effects derived from either the imaginations of its subjects or through charlatanry.^{[citation needed]}. Due to the fact that some of the phenomena produced were so strong de Jussieu refused to sign the report, notwithstanding the solicitations of his colleagues, and the threats of the Minister. He authored a dissenting report, in which he carefully enumerated the facts that had been intentionally omitted or distorted by the first report (the majority one). Instead, therefore, of these commissioners settling the disputed point as to the existence or nonexistence of animal magnetism, their reports only gave the subject an additional interest and the cause of magnetism was embraced by a sizeable number of new supporters and interest in animal magnetism was sustained in France during the ensuing decades.. After a few years, due to the fact that the ruling passed by the first commission was subject of heated discussions, and magnetism was actually accepted in other important European nations like Germany, in its specific case, too, as a result of the examination carried out by a commission (which displayed however a positive attitude) a second commission was set up. The second commission, headed by Husson, worked for six years, and in 1831 it conceded the veracity of most of the phenomena which the magnetists spoke of, in addition, of course, to the reality of the very phenomenon of induction in conformity with magnetic practices. It thereby gave rise to a lively debate. As the academic Institution was dissatisfied with the result produced by the second commission, a third commission, chaired by Dubois d'Amiens, was established. This commission worked for a few months only, since no agreement on the protocols governing the relevant experimental trials could be struck. Such third commission passed a partially unfavourable judgment on the few experiments it conducted including anesthesia that it found to be partial. It ought to be noted that this commission has thus only been in operation for a few months and with a single experimenter (dr. Berna), whereas the previous, Husson-led commission, has examined the facts for six consecutive years.

Mesmerism and hypnosis

Advertisement poster of 1857:
Instant sleep. Miscellaneous effects of paralysis, partial and complete catalepsy, partial or complete attraction. Phreno-magnetic effects (...) Musical ecstasy (...) Insensitivity to physical pain and instant awakening (...) transfusion of magnetic power to others

Abbé Faria was one of the disciples of Franz Anton Mesmer who continued with Mesmer’s work following the conclusions of the Royal Commission. In the early 19th century, Abbé Faria introduced oriental hypnosis to Paris. Faria conducted experiments to prove that “no special force was necessary for the production of the mesmeric phenomena such as the trance, but that the determining cause lay within the subject himself;” in other words, that it worked purely by the power of suggestion.

Hypnosis originates from the practice of Mesmerism, being an attempt at what the surgeon James Braid described as "rational mesmerism". Braid based his methods of hypnotism directly on the practice of Mesmerism, but applied a more rational explanation for how the process worked. The term “hypnotism” was coined and introduced by Braid.

Hypnosis did not replace mesmerism at the end of the nineteenth century, but still existed alongside it. In fact, magnetism, and its variants, continued to be defended by serious students during the late nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries. Ideas, similar to the concept of animal magnetism, are still with us in many guises (e.g., Movaffaghi & Farsi, 2009; Nelson & Schwartz, 2005)

The vital fluid and the practice of animal magnetism

A 1791 London publication explains the Mesmer’s theory of the vital fluid :

“Modern philosophy has admitted a plenum or universal principle of fluid matter, which occupies all space; and that as all bodies moving in the world, abound with pores, this fluid matter introduces itself through the interstices and returns backwards and forwards, flowing through one body by the currents which issue therefrom to another, as in a magnet, which produces that phenomenon which we call Animal Magnetism. This fluid consists of fire, air and spirit, and like all other fluids tends to an equilibrium, therefore it is easy to conceive how the efforts which the bodies make towards each other produce animal electricity, which in fact is no more than the effect produced between two bodies, one of which has more motion than the other; a phenomenon serving to prove that the body which has most motion communicates it to the other, until the medium of motion becomes an equilibrium between the two bodies, and then this equality of motion produces animal electricity.”

According to an anonymous writer of a series of letters published by the editor John Pearson in 1790, animal magnetism can cause a wide range of effects ranging from vomiting to what is termed the “crisis.” The purpose of the treatment (the crisis) was to shock the body into convulsion in order to remove obstructions in the circulatory system that were causing sicknesses. Furthermore, the anonymous supporter of animal magnetism purported that the crisis created two effects: a hypnotic state in which the patient could be “possessed of his senses, yet cease to be an accountable creature,” and an “unobstructed vision” to see through objects. A patient under crisis was believed to be able to see through the body and find the cause of illness in themselves or in other patients.

The Marques of Puységur’s miraculous healing of a young man named Victor in 1784 supported the treatment of the crisis. The Marques was able to magnetize Victor and while magnetized, Victor was said to have been able to speak articulately and diagnose his own sickness.

In 1800, in France, animal magnetism was split into three separate schools of magnetism: 1st: the original school of Mesmer. This prevailed principally in Paris. Its disciples believed in the existence of the universal fluid, and conducted the operation physically,—that is, by passing the hands immediately over, or at a short distance from, the body of the patient. 2nd: the school of the Chevalier de Barbarin. This was founded at Lyons, and, although it had many partisans in France, prevailed principally in Sweden and Germany. Its principles remind us of the Platonic philosophy; its disciples maintained that the magnetic operation depended entirely upon a pure " effort of the soul," and was to be conducted only upon psychical principles. They were therefore termed spiritualists. 3rd: Third and lastly, the school of the Marquis de Puysegur, founded at Strasburg, the disciples of which, professing to be guided only by observation, called themselves experimentalists. The characteristic feature of this school is that it combines the physical treatment of the school of Mesmer with the psychical treatment of that of Barbarin. Notwithstanding the magnetisers divided themselves into these different groups, they all maintained the same fundamental principles: they differed in theory, but each school agreed in producing the same practical results.

Animal Magnetism in England

The phisician J.B. De Mainaduc (died 1797) having received his medical training in England, moved to Paris in 1782 and while there learned animal magnetism from D'Eslon. In the year 1788 delivered a course of lectures on animal magnetism at Bristol, and afterwards in London. He also treated magnetically, and with considerable success, a great number of cases, an account of which, with certificates from the patients themselves, he afterwards published in a pamphlet entitled "Veritas," which bears the appropriate motto, "Causa latet, vis est notissima." His lectures excited very considerable sensation in scientific and literary circles; and, a number of magnetic practitioners, in imitation of him, soon entered the field of competition. We are informed by Dr. George Winter, that a person named Holloway, by giving lectures on animal magnetism at five guineas for each pupil, realised a considerable fortune; and the house of Mr. Loughborough, another magnetic professor, at Hammersmith, about the year 1790, was daily for many months crowded with patients. "In the year 1790," says Dr. George Winter, "I deem animal magnetism to have been at its height; it was credibly reported that 3000 persons have attended at one time to get admission to Mr. Loughborough's, at Hammersmith, and that some persons sold their tickets for from one to three guineas each." But, notwithstanding all this, while animal magnetism was making rapid progress in Germany and France, it does not appear to have made the same advancement in England; on the contrary, the fanatical interpretation which a Mrs. Pratt put on the cures of Loughborough, could not fail to have disgusted many who might otherwise have been interested in the facts themselves, which were very clearly and unequivocally established.

Despite persistent popular interest, it took a long time for the intellectual establishment of England to give serious attention to animal magnetism. That began when Richard Chevenix gave lectures and demonstrations in London in 1829. One of those who attended was the physician John Elliotson (1791-1868), soon to become professor of medicine at University College and president of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society. When, in 1837, the famous French magnetizer Baron du Potet came to London, John Elliotson was further intrigued and decided to experiment with mesmerism. The English mesmerisers from 1840 to 1860 are a group that may be said to constitute a British School of Animal Magnetism, the key note of which may be found in the following paragraph of an article by Dr. James Esdaile in the "Zoist":- "Wonderful to say, this greatly desiderated and almost unhoped for curative agent not only exists in Nature, but is an essential element in the human constitution, varying in different persons, of course, like all other bodily and mental gifts; and most persons possess the power of curing others, or of being themselves cured occasionally, by an inherent sanative influence propagatable between different individuals: for health is transmissible as well as disease, it appears." The same note was struck by Mr. Barham, meeting at Bristol the Earl of Dude in the chair, when he said:- "The great majority of those who have carefully investigated the subject have come to the conclusion that there exists in man, as one of his constituent principles, a certain subtle element, known by the names of animal electricity, animal magnetism, galvanism, the nervous energy, the nervous fluid, etc. This element occupies a sort of intermediate position between soul and body, and it is by means of this animal electricity that our mental will acts upon our bodily organs." During those and the following years many excellent treatises on Mesmerism were published in England, and other works on the subject were translated from French and German; Ashburner, Barth, Townshend, Colquhoun, William Gregory, Sandby, and some others, have left works on Mesmerism of great interest and value. Townshend was a former skeptic who became very passionate about animal magnetism. Colquhon wrote “Isis Revelata” a book that was translated in many languages. Isis Revelata was one the few only treatises written in English which attempted to give a far-reaching exposition of the historical and philosophical context of animal magnetism. As such it furnished a strong impetus to the establishment in England of animal magnetism as a subject worthy of serious consideration.

The Society of Harmony

The study of animal magnetism spurred the creation of the Societies of Harmony in France, where members pay to join and learn the practice of magnetism. Dr John Bell was a member of the Philosophical Harmonic Society of Paris and was certified by the society to lecture and teach animal magnetism in England. The existence of the societies transformed animal magnetism into a secretive art. Practitioners and lecturers did not reveal the techniques of the practice based on the society members having paid for instruction, and the idea that it was unfair to reveal the practice to others for free. Although the heightened secrecy of the practice contributed to the skepticism about it, many supporters and practitioners of animal magnetism touted the ease and possibility for everyone to acquire the skills to perform its techniques.

Mesmerism and British Romanticism

The science of mesmerism emerged roughly at the end of the Age of Enlightenment and the very early beginnings of Romanticism. Originally introduced by Franz Anton Mesmer, the emergence of mesmerism during this time significantly influenced British social, political, and cultural thought. This influence is reflected in literature and lectures produced by writers, philosophers, and politicians during this time. The excitement created by this early influence of mesmerism eventually led to a deeper Victorian era fascination with the ideas of mesmerism. Mesmerism also fueled practices such as magnetism and hypnosis.

Mesmerism was introduced and practiced in France before it made its way over the English Channel. The negative reception by the French elite and discrediting of Mesmer by a committee created by the King in France led to a shaky, uncertain reception in Britain. However, its continued practice and development by others such as Marques of Puysegur into hypnotism and somnambulistic states of being caused mesmerism to receive as much criticism as well as popularity in Britain. This mixed reception in Britain can be attributed by the changes and concerns of the time period including the conflict between factual science and mesmerism as a study of pseudo-science and well as the rise of consumerism.

Social Reception of Animal Magnetism

Socially and culturally, mesmerism was first received, popularized and debated among elite, intellectual circles. Ironically, the practice of mesmerism was also often deemed a theatrical falsity or “quackery” by elitists and the upper class. Why mesmerism was given so much attention can probably be attributed to the questions and concerns that it raised. Intellectuals wondered about the implications of mesmerism and how it could impact philosophical, political and social thought. Mesmerism and hypnosis were practices that involved unseen powers but were a popularized by the belief that they worked and were seen to have worked. What made mesmerism such a widely spread topic was because although it was a direct challenge to science and tangible objects, it was also fueled by its relation to the growing science of electricity and magnetism .

A clear example of this diffidence is a 1790 publication, where an editor presented a series of letters written by an avid supporter of animal magnetism and included his own thoughts in an appendix stating: "No fanatics ever divulged notions more wild and extravagant; no impudent empiric ever retailed promises more preposterous, or histories of cures more devoid of reality, than the tribe of Magnetisers."

The novelist and playwright Elizabeth Inchbald wrote the farce Animal Magnetism in the late 1780s. The plot revolved around multiple love triangles and the absurdity of animal magnetism. The following passage mocks the medical prowess of those qualified only as Mesmerists:

Doctor: They have refused to grant me a diploma—forbid me to practice as a physician, and all because I don't know a parcel of insignificant words; but exercise my profession according to the rules of reason and nature; Is it not natural to die, then if a dozen or two of my patients have died under my hands, is not that natural? …

Although the Doctor's obsession with the use of animal magnetism, not merely to cure but to force his ward to fall in love with him, made for a humorous storyline, Inchbald’s light-hearted play commented on what society perceived as threats posed by the practice.

Political influence in 1790

Politically, mesmerism was used as an explanation for a confusing time frame involving not only a resistance to enlightened thought but also a period fraught with war and conflict, including the French Revolution. The French revolution created a lot of internal political friction in Britain among those who supported the revolution and those who opposed it. James Tilly Matthews was among one of many Britons who strongly believed that mesmerism would be the cause of the government’s eventual downfall. Jailed by the Jacobins in 1793, he was released in 1796 and returned to Britain where he believed Britain had been invaded by “magnetic spies.” These spies included Prime Minister Pitt, who Matthews believed were responsible for mesmerizing the people into passive citizens into puppets . Likewise, political individuals and those in government positions who faced the daunting task of maintaining a stable country in the midst of warfare and political strife, also used mesmerism as an explanation for the behavior of political dissenters and radicals like Matthews. From their point of view, radicals and political dissenters were attempting to mesmerize those around them to become politically disruptive in a state that was trying to respond to all the occurring changes. Mesmerism thus became a politically threatening tool because it was believed that it could be used to bend the will of individuals.

The French revolution catalyzed existing internal political friction in Britain in the 1790s; a few political radicals used animal magnetism as more than just a moral threat but also a political threat. Among many lectures warning society against government oppression, Samuel Taylor Coleridge also wrote:

“William Pitt, the great political Animal Magnetist,…has most foully worked on the diseased fancy of Englishmen …thrown the nation into a feverish slumber, and is now bringing it to a crisis which may convulse mortality!”

Major politicians and people in power were accused by radicals to be practicing animal magnetism on the general population.

In his article “Under the Influence: Mesmerism in England”, Roy Porter notes that James Tilly Matthews suggested that the French were infiltrating England via animal magnetism. Matthews believed that “magnetic spies” would invade England and bring it under subjection by transmitting waves of animal magnetism to subdue the government and people. Such an invasion from foreign influences was perceived as a radical threat.

Mesmerism and Spiritual Healing in England

Mesmerism also produced enthusiasm as well as inspired horror in the spiritual and religious context. Though discredited by a part of the physicians as a credible medical practice, mesmerism nonetheless created a venue for spiritual healing. Some animal magnetists and hypnotists advertised their practices by stressing the “spiritual rather than the physical benefits to be gained from animal magnetism” and were able to gather a good clientele from among the spiritually inspired population. The Marques of Pursegur’s miraculous act of hypnotism in 1784 brought about questions and wonders involving the human soul. The Marques of Pursegur was able to hypnotize a sick young man named Victor and while hypnotized, Victor was said to have been able to speak articulately, and diagnose his own sickness. This “magnetic sleep revealed the potential dwelling in everyone but realized only by a few.”

Mesmerism as a medical practice was popularized among the lower classes precisely because they had access to a form of healing that was not controlled by authorities. Potential sexual exploitation of women by men who performed mesmeric healing also contributed to the criticism. Part of this criticism stem from the fact that mesmerism became so theatre-like. It was also hard to distinguish between doctors who had attended medical school and were fully knowledgeable and those who just bought their degrees.

Mesmerism and Literature during the romantic era

Within the literary world, mesmerism, animal magnetism, hypnosis and the somnambulistic state were all aspects of the straddle between the reasoned enlightenment age and the romantic era. Mesmerism became a huge impact on many romantic writers, one of the most notable being Samuel Tayler Coleridge. His poems often dealt with topics relating to mesmerism and dreams. A few of these poems include Kubla Khan and Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In the note that comes before the poem Kubla Khan, Coleridge writes about an experience in which he compose hundreds of lines by memory but loses all memory of those lines upon interruption by a visitor. Although there are many disputed explanations including drug use by Coleridge to explain this strange experience; mesmerism, as it was a fascination and a devoted area of study by Coleridge, is arguably a likely explanation of his experience. In the poem the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, mesmerism can arguably be applied to the fate of both the mariner and the wedding guest. The mariner and his fellow sailors become mesmerized after he shoots the albatross. Once saved, the mariner must tell his story to whoever will listen and he is able to get the wedding guest to listen to his story by mesmerizing him. Mesmerism also brought about questions about the horrors of scientific advancement. Mesmer’s animal magnetism and the studies of electric current through which life can be controlled may be contributors to the writing so of Mary Shelley (Frankenstein) and John Keats.

Animal Magnetism in Germany

In Germany, almost all the university towns, public lectures on the subject of mesmerism were given and in this country, mesmerism was fully accepted and practiced. For example, in 1785, Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland, a medical practitioner living in Weimar – where he became part of Goethe’s intellectual circle – concerns himself with Mesmer und sein Mesmerismus; a quarter of a century later, while he is the medical head at Berlin’s Charité and chief physician of Frederick William III, Hufeland writes about the existence of a Sympathie which, in nature, has "the effect of connecting everything together, in so doing going on to also explain the most unique relationship which holds together magnetizing therapist and magnetized patient. This relationship is portrayed as being so intimate as to turn the pair of such individuals into a single person".

Early in the nineteenth century, Gotthilf Heinrich Schubert integrated mesmerism into his course of academic lectures . Prof. Ennemoser, one of the main practitioners stated: "Mesmerism is based on experiences that everybody can have. These experiences are solidly grounded in the field of Knowledge." Mesmer's original theory was of the existence of a universal medium or “fluid”. The free and regular circulation of it through a human being produced health, while any obstruction, or impediment to that free circulation, caused disease. Germany naturally adopted the practices or methods of Mesmer's School, namely, the touchings, pressures and pointings, and the baquets, and chains. Ferdinand Koreff and Christian Wolfart, two mesmerists, were inaugurated as professors to the Medicine department of Berlin University. A good friend of Koreff, e.t.A. Hoffmann wrote "Der Magnetiseur" (1813) and thereby joined authors like Novalis and Kleist in introducing mesmerisms into German literature. The Science Academy of Berlin, offered a prize consisting of 3,300 francs—for the best explanatory thesis on the science.

It is a curious fact that Mesmer, though German-speaking, is mentioned only somewhat rarely in the early German mesmeric literature until 1809. It seems to have widely assumed that he was dead. However, though he had kept out of the public eye for over twnty years, Mesmer was still alive and tolerably robust.In 1812, the Prussian Academy of Science decided to invite Mesmer to lecture in Berlin. It was K.C.Wolfart who went to see Mesmer, and although his attempt to persuade him to visit Berlin was unsuccessful he brought back with him a long manuscript of Mesmer's, which wolfart edited and published in 1814. In the year 1817, a public hospital was established in Berlin, in which no medicines were used. Only Mesmerism was adopted. The eminent Hufeland, originally an unbeliever, was the principal physician of this hospital; Hufeland was the most eminent practical physician of his time in Germany and fifteen volumes containing the clinical details and statistics of the cases treated magnetically were published .

Writing in 1816, Koreff noted that it was not especially in nervous illnesses that Wolfart obtained most beneficial results. He succeeded with ailments ranging from scrofula, ankylosis, and eye problems to haemorroids and bleeding in the womb. In some cases ordinary remedies had failed and no result was anticipated

Animal Magnetism and German philosophy

Mesmerism was also very developed in Germany under a philosophical point of view. The German mesmerists showed the romanticist attraction to seeking universal truths. They perceived in Mesmer's magnetic fluid the justification for the notion that the Universe was a living organism. Mesmers’ idea of a sixth sense which endowed humans in trance with prophetic abilities and getting in touch with the whole universe, moved them to search how this technique would enable the human mind to communicate with the “World Soul”. Among the most prominent personalities of that age, Schelling detects in the magnetic fluid a tool, placed at man's disposal, which enables him to communicate with the cosmic soul; Fichte, after he attended some sessions of induced somnambulism, reflects upon the extent to which the individuality of the self is relative and modifiable. Arthur Schopenauer says "Considered...[from] the philosophical point of view, animal magnetism is the most pregnant of all discoveries that have ever been made, altough for the time being it propounds rather than solves riddles. It is really practical metaphysics..[A] time will come when philosophy, animal magnetism, and natural science...will shed so bright a light on one another that truths will be discovered at which we could not otherwise hope to arrive" .

Animal Magnetism in America

1784-1833 - Early mesmerists: Marquis de Lafayette, Dr. Benjamin Rush

In America mesmerism split into its component parts and evolved into the different streams of hypnotism, spiritism, New Thought and the so-called mental healing .

As early at 1784, mesmerism was a topic which was introduced into the highest levels of American society by the Marquis de Lafayette in a letter he wrote to George Washington. Lafayette was a member of Mesmer's Societé de l'Harmonie and sought permission from its founder to communicate its teachings. Mesmer himself wrote to Washington on June 16, 1784, confirming that Lafayette could speak on his behalf, which he did before the American Philosophical society and elsewhere . American Founding Father Benjamin Rush, the most famous American physician of his time, and father of American Psychiatry, integrated animal magnetism in his practice and in 1789 referred briefly to animal magnetism in his "Duties of a Physician" There has been magnetic society in New Orleans as early as 1833 .

1836 - Charles Poyen and the spread of Mesmerism in America

When mesmerism really crossed the ocean and touched the masses it was instead with a frenchman, Charles Poyen, who made himself known as the "Professor of Animal Magnetism”. In 1836 M. Poyen, a pupil of Puysegur, went to New York from Paris and aroused great interest by the practice and exposition of the principles of mesmerism. He also translated the favorable French report on animal magnetism produced in 1831 by a Commission guided by Husson Bringing volunteers from the audience to the stage, Poyen produced interesting somnambulic trances. His meetings had the character of religious revivals and, coupled with his talent as a presenter, he could appeal to utopian yearnings and confidentially prophesy that this new teaching was destined to make America "the most perfect nation in the world”. Poyen demonstrated remarkable healings of both physical and mental ailment. And, he trained new magnetizers who formed a lasting core of practitioners in the United States. In Providence alone, it was said that over 100 people were "magnetizing" by the end of 1837. One of Poyen’s students was the reverend Laroy Sunderland. Sunderland went to him for instruction, but soon he found that his own ability was quite equal to the Frenchman's. "When," declared Sunderland, "a” magnetic “relation is once established between an operator and his patient..., corresponding changes may be induced in the nervous system of the latter (awake or entranced) by mere volition, and by suggestions addressed to either of the external senses.” Sunderland published the revue “The Magnet”.

Phineas Quimby's healings and the origins of New Thought

Another student of Poyen was the young Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802-1866), whose own interpretation of mesmerism was to create the foundation of the New Thought movement. Impressed by Poyen, Quimby established himself as a mesmeric healer. Quimby simplified mesmerism. He still held that the source of health was the magnetic fluid or force, but he added that beliefs functioned as a sort of "control valves or floodgates" which were able to interrupt the flow. Among his patients, however, were several willing and eager to carry on the work he had begun—if, perhaps, to continue and extend it along lines undreamed of by him. One of these patients, Mrs. Mary Eddy, became the founder of Christian Science. The launching of The New Thought movement came about thanks to two others disciples of Quimby: Warren F. Evans and Julian A. Dresser. Quimby was a tireless healer. In 1865 he treated 12000 people through a combination of techniques. Eddy Baker was an invalid when she came to Quimby suffering from chronic and painful ailments. He healed her of her symptoms and inspired her to begin her own career in mental healing. When the Dressers accused Eddy of distorting Quimby's teachings, Eddy claimed Quimby's having healed her was only temporary, as her true healing was accomplished through Jesus and the intervention of the Bible. Eddy took a very hard line against mesmerism, not denying its reality or power, but emphasizing its malicious possibilities. A chapter of the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, is entitled "Animal Magnetism Unmasked". In it, the book's author, Mary Baker Eddy, says about "the workings of animal magnetism" that "its effects upon those who practise [sic] it, and upon their subjects who do not resist it, lead to moral and to physical death.".Christian Science later rejected the new theories of hypnosis in the same way .

Robert Collyer, Theodore Léger and the ideology of american mesmerism

The same year Poyen left for Europe an Englishman, Robert Collyer, arrived in America and began a lecture tour spreading mesmerism along the Atlantic coast. Collyer’s idea of mesmerism was based on the brain’s power to visualize thought and transform ideas into pictures. His visual theory of mesmerism and his “embodiment of thought” reemerged in the works of Poe, Bulwyer-Litten and Dickens. (Collyer knew Poe and Dickens. He had corresponded with Poe and Dickens and had even visited them on his trip to America). Lectures on the subject of mesmerism were equally delivered in New York in 1829, by Du Commun, a pupil of Mesmer, and by Dr. Underhill in various places from 1834 to 1838.

Another innovator was Dr. Theodore Léger, the "Psychodunamist". He, however, was a magnetiser from De Puysegur's school, for he was Deleuze's pupil and intimate friend. (Deleuze died, a very old man, in 1833). Dr. Leger lectured and practiced in the United States in 1844, accompanied by a medical clairvoyant who was remarkably successful. Although he was practically a simple magnetiser, he had some influence upon the march of events, especially in the United States, by the doubts he cast upon some of the theories of the magnetisers through his own metaphysical doctrines, and through his substitution of the name “Psychodunamy” (from Psyche soul, and Dunamis power) for "Animal Magnetism.”.

The influence of Poyen and Collyer generated a widespread interest in mesmerism, but, in contrast to Europe, where it was first born in the aristocracy and attracted the upper class, mesmerism was to have its impact in America on the lives of a large middle class. In America mesmerism was first and foremost an ideology of personal inner liberation. It emphasized the inherent goodness of the inner self and led to the development of practices that were designed to expand, revitalize, and finally liberate the spirituality. Patients exhibited spiritual gifts while in trance, and after contact with the source of spiritual energy patients felt invigorated, renewed, transformed. The phenomena of the trance condition appealed very strongly to the popular imagination, but scarcely to most men of science of the ninetieth century. It was generally believed that, even granting their genuineness, no useful purpose would be served by investigating them. As opposed to Europe, despite its use by a few medical practitioners during the decade 1840-1850, no school of mesmerism was established in America. In America mesmerism was an open field: each researcher developed a different aspect of its potentialities and tried to explain it in a different way. Thus J. S. Grimes, a Professor of Medical Jurisprudence and a dabbler in phrenology, suggested that it was due to the action of a general force which he called etherium. Dr. J. R. Buchanan, another phrenologist, preferred the hypothesis of a subtle emanation. Buchanan in fact was the proposer of a technique he called “psychometry” that he explained in a similar way.

Fahnstock and Mesmeric Pain Relief for Obstetrics

Along with Buchanan, one of the most remarkable of this group of American mesmeric innovators was Dr. William B. Fahnstock, a physician residing and practicing in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, whose "Statuvolism" created considerable interest in the U.S., although little known in Europe. Fahnestock executed the First Cases of Mesmeric Pain Relief for Obstetrics in America. The name of his own form of mesmerism (statusvolism) is derived from status (state) and volo (I will), and signifies a state, or peculiar condition, produced by the will. In his book, "Statuvolism, or Artificial Somnambulism" (1866, though long before that time he had published pamphlets on the subject), Dr. Fahnstock says that he therein presents the result of thirty years of research and experience; and this gives him a few years' priority over Braid. His system, however, is the very antithesis of that of Braid, for he makes use of a purely psychological method, without fixation of the eyes, or nervous or arterial changes; and also without the passes or contact with the magnetisers. Nevertheless, Fahnstock recognised a great difference between the statuvolic and the mesmeric conditions, although both are states of artificial somnambulism-the difference being that the subject in the former state feels free, while the one in the latter a “creature” of his magnetiser. Of the statuvolic state he says:- "The operator has no power to produce this condition, and, … has nothing to do with it. His health, temperament, age, etc., as a matter of course, are also immaterial, so that his intelligence, mental character, and knowledge, are of such a nature as to be worthy of the trust placed in him; his skill in managing persons and curing diseases, etc., will depend entirely upon his knowledge of the state, his acquaintance with the nature of diseases, and his intelligence and tact in fixing and properly directing the minds of his patients.."

Mesmerism and "Electrical psychology"

Another peculiar element of many American mesmerists is religion. “The preoccupation of American mesmerists with religion rather than medicine provides a striking contrast to the theories and practices of mesmerism originating in Europe. The context in which one was magnetized was less clinical and more like a religious revival.” In fact, a significant number of mesmerists were themselves former revivalists, and even when they weren't, they still were likely to follow the New England revival circuit. Dods was typical of this group of men. He had been a Universalist minister in Provincetown, Massachusetts before becoming a mesmerist. Rev. J. B. Dods, sought to explain animal magnetism on an electrical basis and founded the so called electro-biology. “Dr. Dods's 'Electrical Psychology' is nothing less than a system of nature, resembling in some ways Mesmer's Animal Magnetism. Dr. Dods himself, however, had studied Mesmer's theories, and had published a commentary on them”. Dods makes this distinction-"Electrical Psychology is the doctrine of impressions (i.e. it is more mental), Mesmerism is the doctrine of sympathy." (i.e. magnetism is more physical). . In regard to mind, Dods seems to have anticipated "Mental Science":- "Mind or spirit is of itself embodied and living form. It is spiritual organism in absolute perfection, and from mind itself all form and beauty emanate. The body of man is but an outshoot or manifestation of his mind . . . " Dods, Grimes and other electrobiologists worked with large crowds of people and produced in their subjects the symptoms and behaviours that would later become the main spectacles of stage hypnosis: catalepsy, insensitivity to pain, amnesia and apparently involuntary actions out of character for the individuals who produced them. Dods felt that mesmerism would provide scientific proof for key aspects of religious faith. Dods considered animal magnetism to be "the grand agent employed by the creator to move and govern the universe” .

From "electro-biology" to "Hypnotism"

Electro-biology is the same as Dods's Electrical Psychology, but those who practiced it were entertainers rather than instructors of the public, as Dr. Dods endeavoured, at least, to be. The ideas and the methods they employed are worthy of much more attention than is generally accorded to them. They underlie the theory and practice of modern Hypnotism. The most interesting accounts on these electrobiologists’ methods are given by William Gregory in his "Letters on Animal Magnetism" of the methods and the results obtained by Darling and Lewis, two electro-biologists that went on tour to England. In 1850 Darling came from America to England, where he exhibited the phenomena of electro-biology; their identity with those of Braid’s hypnotism was soon recognized. Even Durand de Gros, a French doctor who had lived in America, returned in 1853 to Europe, and exhibited the phenomena of electrobiology in several countries, but aroused little interest. Under the psudonyme of dr. Phillips wrote the book “Braidism”. Even if it is probable that electrobiologists antecede Braid in the conception of their system it is probably after this European period of some of these electro-biologists that the name “Hypnotism” began to be used by electro-biologists as more pregnant as the old name of electro-biology. The system of electro-biology (named progressively hypnotism) slowly began to characterize itself as a method whith different caracteristics from traditional animal magnetism.

Many important mesmerists complained that electrobiology was different from mainstream mesmerism as the base of results was concentration by the subject combined with verbal suggestion by the operator, rather than procedures distinctively mesmeric and based on concentration and self development of the operator. Dr. Elliotson, one of the most important practicing English mesmerists, said that the phenomena "resulted from imagination, excited by suggestion in a slight degree of mesmerism" and coined the word "submesmerism". An anonymous article in the 1849 Cincinnati “Journal of Man” of expressed regret at the demise of the practice of non verbal hand passes and so on. Modern mesmerists, it complained, simply ordered their subjects to sleep. With hindsight, we can see how the electro-biologists’ practice was closer to what we would now recognize as hypnotism, but at the time it seemed to some as though they were ignoring the welfare of their subjects, by failing to recharge their bodies with the vital magnetic fluid. William Gregory said that the electrobiological phenomena was "auto-magnetism". Traditional medical magnetic inductions were mainly non-verbal . Another difference was that in electrobiology words were often used, and the subjects were divided in “susceptibles” and “not susceptibles” (in Mesmer’s view the action of magnetism ceases when a person is healthy, but for most of his magnetic successors everybody will in some way respond and there are not unresponsive subjects). Technique apart, an unexpected consequence of electobiologists’ demonstrations, and perhaps of audience expectations, was that they established many of the criteria by which even today hypnotists test for susceptibility and recognize that their subjects are in a trance state. Of course, they were building on the work of their predecessors in Europe, but unwittingly they established much of the vocabulary for later academic discussion. In fact it is to note that both Clark Hull as many of the successive academic researchers on hypnotism used lay hypnotists (former electro-biologists) to conduct experiments and it is probable that this had an effect on these early researches. One of the main differences of electro-biologists from their European predecessors was that they held these phenomena to be mainly a result of the state in which their subjects fell, whereas in Europe some of them, at any rate, were held to be mainly the product or of the action of the mesmerist's will on his subject (Du Potet), or of an universal fluid or energy present also in man (Mesmer theory). These traveling stage mesmerists were the forerunners of the stage hypnotists. Early stage performers didn’t detach too much from the idea of a fluid, and they said that they were influencing their subjects by means of telepathy and magnetism even though in the electrobiological form they knew and affirmed that much was due to imagination. They performed their shows and often times healed people afterwards. In the United States, for example, in the 1890s, there was a small group of highly skilled stage hypnotists, all of whom were managed by Thomas F. Adkin, who toured country-wide, playing to packed houses. Adkin's group included Sylvain A. Lee, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert L. Flint, and Professor Xenophon LaMotte Sage (Virgin Mac Neal). This latter, even when the group spread apart, continued to publish books even when the original group was no longer present. Classical Magnetic cures were in any case still well alive in 1910 and one of the books Adkin wrote was a book called “vitaopathy” based on the principles of traditional magnetism. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, despite adopting the term "hypnotism", stage hypnotists also continued to make constant reference to animal magnetism. Ormond McGill, e.g., in his Encyclopedia of the subject wrote in 1996 that: Some have called this powerful transmission of thought from one person to another “thought projection”. The mental energy used appears to be of two types: magnetic energy […] generated within the body and telepathic energy generated within the mind. […] The two work together as a unit in applying Power Hypnosis. The operation of the two energies in combination is what Mesmer referred to as “animal magnetism”. Ormond McGill himself, as did every ancient performer, pointed out there was a difference between hypnotism and mesmerism and said in his books that the former was better for shows and the latter for psychic experiments. But slowly, after 1920, new procedures were adopted which were based more on the increase of the use of suggestive verbal techniques and less on nonverbal communication. Many stage hypnotists also became “hypnotherapists” as they progressively defined themselves. For example the famous hypnotherapist Dave Elman was himself originally a stage hypnotist as he mentions at the beginning of his book . The same goes for Gil Boyne (one of whose mentors was Ormond Mc Gill) as well as many other successful hypnotists in America. Dave Elman, who was contemporary of Milton Erickson, stretches the attention to “semantics” in giving suggestions . It is to note that old mesmerists refrained from giving verbal suggestions, recommending in all books a silent environment.

Mesmerism and Spiritualism

Besides hypnotism, another of the important distinct branches that derived from mesmerism was spiritualism. As the spread of mesmerism increased, the idea of magnetism reached a popular audience, and some Mesmerist disciples fell into believing that what had been discovered amounted to a new revelation. Individuals in magnetic trance had shown peculiar abilities and some had even claimed to be in touch with other personalities and worlds while in this state. Itinerant magnetizers wandered the countryside with professional somnambulists at their sides, stopping in the local towns to give medical clairvoyant readings. The somnambulist would diagnose an illness and prescribe remedies. This situation provided all the necessary ingredients for the making of another important movement known as spiritualism, and at a certain point the histories of both mesmerism and spiritualism overlapped and influenced one another. What was once Mesmer's bacquet with subjects sitting with joined hands has now become the closed circle of spiritualistic seances. Andrew Jackson Davis (1826–1910) began his career as such an itinerant somnambulist and eventually became an author of great popularity, using the magnetic trance to dictate his spiritual treatises. Davis grew to the most important man in the early Spiritualist Church. Davis had many followers. Between them Edgar Allan Poe who wrote many short stories that addressed mesmerism, as "Mesmeric Revelation". In “Mesmeric Revelation” Edgar Allan Poe transmitted ideas found in the book “Facts in Mesmerism” Townshend. When, after Andrew Jackson Davis published his trance revelations from the "spirit world," and the Fox sisters began their spectacular career as "spirit rappers," clairvoyance became a leading feature of spiritistic stances, and mesmerism and spiritism were often confounded. But the discussion about the existence of a fluid still persisted; and for the first few years the question of Fluids versus Spirits as an explanation of the marvelous doings at dark stances was hotly debated in the American Spiritualist journals. Gradually, however, the Spiritualist view prevailed, the theory of a magnetic fluid or magnetic influence suffered euthanasia, and the clairvoyants were left in possession of the field . Many mesmeric clairvoyants became Spiritualist mediums, and many writers and lecturers on mesmerism turned their attention to the phenomena and philosophy of Spiritualism .

Mesmerism and the Theosophical Society

Helena Blavatsky , who was a successful medium of this same Spiritualist Church for several years, later founded the Theosophical Society. She linked her doctrine of a mental fluidum deliberatley to Mesmer's and encouraged her followers to praise him. Even today, Mesmer is still celebrated as the Theosophist's spiritual ancestor

1900 William James, Animal Magnetism and psychical research

Psychical research was the direct result of all these developments arising from animal magnetism . In the research field, an important academic name that we find in America that uses purposely the name “animal magnetism” is William James (1842–1910) often referred to as “the father of American psychology”. Under his influence, the american academic researches on animal magnetism became part of the general parapsychological research of the beginning of the twentieth century.

1900-1932 Magnetic exercises: New Thought, William Walker Atkinson and Albert Webster Edgerly

However, many self development exercises typical of magnetism, centering on the development of nerve force, or life force, survived inside the New Thought movement. See for example some of the works of William Walker Atkinson (other pseudonym Theron Q. Dumont) (1862-1932), and in the works of Shaftesbury (Albert Webster Edgerly 1852 – 1926) a social reform activist. He believed in the power of personal magnetism, and began the Ralstonism movement as a way to live out this lifestyle.

The word “magnetism” continued (and continues) nevertheless to be popularly used by the general public for some types of “magnetic” healings that later merged in current practice with analogous oriental healing practices.

Mesmerism and spiritual healing practices

New Thought Beliefs
Divinity Omnipresent God · Ultimate Spirit · Divine Humanity · Higher consciousness ·
Beliefs Universal law Law of attraction · Power of choice · Metaphysics · Life force
Actions Affirmations · Affirmative prayer · Creative visualization · Healing · Personal magnetism · Positive thinking Glossary

Today scholars believe Mesmerism to share a concept of life force or energy with such Asian practices such as reiki and qigong. The practical and theoretical positions of such practices are on whole substantially different from those of mesmerism.

See also

• Biomagnetism
• Franz Mesmer
• James Esdaile
• Magnetoception

References

• Leger, T. [sic], Animal Magnetism; or, Psycodunamy, D. Appleton, (New York), 1846 [N.B. author is Théodore Léger (1799–1853)].

External links

• Anton Mesmer, "Propositions Concerning Animal Magnetism", 1779, from Binet, A. & Féré, C. (1888) Animal Magnetism, New York: Appleton and Co., (via Archive.org)
• "History of Hypnosis", School of Professional Hypnosis
• Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Chapter 5 - "Animal Magnetism Unmasked", Spirituality Website
• Runescape Quest Guide - Animal Magnetism.
• [1], Deleuze - Practical Instruction in Animal Magnetism (1843)
• [2], William Gregory - Letters to a candid inquirer, on animal magnetism (1851)
• [3], Coates - Easy Guide to Hypnotism and Mesmerism (1876)