A brief and accurate history of the life of Franz Anton Mesmer
Franz Anton Mesmer(1733-1815) was born on the 23rd of May 1733 at the village of
Iznang near Switzerland, on the German side of Bodensee (Lake Constance). The parish registers of Iznang are kept in the neighbouring town of Radolfszell. The registers testify to the birth and baptism of Franciscus Antonius, son of Antonius Mesmer and his wife Maria Ursula Mesmer.
Mesmer's first name, Franz in German, is sometimes incorrectly given as Friedrich; an error traceable back to the title page of a little book on Mesmer and his work, published the year before his death in 1814. The author was his friend and pupil Carl Wolfart who evidently didn't know Mesmer's first name. From his marriage registration and other documents it is clear that Mesmer dropped his first name and was significantly known and recognised as Anton Mesmer.
The saga of Franz Anton Mesmerwas exceedingly dramatic and extended far beyond his death. It resulted in a veritable age of Mesmerism, the vitality of which took on international interest and fascination that endured for about 140 years. Through envy, malice, greed, and misunderstanding very many of his friends and learned contemporaries regarded Mesmer's practice of magnetismas quackery, even now in the 21st century his theory of animal magnetism is still credited as having laid the foundations of modern hypnosisand suggestive therapy.
Mesmer's father, Antonius, was a forester employed by the archbishop of Constance; his mother, Maria Ursula was the daughter of a locksmith. It was a large Catholic family and not particularly prosperous, Franz Anton was the third of nine children. By all accounts, he was of copious intelligence and a somewhat high-minded individual, whose thinking was completely in keeping with his times.
The strength of Mesmerism, due mainly to the evidence of the countless indisputable cures that resulted from its use,ensured that Mesmerism came to constitute one of the first international movements of any kind. And its international vivacity was such that the anti-energetic sentiments in the mainstream modern sciences did not succeed in deconstructing it until about 1920. Even so, Mesmerism could not be erased or forgotten left three long shadows of itself, the first in the guise of hypnotism, the second in the guise of psychical research, and the third in the guise of the energetic mysteries. Now in the 21st Century with the modern understandings of physics and the technology available to measure energy fields; much of what Mesmer discovered can be scientifically demonstrated, and Mesmerism is making a comeback into the healing arts.
After preliminary studies in a local monastic school in Constance, Franz Anton Mesmercommenced the study of philosophy at the Jesuit University of Dillingen, Bavaria, changing in 1752 to theology, presumably as a scholarship student preparing for the priesthood. He continued his studies from 1753 at the University of Ingolstadt, where he soon abandoned theology. It is not known when or from what learning institution he obtained his doctorate in philosophy, but it is assumed that it was indeed awarded by the faculty of the University of Ingolstadt.
Mesmer was later educated in Viennawhere he took a degree in medicine which he completed at the age of 32. He soonbecame convinced that the use of magnets was unnecessary and postulated that everybody possessed a magneticforce, or a fluid, which constantly connects all living things and all living human beings at any distance. He put his theory into a structure and called it Animal Magnetism.
The immediate source of Mesmer's ethereal fluid was Richard Mead's (1673-1754) De imperio solis ac lunae in corpora humana et morbis inde oriundis (London, 1704), a work from which Mesmer's doctoral thesis drew upon heavily enough to perhaps even be considered almost plagiarised. Mead had postulated strongly that gravity produced tides in the atmosphere as well as in water and that the planets could therefore affect the fluidal balance of the human body.
While he was a medical student at the University of Vienna, Mesmerwas impressed by the writings of the Renaissance mystic physician Paracelsus(Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim, (1493-1541) and attempted to rationalise a belief in astrological influences on human health as the result of planetary forces through a subtle, invisible fluid. After Paracelsus, many learned men of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Glocenius, Burgrave, Helinotius, Robert Fludd, Kircher, and Maxwell- believed that in the magnet they could recognise the properties of that universal principle by which minds addicted to generalisation thought that all natural phenomena might be explained.
These men wrote voluminous books, filled with sterile discussions, with unproven assertions, and with contemptible arguments. Mesmer drew largely from these sources; it can't be disputed that he had read some of the many books, devoted by early authors to the study of magnetism, although such study was then expressly forbidden.
Showing high intelligence and unusual promise Mesmer had been enabled to take the medical course at the University Medical Faculty in Vienna under van Swieten, who in due course appointed him to a professorship. In the last year of his medical course he submitted his thesis for the degree of Doctor of Medicine. In accordance with custom it was written in Latin, and one or two of the printed texts have survived to this day. An oral examination following a written one took place in November 1765, conducted by the heads of the Faculty seated on a dais and wearing their scarlet robes.
Questions and answers in Latin covered not only the principles and practice of medicine but also more searchingly his special theme. In the following May he was awarded the degree with highest honours. The original diploma, preserved in the Kerner Museum at Weinsburg, Germany demonstrates positive proof of Mesmer's attainments as well as other points of special interest. With a few insignificant omissions it runs in translation as follows:
"The very learned master Anton Mesmer of Meersburg in Swabia, Doctor of Philosophy, having completed several years' study of medicine and having given written evidence of his knowledge, petitions us to confer on him the doctorate of medicine ................ We have examined him in the whole field of medicine and heard the defence of his thesis on the Influence of the Planets on the Human Body, and he has shown in all respects knowledge and understanding of the art of medicine. We are pleased to bestow upon him the honour he deserves for his distinguished record. Therefore acting with full powers invested in us by Her Apostolic Majesty the Queen Empress Maria Theresa we nominate the said Franz Anton Mesmer on this 31st day of May, 1766, Doctor of Medicine and we formally appoint him to a professional chair and authorise him to practice medicine throughout the region."
Where Mesmer showed his originality was in taking hold of the so called, universal principle, of the world, and in applying it to the sick by means of contact and passes. However it was a friend of his, the astronomer Maximilian Hell(1720-1792), a court astronomer and Jesuit priest, who used magnetsin the treatment of disease, and so influenced Mesmer to conduct his first attempts at healing with a steel magnet.
Modern historians seldom consider Mesmer as a person within his times but assess him according to modern standards as they later developed. And by those later standards, Mesmer's activities consisted of one strange folly after another. Detractors often tend to ignore the evidence of Mesmer's academic distinction and instead point with scorn or mockery at the subject of his thesis.
Many historians have shown a lack of understanding or historical perspective by, instead of investigating Mesmer's education and early years, have stopped short at being amazed that reputable examiners not only approved the subject of his thesis but also awarded Mesmer his medical degree. In defence of this, Mesmer had no belief whatsoever in astrology or any other preternatural or esoteric theories. Unlike many of the new scientists of the time who still clung to some superstitious beliefs he believed in god and held a purely rational view of the universe and sought natural causes of seemingly mysterious phenomena.
At first sight it certainly appears that Mesmer's thesis subject was provocative. The basic distinction between planets and "fixed stars" however was not always clearly understood and in astrology the influences of the planets were bound up with those of the constellations known as the Ram, the Bull and so on. The names of these groups of stars remain useful for mapping the night sky but have no scientific significance. Their extreme remoteness from the solar system in which earth is a relatively tiny planet undermined the belief in their influence that was prevalent when it was assumed that the earth was the centre of the universe.
Mesmer in his thesis uses the term "animal gravitation" for the force or fluid that animates living bodies, and in later works substituted "animal magnetism." Its flow had a rhythm analogous to the tides of the ocean. Mesmer's most original idea was that a disturbance in the ebb and flow of the fluid within a human organism, when out of harmony with the universal rhythm, produced nervous or mental disorder. In support of this view he refers to some of the case histories in Mead's work and also a notable example from Sydenham. Eight years elapsed before Mesmer modified and expanded his theory on the basis of his own investigations.
Franz Anton Mesmer was no more a quack than some of the 20th century psychologists who must trace their intellectual roots to this man whose name is now a part of our language. Mesmer's contribution to real science can be distilled to the fact that he understood that illness is not a natural condition. Some kind of blockage of natural forces will inevitably yield stagnation and sickness. An instinctive desire to free the vital forces from restraint kept Mesmer successful as long as his own ability to acknowledge the forces he was using was strong, but the ruling establishment, then as now, more often than not, seems to overwhelm fresh insights concerning the body's spiritual essence, despite the best of intentions.
By the time he began to propound his theory of animal magnetism, or mesmerism, Anton Mesmer had risen through the educational systems of Bavariaand Austriaand had advanced to a position of some social prominence in Viennese society, partly from association by his marriage on January 16, 1768, two years after his medical graduation, to Maria Anna von Posch the wealthy Viennese widow of an army Lieutenant Colonel. By all accounts, the wedding was a splendid affair conducted in the fourteenth century St Stephen's Cathedral by Cardinal Migazzi, the Archbishop of Vienna. However the marriage was not a happy one, Mesmer found Maria personally unsanitary, stupid, dull, and somewhat crass. Presumably this downside was more than offset by her more positive qualities; she gave him money and respectability, and she already had a teenage son, Franz, and Mesmer had never, and never did have, any childrenof his own.
Maria's father must have hadreservations about her choice of aspouse, especially one ten years her junior, and although he allowed Mesmeraccess to her fortune to supporthis life style, he excluded him from any inheritance of her estate, but bought them a Mansion at 261 Landstrasse, in the most prosperous district of Vienna. The mansion was noted for itsgardens, groves,walks and fountains and soon Mesmer also added to the property by building laboratories and a small outdoor theater.Here he often practiced and cultivated his own performances on the cello, clavichord and the glass armonica (harmonica).
In 1778 there was a much publicised scandal known as, "The affair of Maria Theresa Paradis." Maria Theresa Paradis was a namesake of the empress, whom her father served in the confidential post of private secretary. She was born in 1759, appeared to be a normal child for three years, and then woke up one morning unable to see. After an assortment of unsuccessful treatment from the leading physicians of the day Mesmer restored her site and was then accused of having an affair with her. After Miss Paradis returned to her parents Mesmer soon found himself thoroughly discredited, without a single defender in the medical profession; he began to think about leaving Vienna. His departure was not hurried; nevertheless it was strongly encouraged by the medical and ecclesiastical community.
Vienna at that time was in the Holy Roman Empire, and the ecclesiastical community had a lot of clout (they didn't call it the Holy Roman Empire for nothing!). Nevertheless, Mesmer was provided with a letter of recommendation from the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Viennese ambassador in Paris, which shows that his government had not repudiated him. When he left Vienna around January 1778, Mesmer took his glass armonica with him but left his wife behind! She needed to stay in Vienna to manage her inheritance, and their relationship at that point seems to have been one of mutual indifference. Mesmer was never to see her again, and twelve years later she died of breast cancer.
In Vienna Mesmercame to special public attention because of a bitter, and quite public, controversy involving the invention of his magnetic plates, as the priority of this invention was claimed by his earlier friend, the Jesuit priest having the curious name of Maximillian Hell (sometimes spelt as Hehl), a professor of astronomy/astrology at the University of Vienna. Mesmer won the claim, but was quickly involved in another controversy involving the cure of a blind girl. Soon after this the president of the Medical Council appealed to the Empress of Austria to "put an end to this humbug." Denounced as an impostor, Mesmer left Vienna for Paris.
Arriving in Paris in February 1778, he set up what soon became a very lucrative clinic in the Place Vendme, a poorer quarter of Paris, and another in the nearby village of Crteil. He then began an elaborate campaign to win recognition of his discovery from France's leading scientific bodies. Helped by some influential converts and an ever increasing throng of patients' who testified that they had been cured of everything from paralysis to what the French then called "Vapeurs," (hot flushes accompanied by nervous fits and hysterical fainting).
In Paris Mesmerseized the public's imagination, and quickly developed novel techniques and equipment to affect cures. This made him a considerable amount of money and with the house in Place Vendome now too small; Mesmer purchased the Htel Bouillon in the rue Montmartre, in which he established four baquet's, one of them for the gratuitous use of the poor. But soon the free baquet for the poor didn't suffice, so Mesmer magnetised a tree at the end of Rue Bondy, and during the following two years thousands of sick people attached themselves to it with cords in the hope of being cured. The exact nature and materials of the new equipment (Baquet's) are presumed to have been lost to posterity, but they can still be found with determined investigation. However the social impact, the resulting scandals, and the extraordinary controversies that came to surface around the name Mesmer have never been lost.
Once installed in Paris, Mesmerestablished himself in the Masonicscene and the occult scene as well; his friends were numerous and included the composer Mozart. He was a Freemason and was instrumental in the formation of The Society of Harmony. Within the Society Mesmer gave lectures and some 300 pupils were educated in the use and methods of Animal Magnetism. Soon there were more than 40 active Societies all over France. He achieved a tremendous success with the public, and with the subscription connected to his name by his pupils, he became a rich man and he was at the height of his influence. In 1785 one of his pupils, in a breach of the secrecy and confidence of his sworn oath, published the doctrines of Mesmer Aphorismes des M. Mesmer, which were supposed to be kept a secret from all but students and members of The Society of Harmony.
The methods that Mesmerutilised to affect the transfer tend to boggle a modern imagination. The patients sat around the vatsin communal groups, each holding a metal or glass rod, or a mere copper wire or string of thread, the other end of which was pushed into the substances in the vats. Mesmer erected several circular vats, each about a foot high, and experimented with a number of hand-held "connectors" that served as conduits for the animating and re-animating magnetisms. There is no doubt that many cures were attained for ailments strictly physical in their cause, but even more cures were obtained regarding illness mental(psychosomatic) in origin. Mesmerhimself indicated that his "techniques" better dealt with what we today refer to as psycho-somatic conditions. Mesmer usually sent physically ill patients to other doctors, and otherwise accepted them only if physical remedies were of no effect.
The Social Background Regarding the Vats
Mesmer's reputation had preceded him to Paris, and once installed there he acquired numerous supporters. Principal among these at first was Dr Charles Deslon (sometimes accounted as d'Eslon and pronounced as "DE LON"), medical adviser to the Count D'Artois, and the brother of King Louis XVI. This was high patronage indeed. Deslon was eventually castigated and his practice restricted by the French Academy of Medicine for his pains. In time, however, their ways were to part when Deslon practising independently annoyed Mesmer.
In September of 1780 Deslonasked the Faculty of Medicineto confirm Mesmer's ideas and techniques, a request that was rejected. None the less, public enthusiasm and high patronage support had grown to impressive heights. Then in March 1781, on behalf of the King, the powerful Minister M. de Maurepas, offered Mesmer 20,000 Louis (a significant amount), and a further annuity of 10,000 if he established a school and agreed to divulge the "secret" of his treatments. Mesmer at first refused, but later accepted a subscription of 340,000 Louis for lectures to pupils. With this financial arrangement, Mesmer increased his vat facilities, and surrounded them with rather impressive environments. These consisted of large rooms noted for the opulence of their furnishings, with enormous reflecting mirrors, the whole room being rather dimly lit.
Mesmerand his vatswere mobbed with applicants, among them vast numbers of the aristocracy and royalty. Many memoirs of various members of the aristocracy establish that the visitors included Queen Marie Antoinetteand the whole of her court. Well acquainted with the family, Mesmer also saw a great deal of the Mozart's; and the first production of a Mozart opera, the Bastien and Bastienne, took place in Mesmer's garden at his Viennese mansion, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) later made room for mesmerism in a scene in Cosi fan tutte.
Ecstatic catharsisengendered dramatic and empowering shifts in levels" of consciousness of the kind we would today refer to as heightened or "altered states" and during which many kinds of so-called "paranormal" trancephenomena were experienced. Such phenomena often came to light within many of Mesmer's vat participants. But a perpetual confusion has settled in regarding this matter, in that mesmerist trancephenomena have been historically confused with hypnosis. Hypnotism can easily be confused as an extension of Mesmerist trance, since it too is a type of altered state. But in actual historical fact, hypnotism as such was not identified until about 1842 by the English surgeon, James Braid(1795-1860). Braidfirst termed the phenomena as "Neuro-hypnotism," a phenomenon that occasionally aroused involuntary sexualising energies. Types of hypnotism however had earlier been identified in ancient Persia and India, with probably even more ancient antecedents in Egypt.
The scientific standing of Anton Mesmer is admitted by all his biographers. His occult standing however is either ignored, ignorantly explained away as Mesmer being an astrologer, or just not so well known. Mesmer was a Mason, and was also an initiated member of two powerful occult Fraternities, the Fraters Lucis and the Brotherhood of Luxor. The latter was the Egyptian branch of the Brotherhood of Lookshoor in Beluchistan, one of the oldest and most powerful of the Eastern Fraternities. Under the order of the "Great Brotherhood," the Council of Luxor selected Mesmer to act as their eighteenth century pioneer, later appointing Cagliostro as a helper, with the Count de St. Germaine to supervise the development of events.
"Animal magnetism" is a fluid, a correlation of atoms on metaphysical planes, which exudes from every human being in a greater or lesser degree. Some people have the power to emit this fluid consciously, through their eyes and fingertips, and most of the healing "miracles" of history are based upon this psycho-physical power in man.
Following his conversation with the Count de St. Germaine, Dr. Mesmer gave up his entire time to healing the sick. The house on the Landstrasse no longer echoed to the strains of Haydn and Mozart. It was now a hospital through which a steady stream of patients flowed from morn to night. However, while Dr. Mesmer's fame grew among his patients, it decreased among his colleagues. A physician who used visible magnets was one thing; but one who made cures with an invisible "fluid" was quite another.
Since he based his work and observations on "the facts," the critical question then becomes what Mesmer considered facts. He began with the ability of men and women, under the influence of animal magnetism, to activate strange powers within themselves, to gain insights into cosmic truths hidden from most of humanity by a veil of ignorance. He had observed a great many subjects, and the annuls of Mesmerism recorded many more, who manifested super normal powers. He could no longer be sure where the real sciences left off and the occult sciences began. He was certain that all genuine phenomena could be accommodated within his system, but he could not define "genuine" in such a way as to protect himself from fantastic speculations.
He had written in his doctoral dissertation, and repeated in a series of writings, that hoary fallacies could be shown to have essential truth within them when interpreted scientifically astrology, alchemy, oneiromancy, divination. Now he will explain them through animal magnetism. In his memoirs he sets down in a series of questions "the facts" to which now he will apply himself:
How can a sleeping man diagnose his own illnesses and even those of other people?
How, without having any instruction, can he identify the best means of affecting a cure?
How can he see objects at any distance, and how can he predict future events?
How can a man receive impressions from a will other than his own?
Why is this man not always endowed with these faculties?
How can these faculties be perfected?
Why is this state more frequent, and why does it appear in its most developed form, when the methods of animal magnetism are employed?
What have been the effects of ignorance of this phenomenon, and what are they today?
What are the evils resulting from the abuse of it?
The first of these two questions refer to a belief held by Mesmer, Puysegur, and many of their colleagues in the Mesmerism movement, the belief that subjects when mesmerised often became sensitive to what was wrong with the ill and therefore could guide the physician. Number three admits the reality of clairvoyance and precognition. Number 4 does the same for mental telepathy. The other six concern animal magnetism as the agent responsible, and its controlled use to heighten supernormal powers, and precautions against its misuse.
Such are Mesmer's premises. He proceeds to his conclusions by following his theory that mesmerism and hypnotic sleep are conditions in which the outer senses become subservient to the inner sense, and the inner sense becomes in tune with the objective world. The question is how the sense, inner and outer, organise reality. The individual lives in a bewildering world, and it is the specific function of each sense that makes it possible for him to sort his experiences into a coherent order. The eye is responsive to rays of light, the ear to waves of sound. The inner sense unifies the perceptions of all the outer senses, meshing them together into the experience of one individual. This thought goes back to Aristotle, whom Mesmer had read in his student days.
But there is a far more extraordinary function of the inner sense. The inner sense responds to animal magnetism as the eye responds to light. This means that it receives messages directly from the cosmos. According to Mesmer's explanation of somnambulism, as the outer senses shut down, the somnambulist begins to receive messages and commands from his inner sense, which acts as a surrogate and permits him to "see" when his eyes are closed, to "remember" when memory has lapsed, to answer questions intelligibly when the other avenues to his intelligence are closed.
Mesmer doesn't go into the sensory lapses of the somnambulist hypnotic blindness, et cetera but the explanation from his thesis is evident. These are psycho-somatic symptoms attending the crisis. Animal magnetism rushing through the nervous system affects the outer senses, and just as it may make them more acute, it may also paralyse them, depending on the individual, the condition of his nerves, and the commands of the mesmeriser. The inner sense is affected in the same way, sometimes failing, sometimes becoming acute to an astonishing degree.
According to Mesmer the inner sense, he says, is at the bottom of the faculties that seem mysterious. Acting in one way, it is instinct; acting in another, it is aesthetic taste. Mesmerian rapport, that intimate feeling of complete trust between persons, comes from the communication of inner sense and inner sense. The same analysis explains a whole range of ideas obtained in a non rational way, from mere hunches to profound mystical experiences. Momentous consequences follow. Since the inner sense is in touch with the cosmos and with all the interrelated parts of the cosmos, reacting to them in their timelessness, therefore, there seems to be no limit to human knowledge (whatever practical impediments there might be).
Extrasensory perception is only to be expected, to put the matter in modern language. The eye cannot see a suit of cards face down on the table because light is reflected from the backs only. The inner sense can "see" the faces because animal magnetism flows everywhere, through and around objects. The outer sense must have the object within a limited range. The range of the inner sense is limitless, so that there is no reason why an individual might not be clairvoyant enough to perceive things on the opposite side of the earth.
Mental telepathy works through animal magnetism as its medium. One mind thinks thoughts into it, and it carries those thoughts to another mind. There is nothing more puzzling here than the act of the mesmeriser sending animal magnetism streaming into the nerves of his subject. So much of Mesmer's case is extreme enough, stated with the starkness of occult physics, not experimental science. The occult is more extravagant in his treatment of precognition. In an evil hour, Mesmer undertook to explain the seers, sibyls, oracles, and fortune tellers. He came to the conclusion that the genuine articles could predict the future because they broke the time barrier.
Mesmer applies his reasoning to superstitious folklore, in which he finds a kernel of truth. From time immemorial humanity has given credence to oracles, prophets, thaumaturges, witches, magicians, demonologists. The old beliefs were a mixture of true and false, rational and irrational, fact and fraud. Whatever was true, rational and factual came from individuals consulting their inner senses responding to animal magnetism.
These visions appear to those in a pathological condition. Sibyls often inhaled fumes and magicians took drugs so that they might lose control of their normal faculties before entering the prophetic state. The fumes and drugs made them more receptive to animal magnetism. Somnambulism, too, is always pathological, a crisis of one suffering from some mental or emotional abnormality. The somnambulist needs animal magnetism, which while curing him, may also vouchsafe him visions and revelations.
There were three reports submitted by the Commissionaires. The first report found in favour of Mesmer and Animal Magnetism; so the Royal Society refused to publish it, and another two were quickly requested one for the French Royal Society of Medicine, and one for the King. The report presented to the King was much more damning than the one presented to the Royal Society of Medicine. Knowing the King would be offended the Commissionaires focussed strongly on the supposition that women more easily taken sexual advantage of when they were magnetised. After the French Revolution there were several more reports that favourably proclaimed magnetism and its curative properties. Mesmer's name was never mentioned in any of these later testaments.
The effect of the first report was instantaneous and remarkable. The advocates of magnetism, as a therapeutic agent, and the believers in the occult features of the phenomena, such as clairvoyance and thought-transference, had scored a triumph. But it served only to exasperate the average scientist and to intensify his prejudices. The other members of the Academy were against the committee. An outcry was raised on all sides. The sanctuary of science became an arena in which the passions were let loose. The Academy refused to have the report printed, only a few lithographed copies being supplied to those who asked for it, and it rests to this day in silent oblivion in the manuscript archives of the institution. Another committee was soon after appointed, being composed of avowed enemies of magnetism, and headed by a member who had openly sworn hostility to the doctrine. The result was what might have been expected. After the examination of two subjects under circumstances which, in the light of what is now known, rendered failure inevitable, the committee made a very undignified report in 1837, announcing the failure to produce the occult phenomena promised, and impugning the intelligence of the former committee. The third report, in 1837, practically killed mesmerism in France for a great number of years.
During the onslaught that followed the Royal Commission, Deslon remained calm. In considering his best modes of defence he was hoping that his learned colleagues would not be influenced by the wild excess of his adversary and would realise that insults were not arguments. He began his speech by recalling the ordinary rules of courtesy in keeping with the dignity of the assembly, and the proper respect that they should have for one another. He would answer the calumnies later when he had had an opportunity to read the indictment carefully, and he asked that the document should be placed on the chairman's table. Then after going over the main points of the theory and practice he suggested that the doctors should examine and compare two groups of patients: the first treated by orthodox methods, the second as far as possible of the same types treated by Mesmer's methods. If the faculty accepted this proposal they would add to their renown by giving proof of their zeal for truth and regard for human welfare.
Mesmer's Expulsion from France
Although a great deal has been written about Mesmer's expulsion from France, he was never actually expelled. He departed because of the French Revolution. An attempt for his expulsion was instigated but the facts are vague. The official story holds that in 1784, the "French government" charged the Faculty of Medicine, the Royal Society of Medicine, and the Academy of Sciences, to examine "animal magnetism."
Mesmer had fallen out with his past supporter Dr Deslon,because of Deslon's insistence at using all manner of strange contraptions and excuses to support the existence of magnetism. The commission was conducted at Deslon's estate, and although Mesmer was allowed to be present he was not allowed to utter a word and only Deslon was allowed to perform the Magnetism. The commission produced three known reports, but between them the consensus among the Commissioners is quite garbled. Franklin, for example, recommended further examinationof the issue. But King Louis XV1, not known for much in the way, of certitude, was somehow stampeded to order Mesmer's expulsion from France, which was effected very quickly.
The first report concluded that Mesmerism was safe and highly effective for curing both physical and mental disease, the second report was lame and rather inconclusive about anything, but the third report, which was given to Louis XV1, was damning and concluded that far from being able to cure any disease, Mesmer's ethereal fluid also did not exist. They termed him a deceiver and ascribed Mesmer's "healings" to the fantasy and imaginings of the individual, and physicians using his method were threatened with the loss of their practice. The only member of the commission to speak positively for Mesmer was the famous botanist Adrian Laurent de Jussieu.
The French Academy of Sciencesand the Royal Society of Medicinehad initially expressed cautious interest in Mesmerismand after many very positive findings set out in the first report, the Royal Society quickly commissioned two further reports from different sources, accepted the negative findings, decided that Mesmer was a quack and refused to have anything further to do with him. As Mesmer's clientele and reputation grew, their ire against him escalated into open attacks in magazine articles and the pamphlet press.
Mesmer, his followers, and many people he had cured responded by publishing articles and pamphlets of their own, denouncing the medical establishment of the time as a collection of jealous incompetents fighting to maintain their monopoly over medicine at the expense of public health. The resulting frenzy kept the media busy and the public entertained until the beginning of the French Revolution nine years later brought other matters to the forefront of public attention.
Mesmer's theory may have been a mistake, but there can be no doubt that the great end of all his proceedings was the application of a remedy for human suffering. Whatever may be said against Mesmer's theory, and the methods he employed, there can be no question that there was produced such a profound impression upon the system of the patient, as oftentimes to effect the relief or cure of a certain order of malady. Experience has augmented our knowledge; and we now know that the same curative effects may be produced without all those pretensions, which so greatly lead to the ideas of jugglery and imposture.
Mollhas pointed out that an influence may be exercised on the nerves as a certainty, though perhaps very limited by distance, which was admitted also by Alexander von Humboldt, and his opinion was concurred in by the well-known anatomist and clinician, Reil. More than once the hypothesis has been put forward of electric activities being called up by mesmeric passes (Rostan, J. Wagner). Tarchanoff has demonstrated that the application of gentle stimulus to the skin will excite in it slight electric currents, and that, moreover, a strong effort of concentration of the will, with the muscular contraction by which it is invariably attended, will also suffice to produce the same. Now, since mesmerists always insist on the necessity of strong tension of the will on the part of the mesmeriser while making his passes, may not a peripheral development of electricity be induced in his person, and passed on to that of the individual he is mesmerizing.
The opponents of magnetismhad found out a word, "Imagination", which to them conveniently explained every phenomenon, and consequently saved them the trouble of investigating the subject minutely. If imaginationcould produce the extraordinary, not to say wonderful, results attributed to magnetism, surely they should have studied its powers carefully. As a member of the Academy pointed out; "The only one who spoke in favor of mesmerism was Mesmerhimself," "possessed of no other secret but that of being able to benefit health through the imagination, would this not always be a sufficient wonder? For if the medicine of the imagination is the best, why should we not make use of it?"
At the time of the commissions the French Academy of Sciences was enjoying a period of unprecedented popularity. Arrogant with success, this youthful embodiment of Science showed all the characteristics of an adolescent. How could there be merit in treatments which savants could not understand? In the report of the Committee handed to the King on August 11, 1784, the members honestly admitted the efficacy of Dr. Mesmer's cures. Some power was at work, they said, but what was the nature of that power? Could it be perceived by any of the physical senses? It could not. Therefore they concluded that "where nothing is to be seen, felt, tasted or smelled, there nothing can exist." Hence the amazing cures which they had witnessed must be due entirely to "the imagination of the patients themselves."
Marie Antoinette promised Mesmer her patronage, and many of the Austrian nobility came to him as patients. But the Academies of Science and Medicine, to whom he immediately addressed himself, refused to respect his theories. In 1779 he published his French Report on Animal Magnetism, declaring that "it is not a secret remedy, but a scientific fact, whose causes and effects can be studied." He franklyadmitted that he wished to gain the support of some government courageous enough to give his methods a fair trial and inaugurate a "house where the sick may be treated, and the claims I have made for animal magnetism be tested to the full."
The publication of the third Commissionaires' report caused a sensation. The Clergy attributed his astonishing cures to the Devil. The orthodox physicians denounced him as a charlatan. But the aristocracy of Paris were excited to the verge of madness by his phenomenal cures. Dr. Deslon, physician to the Count d'Artois, promptly rallied to Mesmer's support. A lady-in-waiting who had been cured of paralysis appealed to the Queen for her public recognition of Dr. Mesmer's methods. The Princess de Lamballe, the Duc de Bourbon, the Prince de Cond, and even the popular idol of the day, the young Marquis de Lafayette -- all gave him their ardent patronage. At the Queen's request the government entered into direct communication with Dr. Mesmer in order to keep him in France, and Maurepas, one of the King's ministers, offered him a pension. From 1780 to 1784 Dr. Mesmer was the rage of Paris.
According to the writings of Baron du Potetde Sennevoy; "Pariswas deluged with publications on magnetism, some 500 appeared in the space of eighteen months, so that the dispute was warmly argued on both sides, hence the commissioners were exasperated, and their decision was given against the phenomena of mesmerism. In addition, they persecuted the followers of the new doctrine, and a great number of physicians fell victim to their zeal for the propagation of magnetism. Over thirty doctors accused of believing and practicing magnetism were called up in one day to sign a document of declaration against magnetism under a penalty of being struck off the register of practicing physicians. A number of them would not tamper with their conscience, so they were struck off. This act of intolerance, by a body which should have better known how to respect itself, contributed much towards increasing the number of those who no longer favored the new doctrine. Mesmerwas ridiculed on the stage, burlesque poems were published against his doctrine, and he himself was travestied in songs which were circulated throughout Paris. Magnetismwas the subject of many conversations."
The claim made by some historians that Mesmer was expelled from France looses credence in consideration of the letter he wrote to Marie Antoinette explaining why he was leaving. The tone and contents all but gives the queen an ultimatum if she wanted him to remain. Marie Antoinette never answered the letter, and when the allotted time arrived Mesmer left France as he had said he would.
Madam: "I can feel nothing but the most sincere gratitude that Your Majesty deigns to take notice of me. Yet my predicament weighs heavily upon me. There are those who have told Your Majesty that my plan to quit France is inhuman and that I intend to abandon the ill who are still in need of my attention. I do not doubt that today some attribute to interested motives my refusal to accept the conditions Your Majesty has offered me.
I am acting, Madam, neither from inhumanity nor from avarice. I dare to hope that Your Majesty will allow me to place the proof before her eyes. But more than anything else, I should remember that she may blame me, and my first consideration must be to make clear my respectful submission to her slightest wish.
With that in mind, and only out of respect for Your Majesty, I tender the assurance of my extending my stay in France until next September 18 and of continuing until that date the treatment of those who continue to rely on my care.
I appeal to Your Majesty to believe that there is no ulterior motive behind this offer. Although I have the honor to make it to Your Majesty, I set aside every indulgence, every favor, and every hope except that of acting under the protection of Your Majesty in the deserved peace and security that have been accorded me in this country since I came here. Finally, Madame, in declaring to Your Majesty that I give up all hope of an agreement with the French Government, I beg acceptance of my most humble, most respectful, and most disinterested deference. I am seeking, Madame, a government that will see the necessity of not permitting a tardy introduction into the world of a truth that, through its effect on the human body, can work changes that knowledge and skill should maintain and direct from the beginning of an illness through a proper regimen to a proper cure. Since the conditions offered to me in the name of Your Majesty would not achieve this, my fixed principles forbid me to accept them.
Where a cause is primarily concerned with the good of humanity, money should not be anything more than a secondary consideration. To Your Majesty, four or five hundred thousand francs more or less, well spent, are nothing. Human happiness is everything. My discovery should be welcomed and myself rewarded with a munificence worthy of the monarch to whom I have appealed. What should acquit me unanswerably of every false imputation, in this respect, is that since my arrival in your country I have not victimized any of your subjects. For three years I have received monetary offers every day. I have had little time to read them, but I can say, without having made an exact count, that I have permitted large sums to slip through my fingers.
My conduct in Your Majesty's country has always been the same. Assuredly it is not because of avarice or desire for empty glory that I have exposed myself to the ridicule heaped on me by turns of your Academy of Sciences, your Royal Society of Medicine, and your Faculty of Medicine. I have done it because I thought I ought to do it. After their rejection of me, I consider myself at a point where the government would surely take notice of me on its own account. Deceived in this expectation, I have decided to look elsewhere for that which I can no longer reasonably expect here. I have arranged to leave France next August. This is what some call inhumanity, as if my departure were not force on me.
Striking a balance, twenty or twenty five sick persons, whoever they may be, mean nothing compared to the human race. To apply this principle to one Your Majesty honors with her friendship, I have to say that to give Madame the Duchess de Chaulnes alone the preference over the mass of people would be, at bottom, as wicked for me as to neglect my discovery because of my personal interests.
I have constantly found myself compelled to abandon the ill who were precious to me and to whom my care was still indispensable. This was true when I left the land of Your Majesty's birth. It is also my native land. Why did no one accuse me of inhumanity at that time? Why, Madame? Because that serious accusation would have been superfluous. Because my enemies had by more simple intrigues caused me to lose the confidence of your august mother and your august brother.
Madame, one like myself who is always mindful of the judgment of nations and of posterity, who is always prepared to account for his actions, will, as I have done, react to so cruel a check without arrogance but with courage. For he will know that if there are many circumstances in which Kings ought to guide public opinion, there are many more in which public opinion irresistibly shapes royal opinion. Today, as I have been told in Your Majesty's name, your brother has only distain for me. So be it! When public opinion decides, it will do me justice. If it does not do this in my lifetime, it will honor my tomb.
Without doubt, the date of September 18 that I have mentioned to Your Majesty will seem extraordinary. I would like the same date of last year to be remembered, when the physicians of your kingdom did not hesitate to dishonor in my name one of their colleagues to whom I owe everything. On that day was held the assembly of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris at which my propositions were rejected. Your Majesty knows them. I believed then, Madame, and I still live in the persuasion, that after a spectacle so base by the physicians of your city of Paris, every enlightened person should no longer have failed to examine my discovery and that the protection of every powerful person should have been given to it without demur. However that may be, on next September 18 it will be one year since I placed all my hopes in the vigilant and paternal care of the government.
At this time, I hope Your Majesty will judge my sacrifice to be sufficient and to see that I have not fixed a limit out of fickleness, or vain glory, or pique, or inhumanity. I dare to flatter myself that her protection will follow me wherever destiny leads me away from her and that as a worthy protectress of the truth she will not distain to use her influence with her brother and her husband to win their goodwill for me. With the most profound respect I remain Your Majesty's most humble and obedient servant. Mesmer.
Mesmerleft Parisfor London, and proceeded from there to Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, continually trying to win the universal acclaim he believed he deserved. Eventually he returned Meersburg, a village near his birthplace, where he died on the 15th of March 1815. In the meantime, animal magnetismwas practiced as a therapyall over Germany. In 1812 professor Karl Christian Wolfartfrom Berlin visited Mesmer at the request of the Prussian government in order to be educated in his methods. At the same time Johann Ferdinand Koreff(1783-1851) was already in Parison a similar mission. Wolfart remained Mesmer's staunchest supporter, and instigated the printing of Mesmer's main work, Mesmerismus, oder System der Wechselwirkungen, in Berlin in 1814.
Despite the negative findings of the commission and all his jealous colleagues, it was however the French revolution that ruined Mesmer's practice. During the revolution he lost his entire fortune and fled initially to England. Then in 1798 he returned to France in an unsuccessfulattempt to regain his fortune. In 1802 he moved to Versaille and made a settlement with the French government, which granted him a small pension.
In 1803 Mesmer left France for good, first living in Frauenfeld in Thurgau, and then he retired to Meersburg, where he quietly practiced medicine from 1807. Here he apparently led a quiet and contented life, doing a little medicine, playing his glass harmonica, and remaining detached from the outside world. It has also been incorrectly recorded that after his arrival at Frauenfeld in Switzerland, Mesmer was forbidden by the Swiss Government to practice Mesmerism and so he magnetized a tree near the shores of Lake Constance and used the tree to heal the sick. No evidence is found in support of this.
In the summer of 1813 hemoved to Constance (Konstanz), then one year later to the village of Riedetsweiler, and then soon to Meersburg, where he died on the 15th of March, 1815. A three sided memorial at the cemetery on the hill above the ancient village of Meersburg was designed by Wolfart, and bears a sundial in the centre of the top face and various large carved Masonicsymbols on all three sides. On the eastern side, Gods eye shining over Mesmer's name; to the north-west, a representation of the solar system, with his birth date beneath the orbit of the earth; to the south west, a burning torch and a palm branch over the date of his death; and centred within the flat top is a sundial. Mesmer's grave and monument remain in well preserved condition to this day.
Mesmer was not a poor man. At the time of his death he was employing three servants, and he had a horse and carriage. Soon after his death and before the estate was settled, Dr. Wolfart asked the heirs for Mesmer's glass armonica, which he said Mesmer had promised him. It was sent to Dr. Wolfart, and has been lost.
Mesmer's Last Will and Testament
"In my last will I name as my universal heirs the six remaining children of my two sisters, to wit, Mathias Schorpf, forester, Crescentia Frostin, widow, Cajetan Strohmayer, Burgomeister of Meersburg, Xavier Strothmayer, doctor, Theresa Maurus, widow, Augusta Fetscherin, saddler, of Meersburg. These six shall divide my entire estate in six equal parts. Anna Maria Seeger of Riedetsweiler shall for her several years of true service rendered to me be paid one hundred gulden after my death. As for my burial, I request that my body be dissected and that the area of the bladder be specially inspected to find out the cause of pains I have suffered for many years. A Louis d'or is to be given to the dissector. As in life I held no office or title, therefore I wish to be buried like an ordinary man. This is my last will which I have signed and sealed with my own hand." Franz Anton Mesmer.
*From his summer chalet at Riedetsweiler, Mesmer located to a cottage on the German side of Lake Constancein Meersburg; at 11 Vor Burgasse, across the lane from The Holy Spirit Hospital. A few years laterhe died from bladder cancer which had spread to other organs. It is from his friend Justinus Kerner, thanks to whose book, "Franz Anton Mesmer from Swabia, Discoverer of the Animal Magnetism," published in Frankfurt on the Main in 1856, that we know much about Mesmer's last years. Justinus tells us that Mesmerdied smiling, a strange thing indeed. Strange, too, is the tale of the magnetisable canary which would fly from its cage, always open, and perch on Mesmer's head to sing him awake every morning; perch on the sugar basin while he ate his breakfast and anticipate his need by pecking extra lumps into his coffee cup.
The end of the tale, as Kernerrelates it, runs;"One evening Mesmergave the canary bird an extra affection, the next morning Mesmer lay in repose as though he were still alive, but never again did the canary bird fly on to his head to wake him. It ate no more and sang no more and soon it was found dead in its cage". Far stranger, however, to me (Frankau) at any rate, is the impression I have gathered that when it came to clinical treatment, the discoverer of animal magnetismpinned his whole faith to the therapeuticvalue of the Mesmeric "crises", setting little or perhaps even no value on the mesmeric "trance". *An introduction from the Book: Mesmerism, by DoctorMesmer(1779) and translated into English by Gilbert Frankau (1948).
Franz Anton Mesmer was a Magnetist; he was not a Hypnotist, and he gave much more significance to magnetismand the transferenceof the Ethereal Fluidthan what he did to the trancestate. Mesmer disliked the Somnambules, (verbal hypnotists) and accused them of deliberately implying that Animal Magnetism (Mesmerism) was hypnosis. Mesmer strongly disagreed with the suggestion and those who proposed and promoted it.
Propositions Concerning Animal Magnetism
by Anton Mesmer; 1779
The27 Propositions of Magnetism
A responsive influence exists between the heavenly bodies, the earth, and animated bodies.
A fluid universally diffused, so continuous as not to admit of a vacuum, incomparably subtle, and naturally susceptible of receiving, propagating, and communicating all motor disturbances, is the means of this influence.
This reciprocal action is subject to mechanical laws, with which we are not as yet acquainted.
Alternative effects result from this action, which may be considered to be a flux and reflux.
This reflux is more or less general, more or less special, and more or less compound, according to the nature of the causes, which determine it.
It is by this action, the most universal which occurs in nature, that the exercise of active relations takes place between the heavenly bodies, the earth, and its constituent parts.
The properties of matter and of organic substance depend on this action.
The animal body experiences the alternative effects of this agent, and is directly affected by its insinuation into the substance of the nerves.
Properties are displayed, analogous to those of the magnet, particularly in the human body, in which diverse and opposite poles are likewise to be distinguished, and these may be communicated, changed, destroyed, and reinforced. Even the phenomenon of declination may be observed.
This property of the human body, which renders it susceptible of the influence of heavenly bodies, and of the reciprocal action of those that environ it, manifests its analogy with the magnet, and this has decided me to adopt the term of animal magnetism.
The action and virtue of animal magnetism, thus characterized, may be communicated to other animate or inanimate bodies. Both of these classes of bodies, however, vary in their susceptibility.
Experiments show that there is a diffusion of matter, subtle enough to penetrate all bodies without any considerable loss of energy.
This action and virtue may be strengthened and diffused by such bodies.
Its action takes place at a remote distance, without the aid of any intermediary substance.
It is, like light, increased and reflected by mirrors.
It is communicated, propagated, and increased by sound.
This magneticvirtue may be accumulated, concentrated, and transported.
I have said that animated bodies are not all equally susceptible; in a few instances they have such an opposite property that their presence is enough to destroy all the effects of magnetismupon other bodies.
This opposite virtue likewise penetrates all bodies: it also may be communicated, propagated, accumulated, concentrated, and transported, reflected by mirrors, and propagated by sound. This does not merely constitute a negative, but a positive opposite virtue.
The magnet, whether natural or artificial, is like other bodies susceptible of animal magnetism, and even of the opposite virtue: in neither case does its action on fire and the needle of a compass suffer any change, and this shows that the principle of animal (animating) magnetism essentially differs from that of mineral magnetism.
This system sheds new light upon the nature of fire and of light, as well as on the theory of attraction, of flux and reflux, of the magnet and of electricity.
It teaches us that the magnet and artificial electricity have, with respect to diseases, properties common to a host of other agents presented to us by nature, and that if the use of these has been attended by some useful results; they are due to animal magnetism.
These facts show, in accordance with the practical rules I am about to establish, that this principle will cure nervous diseases directly, and other diseases indirectly.
By its aid the physician is enlightened as to the use of medicine, and may render its action more perfect, and can provoke and direct salutary crises, so as to completely control them.
In communicating my method, I shall, by a new theory of matter, demonstrate the universal utility of the principle I seek to establish.
Possessed of this knowledge, the physician may judge with certainty of the origin, nature, and progress of diseases, however complicated they may be; he may hinder their development and accomplish their cure without exposing the patient to dangerousand troublesome consequences, irrespective of age, temperament, and sex. Even women in a state of pregnancy, and during parturition, may reap the same advantage.
This doctrine will finally enable the physician to decide upon the health of every individual, and of the presence of the diseases to which he may be exposed. In this way the art of healing may be brought to absolute perfection.
* Mesmerpassed from this world on the 15th of March 1815, James Braidon the 25th of March 1860, and Milton Ericksonon the 25th of March 1980
A brief and accurate history of the life of Franz Anton Mesmer
By: Rick Collingwood
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