Mesmerismus
Animal magnetism (French: magnétisme animal; Latin: magnetismus animalis) is a term proposed by Franz Mesmer in the 18th century. The term 'magnetism' was adopted by analogy, referring to some interpersonal and general effects of reciprocal influence and/or entanglement he observed. Mesmer attributed such effects to a supposed 'life energy' or '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 was based on non verbal elements such as gaze, passes (movements of the hands near the body accompanied by intention of the operator), and mental elements as will and intention, and that sometimes depended also on "laying on of hands." It was very popular into the nineteenth century, with a strong cultural impact. From some of the practices of animal magnetism branched out hypnotism, spiritualism, New Thought, so called "magnetic healing", and parapsychological research. Some forms of animal magnetism continue to be practiced, especially in continental Europe, even today (2013). In France, for example energy healers (that are seen as different from spiritual healers) are still called "magnétiseurs". In modern usage, the phrase "animal magnetism" may refer to a person's sexual attractiveness or raw charisma.
Definitions
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 terms 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.
- First, 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. Mesmer's theory is based on the concept of something through which everything in the universe is interconnected. It is something before matter. Lacking other terms, he called it a "universal fluid". For him this subtle fluid or energy, 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 (Du Potet)
- 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:
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.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 (Mesmer).
- 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
The name Mesmérisme for indicating the techniques of Animal Magnetism was first used in France. Soon this term spread in every country where the technique was practiced as a synonym of animal magnetism. Wolfart used the name "Mesmerism" for his book containing Mesmer's system. A tendency emerged amongst British magnetizers to call their clinical techniques mesmerism;. the term was used even by some of them who distanced 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.
Proposals for different names
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?
Léger instead of "mesmerism" proposed the name “Psychodunamy” or “power of the soul.”. Léger renamed all the appropriate operations, the verb being to “dunamise,” etc. So he dismissed “animal electricity” (Petetin), “mesmerism,” “pathetism” (Sunderland), and “etherology” (Grimes). In renaming the phenomenon, however, Leger did not revise the characteristics attributed to it. Légér was not the only one in proposing other names for the phenomena of mesmerism. The baron von Reichenbach proposed the term Od. He wrote: "Va," in Sanscrit, signifies to blow (as the wind). In Latin, " vado," and in the ancient Norse, "vada" means, "I go, I go fast, I hasten on, I flow on." Hence, in the old German dialect, "Wodan " siguifies the idea of the all-penetrating, which in various old idioms passes into "Wuodan, Odan, Odin," meaning the all-pervading power, which was ultimately personified in a German deity. "Od" is, therefore, the sound appropriate to a dynamide or imponderable force, which rapidly penetrates and constantly flows through all objects in collective nature, with irresistible and unrestrainable power." In France we could mention Dr. Barety, who after a long series of experiments coined the name "neuric force", The neuric force, he said, circulated within the nerves of the body and could be projected out of it as well. The latter was accomplished by means of passes, by pointing the fingers to the desired target, as well as through eyesight, and breath. Boirac instead proposed the name "biactinism" for any phenomena in which a radiating influence is apparently exerted at a distance over other animate beings. The use of different names for the phenomena increases even more in the twentieth century. For example the description of "bioplasma" proposed in Russia in the twentieth century corresponds to the concepts attributed to "animal magnetism".
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. 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. Whilst the Commission agreed that the cures claimed by Mesmer were indeed cures, 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.. 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.
