Yet the treatments were not completely without power. By the end of the century, animal magnetism had mostly fallen out of favor. Ultimately, the commission released a report in 1784 that destroyed much of Mesmer’s credibility and support. As a result, the Commission concluded that it was the subjects’ expectations and imaginations that were the force behind the effects of animal magnetism. Similarly, those who expected these effects claimed to feel the effects when told the treatment was underway, even when nothing was actually being done. Those who believed they would fall into a trance or expected to feel some sort of effect were then more likely to claim they were under the effects of animal magnetism. Through a series of controlled experiments, the commission decided that the effects of animal magnetism and mesmerism were a product of the power of suggestion rather than Mesmer’s magnetic fluid. Ergo, the magnetic fluid espoused by Mesmer could only be observed via the effect it had on living creatures. As one can imagine, this proved to be difficult as the magnetic fluid was an intangible substance or force and thus had no measurable physical properties or means by which it could be detected by one’s senses. Their primary goal was to prove the existence of the magnetic fluid and then investigate the uses of animal magnetism. Source: La vision, contenant l’explication de l’écrit intitule by Jacques CambryĪt this point there were others - either disciples of Mesmer or those merely following in his footsteps who also practiced animal magnetism - but the purpose of the Royal Commission was to investigate animal magnetism itself, not its individual practitioners. The second figure directs the reader to use a magnet to direct the magnetic fluid towards the body part in need of treatment. This was a joint commission between five members from the Royal Academy of Sciences (including Benjamin Franklin) and four members from the Faculty of Medicine.ĭiagram outlining the steps of animal magnetism. Eventually, his popularity concerned King Louis XVI, resulting in the creation of the Royal Commission to formally refute or validate Mesmer’s claims. Having won over the populace Mesmer then turned his eyes toward validation by either the Royal Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of Medicine, or the Faculty of Medicine, but he was unable to convince the members of animal magnetism’s efficacy. Due to his popularity, he expanded his methods to also include mass forms of treatment. He claimed that he could produce pain and jolts through walls or people, even at a distance, and was seemingly able to cure a wide variety of conditions with this one method. Through the use of magnets and the manipulation of the magnetic fluid, Mesmer was able to affect patients without physically touching them. Mesmer was unpopular in Vienna but quickly grew a following in Paris, a city hungry for the latest scientific advancements and fads of modernity. Therefore, by manipulating this fluid with magnets, one could manipulate the body into being well again - a universal cure for any disease. The theory and treatment, based on Mesmer’s idea, claimed that there was a universal “magnetic fluid” or force that could be found in, and have a physical effect on, all living things. It was scientific and new, but still somewhat mystical. Although it was secular in that it avoided the explicitly religious, it was still a method of treatment that relied on harmony with nature and was dependent on unseen forces. Also called mesmerism, animal magnetism reflected the zeitgeist of the era. Source: L’antimagntisme by Jean-Jacques PauletĪnimal magnetism was the late 18 th-century brainchild of German physician Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815). The effects of the magnetism were then transferred through the metal rods in the tub to the patient. Note the basin placed near the woman these tubs (baquets) were used for group treatments or séances and were filled with “mesmerized” water.
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