On August 11, 1784, a report was delivered to Louis XVI, King of France, by the so-called Royal Commission on Animal Magnetism, consisting of two independent committees of physicians and scientists (including Benjamin Franklin), tasked with clarifying the existence or non-existence of an invisible magnetic fluid that surrounded living beings and whose alterations were thought to cause diseases. This fluid was the basis of a therapeutic doctrine centered on its manipulation and treatment, known as mesmerism, a name derived from the German physician who formulated it, Franz Anton Mesmer. The commission concluded that there was no evidence for it and discredited the theory.

Mesmer was born in 1734 in Iznang, a town in Swabia, a region then part of the Holy Roman Empire. He studied at the Jesuit universities of Dillingen and Ingolstadt before pursuing medicine at the University of Vienna, where he graduated in 1759. He settled in Vienna and practiced medicine, publishing in 1766 a thesis that, at least in part, plagiarized an English physician and friend of Newton, Richard Mead. Titled De planetarum influxu in corpus humanum, it theorized about medical astrology, that is, the influence of the Moon and planets on the human body and its diseases, already showing an inclination toward what was then called protoscience (now pseudoscience).

Two years later, while establishing himself in the medical profession, he married a wealthy widow, Anna Maria von Posch, who opened the doors to high society for him. Thus, he became a patron of artists (Haydn, Gluck) and produced the first opera—Bastien und Bastienne—of a child prodigy who amazed all of Europe, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Later, the composer would include a reference to Mesmer in another of his works, the famous Così fan tutte, with the character of a fake doctor curing supposedly poisoned individuals using a magnet.

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Anonymous portrait of Franz Anton Mesmer. Credit: Wellcome Images / Wikimedia Commons

It was around 1774 that Mesmer began using magnets to heal. He applied them to his patients’ bodies after giving them a drink rich in iron, claiming this could balance their bodily humors and improve their health. Gradually, he became convinced that it was not the magnets themselves producing the improvement but rather their effect on a type of magnetic fluid that enveloped all humans and ensured their proper functioning. Alterations or imbalances in this fluid, which he called animal magnetism, were believed to cause diseases.

Therefore, healing could be achieved by creating “artificial tides” to restore balance. How? While the application of magnets was one way, it was not the only one. Other methods included hypnosis, electricity, metals, woods, minerals, and certain plants, all of which corresponded with specific body atoms influenced beneficially through the appropriate technique using electrical channels. It is worth noting that electricity and magnetism were not unknown phenomena.

The Englishman William Gilbert had already begun studying these phenomena in the 16th century, and his work De magnete, published in 1600, was the first book to address them from a scientific perspective, confirming, among other things, Copernicus’s theory that the motion of the heavens was due to Earth’s rotation and laying the groundwork for Isaac Newton to formulate universal gravitation half a century later. Another Englishman, Thomas Browne, first introduced the terms “electricity” and “electric” in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646). Later, researchers such as Otto von Guericke, Pieter van Musschenbroek, and Henry Cavendish contributed to the field.

Returning to Mesmer, he collaborated with Jesuit astronomer Maximilian Hell and exorcist Johann Joseph Gassner, convincing the latter that his exorcisms were due to animal magnetism. However, this was considered an attack on religion and led to a scandal. Combined with his failed attempt to restore the sight of a famous blind pianist (Maria Theresia Paradies, sponsored by Empress Maria Theresa I), it forced him to leave Vienna and settle in Paris in 1777. There, he reconnected with Mozart and treated many affluent clients in his practice. However, this was not enough for the Royal Academy of Sciences or the Royal Academy of Medicine to validate his theory of animal magnetism.

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A depiction of mesmerism treatment by Dodd. Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

He found support only in Charles d’Eslon, the physician to the Count of Artois (the king’s brother), who encouraged him to publish Mémoire sur la découverte du magnétisme animal. In this book, he described health as the free flow of life processes through thousands of channels in the body, with obstructions to this flow being the cause of diseases. By inducing the cause of illness through animal magnetism (for example, using magnets or hand movements, later through hypnosis), healing could be achieved. The good reputation of his new ally brought him patients and popularity, allowing him to put his healing art into practice, either individually or collectively.

In individual treatments, he would sit in front of the patient, staring intensely into their eyes and pressing their thumbs within his hands, proceeding to make passes with his hands from their shoulders toward himself. He would then press below the patient’s diaphragm for extended periods—sometimes hours—until they exhibited convulsions or sensations considered a prelude to recovery. Treatments often concluded with music played on a glass harmonica (an instrument invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1762 after witnessing a wine-glass concert by Englishman Edward Delaval).

As Mesmer had many patients, he sometimes conducted sessions with several of them simultaneously, in a kind of group therapy. For this, he used a contraption of his own invention, the baquet, of which he had several. The largest one was at the Hôtel Bullion on rue Coq-Héron: a large tub filled with bottles containing a hydroelectrolytic solution, from which iron rods extended to transmit a mild electric current to the patients who touched them. Up to twenty patients could be treated at the same time because, seated in a circle and holding hands, they received the current simultaneously. This current acted on the nervous system, producing sensations and, according to Mesmer, preparing the body for healing.

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Three patients receiving treatment with Mesmer’s baquet. Credit: Wellcome Images / Wikimedia Commons

The experience was enhanced with a mystical atmosphere: melodies played on the aforementioned glass harmonica, incense, astrological or Masonic decorations, dim lighting, and the eccentric attire of the doctor himself—silk robes and golden footwear—who performed gestures, hand passes, and touches with a magnetized wand, provoking screams, convulsions, tremors, hysterical laughter, and other manifestations of uncontrollable but cathartic emotions. An assistant named Antoine was in charge of removing those experiencing excessive emotional outbursts from the room and taking them to a padded room to calm down.

Today, it seems obvious that this had more to do with the power of suggestion than with science, and it is clear that not even Mesmer himself could explain how animal magnetism worked. This is why his persistent request for the academic world to endorse his self-styled “doctrine” and promote it for the benefit of humanity fell on deaf ears. One of the tubs was free for poor people, but the others earned him a handsome profit of 300 livres per month. Many voices criticized it as lacking scientific foundation.

However, prominent aristocrats and notable figures paid dutifully—there was even a waiting list—for the treatment and helped to publicize it. Among them were future revolutionaries such as the philosopher and naturalist Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Dr. Jean-Paul Marat (who had not yet become the Jacobin revolutionary journalist he would later be), the Marquis de Lafayette, the Count of Saint-Simon, writer Jacques Pierre Brissot, and priest Claude Fachet. They were particularly interested in the social aspect of what was becoming known as mesmerism, which, after all, managed to alleviate ailments like gout, stomach cramps, menstrual disorders, and more.

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Photograph of the only surviving baquet in the Museum of the History of Medicine and Pharmacy in Lyon. Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

As a result, many appealed to Queen Marie Antoinette to intercede with the government to grant Mesmer a lifetime pension to fund a supervised clinic where other doctors could analyze patients, thereby resolving doubts. However, Mesmer himself rejected the offer, considering it insufficient (a total of around 30,000 livres). He did not want interference and instead founded the Society of Universal Harmony (whose motto was To Emerge, Touch, Heal) to promote the Doctrine. It was a success that made him wealthy, enabling him to open branches in a dozen French cities.

Thus, in 1784, Louis XVI ordered the creation of the Royal Commission on Animal Magnetism, which was to study the matter and present a report. Specifically, there were two committees. One, composed of four physicians from the Faculté de Médecine de Paris and five scientists from the Académie des Sciences, was informally known as the Franklin Commission because one of its members was Benjamin Franklin, then U.S. ambassador to France. It also included Joseph Ignace Guillotin (who would later lend his name to the guillotine) and the chemist Antoine Lavoisier. The other consisted of five doctors from the Société Royale de Médecine and was therefore known as the Society Commission.

The work took five months, after which the commissions submitted their report to the king and published it in an edition of 24,000 copies. Mesmer refused to collaborate, so based on the information provided by Dr. Charles d’Eslon—which was confusing, as he, like Mesmer, did not understand the mechanisms of the cures—the conclusions were damning: there was no evidence of animal magnetism or magnetic fluid. The observed effects were due to physiological action, not metaphysical phenomena; everything was the result of the patients’ imagination and mutual imitation, as the accompanying ritual would have no effect if performed without the patients’ knowledge.

In fact, blind tests were conducted that demonstrated patients only reacted if they were previously aware of it, which is considered the first empirical observation of what we now call the placebo effect. Even d’Eslon eventually admitted the possibility of error, though he did not deny that it could be useful. In this sense, he received support from the only member of the commission who disagreed with the report and refused to sign it: the botanist Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu, who argued, If imaginative medicine is the best, why shouldn’t we practice imaginative medicine? Mesmer, therefore, was not a fraud; he simply didn’t understand—or didn’t accept—that everything was due to the power of suggestion, as he claimed to have successfully treated babies and people in comas. The theory of animal magnetism simply fit neatly within the empirical natural philosophical discourses of the time.

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“Establishing an electro-biological circuit between the mesmerist and the patient”. 19th century photograph. Credit: Wellcome Images / Wikimedia Commons

The astronomer Jean Sylvain Bailly (who would later become mayor of Paris and the first president of the National Assembly) was the most hostile to Mesmer and summarized the matter by saying: _Imagination without magnetism produces convulsions (…), magnetism without imagination produces nothing (…). He also added that the treatment could be morally dangerous due to the close contact between the physician and the patients. Consequently, it was decreed that all initiates of the Doctrine had to sign an act of renunciation: No physician shall declare support for animal magnetism, either in writing or through practice. This, however, did not affect Mesmer himself, as he was not part of the Paris Faculty of Medicine and thus escaped any potential ostracism.

Nevertheless, Mesmer decided to leave Paris and settled in Switzerland, returning later only to leave again in 1793 when the Revolutionary Terror was established (which guillotined Bailly and Lavoisier). In the Alpine country, he went unnoticed; native doctors had previously proposed healing through magnets, and when proven ineffective, no one showed further interest. In 1798, after the Directory came to power, he visited Paris again to try to recover his assets; he failed but was granted a pension of three thousand francs as a créancier de l’État (“state creditor”). In 1809, he retired permanently to Switzerland, providing medical care to the poor. In 1812, his presence was requested in Berlin to reconsider and update his Doctrine, but he declined, tired and convinced that history would vindicate him. He died three years later from a stroke.

Despite everything, he left behind a significant number of followers, among whom Amand-Marie-Jacques de Chastenet, Marquis of Puységur, stood out. He was a highly successful magnetist and a precursor of therapeutic hypnosis, later championed by psychoanalysts. Other notable figures included Étienne Félix d’Henin de Cuvillers (who coined the term “hypnotism” and its derivatives), Paul Gibier (a bacteriologist and founder of the Pasteur Institute), Allan Kardec (founder of Spiritism), Justinus Kerner (a physician and author of the first treatise on botulism), Georges Gilles de la Tourette (a neurologist who described Tourette syndrome), Charles de Villers (translator of Kant into French), and Alfred Russel Wallace (a naturalist who developed a theory of evolution simultaneously and independently of Darwin).

Some of these figures embraced mesmerism or partially branched off into magnetism. Although both movements were connected, they maintained certain differences; the main one was the separation between theoretical and practical aspects: mesmerists gave the healing role to the physician, considering the vital fluid a mere metaphor, whereas magnetists believed in its material (albeit intangible) existence. Speaking of related “isms,” it is worth remembering that between the 18th and 19th centuries, galvanism developed, a theory by the Italian physician Luigi Galvani. It was based on the belief that the brain generates electricity, which is transmitted to the nerves and moves the muscles, leading to many experiments with corpses (and to the novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley).

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The tomb of Franz Anton Mesmer features Masonic decoration, as this society took an interest in his Doctrine, funded him, and admitted him into their ranks. Credit: Stefan-Xp / Wikimedia Commons

A year before Mesmer’s death, mesmerism was revived by the physician and physicist Karl Christian Wolfart, significantly influencing German Romanticism and Mysticism, as well as the natural philosophy established by Friedrich Schelling and G.H. von Schubert. It also had a decisive impact on Johan Heinrich Jung and D.G. von Kiese, and on English utopian socialism: Robert Owen strongly believed in the mesmerist idea that capitalism corrupted human nature, which needed to be restored with a tailored treatment.

This led to phreno-mesmerism, spread by Spencer Timothy Hall and Edward Thomas Craig, which sought to achieve an ideal society by eliminating biological obstacles that disrupted the fluid and was harshly criticized by Engels and Marx. By then, it had already reached the newly born United States thanks to the mentioned Lafayette, who wrote to George Washington about Mesmer, though Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were hostile to mesmerism and did all they could to prevent it from taking root, albeit unsuccessfully.

Those who did the most to undermine it—though not necessarily intentionally—were Hans Christian Ørsted, André-Marie Ampère, and Michael Faraday, physicists and chemists who scientifically unraveled the mysteries of electromagnetism just as medicine evolved, clarifying that there was no magnetic fluid surrounding the human body. Even so, magnetism left a considerable mark on hypnosis, both in its therapeutic application and its widespread use in the second half of the 19th century in the so-called psychic sciences and pseudosciences (spiritism, occultism…), until anesthesia asserted its dominance.

This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on December 2, 2024: Mesmerismo, la teoría del magnetismo animal que creía en la existencia de una fuerza interior en todos los seres vivos

SOURCES

Stefan Zweig, La curación por el espíritu (Mesmer, Mary Baker-Eddy, Freud)

Melanie Thernstrom, Melanie Thernstrom, Las crónicas del dolor. Curas, mitos, misterios, plegarias, diarios, imágenes cerebrales, curación y la ciencia del sufrimiento

Reinhard Mocek, Socialismo recolucionario y darwinismo social

Christopher Turner, Mesmeromania, or, the tale of the tub. The therapeutic powers of animal magnetism

Jairo Alonso Rozo Castillo, Franz Anton Mesmer: ¿Hereje, charlatán o pionero?

Benjamin Franklin, Animal magnetism: report of Dr. Franklin and other commissioners, charged by the King of France with the examination of the animal magnetism as practised at Paris

Wikipedia, Mesmerismo

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