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Franz Anton Mesmer ( ; "Mesmer". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. ; 23 May 1734 – 5 March 1815) was a German physician with an interest in astronomy. He theorized the existence of a process of natural energy transference occurring between all animate and inanimate objects; this he called "animal magnetism", later referred to as mesmerism. Mesmer's theory attracted a wide following between about 1780 and 1850, and continued to have some influence until the end of the 19th century.Crabtree, introduction In 1843, the Scottish doctor James Braid proposed the term "hypnosis" for a technique derived from animal magnetism; today the word "" generally functions as a synonym of "hypnosis". Mesmer also supported the arts, specifically music; he was on friendly terms with Haydn and Mozart.
Building largely on Isaac Newton's theory of the tides, Mesmer expounded on certain tides in the human body that might be accounted for by the movements of the sun and moon.Mesmer (tr G J Bloch), xiii Evidence assembled by Frank A. Pattie suggests that Mesmer plagiarizedPattie, 13ff. most of his dissertation from other works, De Imperio Solis ac Lunae in Corpora Humana et Morbis inde Oriundis (On the Influence of the Sun and Moon upon Human Bodies and the Diseases Arising Therefrom (1704). See Pattie, 16. including De imperio solis ac lunae in corpora humana et morbius inde oriundis (1704) by Richard Mead, an eminent English physician and Newton's friend. However, in Mesmer's day doctoral theses were not expected to be original.Pattie, 13
In January 1768, Mesmer married Anna Maria von Posch, a wealthy widow, and established himself as a doctor in Vienna. In the summers he lived on a splendid estate and became a patron of the arts. In 1768, when court intrigue prevented the performance of La finta semplice (K. 51), for which the twelve-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had composed 500 pages of music, Mesmer is said to have arranged a performance in his garden of Mozart's Bastien und Bastienne (K. 50), a one-act opera,Pattie, 30 although Mozart's biographer Nissen found no proof that this performance actually took place. Mozart later immortalized his former patron by including a comedic reference to Mesmer in his opera Così fan tutte.
In the same year Mesmer collaborated with Maximilian Hell.
In 1775, Mesmer was invited to give his opinion before the Munich Academy of Sciences on the carried out by Johann Joseph Gassner (Gaßner), a priest and Faith healer who grew up in Vorarlberg, Austria. Mesmer said that while Gassner was sincere in his beliefs, his cures resulted because he possessed a high degree of animal magnetism. This confrontation between Mesmer's secular ideas and Gassner's religious beliefs marked the end of Gassner's career and, according to Henri Ellenberger, the emergence of dynamic psychiatry.
The scandal that followed Mesmer's only partial success in curing the blindness of an 18-year-old musician, Maria Theresia Paradis, led him to leave Vienna in 1777. In February 1778, Mesmer moved to Paris, rented an apartment in a part of the city preferred by the wealthy and powerful, and established a medical practice. There he would reunite with Mozart, who often visited him. Paris soon divided into those who thought he was a charlatan who had been forced to flee from Vienna and those who thought he had made a great discovery.
In his first years in Paris, Mesmer tried and failed to get either the Royal Academy of Sciences or the Royal Society of Medicine to provide official approval for his doctrines. He found only one physician of high professional and social standing, Charles d'Eslon, to become a disciple. In 1779, with d'Eslon's encouragement, Mesmer wrote an 88-page book, Mémoire sur la découverte du magnétisme animal, to which he appended his famous 27 Propositions. These propositions outlined his theory at that time. Some contemporary scholars equate Mesmer's animal magnetism with the qi (chi) of Traditional Chinese Medicine and mesmerism with medical Qigong practices.Fenton, 105ff.Mackett, J., British Journal of Experimental & Clinical Hypnosis
According to d'Eslon, Mesmer understood health as the free flow of the process of life through thousands of channels in our bodies. Illness was caused by obstacles to this flow. Overcoming these obstacles and restoring flow produced crises, which restored health. When Nature failed to do this spontaneously, contact with a conductor of animal magnetism was a necessary and sufficient remedy. Mesmer aimed to aid or provoke the efforts of Nature. To cure an Insanity person, for example, involved causing a fit of madness. The advantage of magnetism involved accelerating such crises without danger.
By 1780, Mesmer had more patients than he could treat individually, and he established a collective treatment known as the "baquet." An English doctor who observed Mesmer described the treatment as follows:, 1905|262x262px]]
In the middle of the room is placed a vessel of about a foot and a half high which is called here a "baquet". It is so large that twenty people can easily sit round it; near the edge of the lid which covers it, there are holes pierced corresponding to the number of persons who are to surround it; into these holes are introduced iron rods, bent at right angles outwards, and of different heights, so as to answer to the part of the body to which they are to be applied. Besides these rods, there is a rope which communicates between the baquet and one of the patients, and from him is carried to another, and so on the whole round. The most sensible effects are produced on the approach of Mesmer, who is said to convey the fluid by certain motions of his hands or eyes, without touching the person. I have talked with several who have witnessed these effects, who have convulsions occasioned and removed by a movement of the hand...
The commission conducted a series of experiments aimed not just at determining whether Mesmer's treatment worked, but whether he had discovered a new physical fluid. The commission concluded that there was no evidence for such a fluid. Whatever benefit the treatment produced was attributed to "imagination". One of the commissioners, the botanist Antoine Laurent de Jussieu took exception to the official reports, authoring a dissenting opinion.
The commission did not examine Mesmer specifically, but instead observed the practice of d'Eslon. They used , blindfolding the subjects, in their investigation, and found that Mesmerism seemed to work only when the subject was aware of it. Their findings are considered the first observation of the placebo effect. Even d'Eslon himself was convinced by the commission, stating that, "the imagination thus directed to the relief of suffering humanity would be a most valuable means in the hands of the medical profession."
Mesmer was driven into exile soon after the investigations on animal magnetism. However, his influential student, Amand-Marie-Jacques de Chastenet, Marquis of Puységur (1751–1825), continued to have many followers until his death.Gielen & Raymond, 39–45.
Mesmer continued to practice in Frauenfeld, Switzerland, for a number of years. He died in 1815 in Meersburg. Mesmer's grave in the Meersburg cemetery, knerger.de .
In Gregory Ratoff's 1949 film Black Magic, Mesmer was portrayed by Charles Goldner. In Roger Spottiswoode's Mesmer (1994), he was portrayed by Alan Rickman.
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