It’s important to remember, however, that what we see as occultism was the scientific establishment of its day, with exactly the same purpose as modern science – curing human ills and increasing knowledge.įrom a Western point of view, the decisive moment in the history of hypnosis occurred in the 18th Century (coinciding with the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason). These practices tend to be for magical or religious purposes, such as divination or communicating with gods and spirits. Recorded history is full of tantalising glimpses of rituals and practices that look very much like hypnosis from a modern perspective, from the “healing passes” of the Hindu Vedas to magical texts from ancient Egypt. Those who believe that hypnosis can be used to perform miracles or control minds are, of course, simply sharing the consensus view that prevailed for centuries. In the 21st century, there are still those who see hypnosis as some form of occult power. The history of hypnosis, then, is really the history of this change in perception. On the other hand, it’s only in the last few decades that we’ve come to realise that! Hypnosis itself hasn’t changed for millennia, but our understanding of it and our ability to control it has changed quite profoundly. Like breathing, hypnosis is an inherent and universal trait, shared and experienced by all human beings since the dawn of time. On the one hand, a history of hypnosis is a bit like a history of breathing. Today, Mesmer’s work lives on in two unexpected ways: in the word mesmerize and through the recognition that the mind’s response to a medicine has physical effects on the body.The history of hypnosis is full of contradictions. In 19th-century Britain mesmerism enjoyed a short-lived vogue. He left Paris, though some of his followers continued his practices. But the mesmeric tide was ebbing, leaving Mesmer stranded. Mesmer was outraged and offered to mesmerize a horse as irrefutable proof of his technique’s effectiveness. The commission published over 20,000 copies of the report. Bailly also summarized the results, highlighting the importance played by imagination and imitation, two of humanity's “most astonishing faculties,” and asked for further studies on their influence over the body. The report to the Academy was read aloud by Jean-Sylvain Bailly, the Academy astronomer (CHF’s Othmer Library has a copy of this report, Rapport des commissaires chargés par le roi de l’examen du magnétisme animal). After investigating mesmeric treatments, which included what is probably the first blind trial, the commission published a report the same year dismissing mesmerism’s effects as illusions caused by patients’ imaginations. The commission included such scientific heavyweights as Benjamin Franklin and Antoine Lavoisier. Yet patients both rich and poor flocked to these treatments.Īcademic suspicion peaked in 1784 when King Louis XVI appointed a royal commission to investigate. Many of Mesmer’s patients responded to these therapies and claimed themselves cured, but he also faced skeptics, including Jean Baptiste LeRoy, head of the French Royal Academy of Sciences. Patients would link hands while sitting in the baquet to allow the magnetic fluid to circulate. He created the baquet, a shallow wooden tub filled with magnetized water and iron bars that was large enough to treat thirty patients at a time. Mesmer, who truly believed in his ability to control his invisible fluid, quickly gained fame, fortune, and many patients. By 1778 Newton’s physics ruled, and many saw no essential difference between Mesmer’s animal magnetism and the invisible force that Newton argued moved the planets around the Sun. He moved his medical practice from Vienna to Paris, the continent’s scientific capital. Mesmer’s medical successes were soon tarnished by controversy about both his treatments and his inappropriate relationships with female patients. Mesmer used magnets to control the misbehaving fluid, and his patient became the first person to be mesmerized and cured of her medical troubles. Her illnesses had a cyclical nature, which led Mesmer to try out his animal magnetism as a curative. In 1774 Mesmer began treating a young woman who had a long list of symptoms-fevers, vomiting, unbearable toothaches and earaches, delirium, and even occasional paralysis. Mesmer termed the force animal gravity, later to become animal magnetism. For his dissertation Mesmer wrote about the planets’ invisible influence on the human body, an approach that fitted with the newly mainstream concept of Newtonian gravity. Born in 1734 into a somewhat large and poor family in Swabia (southern Germany), Mesmer went on to study theology before switching to medicine in 1759.
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