boasted that he had irradiated the obscurity in which too many of the
wonder-working recipes of that great philosopher were enveloped. His works
were printed at Frankfort in 1679. It would seem, from the following
passage, that he was aware of the great influence of imagination, as well
in the production as in the cure of diseases. "If you wish to work
prodigies," says he, "abstract from the materiality of beings--increase
the sum of spirituality in bodies--rouse the spirit from its slumbers.
Unless you do one or other of these things--unless you can bind the idea,
you can never perform any thing good or great." Here, in fact, lies the
whole secret of magnetism, and all delusions of a similar kind: increase
the spirituality--rouse the spirit from its slumbers, or, in other words,
work upon the imagination--induce belief and blind confidence, and you may
do any thing. This passage, which is quoted with approbation by M.
Dupotet[69] in a work, as strongly corroborative of the theory now
advanced by the animal magnetists, is just the reverse. If they believe
they can work all their wonders by the means so dimly shadowed forth by
Maxwell, what becomes of the universal fluid pervading all nature, and
which they pretend to pour into weak and diseased bodies from the tips of
their fingers?
[69] _Introduction to the Study of Animal Magnetism_, p. 318.
Early in the eighteenth century the attention of Europe was directed to a
very remarkable instance of fanaticism, which has been claimed by the
animal magnetists as a proof of their science. The _Convulsionaries of St.
Medard_, as they were called, assembled in great numbers round the tomb of
their favourite saint, the Jansenist priest Paris, and taught one another
how to fall into convulsions. They believed that St. Paris would cure all
their infirmities; and the number of hysterical women and weak-minded
persons of all descriptions that flocked to the tomb from far and near was
so great as daily to block up all the avenues leading to it. Working
themselves up to a pitch of excitement, they went off one after the other
into fits, while some of them, still in apparent possession of all their
faculties, voluntarily exposed themselves to sufferings which on
ordinary occasions would have been sufficient to deprive them of life. The
scenes that occurred were a scandal to civilisation and to religion--a
strange mixture of obscenity, absurdity, and superstition. While some were
praying on bended knees at the shrine of St. Paris, others were shrieking
and making the most hideous noises. The women especially exerted
themselves. On one side of the chapel there might be seen a score of them,
all in convulsions; while at another as many more, excited to a sort of
frenzy, yielded themselves up to gross indecencies. Some of them took an
insane delight in being beaten and trampled upon. One in particular,
according to Montégre, whose account we quote,[70] was so enraptured with
this ill-usage, that nothing but the hardest blows would satisfy her.
While a fellow of Herculean strength was beating her with all his might
with a heavy bar of iron, she kept continually urging him to renewed
exertion. The harder he struck the better she liked it, exclaiming all the
while, "Well done, brother, well done! Oh, how pleasant it is! what good
you are doing me! Courage, my brother, courage; strike harder, strike
harder still!" Another of these fanatics had, if possible, a still greater
love for a beating. Carré de Montgeron, who relates the circumstance, was
unable to satisfy her with sixty blows of a large sledge-hammer. He
afterwards used the same weapon with the same degree of strength, for the
sake of experiment, and succeeded in battering a hole in a stone wall at
the twenty-fifth stroke. Another woman, named Sonnet, laid herself down on
a red-hot brazier without flinching, and acquired for herself the nickname
of the _Salamander_; while others, desirous of a more illustrious
martyrdom, attempted to crucify themselves. M. Deleuze, in his critical
history of _Animal Magnetism_, attempts to prove that this fanatical
frenzy was produced by magnetism, and that these mad enthusiasts
magnetised each other without being aware of it. As well might he insist
that the fanaticism which tempts the Hindoo bigot to keep his arms
stretched in a horizontal position till the sinews wither, or his fingers
closed upon his palms till the nails grow out of the backs of his hands,
is also an effect of magnetism!
[70] _Dictionaire des Sciences Médicales_--Article
_Convulsionnaires_, par Montégre.
For a period of sixty or seventy years magnetism was almost wholly
confined to Germany. Men of sense and learning devoted their attention to
the properties of the loadstone; and one Father Hell, a Jesuit, and
professor of astronomy at the University of Vienna, rendered himself
famous by his magnetic cures. About the year 1771 or 1772 he invented
steel-plates of a peculiar form, which he applied to the naked body as a
cure for several diseases. In the year 1774 he communicated his system to
Anthony Mesmer. The latter improved upon the ideas of Father Hell,
constructed a new theory of his own, and became the founder of ANIMAL
MAGNETISM.
It has been the fashion among the enemies of the new delusion to decry
Mesmer as an unprincipled adventurer, while his disciples have extolled
him to the skies as a regenerator of the human race. In nearly the same
words as the Rosicrucians applied to their founders, he has been called
the discoverer of the secret which brings man into more intimate connexion
with his Creator, the deliverer of the soul from the debasing trammels of
the flesh, the man who enables us to set time at defiance, and conquer the
obstructions of space. A careful sifting of his pretensions, and
examination of the evidence brought forward to sustain them, will soon
shew which opinion is the more correct. That the writer of these pages
considers him in the light of a man who, deluding himself, was the means
of deluding others, may be inferred from his finding a place in these
volumes, and figuring among the Flamels, the Agrippas, the Borris, the
Böhmens, and the Cagliostros.
He was born in May 1734, at Mersburg, in Swabia, and studied medicine at
the University of Vienna. He took his degrees in 1766, and chose the
influence of the planets on the human body as the subject of his inaugural
dissertation. Having treated the matter quite in the style of the old
astrological physicians, he was exposed to some ridicule both then and
afterwards. Even at this early period some faint ideas of his great theory
were germinating in his mind. He maintained in his dissertation "that the
sun, moon, and fixed stars mutually affect each other in their orbits;
that they cause and direct in our earth a flux and reflux not only in the
sea, but in the atmosphere, and affect in a similar manner all organised
bodies through the medium of a subtile and mobile fluid, which pervades
the universe, and associates all things together in mutual intercourse and
harmony." This influence, he said, was particularly exercised on the
nervous system, and produced two states, which he called _intension_ and
_remission_, which seemed to him to account for the different periodical
revolutions observable in several maladies. When in after-life he met with
Father Hell, he was confirmed by that person's observations in the truth
of many of his own ideas. Having caused Hell to make him some magnetic
plates, he determined to try experiments with them himself for his further
satisfaction.
He tried accordingly, and was astonished at his success. The faith of
their wearers operated wonders with the metallic plates. Mesmer made due
reports to Father Hell of all he had done, and the latter published them
as the results of his own happy invention, and speaking of Mesmer as a
physician whom he had employed to work under him. Mesmer took offence at
being thus treated, considering himself a far greater personage than
Father Hell. He claimed the invention as his own, accused Hell of a breach
of confidence, and stigmatised him as a mean person, anxious to turn the
discoveries of others to his own account. Hell replied, and a very pretty
quarrel was the result, which afforded small talk for months to the
literati of Vienna. Hell ultimately gained the victory. Mesmer, nothing
daunted, continued to promulgate his views till he stumbled at last upon
the animal theory.
One of his patients was a young lady, named Oesterline, who suffered under
a convulsive malady. Her attacks were periodical, and attended by a rush
of blood to the head, followed by delirium and syncope. These symptoms he
soon succeeded in reducing under his system of planetary influence, and
imagined he could foretell the periods of accession and remission. Having
thus accounted satisfactorily to himself for the origin of the disease,
the idea struck him that he could operate a certain cure if he could
ascertain beyond doubt, what he had long believed, that there existed
between the bodies which compose our globe an action equally reciprocal
and similar to that of the heavenly bodies, by means of which he could
imitate artificially the periodical revolutions of the flux and reflux
before mentioned. He soon convinced himself that this action did exist.
When trying the metallic plates of Father Hell, he thought their efficacy
depended on their form; but he found afterwards that he could produce the
same effects without using them at all, merely by passing his hands
downwards towards the feet of the patient, even when at a considerable
distance.
This completed the theory of Mesmer. He wrote an account of his discovery
to all the learned societies of Europe, soliciting their investigation.
The Academy of Sciences at Berlin was the only one that answered him, and
their answer was any thing but favourable to his system or flattering to
himself. Still he was not discouraged. He maintained to all who would
listen to him that the magnetic matter, or fluid, pervaded all the
universe--that every human body contained it, and could communicate the
superabundance of it to another by an exertion of the will. Writing to a
friend from Vienna, he said, "I have observed that the magnetic is almost
the same thing as the electric fluid, and that it may be propagated in the
same manner, by means of intermediate bodies. Steel is not the only
substance adapted to this purpose. I have rendered paper, bread, wool,
silk, stones, leather, glass, wood, men, and dogs--in short, every thing I
touched, magnetic to such a degree, that these substances produced the
same effects as the loadstone on diseased persons. I have charged jars
with magnetic matter in the same way as is done with electricity."
Mesmer did not long find his residence at Vienna as agreeable as he
wished. His pretensions were looked upon with contempt or indifference,
and the case of Mademoiselle Oesterline brought him less fame than
notoriety. He determined to change his sphere of action, and travelled
into Swabia and Switzerland. In the latter country he met with the
celebrated Father Gassner, who, like Valentine Greatraks, amused himself
by casting out devils, and healing the sick by merely laying hands upon
them. At his approach, delicate girls fell into convulsions, and
hypochondriacs fancied themselves cured. His house was daily besieged by
the lame, the blind, and the hysteric. Mesmer at once acknowledged the
efficacy of his cures, and declared that they were the obvious result of
his own newly-discovered power of magnetism. A few of the father's
patients were forthwith subjected to the manipulations of Mesmer, and the
same symptoms were induced. He then tried his hand upon some paupers in
the hospitals of Berne and Zurich, and succeeded, according to his own
account, but no other person's, in curing an opththalmia and a gutta
serena. With memorials of these achievements he returned to Vienna, in the
hope of silencing his enemies, or at least forcing them to respect his
newly-acquired reputation, and to examine his system more attentively.
His second appearance in that capital was not more auspicious than the
first. He undertook to cure a Mademoiselle Paradis, who was quite blind,
and subject to convulsions. He magnetised her several times, and then
declared that she was cured; at least, if she was not, it was her fault
and not his. An eminent oculist of that day, named Barth, went to visit
her, and declared that she was as blind as ever; while her family said she
was as much subject to convulsions as before. Mesmer persisted that she
was cured. Like the French philosopher, he would not allow facts to
interfere with his theory.[71] He declared that there was a conspiracy
against him; and that Mademoiselle Paradis, at the instigation of her
family, feigned blindness in order to injure his reputation!
[71] An enthusiastic philosopher, of whose name we are not
informed, had constructed a very satisfactory theory on some
subject or other, and was not a little proud of it. "But the
facts, my dear fellow," said his friend, "the facts do not
agree with your theory."--"Don't they?" replied the
philosopher, shrugging his shoulders, "then, _tant pis pour
les faits_;"--so much the worse for the facts!
The consequences of this pretended cure taught Mesmer that Vienna
was not the sphere for him. Paris, the idle, the debauched, the
pleasure-hunting, the novelty-loving, was the scene for a philosopher like
him, and thither he repaired accordingly. He arrived at Paris in 1778, and
began modestly by making himself and his theory known to the principal
physicians. At first, his encouragement was but slight; he found people
more inclined to laugh at than to patronise him. But he was a man who had
great confidence in himself, and of a perseverance which no difficulties
could overcome. He hired a sumptuous apartment, which he opened to all
comers who chose to make trial of the new power of nature. M. D'Eslon, a
physician of great reputation, became a convert; and from that time,
animal magnetism, or, as some called it, mesmerism, became the fashion in
Paris. The women were quite enthusiastic about it, and their admiring
tattle wafted its fame through every grade of society. Mesmer was the
rage; and high and low, rich and poor, credulous and unbelieving, all
hastened to convince themselves of the power of this mighty magician, who
made such magnificent promises. Mesmer, who knew as well as any man living
the influence of the imagination, determined that, on that score, nothing
should be wanting to heighten the effect of the magnetic charm. In all
Paris, there was not a house so charmingly furnished as Monsieur Mesmer's.
Richly-stained glass shed a dim religious light on his spacious saloons,
which were almost covered with mirrors. Orange-blossoms scented all the
air of his corridors; incense of the most expensive kinds burned in
antique vases on his chimney-pieces; æolian harps sighed melodious music
from distant chambers; while sometimes a sweet female voice, from above or
below, stole softly upon the mysterious silence that was kept in the
house, and insisted upon from all visitors. "_Was ever any thing so
delightful!_" cried all the Mrs. Wittitterleys of Paris, as they thronged
to his house in search of pleasant excitement; "_So wonderful!_" said the
pseudo-philosophers, who would believe anything if it were the fashion;
"_So amusing!_" said the worn-out debauchés, who had drained the cup of
sensuality to its dregs, and who longed to see lovely women in
convulsions, with the hope that they might gain some new emotions from the
sight.
The following was the mode of operation: In the centre of the saloon was
placed an oval vessel, about four feet in its longest diameter, and one
foot deep. In this were laid a number of wine-bottles, filled with
magnetised water, well corked-up, and disposed in radii, with their necks
outwards. Water was then poured into the vessel so as just to cover the
bottles, and filings of iron were thrown in occasionally to heighten the
magnetic effect. The vessel was then covered with an iron cover,
pierced through with many holes, and was called the _baquet_. From each
hole issued a long movable rod of iron, which the patients were to apply
to such parts of their bodies as were afflicted. Around this _baquet_ the
patients were directed to sit, holding each other by the hand, and
pressing their knees together as closely as possible, to facilitate the
passage of the magnetic fluid from one to the other.
Then came in the assistant magnetisers, generally strong, handsome young
men, to pour into the patient from their finger-tips fresh streams of the
wondrous fluid. They embraced the patient between the knees, rubbed them
gently down the spine and the course of the nerves, using gentle pressure
upon the breasts of the ladies, and staring them out of countenance to
magnetise them by the eye! All this time the most rigorous silence was
maintained, with the exception of a few wild notes on the harmonica or the
piano-forte, or the melodious voice of a hidden opera-singer swelling
softly at long intervals. Gradually the cheeks of the ladies began to
glow, their imaginations to become inflamed; and off they went, one after
the other, in convulsive fits. Some of them sobbed and tore their hair,
others laughed till the tears ran from their eyes, while others shrieked
and screamed and yelled till they became insensible altogether.
This was the crisis of the delirium. In the midst of it, the chief actor
made his appearance, waving his wand, like Prospero, to work new wonders.
Dressed in a long robe of lilac-coloured silk richly embroidered with gold
flowers, bearing in his hand a white magnetic rod, and with a look of
dignity which would have sat well on an eastern caliph, he marched with
solemn strides into the room. He awed the still sensible by his eye, and
the violence of their symptoms diminished. He stroked the insensible with
his hands upon the eye-brows and down the spine; traced figures upon their
breast and abdomen with his long white wand, and they were restored to
consciousness. They became calm, acknowledged his power, and said they
felt streams of cold or burning vapour passing through their frames,
according as he waved his wand or his fingers before them.
"It is impossible," says M. Dupotet, "to conceive the sensation which
Mesmer's experiments created in Paris. No theological controversy, in the
earlier ages of the Catholic Church, was ever conducted with greater
bitterness." His adversaries denied the discovery; some calling him a
quack, others a fool, and others again, like the Abbé Fiard, a man who had
sold himself to the Devil! His friends were as extravagant in their
praise, as his foes were in their censure. Paris was inundated with
pamphlets upon the subject, as many defending as attacking the doctrine.
At court, the queen expressed herself in favour of it, and nothing
else was to be heard of in society.
By the advice of M. D'Eslon, Mesmer challenged an examination of his
doctrine by the Faculty of Medicine. He proposed to select twenty-four
patients, twelve of whom he would treat magnetically, leaving the other
twelve to be treated by the faculty according to the old and approved
methods. He also stipulated that, to prevent disputes, the government
should nominate certain persons who were not physicians, to be present at
the experiments; and that the object of the inquiry should be, not how
these effects were produced, but whether they were really efficacious in
the cure of any disease. The faculty objected to limit the inquiry in this
manner, and the proposition fell to the ground.
Mesmer now wrote to Marie Antoinette, with the view of securing her
influence in obtaining for him the protection of government. He wished to
have a château and its lands given to him, with a handsome yearly income,
that he might be enabled to continue his experiments at leisure,
untroubled by the persecution of his enemies. He hinted the duty of
governments to support men of science, and expressed his fear, that if he
met no more encouragement, he should be compelled to carry his great
discovery to some other land more willing to appreciate him. "In the eyes
of your majesty," said he, "four or five hundred thousand francs, applied
to a good purpose, are of no account. The welfare and happiness of your
people are every thing. My discovery ought to be received and rewarded
with a munificence worthy of the monarch to whom I shall attach myself."
The government at last offered him a pension of twenty thousand francs,
and the cross of the order of St. Michael, if he had made any discovery in
medicine, and would communicate it to physicians nominated by the king.
The latter part of the proposition was not agreeable to Mesmer. He feared
the unfavourable report of the king's physicians; and, breaking off the
negotiation, spoke of his disregard of money, and his wish to have his
discovery at once recognised by the government. He then retired to Spa, in
a fit of disgust, upon pretence of drinking the waters for the benefit of
his health.
After he had left Paris, the Faculty of Medicine called upon M. D'Eslon,
for the third and last time, to renounce the doctrine of animal magnetism,
or be expelled from their body. M. D'Eslon, so far from doing this,
declared that he had discovered new secrets, and solicited further
examination. A royal commission of the Faculty of Medicine was, in
consequence, appointed on the 12th of March 1784, seconded by another
commission of the Académie des Sciences, to investigate the phenomena and
report upon them. The first commission was composed of the
principal physicians of Paris; while, among the eminent men comprised in
the latter, were Benjamin Franklin, Lavoisier, and Bailly the historian of
astronomy. Mesmer was formally invited to appear before this body, but
absented himself from day to day, upon one pretence or another. M. D'Eslon
was more honest, because he thoroughly believed in the phenomena, which it
is to be questioned if Mesmer ever did, and regularly attended the
sittings and performed experiments.
Bailly has thus described the scenes of which he was a witness in the
course of this investigation. "The sick persons, arranged in great numbers
and in several rows around the _baquet_, receive the magnetism, by all
these means: by the iron rods which convey it to them from the
_baquet_--by the cords wound round their bodies--by the connexion of the
thumb, which conveys to them the magnetism of their neighbours--and by the
sounds of a piano-forte, or of an agreeable voice, diffusing the magnetism
in the air. The patients were also directly magnetised by means of the
finger and wand of the magnetiser moved slowly before their faces, above
or behind their heads, and on the diseased parts, always observing the
direction of the holes. The magnetiser acts by fixing his eyes on them.
But above all, they are magnetised by the application of his hands and the
pressure of his fingers on the hypochondres and on the regions of the
abdomen; an application often continued for a long time--sometimes for
several hours.
"Meanwhile the patients in their different conditions present a very
varied picture. Some are calm, tranquil, and experience no effect. Others
cough, spit, feel slight pains, local or general heat, and have sweatings.
Others again are agitated and tormented with convulsions. These
convulsions are remarkable in regard to the number affected with them, to
their duration and force. As soon as one begins to be convulsed, several
others are affected. The commissioners have observed some of these
convulsions last more than three hours. They are accompanied with
expectorations of a muddy viscous water, brought away by violent efforts.
Sometimes streaks of blood have been observed in this fluid. These
convulsions are characterised by the precipitous, involuntary motion of
all the limbs, and of the whole body; by the contraction of the throat--by
the leaping motions of the hypochondria and the epigastrium--by the
dimness and wandering of the eyes--by piercing shrieks, tears, sobbing,
and immoderate laughter. They are preceded or followed by a state of
langour or reverie, a kind of depression, and sometimes drowsiness. The
smallest sudden noise occasions a shuddering; and it was remarked, that
the change of measure in the airs played on the piano-forte had a
great influence on the patients. A quicker motion, a livelier melody,
agitated them more, and renewed the vivacity of their convulsions.