Are we to give credit to the various observations that record the
wonderful effects of animal magnetism; or should we reject them as the
impostures of knaves, or the result of the credulity of fools? It is now
nearly half a century since this method of relieving diseases has been
introduced by modern practitioners. Thousands of disinterested and candid
witnesses have corroborated their assertions, and testified to their
veracity. How, then, are we authorized to treat this doctrine as visionary
or fraudulent? The most learned bodies have not thought it derogatory to
their dignity to investigate the matter; and, notwithstanding opposition,
ridicule, and contempt, the practice obtains to the present day. It has,
no doubt, been materially impeded in its progress by the invectives of
occasional scepticism; but such will ever be the case with science, and
those discoveries which accelerate its inevitable empire on the human
understanding. Persecution may be considered as the harbinger of truth,
or, at any rate, of that investigation which directs to it. Pythagoras was
banished from Athens; Anaxagoras was immured in a dungeon; Democritus was
considered a maniac, and Socrates condemned to death. An advanced and
honourable old age did not protect Galileo against his barbarous
persecutors. Varolius was decreed an infamous and execrable man for his
anatomical discoveries, and our immortal Harvey was looked upon as a
dangerous madman. Inoculation and vaccination were deemed impious attempts
to interfere with the decrees of Providence.
Magnetism may be defined as a reciprocal influence which is supposed to
exist between individuals, arising from a state of relative harmony, and
brought into action by the will, the imagination, or physical sensibility.
This influence is said to exist in a peculiar fluid, transmissible from
one body to another under certain conditions of each individual, without
which the expected results are not manifest. Under these conditions, the
effects of animal magnetism are obtained by manual application, by
gestures, words, and even looks, more frequently, as may be easily
conceived, with nervous, weak, and impressionable individuals. By these
means magnetizers affirm that they can effect cures when all other
remedial endeavours have been of no avail, either when the patient is
awake or in a state of artificial somnambulism.
The history of this doctrine is curious. The ancients fully admitted the
power of sympathy in the cure of diseases; but generally attributed its
action to the interference of Divinity, or the operation of sorcery and
enchantment. A remarkable affinity can be traced between modern magnetism
and its supposed phenomena, and the relations of the Pythian and Sibylline
oracles, the wonders of the caverns of Trophonius and Esculapius, and the
miraculous dreams and visions in the temples of the gods. Amongst the
Hebrews, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and Romans, we constantly discover
traces of this supposed power of manual apposition, friction, breathing,
and the use of the charms of music and mystic amulets. The Egyptian
priesthood were considered as possessing a divine attribute in healing
diseases. Prosper Alpinus, in his treatise on the medicine of the
Egyptians, informs us that mysterious frictions were one of their secret
remedies. The patients were oftentimes wrapped in the skins of animals,
and carried into the sanctuary of their temples to be assisted by visions,
that appeared either to them or to their physicians, who pretended that
Isis was the immortal source of these celestial inspirations. The same
divine assistance was firmly believed by the Hebrews. It was intimated to
Miriam and Aaron that the Lord would make himself known to them in a
vision, and speak to them in a dream; and we find in Deuteronomy that the
signs and the wonders of prophets and dreamers of dreams were to be
considered as the abominations of idolaters, who were to be put to death
without pity. This anathema on false prophets was not unfrequently
rigorously carried into execution, and we read in the Book of Kings the
destruction of all the worshippers of Baal. Ahab marched upon
Ramoth-Gilead by the advice of his prophets.
The sympathetic power of corporeal apposition was illustrated when Elisha,
to revive the widow's child, stretched himself three times upon him and
prayed to the Lord. When Elisha restored the child of the Shunamite to
life he lay upon it, put his mouth upon his mouth, his eyes upon his eyes,
and his hands upon his hands, and he stretched himself upon the child, and
the child opened its eyes. Miracles were generally wrought by manual
application or elevation. Naaman expected that Elisha would have stricken
his hand over the place to cure his leprosy; and we find in the Scriptures
that our SAVIOUR healed the sick upon whom he laid his hands. Amongst the
Greeks we again see the same ceremonies performed on all wonderful
recoveries. Plutarch tells us that Pyrrhus cured persons with diseased
spleens by passing his hand over the seat of the malady. Aelianus informs
us that the Psylli performed their cures by stretching themselves upon the
patients, and making them swallow water with which they had rinsed their
mouths; and he also mentions that those who approached these mysterious
agents were seized with a sudden stupor, and deprived of their intellects
until they had left them. Apollonius brought a young girl to life by
touching her, and leaning over her as though he were whispering some magic
words in her ear; and Origenes affirms that there were sages who dispensed
health with their mere breath. Vespasian restored sight to the blind by
rubbing their eyes and cheeks with his saliva, and cured a paralytic by
merely touching him: the same emperor kept himself in perfect health by
frequently rubbing his throat and his body. From a passage of Plautus, it
appears that this manual application was resorted to in his days to
procure sleep. Mercury is made to say, "Quid si ego illum tractem, tangam
ut dormiat;" to which Sosia replies, "Servaveris, nam continuas has tres
noctes pervigilavi."
Pliny maintains that there exist persons whose bodies are endowed with
medicinal properties; but he admits, at the same time, that imagination
may produce these salutary emanations. Celsus informs us that Asclepiades
by friction could calm a phrensy; and further states, that when these
frictions were carried to too great an extent, they brought on a lethargic
state. Caelius Aurelianus recommends manual frictions for the cure of
pleurisy, lethargy, and various other maladies, describing the manner in
which they are to be conducted: for instance, in epilepsy, the head and
forehead are to be chafed, then the hand is to be carried gently over the
neck and bosom; at other times, the extremities of the hands and feet are
to be grasped, that "we may cure by the very act of holding the limb."
That remedies were indicated in a state of somnambulism is affirmed by
Tertullian, who thus speaks of one of the followers of Prisca and
Maximilla, two women who foretold future events when they fell into an
ecstatic swoon: "She conversed with angels, discovered the most hidden
mysteries, prophesied, read the secrets of the heart, and pointed out
remedies when she was consulted by the sick." He thus describes ecstasy in
his treatise _De Anima_: "It is not sleep, for during sleep all reposes;
whereas in ecstasy the body reposes, while the soul is actively employed.
It is therefore a mixed state of sleep and ecstasy which constitutes the
prophetic faculty, and it is then that we have revealed unto us, not only
all that appertaineth to honour, to riches, but the means of curing our
diseases." St. Stephen relates the case of a youth who was in such a
lethargic state, that he was insensible to all painful agents, and could
not be awakened; but when he recovered his senses, he declared that two
persons, the one aged, the other young, had appeared to him and
recommended sea-bathing. He complied with the instruction, and was cured.
But the miracles of paganism were soon discredited, when the relics and
tombs of saints were resorted to instead of the temples of the false gods;
and priests assumed the power once held by their Chaldean and Egyptian
predecessors, and the Druids of Gaul. The beatified were not only
physicians during their life, but medicinal after death. St. Gregory of
Tours tells us that St. Cosmus and St. Damian were not only able
physicians during their blessed existence, but assisted all those who
consulted them in their tombs, not unfrequently appearing to them in
visions, and prescribing the proper remedies. A saint's breathing upon a
veil, and then placing it on the head of a demoniac, infallibly cast out
the evil one; and St. Bernard never failed in his exorcisms, by making the
possessed swallow some water in which he had dipped his hands. St. Martin
stopped the most fearful hemorrhage by merely touching the patient with
his garment. The shrines of St. Litardus, St. Anthony, and various other
saints, lulled to sleep, and inspired with miraculous visions those who
sought their aid.
However, as the progress of intellect dispelled the dark clouds that
shrouded the middle ages in superstitious and credulous prejudices,
philosophy endeavoured to investigate the nature of this mysterious
agency, which priests had for so many centuries usurped as their special
gift and property. Sceptic as to supernatural powers in the common
occurrences of life, philosophers attributed these phenomena to some
peculiar principle with which organized bodies were endowed, and hence
arose the dawn of the doctrine of animal magnetism. So early as 1462,
Pomponatius of Mantua maintained, in his work on incantation, that all the
pretended arts of sorcery and witchcraft were the mere results of natural
operations; he further gave it as his opinion, that it was not improbable
but that external means, called into action by the soul, might relieve our
sufferings; that there, moreover, did exist individuals endowed with
salutary properties, and it might therefore easily be conceived that
marvellous effects should be produced by the imagination, and by
confidence, more especially when they are reciprocal between the patient
and the person who assists his recovery; physicians and men of sense being
well convinced that if the bones of any animal were substituted for those
of a saint, the result would be the same. It need not be added that our
author was violently persecuted for this heretical doctrine. Two years
after, Agrippa, in Cologne, asserted that the soul, inflamed by a fervent
imagination, could dispense health and disease, not only in the individual
himself, but in other bodies. In 1493, Paracelsus expressed himself in the
following language: "All doubt destroys work, and leaves it imperfect in
the wise designs of nature. It is from faith that imagination draws its
strength. It is by faith that it becomes complete and realized. He who
believeth in nature, will obtain from nature to the extent of his faith.
Let the object of this faith be real or imaginary, you nevertheless reap
similar results; and hence the cause of superstition."
Cardanus, Bacon, and Van Helmont pursued this study; and the latter
physician, having cured several cases by magnetism, was considered a
sorcerer, and was seized by the Inquisition. Magnetism, he observed, "is a
universal agent, and only novel in its appellation, and paradoxical to
those who ridicule every thing they do not comprehend, or attribute to
Satan what they cannot understand. The name of magnetism is given to that
occult influence which bodies possess on each other at various distances,
either by attraction or by impulsion. The means or the vehicle of this
influence is an ethereal spirit, pure, vital, (_magnale magnum_,) which
penetrates all matter, and agitates the mass of the universe. This spirit
is the moderator of the world, and establishes a correspondence between
its several parts and the powers with which it is endowed. We can attach
to a body the virtues that we possess, communicate to it certain
properties, and use it as the intermediate means to operate salutary
effects. I have hitherto withheld the revelation of this great mystery.
There exists in man a certain energy, which can act beyond his own person
according to his will or his imagination, and impart virtues and exercise
a durable influence even in distant objects. Will is the first of powers."
Van Helmont fully admitted the wonderful faculties that somnambulism
seemed to develop, and informs us that it was chiefly during his sleep
that he was inspired with his doctrines. One might have imagined that
these philosophic researches would have put an effectual stop to the
progress of superstition, or rather of persecution; yet their promulgation
could not save Urbain Grandier, and many supposed sorcerers, from a
barbarous death.
It was in the beginning of the eighteenth century that various experiments
were made with the loadstone in researches regarding electricity. In 1754,
Lenoble had constructed magnets that could be used with facility in the
treatment of various diseases. In 1774, Father Hell, a Jesuit and
professor of astronomy at Vienna, having cured himself of a severe
rheumatism by magnetism, related the result of his experiments to Mesmer.
This physician was immediately struck with observations that illustrated
his own theories respecting planetary influence. He forthwith proceeded to
procure magnets of every form and description for the gratuitous treatment
of all those that consulted him; and, while he widely diffused his
doctrines, he sent his magnets in every direction to aid the experimental
pursuits of others, and thus expressed himself on the subject in a memoir
published in 1779: "I had maintained that the heavenly spheres possessed a
direct power on all the constituent principles of animated bodies,
particularly on the _nervous system_, by the agency of an all-penetrating
fluid. I determined this action by the INTENSION and the REMISSION of the
properties of matter and organized bodies, such as gravity, cohesion,
elasticity, irritability, and electricity. I supported this doctrine by
various examples of periodical revolutions; and I named that property of
the animal matter, which renders it susceptible to the action of celestial
and earthly bodies, ANIMAL MAGNETISM. A further consideration of the
subject led me to the conviction that there does exist in nature an
universal principle, which, independently of ourselves, performs all that
we vaguely attribute to nature or to art."
Mesmer, as might have been foreseen, became the object of persecution and
of ridicule, and withdrew to Switzerland and Suabia. It was there that he
met with a certain Gassner of Braz, who, having fancied that an exorcism
had relieved him from a long and painful malady, took it into his head to
exorcise others. He considered the greater part of the disorders, to which
flesh is heir as the work of the devil, and he counteracted his baneful
influence in the name of our SAVIOUR. He divided these diabolical
visitations into _possessions_, _obsessions_, and _circumsessions_; the
latter being trifling invasions. For the purpose of ascertaining whether
his patients laboured under natural or infernal ailments, he conjured
Satan to declare the truth. If, after three solemn interpellations, and
signs of the cross, the devil did not answer, the disorder was considered
as coming within the province of medicine; but if, on the contrary, the
patient fell into convulsions, Gassner drew forth his stole and crucifix,
and, in the name of the Redeemer, commenced rubbing and pinching,
sometimes in the most indecorous manner, when females were submitted to
his manipulations. When his attempts failed, he accused the patient of
want of faith or of the commission of some deadly sin, which baffled his
endeavours. His fame became so universal, that the Bishop of Ratisbon sent
for him, and he exercised his art under his auspices. At one period, the
town was so crowded with his patients, that ten thousand of them were
obliged to encamp without the walls. It appears that this adventurer had
the power of acting upon the pulse, and could increase or retard it,
render it regular or intermittent, and was even reported to paralyze limbs
and produce tears or laughter at will. It is scarcely credible, yet the
celebrated De Haen, one of the most distinguished and learned
practitioners in Germany, not only believed in the power of this Gassner,
but actually attributed it to a paction with the devil.
Mesmer was not so credulous, and explained the miraculous cures of Gassner
by the doctrines of the animal magnetism which he advocated. From Suabia
he returned to Vienna, whence he was expelled as a quack; and in 1778
arrived at Paris, a capital that had patronised Cagliostro and St.
Germain, and was ever ready to be deceived by ingenious empiricism. In
1779 he published a paper on the subject, in which he maintained
twenty-seven propositions to establish his supposed influence between the
celestial bodies, the earth, and animated matter, produced by a fluid
universal, subtile, susceptible of receiving, transmitting, and
communicating its impressions, on mechanical principles, until then
unknown, and producing alternate effects of flux and reflux. This powerful
agent, he said, acted chiefly on the nervous system. The human body,
moreover, according to his notions, possessed properties analogous to the
loadstone, and presenting an opposed polarity, subject to various
modifications, which either strengthened or weakened it. The action of
animal magnetism, according to him, was not confined to animal matter, but
could be equally communicated to inanimate bodies at various distances.
Mirrors could reflect and increase its power like the rays of light, and
sound could propagate and increase it. This magnetic property, he further
stated, could be accumulated, concentrated, and transported at pleasure,
although there did exist animated bodies possessed of properties so
opposite as to render this powerful agent inefficient. He found that the
loadstone was susceptible of animal magnetism, and of its opposite
virtues, without any apparent influence on its power over iron and the
needle; whence he concluded that there existed a wide difference between
animal and mineral magnetism.
Mesmer soon found a warm advocate of his doctrines in a Dr. D'Eslon, and
animal magnetism became in fashionable vogue. Not only were men and
animals subjected to their experiments, but this wondrous influence was
communicated to trees and plants, and the celebrated elm-tree of Beaugency
was magnetized by the Marquis de Puysegur and his brother; while the
enthusiastic D'Eslon absolutely went knocking from door to door to procure
patients. Breteuil, who was then one of the ministers, offered Mesmer a
yearly pension of thirty thousand francs, with a sum of three hundred
thousand francs in cash, with the decoration of St. Michael, if he would
consent to reveal the mysteries of his science to the medical faculty.
This tempting offer our magnetizer indignantly rejected, and a secret
society was instituted under the name of the Lodge and Order of Harmony.
The charms and the power of youth and music were not neglected as
auxiliaries to propagate the fashionable doctrine. Young men of elegant
manners and athletic form were initiated in the practice of magnetizing,
and the _salons_ of Paris consecrated to this worship (for such it might
have been termed) were crowded with the most fascinating women that the
gay metropolis of France could produce. Most of these females, impassioned
by nervous excitability, as loose in their morals as to outward appearance
they were fervent in their devotions, abandoned themselves without reserve
to the delightful sensations that magnetism and its surrounding machinery
were said to afford. In their ecstasies, their hysteric attacks, their
spasms, Mesmer, the high-priest, fancifully dressed, but in the height of
fashion, with his useful acolytes, endeavoured to soothe and calm the
agitation of their enchanting patients by all the means that Mesmerism
could devise.
It soon became pretty evident that these phenomena were solely to be
attributed to the influence of imagination; and Doppet, one of the most
ardent disciples of the new creed, frankly avowed that "those who were
initiated in the secrets of Mesmer entertained more doubts on the subject
than those who were in thorough ignorance of them." Notwithstanding this
evidence brought forward against Mesmer's fascinating practice, he was
warmly eulogised even by high churchmen; and Hervier, a doctor of
Sorbonne, did not hesitate to assert that the Golden Age was on the
return; that man would be endowed with fresh vigour, live for the space of
five generations, and only succumb to the exhaustion of age; that all the
animal kingdom would enjoy a similar blessing; while magnetized trees
would yield more abundant and delicious fruits. This belief of the good
ecclesiastic arose, according to his own assertion, from his having been
cured of some cruel disorder by magnetism, while all his intimate
acquaintances insisted that he had never ceased to enjoy perfect health.
Such were the circumstances that attended the introduction of animal
magnetism, which to this day is defended and maintained by ardent
proselytes. Sound philosophy can only attribute its wonderful phenomena,
many of which cannot be denied, to the influence of the imagination, and
the all-powerful deceptive agency of faith. It is an incontrovertible
fact, that the nervous system may be so worked upon, thrown by various
secret and physical means into such a morbid condition, that results
bordering upon the miraculous in the eyes of the credulous may be easily
obtained. Every circumstance that appears to differ from the usual course
of nature is deemed miraculous by the ignorant; and the Greek proverb
[Greek: thaumata morois], plainly maintains that miracles are only for the
simple. In fact, who are the persons who in our times cry out "miracle,"
but weak and timid men, worn out by excesses or age, labouring under the
influence of terror; silly old women, who have not the power of reasoning;
or nervous and enthusiastic females, who seek for some saving clauses in a
pact between vice and virtue, depravity and religion.
All the wonders of the creation are miraculous, if we are to consider
those phenomena that are, and most probably will ever remain, beyond our
humble and miserable comprehension to be such. The manifestations of the
Creator's will are daily exhibited in stupendous forms that strike the
ignorant with awe, while they lead the man of science to bow in grateful
veneration to that Almighty power that has harmonized the creation for our
wellbeing, if we would only obey the sublime dictates of his laws, without
attempting to scrutinize their spirit by quibbling with their letter.
There can be but little doubt that the wonders of magnetism may be
referred to the imagination; yet some of the phenomena must excite our
surprise, and may occasion some degree of hesitation in invariably
attributing its results to fancy. The Academy of Medicine of Paris having
appointed a commission of twelve members to examine and report upon it,
their inferences were as follow:
1. The effects of magnetism were not evident in healthy persons, and in
_some_ invalids.