By James Aitchison

Psychotherapy and hypnosis had a strange genesis: the absurd quackery of Dr Franz Anton Mesmer.  Like phrenology — the so-called science of reading lumps and bumps on someone’s head to determine their character — Mesmer’s theories would later lead to meaningful scientific breakthroughs.

And, at the very least, his name has become part of the language: mesmerise, verb, to capture someone’s attention completely, to hold them transfixed. 

It could be argued that Mesmer was a product of his times; between 1770 and 1850, all manner of new scientific theories and medical practices were being advanced, and Mesmerism was one such influential concept.

Born in Germany in 1734, Mesmer toyed with philosophy, theology and law before studying medicine at the University of Vienna.  (Ironically, it was the alma mater he would share with Sigmund Freud, who attended years later.) 

Mesmer’s interest in astronomy led him to theorise that the moon and planets influenced human health and disease through gravitational means.  According to Mesmer, the planets controlled a universal but invisible magnetic fluid in the human body.  This “astral” fluid from the stars flowed into a “northern pole in the human head” and out of a “southern one at the feet”.  As though that weren’t enough, he believed that a natural energy was transferred between all animate and inanimate objects including humans, animals and vegetables.  He called this energy “animal magnetism”, a force which permeated the universe, deriving once again from the stars. 

He argued that good health was the free flow of this vital invisible “animal magnetic fluid” through thousands of channels in the human body.  Obstacles to this flow caused illness.  When Nature itself failed to ease such obstacles, Mesmer believed contact with a conductor of animal magnetism was the required remedy.  His purpose was to shock the body by producing a “crisis”, arguably a precursor to shock therapy. 

By poking and prodding with his hands or a “mesmeric wand”, Mesmer would induce a trance, in which the patient was “completely reduced under magnetic influence”.  By “feeling the intensity of animal magnetism”, patients would enter an hypnotic state that ended in delirium or convulsions.  Result: the harmonious flow of their invisible magnetic fluid would be restored!

Mesmer treated patients singly or in groups.  For individual treatments, he sat in front of his patient, their knees touching, pressing the patient’s thumbs and looking fixedly into their eyes.  Sometimes his hands would move along a patient’s shoulders and down their arms.  Often he pressed his fingers to the patient’s left hypochondria (upper abdomen) for hours at a time.  When patients felt peculiar sensations or had convulsions, Mesmer would conclude his treatments by playing music on a glass harmonica.

If that seems bizarre, consider his use of the “baquet”.  While it sounds exotic in French, it simply means “tub”!

For group therapy sessions, up to twenty or thirty patients were seated around a vessel called a “baquet”.  The shallow wooden tub was pierced with holes containing flexible iron rods bent at right angles.  The rods faced outward so magnetism could be applied to the parts of the body to be treated.  The tub would be filled with “magnetised water” along with pieces of glass and metal.  The patients were joined by ropes with Mesmer who, dressed in a lilac taffeta gown, supervised their “crises”.

Mesmer first established himself as a doctor in Vienna, married a wealthy widow, and became a patron of the arts, well acquainted with Mozart and Haydn.  However, in 1777, Mesmer failed spectacularly to cure the blindness of a young musician.  Accused of fraud by fellow physicians, he was forced to flee Vienna.

Setting up anew in Paris a year later, Mesmer enjoyed overnight success at his clinic in the Place Vendôme.  Such was the demand for his services that he “magnetised” a tree to treat the overflow.

But official tolerance reached its limit in 1784.  King Louis XVI induced his own “crisis” for Mesmer.  He appointed eminent scientists and physicians to investigate the good doctor’s theories and practices.  (One such scientist was the American ambassador to France, Benjamin Franklin.)  The experts soon concluded that no mysterious magnetic fluid existed and that any benefit from Mesmer’s treatment existed only in the imagination.

Disgraced, Mesmer was exiled to Switzerland.  He lost his fortune in the French Revolution and died in Germany in 1815.

One newspaper of the day wrote of animal magnetism: “No fanatics ever divulged notions more wild and extravagant; no impudent empiric ever retailed promises more preposterous, or histories of cures more devoid of reality, than the tribe of magnetisers.”  In Britain, many believed that animal magnetism could lead to the sexual exploitation of unsuspecting women. 

In the age of Mick Jagger, Tom Jones et al, the phrase animal magnetism took on a whole new meaning.  Meanwhile, Mesmer certainly held everyone’s attention during his lifetime and, despite allegations of fraud and charlatanry, further investigation of the trance state led to the development of modern hypnotism in legitimate applications.  Arguably, as Shakespeare wrote, all’s well that ends well.