“The Wizard From Vienna”Franz Anton Mesmer

Author: Vincent Buranelli

by: Taylor Knuckey

WHO IS MESMER?

18th century doctor who laid the foundation for modern psychiatry

First person to investigate idea of hypnotherapy

Famous for process “Animal Magnetism”

Therapeutics later referred to as “Mesmerism”

EARLY LIFE

Born in the small village Iznang, Germany

May 23, 1734

Very catholic based family

Went to school as a child run by monks

EDUCATION

1743 – Bavaria – studying to become a Catholic priest

1750 – Bavaria at the University of Dillingen for philosophy for four years

1754 – Bavaria at University of Ingolstadt for theology

1759 – University of Vienna, Austria for Law

1760 – University of Vienna, Austria for medicine

1766 - Earned Doctor of Medicine degree

DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC IDEAS

Science of medicine era was dominated by physicians Van Swieten, De Haen, and Stoerck

Interests always resorted in science

Preferred general ideas to limited concepts

Believed good evidence existed for its reality

Education - modern and scientific thought

“The Influence of the Planets on the Human Body”

Medical dissertation

Explained the influence of the sun, moon, and planets on the earth and their effect of gravitation on human physiology

Believed gravitational attraction of the planets affected human health through an invisible fluid or magnetic force found in the human body and throughout nature

Believed that magnetic power could be used to heal people

Everyone has a magnetic charge or fluid inside which he referred to as “Animal Magnetism”

ANIMAL MAGNITISM

“Animal Magnetism” was the name Mesmer gave this invisible magnetic cosmic fluid

Belief that all living beings had magnetic fields running through them which could be manipulated for healing or other purposes

Theorized that disease was caused by an imbalance of this invisible magnetic fluid which resulted in “obstacles” in the fluid’s flow through the body

Developed methods to restore the magnetic fluid’s flow of the body so diseases would be cured

ANIMAL MAGNITISM continued

These obstacles could be broken by “crises”

Initially, used magnets to come into contact with a patient

Mysterious fluid displayed by the magnet entered the body of the patient and healed him of his illness or disease

Once magnetic flow was restored in patient to normality, the patients’ disease was cured and their obstacle no longer existed

This method of curing people known as “Mesmerism”

MESMERISM: THE TRANCE

Trance of Mesmerism” is also known as “Mesmerism” — “to mesmerize” or “to throw in a trance”

Ability and control to throw subjects into a state between sleep and wakefulness

Normal thinking processes stopped functioning

Able to cause paralysis, drowsiness, sleep, and semiconscious states in his patients

Subject in a trance could obey his commands

Today - Controlled Hypnotism

MESMERISM: THE TRANCE

18th century

Mozart featured Mesmerism to opera audiences

Mesmer performed shows

Thousand melodramas

18th CENTURY VIENNA

“City of musicians, patrons of musicians, and audiences intoxicated with music”

January 10, 1768—Married Maria Anna von Bosch

Member of the Austrian aristocracy

Very wealthy

Established physician clinic in Vienna

Private practice in his home

PATIENTS

Majority women

Individuals and group therapy

Patients would undergo convulsions

Crisis rooms

FIRST STEPS IN ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY

Francisca Oesterlin

Suffered from a form of psychosomatic illness

Franzl resisted Mesmer’s treatments until new theory of neuroses

Neuroses Theory gave rise to school abnormal psychology

Strong connection of his animal magnetism theory

Ebb-and-Flow Effect - Tidal effect in the nervous system

Patient was being bothered by the effect of the universal fluid, or animal gravitation, ebbing and flowing through her body

Case led him to magnetism

FRANZL TREATMENT

Franzl — First person to be mesmerized

Experimented with magnets

Turned the “current” in different directions

Generated artificial tides in her nervous system

Treatment was first insight to a possible cure of hysteria

Hypnotic trance

Cured her hysteria

Classical case of hypnosis

RESULTS

Reputation of healer

Continued to take in more patients, work more cures, and became the talk of Vienna

Told patients he was healing them with animal magnetism flowing through their bodies

Cured mental and nervous afflictions ranging from deep depression to hysterical paralysis

CURING OF DEAF PATIENT

Patient had gone deaf during a thunderstorm

Received hearing back

Method - Mesmer held his hands over his ears and put him in a hypnotic trance

Believed his universal fluid could not only pass through humans but pass through physical objects

SCANDAL OF THE BLIND PIANIST

Maria Paradis

Hired by Maria’s parents to cure her of her blindness

Uncertain techniques used

Symptoms of hysteria began to clear up

Mesmer asserts that he managed to cure her and managed to make Maria "see" images of faces and movements

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ32ReqIFGU

SCANDAL OF VIENNA

Parents accused Mesmer of holding their daughter against their will and subjecting her to dangerous experiments

Parents withdrew daughter from study

Believed Mesmer had seduced her

Maria relapsed back into her illness

Mesmer was interested in women as patients

Mesmer’s reputation badly damaged by the incident

Accused by Viennese physicians of fraud

PARIS - SOCIETY OF HARMONY

1778 - Left Austria and settled in Paris

Mesmer’s institution, medical school, and clinic

Students purposed advanced theories of Mesmerism

Learned how animal magnetism acted on the nervous system and the vital organs

Watched practical application of animal magnetism to patients in the clinic

Professional men and clergy attended Mesmerian Institute

Success at the Society of Harmony brought Mesmer’s Mesmerism to its fullest elaboration

1779 published Memoir

1784 - INVESTIGATION

King Louis XVI commissioned an investigation of animal magnetism

Led by scientists and physicians

Described as first placebo – controlled trial

Replication of Mesmer’s session of hugging curative magnetized trees 

Results reported that Mesmer was unable to support his scientific claims

Disapproval of Mesmerism - Paris Faculty of Medicine, Royal Society of Medicine, and the French Academy of Sciences

Mesmerism movement declined

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bx8ZWZY9ls

REJECTION OF PARIS Continued his practice but again attracted resentment

and great jealousy from medical profession

Animal magnetism constantly rejected by the scientific and medical corporations of Paris

Forced to leave Paris

Continued to travel extensively through central Europe

Suffered from psychosomatic problems

Stressed from pass failures and rejection in Vienna and Paris

Biography, Short History of Animal Magnetism

Set up clinic in spa near Liege in the Belgian Ardennes

Focused attention on patients

1785 - TURNING POINT

Traumatic experiences - Society of Harmony

Continued to see patients – less successful

Decided to never launch another resolute campaign for the validation of animal magnetism

Traveled

Wife abandoned him after waiting eight years for his return

1798 - 1802

Lived in Paris and Versailles

Remained distant from politics and Mesmerism

Medical Mesmerism was being developed by other men in ways he did not approved

French Revolutionary War period

MESMER’S LAST YEARS

Left Paris in 1802

Moved to London to start still another practice

Practice failed

Moved to Switzerland

Died in Switzerland on March 5, 1815

FROM MESMERISM TO HYPNOTISM

Of Mesmer’s original system, the following can and must be said:

“Animal magnetism” is a myth. There is no such cosmic fluid as Mesmer imagined.

Animal magnets are therefore a myth.

Nothing physical passes form hypnotist to subject.

The Mesmerian crisis is a myth. No physical action-reaction takes place in the nervous system, at least in Mesmer’s sense.

The Mesmerian trance is a reality.

The trance can be handled scientifically. Mesmer was wrong in his scientific theory, but he made it possible for scientists to take the trance away from the occultists. “

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUzZOGTkOtM

HYPNOTISM Faults: Right facts and the wrong theory

If it had not been for his theory, he might never have effected his remarkable cures, investigated their meaning, or persuaded others to join him in a search for explanation

Scientific hypnosis would not have been developed if it were not for Mesmer

James Braid-Replaced “Mesmerism” with “Hypnotism”

Scientific methods of inducing lucid sleep

“It will be observed, for reasons adduced, I have now entirely separated Hypnotism from Animal Magnetism. I considered it to be merely a simple, speedy, and certain mode of throwing the nervous system into a new condition, which may be rendered eminently available in the cure of certain disorders. I trust, therefore, it may be investigated quite independently of any bias, either for or against the subject, as connected with mesmerism.”

QUESTIONS? If it was later stated that animal magnetism was a myth

and there is no such thing as cosmic fluid, why do you think that people engaged in his medical practice of mesmerism?

Do you believe that Mesmer actually believed in Mesmerism and what he theorized? Or was he doing it to get attention? A swindler?

Do you think Mesmer’s theories and practices are significant to modern day psychology? Or why was Mesmer’s theories and practices significant to modern day psychology?