Difference between revisions of "Animal Magnetism"

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Animal Magnetism: A System of Healing

Animal magnestism was a system of healing theorized by the Austrian physician and astrologist Franz Mesmer in the late 18th century. He began generalizing a salutatory relationship between celestial bodies and human wellness in his 1766 Dissertation upon the Influence of the Stars on the Human Body. In this text, Mesmer used Newtonian physics to argue that the gravity of the planets influenced the human body and illness (Tinterow 31). Mesmer took up work as a physician, only to be dismayed by standard--and often painful--medical practices such as bleeding and blistering (Pintar and Lynn 13). Seeking gentler forms of treatment, Mesmer began experimenting with magnets, hoping to bring about an “artificial tide” in his patients. His first inductee into this new treatment was Franzl Oesterline, who suffered from “convulsive malady” and who was subsequently cured by Mesmer’s magnetic procedure, wherein Oesterline was told to drink a lead solution, and magnets would be applied to her body.

Dissertation on the Discovery of Animal Magnetism

Oesterline is also a key example in his 1779 dissertation, titled Mémoire sur la Découverte du Magnétisme Animal or Dissertation on the Discovery of Animal Magnetism which describes his concept of animal magnetism as follows:

I maintained that just as the alternate effects, in respect of gravity, produce in the sea the appreciable phenomenon which we term ebb and flow, so the INTENSIFICATION AND REMISSION of the said properties, being subject to the action of the same principle, cause in animate bodies alternate effects similar to those sustained by the sea. By these considerations I established that the animal body, being subjected to the same action, likewise underwent a kind of ebb and flow. I supported this theory with different examples of periodic revolutions. I named the property of the animal body that renders it liable to the action of heavenly bodies and of the earth ANIMAL MAGNETISM. I explained by this magnetism the periodical changes which we observe in sex, and in a general way those which physicians of all ages and in all countries have observed during illnesses (qtd. in Tinterow 35)

The dissertation additionally outlined 27 propositions regarding the properties of Animal Magnetism, which reiterate the points above on the influence of ebb and flow on the body. He also posited that there exists a mutual influence between the Heavenly Bodies, the Earth and Animate Bodies. The unifying factor between these three planes is a “universally distributed and continuous fluid, which is quite without vacuum and of an incomparably rarefied nature, and which by its nature is capable of receiving, propagating and communicating all the impressions of movement” (Tinterow 54). Ebb and flow direct this movement, with different and opposite poles. Bodies possess both negative and positive poles – and these poles may be “communicated, propagated, stored, concentrated and transported, reflected by mirrors and propagated by sound” (Tinterow 55). Given these properties, it seems the “fluid” of animal magnetism not only operates like a liquid fluid but also maintains some elements of light and air.

Cartesian "Animal Spirits"

This curious intermingling of elements recalls some aspects of Descartes’ concept of “animal spirits” which he elaborates in his 1662 text “Treatise on Man.” Here, the “animal spirit” is a “certain very fine wind, or rather a very lively and very pure flame” which emanates from the pineal gland, circulates in the body through arteries and drives movement through this circulation. (Descartes, 105) It should be noted that Descartes distinguishes the “animal spirit” from blood, and “animal spirits” specifically have an animating capacity. Similarly, Mesmer’s “animal magnetism” moves the body through circulation and flow, and is an activating force. It seems Mesmer’s “animal magnetism” has a denser quality, however, especially in its ability to be stored and transported. In making reference to the tides, he is clearly operating under the idea that there is a liquid element at play in “animal magnetism.” Both seem to attempt to situate classical elements, such as air, water, and fire, as operative within the human body.

According the Meser, the work of animal magnetism is "a natural and universal one"

"The spheres exert direct action on all parts that go to make up animate bodies, in particular the nervous system, by an all-penetrating fluid" (34).

This "direct action" is denoted by an "ebb and flow" (sea analogy) or what Mesmer also refers to as "intensification and remission" of the properties of matter. Thus, as the planets effect the ebb and flow of the tide, so to do they cause the intensification and remission of properties of the organic body. This body is like a needle--unmagnetized, its direction is random and open to whatever influences it, but magnetized it may maintain its initial position. The body, once disturbed, is unharmonious, until a general agent restores the harmony (36).

His first extensive case study is with Franzl Oesterline, whose symptoms he describes as "who for several years had been subject to a convulsive malady, the most troublesome symptoms of which were that the blood rushed to her head and there set up the most cruel toothache and earache, followed by delirium, rage, vomiting, and swooning" (36). (symptoms we would now align with hysteria). Mesmer tries to replicate the magnetic force necessary to reset her, to "imitate artificially" the celestial forces he believes are interfering with her. Mesmer can magnetize other people. He's NOT drawing from the universal fluid, he's drawing it from how own inner harmony.

The Blockage

illness as a disruption in the body's internal harmony

The Magnetic Poles and the Magnetic Pass

how mesmer theorized the body as a compass

The Circuit

the simple circuit we see with mesmer and Franzl, and the more complex social circuit that emerges when his work in france becomes group-based a. the baquet

The Crisis

the attack the removes the blockage, re-aligning one's magnetic balance

Miscellany Crap

Arriving in France in 1778, Mesmer brought a fully articulated concept of animal magnetism to bear upon the Parisian medical and courtly society. His practice ballooned in the span of 6 months, and it is at this moment that the practice of manipulating animal magnetism took on a truly social dimension.

"an 'antimedical' movement movement was already afoot in the 1770s that was attempting to promote reliance on the healing powers of nature rather than the radical interventions of physicians [...] The antimedical movement attempted to make the relationship between patient and physician more personal, insisting that the ill person be regarded not as a passive receptor of medical action but as an active participant in the healing process" (Crabtree 15). (Perhaps cite from Foucault and the Lectures on Psychiatric Power alchemical processes of nature)