Mesmer is the person that gave us such wonderful words as “Mesmerised” and “Animal Magnetism”.
Mesmer was an interesting, and controversial, character in his day. High Society loved him and the medical community loathed him.
They loathed him NOT because he was a quack (in those days they were ALL quacks!) but because he got miraculous results that they could not get.Several years after he started practising in Vienna Mesmer moved to what was then the cultural and social centre of the world: Paris, France.The doctors there REALLY didn’t like him: not only was he loved and getting amazing results…with high profile (and high paying clients)..,he was also NOT French!
So they tried to railroad him. They asked the King for a special commission to investigate this Quack.
The King agreed. He chose three prominent men, including one Dr Guillotine (who would later invent something the King wouldn’t like so much!) and one famous American Ambassador: Benjamin Franklin. Franklin’s test was more than fair – and was one of the first examples of a truly scientific “blind trial” in history.
He got one of Mesmer’s students to “magnetise” a few trees. Then he let loose a bunch of people with “issues” to wander through the trees. Benjamin and his colleagues
kept track of which trees they touched and whether they then had the famous “convulsions” that always preceded a cure in those days.
Sure enough people got better when they touched the WRONG trees.The French Doctors were delighted: Mesmer was debunked.Jsona,
Nobody seemed to hear the lone voice of reason: Benjamin Franklin, who postulated the TRUE source of the healing power of hypnosis – it was the force of people’s imaginations
releasing some inner healing potential. It is now almost 300 years after Mesmer was born. The secret to mesmerism has been rediscovered – along with so much more!
