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Updated: May 18, 2025
We know, indeed, that some furious admirers of Mesmer attempted to suffocate Berthollet in the corner of one of the rooms of the Palais Royal, for having honestly said that the scenes he had witnessed did not appear to him demonstrative. We have this anecdote from Berthollet himself. The pretensions of the German doctor increased with the number of his adherents.
There Rosicrucianism reappeared, there Anton Mesmer recovered the initial process of transcendental practice, there the Marquis de Puységur discovered clairvoyance, there Martines de Pasqually instructed his disciples in the mysteries of ceremonial magic; there the illustrious Saint-Martin, le philosophe inconnu, developed a special system of spiritual reconstruction; there alchemy flourished; there spiritual and political princes betook themselves to extravagant researches after an elixir of life; there also, as a consequence, rose up a line of magnificent impostors who posed as initiates of the occult sciences, as possessors of the grand secret and the grand mastery; there, finally, under the influences of transcendental philosophy, emblematic Freemasonry took root and grew and flourished, developing ten thousand splendours of symbolic grades, of romantic legends, of sonorous names and titles.
Like Valentine Greatraks, he found it hard work to magnetise all that came that he had not even time to take the repose and relaxation which were necessary for his health. In this emergency he hit upon a clever expedient. He had heard Mesmer say that he could magnetise bits of wood why should he not be able to magnetise a whole tree? It was no sooner thought than done.
In 1814 Deleuze published a book on the subject, and Abbe Faria, who had come from India, demonstrated that there was no fluid, but that the phenomena were subjective, or within the mind of the patient. He first introduced what is now called the "method of suggestion" in producing magnetism or hypnotism. In 1815 Mesmer died.
The hounds have been on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Mesmer, or Saint Hubert in the Ardennes, or some other holy intercessor who has made a speciality of the health of hunting-dogs. In the grey dawn the game was turned and the branch broken by our best piqueur. A rare day's hunting lies before us. Wind a jolly flourish, sound the bien-aller with all your lungs.
The Report on 'Animal Magnetism, as it was then styled, was presented in 1831. The Academy lacked the courage to publish it, for the Report was favourable even to certain of the still disputed phenomena. At that time, in accordance with a survival of the theory of Mesmer, the agent in hypnotic cases was believed to be a kind of efflux of a cosmic fluid from the 'magnetiser' to the patient.
"What a frightful thing!" said she, with a look of fear. "What, Therese? What is frightful?" asked her mother. "Look at your mother, Therese," said Mesmer. She heard the well-beloved voice, and her hands fell from her eyes. "Now tell me, what disturbs you," said Frau von Paradies. Therese raised her hand and pointed to her mother's nose. "It is that," said she. "What is it?"
The audience expressed astonishment; Therese uttered a cry of horror, and turned to Mesmer, who, pale and stunned by the shock of her father's cruel words, had lost all power to come to the poor child's assistance. Barth was laughing behind his pocket-handkerchief. "The remedy works," whispered he to Ingenhaus "the remedy works." Two gentlemen arose. One handed a book, the other a sheet of music.
Mesmer was the rage; and high and low, rich and poor, credulous and unbelieving, all hastened to convince themselves of the power of this mighty magician, who made such magnificent promises. Mesmer, who knew as well as any man living the influence of the imagination, determined that, on that score, nothing should be wanting to heighten the effect of the magnetic charm.
However this may be, the austerity of Mesmer did not prevent his being most violently angry when he learnt at Spa that Deslon continued the magnetical treatments at Paris. He returned in all haste. Mesmer quitted France a second time about the end of 1781, in quest of a more enlightened government, who could appreciate superior minds.
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