Complete Hypnotism, Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spritualism | Page 3

of magnetism and the opposite virtue. The magnet and
artificial electricity have, with respect to disease, properties common to
a host of other agents presented to us by nature, and if the use of these
has been attended by useful results, they are due to animal magnetism.
By the aid of magnetism, then, the physician enlightened as to the use
of medicine may render its action more perfect, and can provoke and
direct salutary crises so as to have them completely under his control."

The Faculty of Medicine investigated Mesmer's claims, but reported
unfavorably, and threatened d'Eslon with expulsion from the society
unless he gave Mesmer up. Nevertheless the government favored the
discoverer, and when the medical fraternity attacked him with such
vigor that he felt obliged to leave Paris, it offered him a pension of
20,000 francs if he would remain. He went away, but later came back at
the request of his pupils. In 1784 the government appointed two
commissions to investigate the claims that had been made. On one of
these commissions was Benjamin Franklin, then American Ambassador
to France as well as the great French scientist Lavoisier. The other was
drawn from the Royal Academy of Medicine, and included Laurent de
Jussieu, the only man who declared in favor of Mesmer.
There is no doubt that Mesmer had returned to Paris for the purpose of
making money, and these commissions were promoted in part by
persons desirous of driving him out. "It is interesting," says a French
writer, "to peruse the reports of these commissions: they read like a
debate on some obscure subject of which the future has partly revealed
the secret." Says another French writer (Courmelles): "They sought the
fluid, not by the study of the cures affected, which was considered too
complicated a task, but in the phases of mesmeric sleep. These were
considered indispensable and easily regulated by the experimentalist.
When submitted to close investigation, it was, however, found that they
could only be induced when the subjects knew they were being
magnetized, and that they differed according as they were conducted in
public or in private. In short--whether it be a coincidence or the
truth--imagination was considered the sole active agent. Whereupon
d'Eslon remarked, 'If imagination is the best cure, why should we not
use the imagination as a curative means?' Did he, who had so vaunted
the existence of the fluid, mean by this to deny its existence, or was it
rather a satirical way of saying. 'You choose to call it imagination; be it
so. But after all, as it cures, let us make the most of it'?
"The two commissions came to the conclusion that the phenomena
were due to imitation, and contact, that they were dangerous and must
be prohibited. Strange to relate, seventy years later, Arago pronounced
the same verdict!"

Daurent Jussieu was the only one who believed in anything more than
this. He saw a new and important truth, which he set forth in a personal
report upon withdrawing from the commission, which showed itself so
hostile to Mesmer and his pretensions.
Time and scientific progress have largely overthrown Mesmer's
theories of the fluid; yet Mesmer had made a discovery that was in the
course of a hundred years to develop into an important scientific study.
Says Vincent: "It seems ever the habit of the shallow scientist to plume
himself on the more accurate theories which have been provided f, by
the progress of knowledge and of science, and then, having been fed
with a limited historical pabulum, to turn and talk lightly, and with an
air of the most superior condescension, of the weakness and follies of
those but for whose patient labors our modern theories would probably
be non-existent." If it had not been for Mesmer and his "Animal
Magnetism", we would never have had "hypnotism" and all our learned
societies for the study of it.
Mesmer, though his pretensions were discredited, was quickly followed
by Puysegur, who drew all the world to Buzancy, near Soissons, France.
"Doctor Cloquet related that he saw there, patients no longer the
victims of hysterical fits, but enjoying a calm, peaceful, restorative
slumber. It may be said that from this moment really efficacious and
useful magnetism became known." Every one rushed once more to be
magnetized, and Puysegur had so many patients that to care for them
all he was obliged to magnetize a tree (as he said), which was touched
by hundreds who came to be cured, and was long known as "Puysegur's
tree". As a result of Puysegur's success, a number of societies were
formed in France for the study of the new phenomena.
In the meantime, the subject had attracted considerable interest in
Germany, and in 1812 Wolfart was sent to Mesmer at Frauenfeld by the