Mesmer was a Newtonian with an interest in discovering universal mechanical laws at work in the universe. His dissertation treated a universally distributed fluid that flows continuously everywhere and serves as a dynamic binding vehicle for the mutual influence among heavenly bodies, earth, and living beings.

The physical fact that stimulated his imagination was the link between the Moon and earthly tides. If the Moon affects pools of water, why not other fluids? Why not also the vital fluids coursing through the bodies of animals? And why not consider the effect of the other planets as well, and the stars? Given this reasonable supposition, why not see if there’s a relation between planetary positions and human health. Why not found a new field of medical astronomy? And perhaps gravity can explain the fact of astrology, which would then be a scientific field that correlates planetary positions with human fluid tides, rather than something occult?

The universal fluid to which Mesmer referred as early as his doctoral dissertation in 1766 is described by him as “the cause of universal gravitation and, no doubt, the basis of all bodily properties; which, in effect, in the smallest particles of fluids and solids of our bodies, contracts, distends and causes cohesion, elasticity, irritability, magnetism, and electricity; a force which can, in this context, be called animal gravitation.” He had in mind the One Field that rules them all, not just the three fundamental forces (strong force, electroweak, and gravitation) but also consciousness.

So Mesmer was an exemplary Renaissance-style syncretist. The Renaissance was the golden age of universal synthesis. Renaissance intellectuals were motivated by the dream of an all encompassing system of knowledge, one embracing the humanities (the subjective-poetic) and the hard sciences (applied mathematics).

What makes him such a fun topic is that he framed his project precisely as a fusion of large-scale cosmology with body-scale (and tinier) physiology. Specifically, he began with what had already been established (Newton’s universal gravitation) and extended that to the human biological microcosm. We know that the universe is pervaded by law and symmetry of force. Before our sciences became surreal, it was ruled by common sense realism. Universal forces “must” be carried by universally distributed substance. Wherever there is an effect, there must be a substance. This was the effect of common sense on physics, and the rationale for the various aether theories which people thought necessary to explain the propagation of light and gravity—along with other unexplained and invisible forces, such as magnetic force and electricity.

Mesmer’s genius was to begin with this (the Hermetic “Above”) and then use it as the basis for explaining matters subjective (the Hermetic “Below”). Soon enough, however, the priority would reverse. Mesmer would inadvertently inaugurate a Copernican revolution in medicine and give birth to psychotherapy at the same time.

In 1773, he began treating Francisca Österlin for a kind of hysteria whose intensity ebbed and flowed during attacks. Mesmer saw the analogy with his dissertation. Were her bio-tides moving in tandem with the all-pervading cosmo-tides?

How lucky he was that his patient was suffering from hysteria. Conversion disorder (as it is called today) is psychosomatic disease symptoms resulting from psychological conflict. Österlin was a perfect first case to treat with placebo therapy, because psychological problems are only cured by placebo therapy.

So Mesmer had, on one hand, a hypothetical cause and, on the other, a model patient who seemed affected by it. What he needed now was an intervention. How could he alter the cause of her symptoms?

Today, the fashion is to bring mysterious things together by uniting them in quantum physics. Psi phenomena (precognition, clairvoyance, telekinesis, telepathy), free will, psychosomatic self-healing (especially remission of cancer), the ability of goals to manifest (affirmation, Law of Attraction, positive thinking), causal efficacy of subjective intention (magick), mystical experience (oceanic feeling, Nirvana), synchronicity, and even consciousness itself—all are explained as consequences of the underlying quantum mechanics that rules the world. Quantum mechanics as a practice is understood by very few—operations performed inside a mathematical formalism, whose calculations accurately predict real physical outcomes. But the quantum reality that the mathematical system refers to is understood by no one.

In Mesmer’s day, mysterious things were also explained by the mysterious physics of the day. Gravity, magnetism, and electricity—invisible but real and exerting apparent action at a distance—were all candidates for explaining other mysterious things, like animate matter and consciousness. My point here is only that referring mysterious explananda (consciousness, life, disease) to a mysterious explanans (gravity, magnetism, electricity, quantum mechanics) gives license to conflate them.

So Mesmer decided that he would manipulate the gravitational force-flows with loadstones—that is, with mineral magnets.

Maximilian Hell was already using magnetic plates reduce pain from diseases such as rheumatism. By applying magnets to his patients’ ailing parts, he achieved the excellent expected placebo rate of success.

When Mesmer watched Hell heal patients in 1774 by applying magnetized steel plates to their bodies, he knew that magnets were the future of medicine. He applied Hell’s magnet therapy with great success. But over time he developed a new model to explain how the treatment was working.

Hell manufactured magnets for Mesmer to use on Francisca. The treatment—a powerful placebo applied to psychosomatic symptoms—was a success. Because of this, a very public credit dispute soon followed.

The dispute with Hell pushed Mesmer to refine his theory. Since the magnets were his, Hell argued that the cure resulted from their local application. This effectively deleted the local application model from Mesmer’s theoretical framework. Mesmer argued that the healing was due, not to the physical magnets, but to the fluid that Mesmer himself was channeling, amplifying or even generating.

Thus the effective therapeutic force was no longer cosmic gravitational-magnetic nor mineral-magnetic, but animal magnetic. This was the theoretical benefit of what was in part a competitive marketing ploy. But was it just marketing? Certainly over time Mesmer discovered a correlation between the magnitude of his confidence and the efficacy of the treatment. This is why trails controlling for the placebo effect must be double (and not single) blind—the confidence of the therapist cannot help but rub off on the patient. (And let’s not forget Clever Hans the horse, whose peripheral cognizance of his trainer’s emotions was so great that he could perform arithmetic.)

Ironically, in his next public dispute, Mesmer acted as champion of materialism. Gassner’s successful exorcisms, Mesmer claimed, worked because he was an adept at animal magnetism, albeit unknowingly. As a bonus to Mesmer’s dispute with Hell, the fact that Gassner’s performances worked without magnets indicated that animal magnetism, and not mineral magnetism, was the actual curative cause.

In a properly mechanical system effects are completely determined by causes and conditions. Mesmer’s approach to healing practice was consistent with his mechanical theory:

1. The results of treatment are the responsibility of the therapist, and
2. Therapy consists of actions by the therapist.

We can call this the therapist-side model of efficacy. If the healer does the right actions—which are all volitional, gestural, and physical—then the right result must follow. The role of patient-side suggestibility (which is what this PSYCHO MAP is really all about) had not yet arisen.

The primary concern of the mesmerist is the action and technique of energy emanation and direction. Technique consisted of stroking, touching, intense prolonged staring, and pointing with charged wands.

Mesmer became convinced that illness was caused by some sort of depletion in an invisible magnetic fluid, and that restoration of the fluid was curative. He assumed that healthy people were permeated with the fluid and began to wonder whether they could transmit some of their excess to the afflicted the same way that it was transmitted from magnets, which he assumed were loaded with it.

Before long, he discovered that indeed the healing fluid could be passed from the healthy to the ill, prompting him to hatch the theory of “animal magnetism.” This force could be passed from the healthy to the ill either by direct contact or even by just being in proximity.

In his later practice, patients would sit around the mesmeric baquet—a wooden tub filled with iron filings, sand, and bottles full of magnetized water. Patients would hold onto iron rods that carried the current from the tubs. In larger groups, patients would hold hands or hold onto rope that had been tied around those that were close to the tub and holding rods.

Mesmer’s therapy worked. Disabilities and even blindness were cured. It worked because placebo medicine is powerful and effective.

Another reason: it allowed sexually deprived women to exercise their sexual energies. Mesmeric patients were usually women and mesmerists always men. The mesmeric performance leading to crisis was actually a cycle of sexual arousal and (near) relief produced by the enchanting attentions of male authority focused on needy and unfulfilled women. The convulsions of the crisis were often orgasms. This was noted in the commission’s supplementary confidential report to the king.

Remember that many patients came for female hysteria, which was successfully cured by proscribing orgasm. Physicians recommended private clitoral stimulation at home, and women unable to do so on their own received relief via a genital massage from a physician. This latter remedy caused concern in the medical community and led to the invention of the vibrator. The vibrator later became a commercial product, and by the 20th century, female hysteria was a thing of the past.

Ultimately, Mesmer’s success attracted envious competition. Two commissions appointed by King Louis XVI officially delegitimized Mesmer’s physical metaphysics. By 1890 the practice had disappeared from France but spread through Europe and flourished until the 1850s.

The commission conducted some properly controlled studies using d’Eslon as the official mesmerist:

• A peasant woman with ailing eyes was blindfolded and one of the commissioners played the role of d’Eslon and pretended to magnetize her. This successfully caused a mesmeric crisis. (At the time, d’Eslon was in another room attempting to magnetize Ben Franklin for gouty and kidney-stones.)
• The commissioners had d’Eslon magnetize patients from behind a screen, concealed from view. The patients did not react and the treatment had no discernible effect

•  D’Eslon was asked to magnetize one of Franklin’s trees out of the sight of a twelve-year-old boy, a patient of D’Eslon and Mesmer. The young patient was then blindfolded and allowed to wander freely about the garden. He was asked to embrace several trees and identify the one with the most magnetic force. He reported that the magnetic force was getting stronger as he proceeded away from the tree that had been magnetized. When the magnetic force had reached fever pitch he fainted before the wrong tree at the most distant point away from the “magnetized” one.
• A woman who could supposedly sense magnetized water was tested by being given several cups with water, none of which were “magnetized.” After touching an unmagnetized cup she fell into crisis. Later, she asked for a drink and was given it in the cup d’Eslon had actually magnetized and noticed nothing.

The points of attack:

1. The existence of the substance—the animal fluid. Orthodox mesmerism asserts the existence of a new physical force.
2. The effectiveness of the passes.

What the Commission overlooked, however, was the most interesting thing of all.

1. The bullshit worked. The positive results were attributed to the power of imagination in the style of a dismissal. As if this were not the find of the millennium—that magick is real. So imagination cures physical disease. That is a medium deal, at least. Acts of meaning-making, imagining, and will can effect genuine cures. The Commission failed to comprehend that the cures were genuine enough even if there appeared to be no physical or organic origin to the illness.
2. That physical disease can be treated in this way says something about the ontology of disease. Can diseases precipitate out of our acts of meaning-making? Is the substance of disease ultimately will? And if suggestion really does lay at the root of disease, why do we not regularly suggest our way out of sickness? That is—are there techniques of induction that open the suggestion-run self to programming?

The song and dance of the mesmerism performance were all ceremony in honor of a substance whose matter was pure posit. But, together, the believing and the dancing worked.

(See here for an interesting paper showing how the placebo controls used by the Commission evolved from the “trick trials” used during the devil controversies of the 16th century.)