Free Supernatural by Colin Wilson Page A

intellectual cornerstone of modern psychology.
    Mesmer grew up amidst peaceful mountain scenery, and it left its mark on him for a lifetime.His naturally religious temperament inclined him towards the priesthood, but after attending a Jesuit university at Dillingen, he came to realise that his immense curiosity pointed to a career in science and philosophy.So he studied philosophy, then law, and ended up at the age of 32 with a medical degree as well.Interestingly enough, his doctoral thesis was called ‘The Influence of the Planets Upon the Human Body’.But its thesis was less absurd than it sounds.Mesmer believed that nature is pervaded by invisible energies—the force of gravitation is an example—and that when we are in tune with these energies, we are healthy.When the energies are blocked, either by physical problems or negative mental attitudes, we become unhealthy.If the energies can become unblocked, we become healthy again.
    This cheerful attitude brought him success, and within two years he had married one of his wealthy patients, a widow von Posch, and moved into a magnificent house in Vienna, where he counted the Mozarts among his many friends.It looked as if nothing could stand in the way of a lifetime of good fortune and respectability.
    But how can the ‘vital energies’ be unblocked?One obvious way is to induce a crisis—we recognise this when we take aspirin to get rid of a cold by making us perspire.In Mesmer’s day, most doctors tried to induce a crisis by bleeding the patient, which, amazingly enough, often seemed to work.But there should surely be easier ways?In 1773, he thought he might have stumbled on the solution.His friend Father Maximilian Hell, the Professor of Astronomy at Vienna University, had been experimenting with magnets, and was inclined to believe that they could unblock the vital fluids—he even designed specially shaped magnets that would fit over various parts of the body.Mesmer tried it out on a patient in 1773, taking with him his friend Leopold Mozart.29-year-old Franziska Oesterlein lay in bed suffering from general debilitation.Mesmer tried applying some of Hell’s powerful magnets, moving them from her stomach down to her feet.After an hour or so, Frau Oesterlein reported strange currents moving around her body.These built up to a crisis, and she ended by feeling much better.Repeated doses of the magnetic treatment soon cured her.
    Father Hell was naturally inclined to claim the credit, and at first Mesmer was inclined to give it generously.Then he noticed something rather odd.One day when he was bleeding a patient, he noticed that the flow of blood increased when he moved close, and decreased when he moved away.It looked as if his own body was producing the same effect as the magnets.Instead of using magnets, he began passing his hands lightly over the patient.This seemed to work just as well.And as he tried the method on more patients, Mesmer decided that he had discovered the basic principle of healing: not ordinary ‘magnetic’ magnetism, but animal magnetism.In 1779 he published a pamphlet on his discovery.To his astonishment, it aroused general hositility instead of the acclaim he had expected from his colleagues in the medical profession.They insisted that Mesmer was a charlatan who cured his patients by mere suggestion—a notion in which there was obviously a certain amount of truth.They also suggested that Mesmer’s motives in passing his hands over the bodies of female patients were not as pure as they should be.
    As rich patients talked about spectacular cures, the hostility grew.Mesmer spent a week at the estate of Baron Haresky de Horka, who suffered from unaccountable ‘spasms’ and fits, and he persisted throughout a disappointing week when it looked as though the baron was failing to respond to treatment.It took six days before the baron began to shudder with asthmatic paroxysms.When Mesmer held the baron’s foot, they stopped; when he held his