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©Pyotr Patrushev rustran@gmail.com See Pyotr's translation and interpreting webpage: www.russiantranslate.org |
Anton Mesmer: Method, Magic or Mystery © PYOTR PATRUSHEV, 2007 An Investigation into the Nature of Placebo Power, Healing and Quackery |
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"If we treat mystery and magic as ‘only placebos’ and rely purely on Method, we will remain 10% healers."
In the mid-fifties, when I was about 13 or 14 years of age, I had my first encounter with Anton Mesmer. I was living in a small town in Western Siberia. We had boarders who were studying animal husbandry in a local college, where my sister was teaching. 1 don't know what their studies had to do with animal magnetism, but for some reason one day they brought home an old book, actually, a torn-out part of a book, published before the 1917 revolution, which described hypnosis and induction techniques, advocated by Mesmer, Braid and Bernheim.
I latched onto these yellow worn-out pages as if they were the alchemist’s recipe for transforming base metals into gold. After some unsuccessful attempts to hypnotise our student boarders, who only laughed at me, I tried our dog—who also proved a failure—and finally, my sister. To my amazement, she turned out to be a somnambulistic subject, capable of entering a deep trance. Soon, I was demonstrating hypnotic analgesia, illusions, hallucinations, and even the famed cataleptic bridge (a person lying between two chairs, supported only by her head and feet). Since that time, hypnotic phenomena have been a source of fascination—and occasional usefulness for the rest of my life.
This personal vignette illustrates the extraordinary influence and popularity of the squat and charismatic physician who was born in a hamlet in Swabia on the shore of Lake Constance in 1734. By the time mesmerism got around to Siberia, hypnosis was an accepted subject in Soviet medical schools, as well as in some American, English and European institutions of higher learning. (It must be pointed out that Mesmer himself did not think of hypnosis in the same way as we do and the invention of hypnotism is most often credited to James Braid). But there was a long and tortuous road between this period of relative scientific respectability and the initial reception which was accorded to Mesmer's innovative theories and therapeutic approaches. In fact, Mesmer's life represents one of the most extraordinary and fascinating examples of scientific innovation blocked by hostility and conservatism of the medical profession and the scientific establishment at large. But let us keep things in order.
I have recently heard a leading American theologian and healer talk of therapy in terms of Method, Magic and Mystery. I decided to apply the same framework to the investigation of Mesmer and mesmerism, to see what we can learn something from them now, almost 200 years after the demise of this extraordinary physician who dared to challenge the accepted scientific norms of the time.
Franz Anton Mesmer was a curious child, who loved nature and delighted in exploring the neighbourhood of his village. This curiosity and the desire to test theories by direct observation and experiment stayed with him for the rest of his life.
He was greatly influenced by Descartes who laid the basis for the scientific method for generations to come, and also by a radical protestant thinker Christian Wolff, the author of “Rational Thoughts On The Functions Of The Parts Of Men, Animals And Plants.”
Wolff had published an essay on the practical philosophy of the Chinese, one of the earliest of such works in the West. The interrelationship of Heaven, Earth and Man, implicit in this philosophy, deeply impressed young Anton and affected his whole worldview. Thus, philosophically, he was well ahead of most of his contemporaries. It will come as no surprise that his doctoral thesis at the University of Vienna was on the "Influence of the Planets on the Human Body." But he stayed well away from any astrological theories or any other supernatural explanations. He was interested in the possibility that the planets actually exercised physical, potentially measurable and explainable effects on the human body. His scientific rigor and his desire to gain the approval of the medical establishment on its own terms proved later to be the source of great frustration and even misfortune to this original thinker.
Mesmer studied the practice of medicine with the best teachers of his time, people like Gerard van Swieten, who founded the advanced Vienna Clinic. He was learning the method thoroughly, so that later he could go well beyond it.
Versatile and learned, but relatively poor, Mesmer soon made another good choice that had at least removed material worries for most of his life. In 1768 he married a well-to-do widow named Anna von Posch. He could now develop his scientific interests without being coerced into conformity by the demand of daily subsistence. He was friendly with Mozart, and learned to play cello and clavichord quite adequately. His passion, however, was the glass harmonica, a little known instrument going back to the jars and bowls filled with water to different levels and used by the Arabs and Persians in antiquity. Its ethereal sound was to become a major prop when Mesmer began to develop the magical side of his healing art.
At that time, the orthodox treatment of various disorders was limited to such things as bloodletting, blistering and various medicinal concoctions, some of which were definitely noxious. Any departure from the traditional wisdom would then, as now, make the offending physician a target of collegial slander, ostracism and outright hostility. But, for every prominent healer there is a patient who cannot be helped by orthodox methods, who in effect pushes the practitioner into the realm of the unknown, either out of compassion or at least out of a sense of professional curiosity. For Mesmer, it was a young woman called Franzl.
Here we are entering a grey rea where method begins to blend in magic. Something very significant must have happened for Mesmer to begin to apply magnets to his patients, instead of the usual treatments. Knowing Mesmer’s fascination with the influence of the planets on the human body, the
choice of magnets becomes perhaps quite natural. It is interesting to see that to the various practitioners of “magnetic cures” at the time (such as the ominously named
Father Hell), the shape of magnets was very important. At every level of the art, it seems, some practitioners tend to elevate the method into a panacea. Mesmer felt that it was not the shape of the magnets but the influence of life force or the
magnetic fluid on the body that effected the cure. He even suggested that the cure can be accomplished without the use of magnets as such.
However, with Franzl, who was so sick one could compile a medical encyclopedia out of her symptoms (which included convulsions, vomiting, depression, blindness, lameness, fainting fits, to name a few), Mesmer decided to use the traditionally-shaped magnets. Let us recall that at the time magnets and electricity were all the rage. During the last quarter of the eighteenth century they were the crystals, the Bach flower remedies, and the chakra cleansers combined.
When Mesmer fixed two horse-shoe shaped magnets to her feet, and a heart-shaped magnet to her breast, Franzl suddenly "felt a burning sensation spreading from her feet through all her joints like a glowing coal, with severe pains at the hips, and likewise from both sides of the breast to the crown of the head." She sweated and convulsed through the night, until all her pain had disappeared and the magnets lost their power. With this and subsequent applications she was completely cured, was able to lead a normal life and even have children.
Thus another tenet of the Mesmer magic was formed—the need for a healing crisis.
Soon, Mesmer generalised his theory and its applications to any substance—paper, wood, stone, silk, glass, water. He also demonstrated that he could influence the patient from a distance, and even from another room. When he demonstrated his skills to some of his colleagues, they were both convinced and appalled. They begged him not to divulge his discovery to the public, for his own sake. Later, they denied that any experiments Mesmer conducted in their presence were successful. In fact one of them asserted that he was able to prove, using some pieces of magnetised iron, that Mesmer's experiments were nothing but a prearranged fraud.
But, since Mesmer was after all a qualified doctor, the fury of his jealous and threatened colleagues was diverted to the unfortunate Father Hell, who was accused of attempting to treat patients without licence.
Of course, one man's magic is another man's method. Very soon, Mesmer and Hell had followers among the more innovative doctors who meticulously applied the new techniques. There is a truly fascinating, very thorough and "scientific," description of one case, running into some 20,000 words, penned by a certain Dr. Unzer. Magic, even lowered to the level of the Method, still apparently worked, though not as effectively as when practiced by Mesmer himself. His learned colleagues from the Berlin Academy also studied Mesmer’s magic purely at the level of the method, and came to a truly brilliant conclusion that since nothing but iron was capable of being magnetised, Mesmer's claims of cures were false. Fortunately, Mesmer's patients far outnumbered his detractors. His fame spread, magnifying his magic even further. The poor, the well-to-do and the nobility flocked to him with their incurable complaints. Mesmer treated the poor for free, charging the rich double. This was another grave sin that the medical fraternity found hard to forgive to their wayward brother.
Mesmer, being a practical and observant man, was refining his magic, converting a part of it back into the method. He was known, for example, to gather information about a patient from the unlikeliest sources—such as from their barber—a device most doctors of his time would never stoop to. He was one of the first to recognise the tremendous importance of family and social setting for the development of a disorder. But sometimes even Mesmer was not incapable of breaking through the vicious circle that kept some people sick, despite their terrible suffering.
When Mesmer took over the case of an eighteen-year-old girl called Maria-Teresa von Paradis, he inherited more than a few symptoms. The girl became blind at the age of three. She had a domineering father and hysterical mother who worked as a private secretary to the Emperor and the Empress. Sensitive and gifted, she became an outstanding pianist, as if to compensate for her handicap. The Empress encouraged her and granted her a generous pension to allow her to develop her talent with the best teachers Vienna could provide.
Court physicians applied the full armamentarium of their latest "scientific" treatments to the poor girl. Her head would be bandaged for months on end, until pus was oozing from under the plaster. When this did not help, the doctors administered up to a hundred electrical shocks at a time to her eyeballs, for the total of three thousand applications. By the time she came to Mesmer's attention, the doctors, fortunately for her, were about to give up on her as a hopeless case.
What Mesmer did was a master stroke of a true healer. He took her away from her parents and began to work with her, meticulously restoring her sight through a series of exercises and seances. He gave her the love and attention she had never had in her life. No wonder she began to respond! Soon, she was able to discern shadows and objects. She was rejoicing at her newly found world. She did not want to go back home.
The news of the cure reached the court physicians and the public. Rumours began to spread that the girl could no longer play the piano as well as she did in the past (true, because her whole somatosensory organisation was undergoing a change). It was suggested that the Empress would take away her pension, now that she was no longer sick. Her mother and father, outraged, took her back home by force. Soon, everything was "back to normal." She was blind again, and her piano playing improved, to everyone's satisfaction. She resumed her habitual existence as a "brilliant blind pianist."
Despite the ridicule and the opposition, Mesmer was developing his magic to a fine degree of perfection. He was now "magnetising" trees with ropes hanging off them, to allow the mass of sufferers to avail themselves of his magnetic power without necessarily crowding out his reception room (think what Medicare bulk billing could do for Mesmer!).
Mesmer was also the inventor of his famous baquet—the early version of the Californian hot tub. Patients would sit holding hands, with knees and feet touching, to ensure the circulation of the magnetic fluid. Mesmer himself would play some haunting tunes on his magical glass harmonica, or walk around, clad in a robe of lilac silk, trimmed with lace. Occasionally, he would stop, piercing a patient with his gaze, do one of his famous passes, or talk soothingly in a low voice. His gestures and passes were majestic and precise, tailored to a particular disorder. The patients were effectively engaged in a group process, with mutual help and encouragement. So, perhaps not only rebirthing but also group psychotherapy originated from Mesmer's baquet. In fact, his use of live and suitably improvised musical accompaniment, as well as individual and mass suggestion, leaves our contemporary gurus of rebirthing looking like poor cousins of the Original Rebirther.
But all this fame and notoriety was not enough for a boy from a small hamlet in Swabia. He wanted official recognition, which lay of course in the hands of his "scientific" colleagues. Some hidden deep insecurity was pushing him to obtain it, although his pragmatic mind must have told him that the resistance of his colleagues had more to do with politics and money than with science.
Of course, Mesmer himself did not make his task easier. He was occasionally belligerent and haughty. When the Queen finally allotted him a private hospital and a generous salary, he refused because he felt that his independence would be in jeopardy.
Finally, he went the route of all the brilliant innovators who were too impatient to await official recognition: he created his own private universe. Together with some rich and intelligent followers, he began to set up Societies of Harmony, which, in due course, spread to many countries. In them, members were instructed (for a substantial fee—Mesmer was also apparently an early believer in “prosperity consciousness” as well) in Mesmer's techniques. At last, they could learn—and spread his method, if not his magic.
But before that happened, there was one last attempt by the orthodox scientists (who had not yet heard of Thomas Kuhn and his "paradigm shifts") to put the claims of the maverick doctor to rigid scrutiny.
Benjamin Franklin, Antoine Laurent Lavoisier and Joseph-Ignace Guillotin were some of the better remembered names on the Royal Commission whose task was to investigate mesmerism. The thoroughness with which they applied themselves to this task would put to shame some of our contemporary investigators. Not only did they observe Mesmer and his pupils at work, they made themselves willing subjects of his experiments. But, to rule out the effect of suggestion (they called it "imagination"), they decided to study only the objective, physically verifiable facts. When being mesmerised, they would not pay any attention to subtle shifts in bodily sensations, deeming these to be unwanted interferences. Naturally, their findings were almost entirely negative. Unable to ignore Mesmer's successful cures, they ascribed them to the following factors: 1) pressure of hands and fingers; 2) imagination; and 3) imitation. They had eviscerated Mesmer's magic and shown it to be just a mass of tangled guts. Their conclusion was that his method was most pernicious and should be discouraged.
If we represent the Method, the Magic and the Mystery as the tub, the water and the baby, our distinguished Royal Commissioners have chosen to throw the water and the baby out and to study, most meticulously, the tub, for the evidence of Mesmer's efficacy. No wonder that all they found were some muddy streaks.
If we also, for the purpose of this exercise, quantify the healing potential of any method as 10%, the magic as 40%, and the mystery 50%, we will also see why they have failed, and why so many physicians who rely on method alone are such terrible healers. They only use 10% of their own, and their patient's, healing potential. (I give the method only a 10% because historically, very divergent and even contradictory methods were found to be equally effective, no doubt due to the other two ingredients—magic and mystery.)
Mesmer's great failing was that his mystery, because of his preoccupation with scientific recognition by his contemporaries, was not even a baby, it remained an underdeveloped embryo. When he, an eminent physician, was once asked to evaluate the work of another healer, Jean-Joseph Gassner, who was treating people very successfully with the simple laying on of the hands, Mesmer dismissed him as a quack whose effectiveness could only be explained by the unconscious use of animal magnetism. This was the ultimate irony, for it showed Mesmer to be blind to the most powerful healing element of all, the element of Mystery, of faith, of intuitive knowledge of the highest order. While we can still talk somewhat objectively and "scientifically" about the tub and the water, the baby, an infinite being which originated somewhere in the universe as stardust and survived billions of years of organic evolution, will always leave us guessing. Or dreaming.
Many people know now that some of the most important scientific discoveries were initially conceived in a state of dream or reverie, all very unscientific, altered states of consciousness. The benzine ring, the sewing machine, the printing press, the theory of relativity all, in varying degrees, belong to this category. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that we live now in the universe which has been dreamed for us by our best dreamers. All science is doing is trying to interpret their dreams. The modern physics and the astronomy have gone so far in their interpretation that they are inexorably slipping themselves into the dreamtime of science, its inchoate metaphors. By trying to turn magic and mystery into method, we have gone full circle. Magically, our method has first become imbued with magic and is finally teetering on the brink of mystery.
This process is a part of a natural evolutionary process and I, for one, am all for refining our scientific method so that it can touch at least the edge of Mystery, and be thereby transformed by it.
There is no need to tell the rest of the story about the gradual acceptance and refinement of Mesmer's findings by other researchers. In fact, as the American theoretician of science Kuhn would have predicted, parts of his heritage became the New Orthodoxy, with Societies of Hypnotherapy being set up worldwide and dozens of learned journals being devoted to the subject of hypnosis and suggestion, not to mention the research into imagery, healing through music, group therapy, rebirthing, radionics, and a host of other disciplines to which Mesmer, unknowingly, gave an impetus.
But the most important message of Mesmer's story, I believe, is the message that if we treat Mystery and Magic as "only placebos" and rely purely on the Method (no matter how glorified and “scientific”), we will remain 10% healers. In fact, our modern Method, with its powerful and often harmful drugs, expensive CT scanners and loveless "procedures" has become a sort of negative, sorcery-like, at times even destructive magic, devoid not only of mystery, but even of simple human compassion and understanding. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we will be able to turn the corner of yet another Kuhnian revolution. And may God help us, for we need to do that.
After leaving the USSR in 1962, Pyotr Patrushev worked as a science correspondent in Europe and America and studied History and Philosophy of Science at the University of NSW. This article was originally published in the New Age News.
