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of animal magnetism is also called mesmerism, vital magnetism, bio-magnetism,
therapeutic magnetism, or zoo-magnetism.
I do not wish to join the contemptible group of Mesmer's professional slanderers.
He is dead, and can no longer defend himself from those who disparage him without
taking into consideration the circumstances or the time in which he lived. Against
the universal opinion that he was avaricious, I remark that in Vienna, as well
as later in Morsburgr and Paris, he always helped the poor without reward. I
believe that he erred in his teaching, but think it is just to attack this only,
and not his personal
r Also spelt Meersburg.
8 HYPNOTISM.
character. Let us consider, however—for I deem it right to uphold the honour
of one who is dead—more closely in what his alleged great crime consisted.
He believed in the beginning that he could heal by means of a magnet, and later
that he could do so by a personal indwelling force that he could transfer to
the baquel. This was evidently his firm conviction, and he never made a secret
of it. Others believed that a patient's mere imagination played a part, or that
Mesmer produced his effects by some concealed means. Then, by degrees, arose
the legend that Mesmer possessed some secret by means of which he was able to
produce effects on people, but that he would not reveal it. In reality the question
was not at all of a secret purposely kept back by him, since he imagined that
he _exercised some individual force. Finally, if he used this supposititious
force for the purpose of earning money, he did nothing worse than do 'modern
physicians and proprietors of institutions who likewise do not follow their
calling from pure love of their neighbour, but seek to earn their own living,
as they are quite justified in doing. Mesmer did not behave worse than those
who nowadays discover a new drug, and regard the manufacture of it as a means
of enriching themselves. Let us be just and cease to slander Mesmer, who did
only what is done by the people -just mentioned, against whose procedure no
one raises a word of protest, even when the drugs they extol possess no therapeutic
properties whatever. Further, Colquhoun, who is thoroughly conversant with the
events of the period, opines that Mesmer-never made nearly as much money as
he is said to have done (Sinnett). That those who defame Mesmer know the least
about his teaching and the particulars of his life, is very clearly shown by
a whole series of modern books on hypnotism.
A follower of Mesmer, Chastenet de Puysegur, discovered in 1784, a state which
was named artificial somnambulism. Apart from some falsely interpreted phenomena
(thought-transference, clairvoyance, etc.) the chief characteristic of this
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