Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1908-03-05
THE INDUCED TRANCE.
Franz Anton Mesmer and His Weird
Hypnotic Methods

Charlatan though he was, mankind
owes greater debt to Franz Anton
Mesmer than has generally been ac-
knowledged. As the present writer has
elsewhere said when Mesmer pub
ished in 1913 his account of the mar
velous cures effected by what he was
pleased to term animal magnetism. he
sowed seed which was to render in
evitable the diligent husbandry of to-
day" Grant that hypnotism had still
to be clarified by the researches of an
Esdaile. an ElliOtson 4 Braid. Char
cot, Liebeault a Quincy, before it be-
came what it is today-a wonderful
curative instrument and aid to psy.
Geological acknowledgements all
this, and Mesmer remains the first of
a line of neutrality-suspicious. and psy-
chopathologists whose fame, if belated,
is steadily growing. That he should
have been rebuffed by the orthodox
practitioners of his day is not sur
prising. When in 177S he went to
Paris he went with well developed
sense of the value of advertising. The
campaign he inaugurated was of a
character to disgust the conservative
and thoughtful, but to take a sensa-
ton loving populace by storm. Most
eXtravagant tales of cures he had ac-
complished in Berlin, Vienna and else
where were noised abroad. Through a
convert he challenged the physicians
Of Paris to enter into a contest with
him, they to treat twelve patients by
the orthodox methods he to treat twelve
by his. Of course this challenge was
rejected, and equally, of course, its re-
lection was interpreted by the thought
less as an acknowledgment of the su-
periority of Mesmer's treatment His
rooms were thronged; his purse waxed
constantly heavier.
The treatment he gave was such as
to appeal wildly to the imagination of
the patient-in a word, to increase his
suggestibility. Suggestion, indeed, was
its root element, although MeSmer
failed or pretended to fail to recognize
this and taught that it's efficacy de-
pended upon the effiuence of n mystic
rious fluid. In a room dimly lighted
and hung with mirrors the patients
were seated about a circular vat OF
considerable size covered with a lid
and containing various chemicals. A
long cord connected the patients with
one another, while in the lid of The
tub were several holes, through each of
which passed an iron rod bent in such
q way that its point could be applied
to any part of patients body. The
patients were requested not to speak,
the only sound in the room being
strains of soft music When expectan-
cy was at it's flood Mesmer would en-
ter clad in the robe of a magician and
carrying an iron wand. At one pa
tent he would gaze intently; another
he would stroke gently with his wand.
Soon some would burst into laughter,
others into tears, while still others
would fall into commissions, finally
passing into a lethargic state, out of
which, it is claimed, they emerged
cured or on the highroad to a cure.
Occasionally the treatment was given
outdoors, a tree being "magnetized"
and the patient collapsing in a swoon
so soon as he approached it.
In such wise were Europeans first
of the induced trance" From THE
Riddle of Personality" by II. Adding
ton Bruce.