Austrian physician Franz Anton Mesmer is considered one of the fathers of modern day hypnotherapy.
Mesmer believed that illness was caused by an imbalance of magnetic fluids in the body. Any imbalance, he theorized, could be corrected using a natural force in humans and animals called “animal magnetism”. A hypnotherapist could use his own magnetism to heal imbalances in the patient.
In 1766, Mesmer published his doctoral dissertation: On the Influence of the Planets on the Human Body. It discussed his belief in the magnetic “tides” in the human body — some that could be influenced by movements of the planets (similar to how ocean tides are influenced by the moon). Mesmer initially attempted to manipulate these tides with magnets but eventually came to believe that his own animal magnetism was stronger than any object’s pull.
Mesmer did use magnets to create an “artificial tide” in a patient in 1774. A female patient swallowed a liquid that contained iron and allowed Mesmer to attach magnets to different parts of her body. She claimed to feel streams running through her body that relieved symptoms of illness. The cure lasted for several hours after the treatment. Mesmer believed that it wasn’t the magnets alone that affected the woman.
Before long, Mesmer abandoned magnets and used his own animal magnetism to heal. With individual patients, Mesmer would pass his hands over the body in order to affect the magnetic fluids. By 1780, Mesmer had more patients than he could handle!
He soon developed a method of delivering group therapy called the baquet. This wooden vessel has holes in the lid for iron rods. Patients could hold the rods against their bodies while Mesmer manipulated his animal magnetism. Witnesses say that just a wave of Mesmer’s hand could initiate healing convulsions in patients.
Not surprisingly, Mesmer’s career was not without scandal. He was eventually accused of practicing magic and was forced to leave his native Austria. After relocating to Paris, he published a book on his ideas and therapies. In 1784, King Louis XVI set up a commission to investigate Mesmer’s practice of animal magnetism. The commission (including American ambassador Benjamin Franklin) concluded that the flow patients felt was imaginary.
Mesmer spent most of the rest of his life traveling through Europe. Medical studies eventually dismissed the idea of tides in the body entirely but continued to investigate trance states and hypnotherapy.