Animal Magnetism

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Animal magnetism

Animal magnetism, also known as mesmerism, was the name given by German doctor Franz Mesmer in the 18th century to what he believed to be an invisible natural force (Lebensmagnetismus) possessed by all living things, including humans, animals, and vegetables. He believed that the force could have physical effects, including healing, and he tried persistently but without success to achieve scientific recognition of his ideas.[1]

The vitalist theory attracted numerous followers in Europe and the United States and was popular into the 19th century. Practitioners were often known as magnetizers rather than mesmerists. It was an important specialty in medicine for about 75 years from its beginnings in 1779, and continued to have some influence for another 50 years. Hundreds of books were written on the subject between 1766 and 1925, but it is almost entirely forgotten today.[2] Mesmerism is still practised as a form of alternative medicine in some countries, but magnetic practices are not recognized as part of medical science.

Contents

Etymology and definitions "Magnetizer" "Mesmerism" Royal Commission Royal Academy investigation Mesmerism and hypnotism Vital fluid and animal magnetism Social skepticism in the Romantic Era Political influence Mesmerism and spiritual healing practices Contemporary development Professional magnetizers See also Notes References Further reading

Etymology and definitions

"Magnetizer" The terms "magnetizer" and "mesmerizer" have been applied to people who study and practice animal magnetism.[3] These terms have been distinguished from "mesmerist" and "magnetist", which are regarded as denoting those who study animal magnetism without being practitioners;[4] and from "hypnotist", someone who practises hypnosis.[4] The etymology of the word magnetizer comes from the French "magnetiseur" ("practicing the methods of mesmerism"),[3] which in turn is derived from the French verb magnetiser.[5] The term refers to an individual who has the power to manipulate the "magnetic fluid"[6] with effects upon other people present that were regarded as analogous to magnetic effects.[7] This sense of the term is found, for example, in the expression of Antoine Joseph Gorsas: "The magnetizer is the imam of vital energy".[8]

"Mesmerism" A tendency emerged amongst British magnetizers to call their clinical techniques "mesmerism"; they wanted to distance themselves from the theoretical orientation of animal magnetism that was based on the concept of "magnetic fluid". At the time, some magnetizers attempted to channel what they thought was a magnetic "fluid", and sometimes they attempted this with a "laying on of hands". Reported effects included various feelings: intense heat, trembling, trances, and seizures.[9]

Many practitioners took a scientific approach, such as Joseph Philippe François Deleuze (1753–1835), a French physician, anatomist, gynecologist, and physicist. One of his pupils was Théodore Léger (1799–1853), who wrote that the label "mesmerism" was "most improper".[10] (Léger moved to Texas around 1836).

Noting that, by 1846, the term "galvanism" had been replaced by "electricity", Léger wrote that year:[10]

Mesmerism, of all the names proposed [to replace the term animal magnetism], is decidedly the most improper; for, in the first place, no true science has ever been designated by the name of a man, whatever be the claims he could urge in his favor; and secondly, what are the claims of Mesmer for such an honor? He is not the inventor of the practical part of the science, since we can trace the practice of it through the most remote ages; and in that respect, the part which he introduced has been completely abandoned. He proposed for it a theory which is now [viz., 1846] exploded, and which, on account of his errors, has been fatal to our progress. He never spoke of the phenomena which have rehabilitated our cause among scientific men; and since nothing remains to be attributed to Mesmer, either in the practice and theory, or the discoveries that constitute our science, why should it be called mesmerism?

Royal Commission

In 1784 a French Royal Commission appointed by Louis XVI studied Mesmer's magnetic fluid theory to try to establish it by scientific evidence. The commission included Majault, Benjamin Franklin, Jean Sylvain Bailly, Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, Sallin, Jean Darcet, de Borey, Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, Antoine Lavoisier, Poissonnier, Caille, Mauduyt de la Varenne, Andry, and de Jussieu.

Whilst the commission agreed that the cures claimed by Mesmer were indeed cures, it also concluded there was no evidence of the existence of his "magnetic fluid", and that its effects derived from either the imaginations of its subjects or charlatanry.

Royal Academy investigation

A second investigating committee, appointed by a majority vote in 1826 in The Royal Academy of Medicine in Paris, studied the effects and clinical potentials of the mesmeric procedure - without trying to establish the physical nature of any magnetic fluidum. The report says:

what we have seen in the course of our experiments bears no sort of resemblance to what the Report of 1784 relates with regard to the magnetizers of that period. We neither admit nor reject the existence of the fluid, because we have not verified the fact ; we do not speak of the baquet ... nor of the assemblage of a great number of people together, who were magnetized in the presence of a crowd of witnesses ; because all our experiments were made in the most complete stillness ... and always upon a single person at a time. We do not speak of ... the crisis[11]

Among the conclusions were:

Magnetism has taken effect upon persons of different sexes and ages. ... In general, magnetism does not act upon persons in a sound state of health. ... Neither does it act upon all sick persons.

... we may conclude with certainty that this state exists, when it gives rise to the development of new faculties, which have been designated by the names of clairvoyance; intuition; internal prevision; or when it produces great changes in the physical economy, such as insensibility; a sudden and considerable increase of strength; and when these effects cannot be referred to any other cause.

... We can not only act upon the magnetized person, but even place him in a complete state of somnambulism, and bring him out of it without his knowledge, out of his sight, at a certain distance, and with doors intervening.

... The greater number of the somnambulists whom we have seen, were completely insensible ... we might pinch their skin, so as to leave a mark, prick them with pins under the nails, &c. without producing any pain, without even their perceiving it. Finally, we saw one who was insensible to one of the most painful operations in surgery, and who did not manifest the slightest emotion in her countenance, her pulse, or her respiration.

... Magnetism is as intense, and as speedily felt, at a distance of six feet as of six inches; and the phenomena developed are the same in both cases.

...Magnetism ought to be allowed a place within the circle of medical sciences...[12]

Mesmerism and hypnotism

Abbé Faria was one of the disciples of Franz Anton Mesmer who continued with Mesmer's work following the conclusions of the Royal Commission. In the early 19th century, Abbé Faria is said to have introduced oriental hypnosis to Paris[13] and to have conducted experiments to prove that "no special force was necessary for the production of the mesmeric phenomena such as the trance, but that the determining cause lay within the subject himself"—in other words, that it worked purely by the power of suggestion.[14]

Hypnotism, a designation coined by the Scottish surgeon, James Braid,[15] originates in Braid's response to an 1841 exhibition of "animal magnetism", by Baquet. Interior view: Drawing room scene with many people sitting and Charles Lafontaine, in Manchester.[16] Writing in 1851, Braid was adamant that, standing around a large table; a man in the absence of the sorts of "higher phenomena" reportedly produced by the on a crutch has an iron band mesmerists, wrapped around his ankle; others in the group are holding bands and in contra-distinction to the Transcendental [i.e., similarly; to the left, a man has metaphysical] Mesmerism of the Mesmerists … [allegedly] hypnotized a woman. (1780) induced through the transmission of an occult influence from [the body of the operator to that of the subject,] Hypnotism, [by which] I mean a peculiar condition of the nervous system, into which it can be thrown by artificial contrivance … [a theoretical position that is entirely] consistent with generally admitted principles in physiological and psychological science [would] therefore [be most aptly] designated Rational Mesmerism.[17]

Vital fluid and animal magnetism

A 1791 London publication explains Mesmer's theory of the vital fluid :

Modern philosophy has admitted a plenum or universal principle of fluid matter, which occupies all space; and that as all bodies moving in the world, abound with pores, this fluid matter introduces itself through the interstices and returns backwards and forwards, flowing through one body by the currents which issue therefrom to another, as in a magnet, which produces that

phenomenon which we call Animal Magnetism. This fluid Advertisement poster of 1857: consists of fire, air and spirit, and like all other fluids tends to an Instant sleep. Miscellaneous effects equilibrium, therefore it is easy to conceive how the efforts of paralysis, partial and complete which the bodies make towards each other produce animal catalepsy, partial or complete electricity, which in fact is no more than the effect produced attraction. Phreno-magnetic effects (...) Musical ectasy (...) Insensitivity between two bodies, one of which has more motion than the to physical pain and instant other; a phenomenon serving to prove that the body which has awakening (...) transfusion of most motion communicates it to the other, until the medium of magnetic power to others motion becomes an equilibrium between the two bodies, and then this equality of motion produces animal electricity.[18]

According to an anonymous writer of a series of letters published by editor John Pearson in 1790, animal magnetism can cause a wide range of effects ranging from vomiting to what is termed the "crisis". The purpose of the treatment (inducing the "crisis") was to shock the body into convulsion in order to remove obstructions in the humoral system that were causing sicknesses.[19] Furthermore, this anonymous supporter of the animal magnetism theory purported that the "crisis" created two effects: first, a state in which the "[individual who is] completely reduced under Magnetic influence, although he should seem to be possessed of his senses, yet he ceases to be an accountable creature",[20] and a second "remarkable" state, which would be "conferred upon the [magnetized] subject … [namely] that of perfect and unobstructed vision … in other words, all opacity is removed, and every object becomes luminous and transparent".[21] A patient under crisis was believed to be able to see through the body and find the cause of illness, either in themselves or in other patients.

The Marquis of Puységur's miraculous healing of a young man named Victor in 1784 was attributed to, and used as evidence in support of, this "crisis" treatment. The Marquis was allegedly able to hypnotize Victor and, while hypnotized, Victor was said to have been able to speak articulately and diagnose his own sickness.

Jacob Melo discusses in his books some mechanisms by which the perceived effects of animal magnetism have been claimed to operate.[22]

Social skepticism in the Romantic Era

The study of animal magnetism spurred the creation of the Societies of Harmony in France, where members paid to join and learn the practice of magnetism. Doctor John Bell was a member of the Philosophical Harmonic Society of Paris, and was certified by the society to lecture and teach on animal magnetism in England.[23] The existence of the societies transformed animal magnetism into a secretive art, where its practitioners and lecturers did not reveal the techniques of the practice based on the society members that have paid for instruction, veiling the idea that it was unfair to reveal the practice to others for free.[24] Although the heightened secrecy of the practice contributed to the skepticism about it, many supporters and practitioners of animal magnetism touted the ease and possibility for everyone to acquire the skills to perform its techniques.[25]

Popularization of animal magnetism was denounced and ridiculed by newspaper journals and theatre during the Romantic Era. Many deemed animal magnetism to be nothing more than a theatrical falsity or quackery. In a Play media 1790 publication, an editor presented a series of letters A caricature of Mesmer filmed by George Mèliés, 1905 written by an avid supporter of animal magnetism and included his own thoughts in an appendix stating: “No fanatics ever divulged notions more wild and extravagant; no impudent empiric ever retailed promises more preposterous, or histories of cures more devoid of reality, than the tribe of magnetisers.”[26]

The novelist and playwrighter Elizabeth Inchbald wrote the farce Animal Magnetism in the late 1780s. The plot revolved around multiple love triangles and the absurdity of animal magnetism. The following passage mocks the medical prowess of those qualified only as mesmerists:

Doctor: They have refused to grant me a diploma—forbid me to practice as a physician, and all because I don't know a parcel of insignificant words; but exercise my profession according to the rules of reason and nature; Is it not natural to die, then if a dozen or two of my patients have died under my hands, is not that natural? …[27]

Although the doctor's obsession with the use of animal magnetism, not merely to cure but to force his ward to fall in love with him, made for a humorous storyline, Inchbald’s light-hearted play commented on what society perceived as threats posed by the practice.

De Mainanduc brought animal magnetism to England in 1787 and promulgated it into the social arena. In 1785, he had published proposals to the ladies of Britain to establish a "hygean society" or society of health, by which they would pay to join and enjoy his treatments.[28] As both popularity and skepticism increased, many became convinced that animal magnetism could lead to sexual exploitation of women. Not only did the practice involve close personal contact via the waving of hands over the body, but people were concerned that the animal magnetists could hypnotize women and direct them at will.

Having removed all misconceptions, foretelling of the future, explicit or implicit invocation of the devil, the use of animal magnetism is indeed merely an act of making use of physical media that are otherwise licit and hence it is not morally forbidden, provided it does not tend toward an illicit end or toward anything depraved. (The Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office: 28 July 1847.)

Political influence The French revolution catalyzed existing internal political friction in Britain in the 1790s; a few political radicals used animal magnetism as more than just a moral threat but also a political threat. Among many lectures warning society against government oppression, Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote:

William Pitt, the great political Animal Magnetist, ... has most foully worked on the diseased fancy of Englishmen ... thrown the nation into a feverish slumber, and is now bringing it to a crisis which may convulse mortality![29]

Major politicians and people in power were accused by radicals of practising animal magnetism on the general population.

In his article "Under the Influence: Mesmerism in England", Roy Porter notes that James Tilly Matthews suggested that the French were infiltrating England via animal magnetism. Matthews believed that "magnetic spies" would invade England and bring it under subjection by transmitting waves of animal magnetism to subdue the government and people.[30] Such an invasion from foreign influences was perceived as a radical threat.

Mesmerism and spiritual healing practices

Today, some scholars believe mesmerism to share a concept of life force or energy with such Asian practices as reiki and qigong. However, the practical and theoretical positions of such practices are on whole substantially different from those of mesmerism.

During the Romantic period, mesmerism produced enthusiasm and inspired horror in the spiritual and religious context. Though discredited as a credible medical practice by many, mesmerism created a venue for spiritual healing. Some animal magnetists advertised their practices by stressing the "spiritual rather than physical benefits to be gained from animal magnetism" and were able to gather a good clientele from among the spiritually inspired population.[31]

Some researchers, including Johann Peter Lange[32][33] and Allan Kardec,[34][35] suggested that Jesus was the greatest of all magnetizers, and that the source of his miracles was animal magnetism. Other writers, such as John Campbell Colquhoun[36] and Mary Baker Eddy,[37] denounced the comparison. Mary Baker Eddy went so far as to claim animal magnetism "lead to moral and to physical death."

Contemporary development

Sporadic research into animal magnetism was conducted in the 20th century, and the results published; for example, Bernard Grad wrote a number of papers related to his observations of "a single, reputed healer, [Hungarian] Oskar Estebany" on the subject.[38]

Professional magnetizers

In the Classical era of animal magnetism, the late 17th century to the mid-19th century, there were professional magnetizers,[39] whose techniques were described by authors of the time as particularly effective. Their method was to spend prolonged periods "magnetizing" their customers directly or through "mesmeric magnets". It was observed that in some conditions, certain mesmerizers were more likely to achieve the result than others, regardless of their degree of knowledge.[4]

Alexandre Bertrand Étienne Félix d'Henin de Cuvillers Andrew Jackson Davis Hector Durville Adam Karl August von Eschenmayer Abade Faria Charles Foster[40] Paul Gibier Valentine Greatrakes Allan Kardec Justinus Kerner Charles Lafontaine Johann Kaspar Lavater William Maxwell Franz Anton Mesmer Baron du Potet Marquis of Puységur Phineas Parkhurst Quimby Albert de Rochas Georges Gilles de la Tourette Charles de Villers Alfred Russel Wallace

See also

Biomagnetism James Esdaile Magnetoception The Zoist: A Journal of Cerebral Physiology & Mesmerism, and Their Applications to Human Welfare

Notes

1. Wolfart, Karl Christian; Friedrich Anton Mesmer. Mesmerismus: Oder, System der Wechselwirkungen, Theorie und Anwendung des thierischen Magnetismus als die allgemeine Heilkunde zur Erhaltung des Menschen (in German, facsimile of the 1811 edition). Cambridge University Press, 2011. ISBN 9781108072694. Foreword. 2. Adam Crabtree Animal Magnetism, Early Hypnotism, and Psychical Research, 1766–1925 – An Annotated Bibliography ISBN 0-527-20006-9 3. Dictionnaire Notre Famille, (1987), Magnetiseur (http://www.notrefamille.com/dictionnaire/definition/magnetiseur), notrefamille.com. Accessed 19 August 2015 4. Hector Durville, Theory and Animal Magnetism procedures, Rio de Jan ed. Léon Denis, 2012 ISBN 978-85-7297- 510-0. 5. Thouvenel, Pierre, Mémoire et medical physique (http://www.woodlibrarymuseum.org/rarebooks/item/698/thouve nel-p.-second-m%C3%A9moire-physique-et-m%C3%A9dicinal-montrant-des-rapports-%C3%A9videns-entre-les- ph%C3%A9nomenes-de-la-baguette-divinatoire,-du-magn%C3%A9tisme-et-de-l'%C3%A9lectricit%C3%A9.-ave c-des-%C3%A9claircissemens-sur-d'autres-objets-non-moins-importans,-qui-y-sont-relatifs,-1784.) Paris Ed. Didot Chez le jeune, Quai des Auguftins. (1781) p. 300 6. Baron du Potet, Student Handbook Magnetizer , ed. Life – 3rd Edition, 2013 7. Franz Anton Mesmer, Memoire sur la découverte du animals magnétisme , 1779, Édition numérique disponible sur Wikisource. Il ya aussi une édition papier chez Allia, 2006 ISBN 2844852262 8. Gorsas, Antoine-Joseph, L'Ane promeneur, 1784, p. 41 and p. 342 9. Connor C. (2005). A People's History of Science, Nation Books, pp. 404–5 10. Léger, 1846, p.14. 11. COLQUHOUN, John Campbell, Isis Revelata, Volume 2 (http://www.forgottenbooks.com/books/Isis_Revelata_v2 _1000899412), p. 199 12. COLQUHOUN, John Campbell, Isis Revelata, Volume 2 (http://www.forgottenbooks.com/books/Isis_Revelata_v2 _1000899412), pp. 283-293 13. See Carrer (2004), passim. 14. Hull, Clark L. "Hypnotism in Scientific Perspective", The Scientific Monthly 29.2 (1929): p. 156. 15. Yeates, (2013), passim. 16. Gilles de la Tourette. "The Wonders of Animal Magnetism", The North American Review 146.375 (1888): p.131- 132. 17. Braid (1850), p.6 (https://books.google.com/books?id=1PQ0AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q&f=false). 18. Wonders and mysteries of animal magnetism displayed; or the history, art, practice, and progress of that useful science, from its first rise in the city of Paris, to the present time. With several Curious Cases and new Anecdotes of the Principal Professors. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. London (1791): pp.11–12 19. Pearson (1790), p.12. 20. Pearson (1790), pp. 13–15. 21. Pearson (1790), p.15. 22. Lecture given at the III World Meeting of Magnetizers (http://jacobmelo.webs.com/Jornal%20Vortice/JORNAL%2 0VORTICE%2024%20MAIO%202010.pdf) 23. Bell, John, Professor of Animal Magnetism. “The general and particular principles of animal electricity and magnetism, &c. in which are found Dr. Bell's secrets and practice, AS Delivered To His Pupils in Paris, London, Dublin, Bristol, Glocester, Worcester, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury, Chester, Liverpool, Manchester, &c. &c. Shewing how to Magnetise and Cure different Diseases; to produce Crises, as well as Somnambulism, or Sleep-Walking; and in that State of Sleep to make a Person eat, drink, walk, sing and play upon any Instruments they are used to, &c. to make Apparatus and other Accessaries to produce Magnetical Facts; also to Magnetise Rivers, Rooms, Trees, and other Bodies, animate and inanimate; to raise the Arms, Legs of a Person awake, and to make him rise from his Chair; to raise the Arm of a Person absent from one Room to another; also to treat him at a Distance. All the New Experiments and Phenomena are explained by Monsieur le Docteur Bell, Professor of that Science, And Member of the Philosophical Harmonic Society at Paris, Fellow Correspondent of M. Le Court de Geblin's Museum; and the only Person authorised by Patent from the First Noblemen in France, to teach and practise that Science in England, Ireland, &c.” Price Five Shillings. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. [London](1792): p.2 24. Pearson, John (1790). A plain account, p. 6 25. “Wonders and mysteries of animal magnetism displayed; or the history, art, practice, and progress of that useful science, from its first rise in the city of Paris, to the present time. With several Curious Cases and new Anecdotes of the Principal Professors.” Eighteenth Century Collections Online. London (1791): p.16 26. Pearson, John (1790). A plain account, p. 37 27. Inchbald, Elizabeth. Animal Magnetism. p. 9 28. Wonders and mysteries of animal magnetism displayed; or the history, art, practice, and progress of that useful science, from its first rise in the city of Paris, to the present time. With several Curious Cases and new Anecdotes of the Principal Professors. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. London (1791): p.7 29. Requoted from: Fulford, Tim. "Conducting and Vital Fluid: The Politics and Poetics of Mesmerism in the 1790s", Studies in Romanticism 43.1 (2004): pg.1 30. Porter, Roy. "UNDER THE INFLUENCE: MESMERISM IN ENGLAND," History Today 35.9 (1985): pg.28 31. Fara. "An attractive therapy: animal magnetism in eighteenth-century England", History of science 33 (1995): pg:142 32. LANGE, Johann Peter, A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Kings, Ed. C. Scribner & Company, 1872. 33. LANGE, Johann Peter, The Life of The Lord Jesus Christ: A Complete Critical Examination of the Origin, Contents and Connection of the Gospels, Volume 1 (https://books.google.com/books?id=Io1TAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA 431&lpg=PA431&dq=Jesus++animal+magnetism&source=bl&ots=I0EDQG5rE_&sig=PShNc3gAGJMjrCNh4iFK6 UnHRhA&hl=pt-BR&sa=X&ei=27YeVenXIcifsAXY4IGYCQ&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAzgK#v=onepage&q=Jesus%20% 20animal%20magnetism&f=false), Ed. Smith, English and Company, 1872 34. KARDEC, Allan, Genesis – FEB 53 rd Ed. – Cap.XV – Item 1 – p. 273 35. KARDEC, Allan, Genesis – FEB 53rd Ed – Cap.XV – Item 2 – pag.274 36. COLQUHOUN, John Campbell, An History of Magic, Witchcraft, and Animal Magnetism, Volume 1 (https://books. google.com/books?id=z3lHAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA153&lpg=PA153&dq=Jesus++animal+magnetism&source=bl&ots= NoJe1Z5O7O&sig=5yS--Ry7yRWYz3-tKQg2re_gY48&hl=pt-BR&sa=X&ei=27YeVenXIcifsAXY4IGYCQ&ved=0C DIQ6AEwBDgK#v=onepage&q=Jesus%20%20animal%20magnetism&f=false), Ed. Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1851. 37. Eddy, Mary Baker, "Animal Magnetism Unmasked," Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Trustees Under the Will of Maker Baker G. Eddy, Boston, 1934. pp.101 38. Gauld, (1992), pp.254-255, 647. 39. Franklin Rausky, Mesmer ou la révolution thérapeutique ("Mesmer, or the therapeutic revolution"), Paris, 1977 40. The Zoist, Facts and Observations on the Mesmeric and Magnetic Fluids. Offprint from The Zoist: A Journal of Cerebral Physiology and Mesmerism (http://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/facts-mesmerism/first-edition/), April 1846

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Franklin, B., Majault, M.J., Le Roy, J.B., Sallin, C.L., Bailly, J.-S., d'Arcet, J., de Bory, G., Guillotin, J.-I. & Lavoisier, A., "Report of The Commissioners charged by the King with the Examination of Animal Magnetism", International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, Vol.50, No.4, (October 2002), pp. 332–363. doi=10.1080/00207140208410109 (https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207140208410109) Gauld, A., "Reflections on Mesmeric Analgesia", British Journal of Experimental and Clinical Hypnosis, (5), 17- 24. Gauld, Alan (1992). A history of hypnotism (https://books.google.com/books?id=yYJNCUyq6FwC). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-48329-2. Retrieved 30 January 2012. Goldsmith, M., Franz Anton Mesmer: A History of Mesmerism, Doubleday, Doran & Co., (New York), 1934. Harte, R., Hypnotism and the Doctors, Volume I: Animal Magnetism: Mesmer/De Puysegur, L.N. Fowler & Co., (London), 1902 (https://archive.org/details/b24872210_0002). Harte, R., Hypnotism and the Doctors, Volume II: The Second Commission; Dupotet And Lafontaine; The English School; Braid's Hypnotism; Statuvolism; Pathetism; Electro-Biology, L.N. Fowler & Co., (London), 1903 (https://ar chive.org/details/hypnotismanddoc00hartgoog). Kaplan, F., ""The Mesmeric Mania": The Early Victorians and Animal Magnetism", Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol.35, No.4, (October–December 1974), pp. 691–702. Kaplan, F., Dickens and Mesmerism: The Hidden Springs of Fiction, Princeton University Press, (Princeton), 1975. Kaplan, F., John Elliotson on Mesmerism, Da Capo Press, (New York), 1982. Leger, T. [sic], Animal Magnetism; or, Psycodunamy, D. Appleton, (New York), 1846 [N.B. author is Théodore Léger (1799–1853)]. Mancini, S. & Vale, J., "Animal Magnetism and Psychic Sciences, 1784-1935: The Rediscovery of a Lost Continent", Diogenes, Vol.48, No.2, (1 June 2000), pp. 94–101. Moore, W., The Mesmerist: The Society Doctor Who Held Victorian London Spellbound, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, (London), 2017. ISBN 978-1-4746-0229-7 Parssinen, T.M., "Mesmeric Performers", Victorian Studies, Vol.21, No.1, (Autumn 1977), pp. 87–104. Pattie, F.A., "Mesmer's Medical Dissertation and Its Debt to Mead's De Imperio Solis ac Lunae", Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Vol.11, (July 1956), pp. 275–287. Pattie, F.A., Mesmer and Animal Magnetism: A Chapter in the History of Medicine, Edmonston Publishing, (Hamilton), 1994. Pearson, John (ed.), A Plain and Rational Account of the Nature and Effects of Animal Magnetism: In a Series of letters. With Notes and an Appendix, W. and J. Stratford, (London), 1790 (https://books.google.com.au/books?id= vAFcAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false). Pintar, Judith; Lynn, Steven J. (28 October 2008). Hypnosis: a brief history (https://books.google.com/books?id=0 -ZvvEa8JacC). John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4051-3451-4. Retrieved 30 January 2012. Porter, R., "'Under the Influence' Mesmerism in England", History Today, Vol.35, No.9, (September 1985), pp. 22–29. Rosen, G., "Mesmerism and Surgery: A Strange Chapter in the History of Anesthesia", Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Vol.1, No.4, (October 1946), pp. 527–550. Sutton, G., "Electric Medicine and Mesmerism", Isis, Vol.72, No.3, (September 1981), pp. 375–392. van Schlun, Betsy (2007). Science and the imagination: mesmerism, media, and the mind in nineteenth-century English and American literature (https://books.google.com/books?id=Y8V7TTCfF6IC). Galda & Wilch. ISBN 978- 3-931397-60-9. Retrieved 30 January 2012. Winter, A., Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain, The University of Chicago Press, (Chicago), 1998. Wonders and mysteries of animal magnetism displayed; or the history, art, practice, and progress of that useful science, from its first rise in the city of Paris, to the present time. With several Curious Cases and new Anecdotes of the Principal Professors. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. London (1791) Wyckoff, J. [1975], Franz Anton Mesmer: Between God and Devil, Prentice-Hall, (Englewood Cliffs), 1975. Yeates, L.B., James Braid: Surgeon, Gentleman Scientist, and Hypnotist, Ph.D. Dissertation, School of History and Philosophy of Science, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, January 2013. (htt p://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/fapi/datastream/unsworks:11299/SOURCE01)

Further reading Anton Mesmer, "Propositions Concerning Animal Magnetism" (1779), from: Binet, A. & Féré, C. Animal Magnetism, New York: Appleton and Co., 1888; web archive (https://web.archive.org/web/20040710162753/htt p://www.unbf.ca/psychology/likely/readings/mesmer.htm) The Baron Dupotet de Sennevoy. An Introduction to the Study of Animal Magnetism. London: Saunders & Otley, 1838; full text (https://archive.org/details/anintroductiont01conggoog) William Gregory. Letters to a Candid Inquirer on Animal Magnetism. Philadelphia: Blanchard and Lea, 1851; full text (https://archive.org/details/letterstoacandi00greggoog) Charles Poyen. Animal magnetism. Boston: Weeks, Jordan & co., 1837; full text (https://archive.org/details/progr essanimalm01poyegoog)

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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. Vitalism

Vitalism is the belief that "living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things".[1]a Where vitalism explicitly invokes a vital principle, that element is often referred to as the "vital spark", "energy" or "élan vital", which some equate with the soul. In the 18th and 19th centuries vitalism was discussed among biologists, between those who felt that the known mechanics of physics would eventually explain the difference between life and non-life and vitalists who argued that the processes of life could not be reduced to a mechanistic process. Some vitalist biologists proposed testable hypotheses meant to show inadequacies with mechanistic explanations, but these experiments failed to provide support for vitalism. Biologists now consider vitalism in this sense to have been refuted by empirical evidence, and hence regard it as a superseded scientific theory.[2] The synthesis of urea in the early 19th Vitalism has a long history in medical philosophies: many traditional century from inorganic compounds was healing practices posited that disease results from some imbalance in vital counterevidence for the vitalist hypothesis forces. that only organisms could make the components of living things.

Contents

History Ancient times Medieval Early modern 19th century 20th century Emergentism Mesmerism Medical philosophies Criticism See also Notes References External links

History

Ancient times The notion that bodily functions are due to a vitalistic principle existing in all living creatures has roots going back at least to ancient Egypt.[3] In Greek philosophy, the Milesian school proposed natural explanations deduced from materialism and mechanism. However, by the time of Lucretius, this account was supplemented, (for example, by the unpredictable clinamen of Epicurus), and in Stoic physics, the pneuma assumed the role of logos. Galen believed the lungs draw pneuma from the air, which the blood communicates throughout the body.[4]

Medieval In Europe, medieval physics was influenced by the idea of pneuma, helping to shape later aether theories.

Early modern Vitalists included English anatomist Francis Glisson (1597–1677) and the Italian doctor Marcello Malpighi (1628–1694).[5] Caspar Friedrich Wolff (1733–1794) is considered to be the father of epigenesis in embryology, that is, he marks the point when embryonic development began to be described in terms of the proliferation of cells rather than the incarnation of a preformed soul. However, this degree of empirical observation was not matched by a mechanistic philosophy: in his Theoria Generationis (1759), he tried to explain the emergence of the organism by the actions of a vis essentialis (an organizing, formative force), stating "All believers in epigenesis are vitalists." Carl Reichenbach (1788–1869) later developed the theory of Odic force, a form of life-energy that permeates living things.

In the 17th century, modern science responded to Newton's action at a distance and the mechanism of Cartesian dualism with vitalist theories: that whereas the chemical transformations undergone by non-living substances are reversible, so-called "organic" matter is permanently altered by chemical transformations (such as cooking).[6]

Johann Friedrich Blumenbach was influential in establishing epigenesis in the life sciences in 1781 with his publication of Über den Bildungstrieb und das Zeugungsgeschäfte. Blumenbach cut up freshwater Hydra and established that the removed parts would regenerate. He inferred the presence of a "formative drive" (Bildungstrieb) in living matter. But he pointed out that this name, "like names applied to every other kind of vital power, of itself, explains nothing: it serves merely to designate a peculiar power formed by the combination of the mechanical principle with that which is susceptible of modification". In the early 18th century, the physicians Marie François Xavier Bichat and John Hunter recognized a "living principle" in addition to mechanics.[5]

19th century Jöns Jakob Berzelius, one of the early 19th century fathers of modern chemistry, argued that a regulative force must exist within living matter to maintain its functions.[6] Vitalist chemists predicted that organic materials could not be synthesized from inorganic components, but Friedrich Wöhler synthesised urea from inorganic components in 1828.[7] However, contemporary accounts do not support the common belief that vitalism died when Wöhler made urea. This Wöhler Myth, as historian Peter Ramberg called it, originated from a popular history of chemistry published in 1931, which, "ignoring all pretense of historical accuracy, turned Wöhler into a crusader who made attempt after attempt to synthesize a natural product that would refute vitalism and lift the veil of ignorance, until 'one afternoon the miracle happened'".[8][9][10]

Louis Pasteur argued that Between 1833 and 1844, Johannes Peter Müller wrote a book on physiology called only life could catalyse Handbuch der Physiologie, which became the leading textbook in the field for much of fermentation. Painting by the nineteenth century. The book showed Müller's commitments to vitalism; he questioned Albert Edelfelt, 1885 why organic matter differs from inorganic, then proceeded to chemical analyses of the blood and lymph. He describes in detail the circulatory, lymphatic, respiratory, digestive, endocrine, nervous, and sensory systems in a wide variety of animals but explains that the presence of a soul makes each organism an indivisible whole. He also claimed the behavior of light and sound waves showed that living organisms possessed a life-energy for which physical laws could never fully account.[11]

Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) after his famous rebuttal of spontaneous generation, performed several experiments that he felt supported vitalism. According to Bechtel, Pasteur "fitted fermentation into a more general programme describing special reactions that only occur in living organisms. These are irreducibly vital phenomena." Rejecting the claims of Berzelius, Liebig, Traube and others that fermentation resulted from chemical agents or catalysts within cells, Pasteur concluded that fermentation was a "vital action".[1]

20th century Hans Driesch (1867–1941) interpreted his experiments as showing that life is not run by physicochemical laws.[12] His main argument was that when one cuts up an embryo after its first division or two, each part grows into a complete adult. Driesch's reputation as an experimental biologist deteriorated as a result of his vitalistic theories, which scientists have seen since his time as pseudoscience.[12][13] Vitalism is a superseded scientific hypothesis, and the term is sometimes used as a pejorative epithet.[14] Ernst Mayr (1904–2005) wrote:

It would be ahistorical to ridicule vitalists. When one reads the writings of one of the leading vitalists like Driesch one is forced to agree with him that many of the basic problems of biology simply cannot be solved by a philosophy as that of Descartes, in which the organism is simply considered a machine... The logic of the critique of the vitalists was impeccable.[15]

Vitalism has become so disreputable a belief in the last fifty years that no biologist alive today would want to be classified as a vitalist. Still, the remnants of vitalist thinking can be found in the work of Alistair Hardy, Sewall Wright, and Charles Birch, who seem to believe in some sort of nonmaterial principle in organisms.[16]

Other vitalists included Johannes Reinke and Oscar Hertwig. Reinke used the word neovitalism to describe his work, claiming that it would eventually be verified through experimentation, and that it was an improvement over the other vitalistic theories. The work of Reinke influenced Carl Jung.[17]

John Scott Haldane adopted an anti-mechanist approach to biology and an idealist philosophy early on in his career. Haldane saw his work as a vindication of his belief that teleology was an essential concept in biology. His views became widely known with his first book Mechanism, life and personality in 1913.[18] Haldane borrowed arguments from the vitalists to use against mechanism; however, he was not a vitalist. Haldane treated the organism as fundamental to biology: "we perceive the organism as a self-regulating entity", "every effort to analyze it into components that can be reduced to a mechanical explanation violates this central experience".[18] The work of Haldane was an influence on organicism.

Haldane also stated that a purely mechanist interpretation can not account for the characteristics of life. Haldane wrote a number of books in which he attempted to show the invalidity of both vitalism and mechanist approaches to science. Haldane explained:

We must find a different theoretical basis of biology, based on the observation that all the phenomena concerned tend towards being so coordinated that they express what is normal for an adult organism.

— [19]

By 1931, biologists had "almost unanimously abandoned vitalism as an acknowledged belief."[19] Emergentism

Some aspects of contemporary science make reference to emergent processes; those in which the properties of a system cannot be fully described in terms of the properties of the constituents.[20][21] This may be because the properties of the constituents are not fully understood, or because the interactions between the individual constituents are also important for the behavior of the system.

Whether emergence should be grouped with traditional vitalist concepts is a matter of semantic controversy.[22] According to Emmeche et al. (1997):

On the one hand, many scientists and philosophers regard emergence as having only a pseudo-scientific status. On the other hand, new developments in physics, biology, psychology, and cross-disciplinary fields such as cognitive science, artificial life, and the study of non-linear dynamical systems have focused strongly on the high level 'collective behaviour' of complex systems, which is often said to be truly emergent, and the term is increasingly used to characterize such systems.

— [23]

Emmeche et al. (1998) state that "there is a very important difference between the vitalists and the emergentists: the vitalist's creative forces were relevant only in organic substances, not in inorganic matter. Emergence hence is creation of new properties regardless of the substance involved." "The assumption of an extra-physical vitalis (vital force, entelechy, élan vital, etc.), as formulated in most forms (old or new) of vitalism, is usually without any genuine explanatory power. It has served altogether too often as an intellectual tranquilizer or verbal sedative—stifling scientific inquiry rather than encouraging it to proceed in new directions."[24]

Mesmerism

A popular vitalist theory of the 18th century was "animal magnetism", in the theories of Franz Mesmer (1734–1815). However, the use of the (conventional) English term animal magnetism to translate Mesmer's magnétisme animal can be misleading for three reasons:

Mesmer chose his term to clearly distinguish his variant of magnetic force from those referred to, at that time, as mineral magnetism, cosmic magnetism and planetary magnetism. Mesmer felt that this particular force/power only resided in the bodies of humans and animals. Mesmer chose the word "animal," for its root meaning (from Latin animus="breath") specifically to identify his force as a quality that belonged to all creatures with breath; viz., the animate beings: humans and animals. Mesmer's ideas became so influential that King Louis XVI of France appointed two commissions to investigate mesmerism; one was led by Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, the other, Franz Mesmer proposed the led by Benjamin Franklin, included Bailly and Lavoisier. The commissioners learned vitalist force of magnétisme about Mesmeric theory, and saw its patients fall into fits and trances. In Franklin's garden, animal in animals with a patient was led to each of five trees, one of which had been "mesmerized"; he hugged breath. each in turn to receive the "vital fluid," but fainted at the foot of a 'wrong' one. At Lavoisier's house, four normal cups of water were held before a "sensitive" woman; the fourth produced convulsions, but she calmly swallowed the mesmerized contents of a fifth, believing it to be plain water. The commissioners concluded that "the fluid without imagination is powerless, whereas imagination without the fluid can produce the effects of the fluid."[25]

Medical philosophies Vitalism has a long history in medical philosophies: many traditional healing practices posited that disease results from some imbalance in vital forces. In the Western tradition founded by Hippocrates, these vital forces were associated with the four temperaments and humours; Eastern traditions posited an imbalance or blocking of qi or prana. One example of a similar notion in Africa is the Yoruba concept of ase. Today forms of vitalism continue to exist as philosophical positions or as tenets in some religious traditions.

Complementary and alternative medicine therapies include energy therapies,[26] associated with vitalism, especially biofield therapies such as therapeutic touch, Reiki, external qi, chakra healing and SHEN therapy.[27] In these therapies, the "subtle energy" field of a patient is manipulated by a practitioner. The subtle energy is held to exist beyond the electromagnetic energy produced by the heart and brain. Beverly Rubik describes the biofield as a "complex, dynamic, extremely weak EM field within and around the human body...."[27]

The founder of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann, promoted an immaterial, vitalistic view of disease: "...they are solely spirit-like (dynamic) derangements of the spirit-like power (the vital principle) that animates the human body." The view of disease as a dynamic disturbance of the immaterial and dynamic vital force is taught in many homeopathic colleges and constitutes a fundamental principle for many contemporary practising homeopaths.

Criticism

Vitalism has sometimes been criticized as begging the question by inventing a name. Molière had famously parodied this fallacy in Le Malade imaginaire, where a quack "answers" the question of "Why does opium cause sleep?" with "Because of its dormitive virtue (i.e., soporific power)."[28] Thomas Henry Huxley compared vitalism to stating that water is the way it is because of its "aquosity".[29] His grandson Julian Huxley in 1926 compared "vital force" or élan vital to explaining a railroad locomotive's operation by its élan locomotif ("locomotive force").

Another criticism is that vitalists have failed to rule out mechanistic explanations. This is rather obvious in retrospect for organic chemistry and developmental biology, but the criticism goes back at least a century. In 1912, Jacques Loeb published The Mechanistic Conception of Life, in which he described experiments on how a sea urchin could have a pin for its father, as The 17th century French playwright Bertrand Russell put it (Religion and Science). He offered this challenge: Molière mocked vitalism in his 1673 play Le Malade imaginaire. "... we must either succeed in producing living matter artificially, or we must find the reasons why this is impossible." (pp. 5–6)

Loeb addressed vitalism more explicitly:

"It is, therefore, unwarranted to continue the statement that in addition to the acceleration of oxidations the beginning of individual life is determined by the entrance of a metaphysical "life principle" into the egg; and that death is determined, aside from the cessation of oxidations, by the departure of this "principle" from the body. In the case of the evaporation of water we are satisfied with the explanation given by the kinetic theory of gases and do not demand that to repeat a well-known jest of Huxley the disappearance of the "aquosity" be also taken into consideration." (pp. 14–15) Bechtel states that vitalism "is often viewed as unfalsifiable, and therefore a pernicious metaphysical doctrine."[1] For many scientists, "vitalist" theories were unsatisfactory "holding positions" on the pathway to mechanistic understanding. In 1967, Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, stated "And so to those of you who may be vitalists I would make this prophecy: what everyone believed yesterday, and you believe today, only cranks will believe tomorrow."[30]

While many vitalistic theories have in fact been falsified, notably Mesmerism, the pseudoscientific retention of untested and untestable theories continues to this day. Alan Sokal published an analysis of the wide acceptance among professional nurses of "scientific theories" of spiritual healing. (Pseudoscience and Postmodernism: Antagonists or Fellow-Travelers?).[31] Use of a technique called therapeutic touch was especially reviewed by Sokal, who concluded, "nearly all the pseudoscientific systems to be examined in this essay are based philosophically on vitalism" and added that "Mainstream science has rejected vitalism since at least the 1930s, for a plethora of good reasons that have only become stronger with time."[31]

Joseph C. Keating, Jr.[32] discusses vitalism's past and present roles in chiropractic and calls vitalism "a form of bio-theology." He further explains that:

"Vitalism is that rejected tradition in biology which proposes that life is sustained and explained by an unmeasurable, intelligent force or energy. The supposed effects of vitalism are the manifestations of life itself, which in turn are the basis for inferring the concept in the first place. This circular reasoning offers pseudo-explanation, and may deceive us into believing we have explained some aspect of biology when in fact we have only labeled our ignorance. 'Explaining an unknown (life) with an unknowable (Innate),' suggests chiropractor Joseph Donahue, 'is absurd'."[33]

Keating views vitalism as incompatible with scientific thinking:

"Chiropractors are not unique in recognizing a tendency and capacity for self-repair and auto-regulation of human physiology. But we surely stick out like a sore thumb among professions which claim to be scientifically based by our unrelenting commitment to vitalism. So long as we propound the 'One cause, one cure' rhetoric of Innate, we should expect to be met by ridicule from the wider health science community. Chiropractors can't have it both ways. Our theories cannot be both dogmatically held vitalistic constructs and be scientific at the same time. The purposiveness, consciousness and rigidity of the Palmers' Innate should be rejected."[33]

Keating also mentions Skinner's viewpoint:

"Vitalism has many faces and has sprung up in many areas of scientific inquiry. Psychologist B.F. Skinner, for example, pointed out the irrationality of attributing behavior to mental states and traits. Such 'mental way stations,' he argued, amount to excess theoretical baggage which fails to advance cause-and-effect explanations by substituting an unfathomable psychology of 'mind'."[33]

According to Williams, "[t]oday, vitalism is one of the ideas that form the basis for many pseudoscientific health systems that claim that illnesses are caused by a disturbance or imbalance of the body's vital force."[34] "Vitalists claim to be scientific, but in fact they reject the scientific method with its basic postulates of cause and effect and of provability. They often regard subjective experience to be more valid than objective material reality."[34]

Victor Stenger[35] states that the term "bioenergetics" "is applied in biochemistry to refer to the readily measurable exchanges of energy within organisms, and between organisms and the environment, which occur by normal physical and chemical processes. This is not, however, what the new vitalists have in mind. They imagine the bioenergetic field as a holistic living force that goes beyond reductionist physics and chemistry."[36] Such a field is sometimes explained as electromagnetic, though some advocates also make confused appeals to quantum physics.[27] Joanne Stefanatos states that "The principles of energy medicine originate in quantum physics."[37] Stenger[36] offers several explanations as to why this line of reasoning may be misplaced. He explains that energy exists in discrete packets called quanta. Energy fields are composed of their component parts and so only exist when quanta are present. Therefore, energy fields are not holistic, but are rather a system of discrete parts that must obey the laws of physics. This also means that energy fields are not instantaneous. These facts of quantum physics place limitations on the infinite, continuous field that is used by some theorists to describe so-called "human energy fields".[38] Stenger continues, explaining that the effects of EM forces have been measured by physicists as accurately as one part in a billion and there is yet to be any evidence that living organisms emit a unique field.[36]

Vitalistic thinking has also been identified in the naive biological theories of children: "Recent experimental results show that a majority of preschoolers tend to choose vitalistic explanations as most plausible. Vitalism, together with other forms of intermediate causality, constitute unique causal devices for naive biology as a core domain of thought."[39]