the victorian supernatural - mesmerism

hello everyone! i wanted to pick an interesting topic that i know a bit about but could stand to look into more for my first blog post here and landed on mesmerism. i have studied this phenomenon in the past, but only briefly. thus, much of what you learn here should be new to me as well. ^_^ my sources on hopefully all of my information will be linked in the text so you can look into them too if you'd like. my favorite resource that i researched today is this website right here!

generally speaking, in the early years of england's victorian era, many medical procedures relied on bloodletting, or otherwise "letting" other substances from the body. i recommend this summary for a brief rundown of cupping, bleeding, and purging, and a very brief introduction to the humoral theory as it was in 19th century england (though, as an aside, humorism as a theory is credited to the very same hippocrates who wrote the hippocratic oath that still stands in our society today. i guess not all of a philosopher's thoughts can be winners.). this approach waned in popularity with the advent of germ theory in the latter half of the 1800s, but before this change could take place, mesmerism was introduced to victorian society, and frankly held it in quite the chokehold, as the supernatural was all the rage at the time. 

the procedure - or performance - of mesmerism was actually invented by german physician franz anton mesmer in the late 1700s, whose surname is not only the source of the name "mesmerism" but the word "mesmerize" as we continue to use it today. mesmer proposed that all living things on earth possess a universal magnetic force that causes physical and mental illness when it is out of equilibrium. while he initially used iron and magnets to realign patients' so called "animal magnetism", the process eventually came to involve the hands of a healthy person used without magnets to realign a sick patient's magnetic field and redistribute their "magnetic fluid". ultimately, the practice came to rely on the trance-like states patients would enter upon having their "head areas realigned", which, just as it sounds, was the origin of the practice of hypnosis. in the face of controversy - in which mesmer claimed he would heal a blind patient to no avail and was then criticized for mostly just feeling her up alongside other women - franz mesmer was labeled a fraud and fled to paris, france, where he was also labeled a fraud. it's almost like this was a pseudoscience with no real empirical backing to it - which is precisely why he was socially exiled from paris.

despite the fact that mesmerism failed tests of its validity not once but twice, and lead to its inventor dying alone in a foreign country after aimlessly wandering europe in search of work, others took up the mantle of "mesmerist". one such individual was dr. john elliotson, who is credited with bringing mesmerism to england. before he developed a fascination with the practice, he was a well respected physician, a position which he resigned from on account of - you guessed it - his newfound fascination with mesmerism (he later founded his own "mesmeric hospital".). on top of this, he was a charismatic and well loved professor at london university, which may have something to do with his later popularity as a mesmerist.

and so, in the 1830s, several decades after franz mesmer's proverbial exile from not one but two countries, mesmerism began to rise in victorian england. while he started practicing mesmerism in 1837, elliotson would only begin his public mesmeric performances in 1838. these performances drew a great crowd - so great, in fact, that it eventually began to disturb the hospital's employees and impact the facility's functioning. two notable figures in elliotson's shows were epileptic patient elizabeth oakey and sister jane oakey. while these performances generally involved what one would typically expect from a hypnosis show, such as having the "patients" perform tricks, act in a way uncharacteristic of them, and remain in a trance for an extended period, the two were eventually touted as having special powers brought upon by mesmerism, such as the ability to see through doors, see the future, read books with their stomachs, and even tell when other medical patients would die. eventually, through a meeting with the sisters at which time elliotson was away on holiday, the two - or three - were exposed as frauds, not unlike mesmer himself. some, however, including elliotson himself and his close friend charles dickens of literary fame, merely doubled down and took their supernatural beliefs elsewhere, outside of the scope of the hospital. 

hypnosis is, to this day, believed to be a beneficial tool in the arsenal of therapists everywhere. whether it's truly effective is another topic entirely. but isn't its history interesting? it makes me wonder if it would still be in use today if not for its 19th century resurgence. 

i hope to make another victorian research post as soon as my spoonie self has the energy to! perhaps i'll cover another spiritual (fraud) topic, like spirit photography. if you've read this far, thank you very much! i hope you could learn a little something about our past on this big old earth.