Animal magnetism.

Date:
[1830]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Animal magnetism. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ANIMAL MAGNETISM. (?' “ En verite, ceux qui s'acharnent contre pas vrai, il est au moins bien plajsant.” The Animal Magnetism of these times, and its “ collateral sciences, would have been very fearful things to our forefathers in darker ages. Had the present magnetisers but lived two centuries ago, they might have had the satisfaction of being persecuted, scourged, and burnt for witchcraft, art magic, and devilry. Now, however, in this nineteenth century, when witches, magicians, and devils no longer people our imagina- tions, but have utterly forsaken this earth, and left us in quiet scepticism ; we can not only endure Animal Mag- netism, and its manifold wonders, in the utmost composure and equani- mity, but also enjoy pleasantly and comfortably all the fantastic tricks, which its followers play before high heaven. Not as partisans, nor as enemies of Animal Magnetism, do we take it up on this occasion. Towards the magnetisers and their cause we en- tertain neither love nor hatred ; but their doings and pretensions are a subject of curious speculation: and, without presuming either to patron- ize them, or to put any hindrance in their wav, we may be permitted to look at them from afar; to cast a shy passing glance at their “ new and wonderful science, which is to alter the whole destiny of mankind.” But, first of all, before inviting the reader to accompany us any farther, we shall do well to warn him that however “ wonderful” this same Ani- mal Magnetism may be, it offers lit- tle or nothing “ new.” Almost the only novelty about it is, that such a thing should have so many followers in times like the present. For it is notorious that every itinerant quack- salver, every needy star-gazer, every deluded moon-struck enthusiast of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seven- teenth centuries, had his magnets and sympathetic powders, his univer- le ftlagnfitisme out bien tort; car s’il n’est sal fluids, visions, and potent, myste- rious influences; and that by means of those he could work such wonders on the weak, the credulous and diseased, as Animal Magnetism, with all its so- lemn apparatus, was never able to perform, even in the hands of Mes- mer himself. In those ages when the great mass of the people, and even many persons of otherwise strong and fearless character, laboured under the grossest and darkest superstition, the pretensions of such visionaries were listened to with fear and trem- bling; and possessed an influence over the minds of men, of which we can no longer form any adequate idea. Inseparably connected with these “ miraculous influences,” was the rage for witchcraft, sorcery, vaticination, which began to prevail so much to- wards the end of the fifteenth cen- tury, and which various circumstan- ces contributed to strengthen and diffuse. Law interfered with a high hand to extinguish that universal rage; and law, as always happens, did nothing but kindle it into irre- sistible frenzy. Also, at the same time, religious controversy and su- pernatural excitement, and the fierce, stormy aspect of affairs over all Eu- rope, tended much to increase the power of superstitious credulity, and gave freer scope for misguided delu- sion or crafty imposture. Then it was, that devils and evil spirits, of the strangest and most whimsical descrip- tion, were let loose in thousands up- on the whole catholic world, but at first chiefly upon Germany ; for in that country priestcraft and papal superstition were first set at open de- fiance ; and the general re-action which had already taken place against them, was there first rendered strong and effectual by the appearance of Martin Luther, the great advocate and champion of the Reformation.* * A considerable time before the Reformation, in 1484, Pope Innocent VIII. issued a bull, empowering two Dominican friars “ to make inquisition into the vices of sorcery and witchcraft,” and to put to death, at their own discretion, all whom they should find guilty of practising these arts. These men of blood found more and more to do every day. Whole towns seemed possessed with evil spirits. A German historian of some emi- nence has calculated, that in the small electorate of Triers alone, in a few years, no less