Further on Mesmer's Principle of Preservation
Working with Nature. The relationship between preservation, Nature and harmony.
Related posts:
In the post "The Science of the Preservation of Humanity," I looked a little at Mesmer's key principle of preservation and healing. This principle seems very much based on his respect for Nature. It was noted by his 19th century biographer, Justinus Kerner, that Mesmer loved to be in Nature from childhood onwards. He says, in the translation by Howitt Watts,
Through this life, in the bosom of free nature, he appears even whilst still a child to have drawn towards himself a natural power unpossessed by the dwellers by the fire-side, a power which appears to delight to flow into those who maintain a many-sided intercourse and struggle with nature; as, for instance, in the case of sailors, hunters, shepherds, mountaineers, and tillers of the soil. In such persons is discovered the development of a special sense and of a special power which in his latter life continued to develop itself in Mesmer, and which he, as so-called Magnetism, first recognised, and as a means of healing carefully examined and made known; a power which is not inherent in all men, but markedly is not so in men of vitrified understanding and whose knowledge is alone that of the schools.1
Kerner also says,
The belief, labours, and doctrine of Mesmer, even as the doctrine and belief of Plato, proceeded rather from the internal consciousness and innate life and knowledge of Nature, than from the struggles of the brain-life and book-knowledge.2
This may, of course, all be more part of Kerner's romanticising of Mesmer than being strictly true, as Mesmer seems to have had plenty of book knowledge as well, having been at the universities of Dillingen and Ingolstadt even before he studied for his medical degree.3
Yet, there are also the remarkable passages Mesmer himself writes in his 1781 Concise History (Précis Historique), about how, re-examining his ideas after their unfavourable reception by learned men, he spent several months in the forest, thinking without words, and reached a new level of understanding and a new relationship with the truth that he pursued.4
At the root of Mesmer's doctrine seems to be that Nature "offers a universal means of healing and preserving humanity," as also quoted in the previous post on "preservation." Mesmer's idea was that the mesmerist's job was to help Nature5 and that his system was basically a natural one, as, for example, he gives the subtitle of his General Explanations (Allgemeine Erläuterungen) of 1812: "As a preliminary Introduction to the System of Nature."6
Mesmer tells us in that same work of 1812, that he aimed to "build the system of the inner workings of Nature" upon his efforts to perfect his physical knowledge, "from which a new science of preservation should emerge as a constituent part."7 His was very much a materialist stance, although he also spoke of the increasing fineness of various kinds of series of matters in Nature (that we might think of as energies),8 and that Nature in her foundation consisted of two things - matter and movement.9 God, however, was not dismissed from Mesmer's system, but was simply beyond and behind Nature, the great “uncreated principle” behind the created principle.10
Mesmer asserted that "the explanation of everything is to be found in the mechanical or, rather, organic laws found in Nature and that all these phenomena belong to the modifications of motion and matter."11 He also spoke of imitating "the laws and inner workings of the modes of operation of Nature" himself.12
Why did Mesmer use the word preservation in connection with a natural principle of healing that he was expounding? Or, rather, in his French works, préservation, as well as the word conservation; and in his German works Erhaltungskunde (science of preservation). Is it preservation of something or preservation from something or both? Is it about preservation of harmony? Preservation of one thing requires destruction of other things. For example, to preserve energy you need to destroy wastage, like that from unecessary muscle tensions. Then there is the relation of preservation to the prolongation of life.
Mesmer also used words signifying prevention, for example, bewahren (to preserve, conserve, keep, keep from),13 and verhüten (to prevent, avoid, guard against).14
Was Mesmer's use of the word "préservation," and its analogues, simply to refer to the preservation of individual life and prophylaxis from disease? Although these words seemed to include this for Mesmer, perhaps it was more. For example, in Veaumorel's Aphorisms of Mesmer, a book which, notwithstanding that Mesmer contested it,15 seems clearly based on notes of classes given under Mesmer's supervision,16 says:
The principle which constitutes, re-establishes and maintains harmony is the principle of preservation; the principle of healing is therefore necessarily the same.17
It seems worth pondering on this principle of Nature that Mesmer proposes, which is both a principle of preservation, with all that Mesmer may encompass with that term, and a principle of healing.
Kerner, Justinus - Franz Anton Mesmer, the Discoverer of Animal Magnetism [Abridged 1883 translation of Justinus Kerner’s 1856 biography of Mesmer] (Tr. Howitt-Watts, A.M. Newly annotated and edited, with a Critical Preface by Clare Mingins), Hidden Tarn Editions (n.p.), 2020 (1st ed. 2019), p.112. [Amazon.co.uk] [Amazon.com]
Ibid. p.110.
Pattie, Frank A. - Mesmer and Animal Magnetism: A Chapter in the History of Medicine, Edmonston Publishing (Hamilton, New York), 1994, p.6.
Mesmer, F.A. – Précis historique des faits relatifs au magnétisme-animal jusques en avril 1781 [A concise history of facts concerning animal-magnetism up to April 1781], n.p. (“Londres” [Paris]), 1781, p.21-3. Quoted by Justinus Kerner in Franz Anton Mesmer, the Discoverer of Animal Magnetism,1856/1883, p.141-3.
E.g., Mesmer, F.A. – Allgemeine Erläuterungen über den Magnetismus und den Somnambulismus [General Explanations of Magnetism and Somnambulism], (ed. Wolfart, K.C.), Hallischen Waisenhaus (Halle and Berlin), 1812., p.75.
Als vorläufige Einleitung in das Natursystem. Ibid.
Mesmer, F.A. – Allgemeine Erläuterungen, p.2.
E.g., Mesmer, F.A. – Allgemeine Erläuterungen, p.26-7.
Mesmer, F.A. – Théorie du monde et des êtres organisés Suivant les Principes de M … [Theory of the world and of organised beings Following the Principles of M …], n.p. (Paris) 1784. (N.B. Not to confused with a similarly titled work by Nicolas Bergasse, published in the same year, to whom Mesmer’s Théorie du monde is often erroneously attributed.)]
Ibid.
Mesmer, F.A. – Allgemeine Erläuterungen, p.57.
Ibid., p.40.
E.g., "das Gebäude meiner Lehre: Vor Krankheiten zu bewahren" (the structure of my teaching: to preserve from disease.) Ibid., p.15.
E.g., "unter dem tierischen Magnetismus eine neue ärztliche Wissenschaft, oder die Kunst Krankheiten zu heilen und zu verhüten verstanden. (animal magnetism was understood as a new medical science, or the art of healing and preventing disease). Mesmerismus p.19.
Letter of Mesmer in JOURNAL DE PARIS, Jeudi 6 JANVIER 1785, p.22.
For example, there is much similar material in it to the Théorie du Monde, cited above. Also the class notes of Valleton de Boissière, entitled Le magnétisme animal, démontrer par les loix de la Nature. Par M. Mesmer.
Veaumorel, Caullet de – Aphorismes de M. Mesmer dictés à l’assemblée de ses élèves, & dans lesquels on trouve ses principes, sa théorie & les moyens de magnétiser [Aphorisms of Mesmer dictated to the assembly of his pupils, and in which one finds its principles, its theory & the means of magnetising], M. Quinquet (Paris), 4th ed. 1786, §.153. p.95. [First ed. 1784.]