The last chapter ended with this writer being told of
“doing your real work in the back room” in San Francisco
in the 19th century. Although the veil was lifted about
that work in 1977, I had few ideas or even thoughts
about the information shared. To me as probably most
people who scratch the surface of such things, mesmerism
and hypnotism were and continue to be synonymous.
Over the years, I got clues that hypnosis sometimes can
be more harmful than helpful to those who come under its
influence. This doctor's medical training including
psychiatry courses never mentioned either mesmerism or
hypnotism.
So, it took almost forty years for Dr. Mesmer and his
animal magnetism to come back to me. Better late in the
game than not at all. Researching my recent book Phenomenon:
13 Lives of the Millennium Man on the life of
Helena Blavatsky, I found repeated references to Mesmer
and his work - indications that our forebears missed an
opportunity to recognize not only healing possibilities
but also to gain deeper understandings of the how we
human beings and our world really work.
Modern medicine still doesn’t know how aspirin works,
what makes the heart to beat, what happens when we go to
sleep at night, etc. My esoteric studies with Helena
Blavatsky led to those with Anton Mesmer which have
palpable implications and life-changing potentials for
those who are open and ready to receive them. It has
been fascinating, amazing, astonishing, enlightening and
even thrilling to uncover this relatively forgotten
treasure.
Let's give a brief overview of basics while leaving the
details and stories and phenomena for later:
• Hypnosis and mesmerism (or animal magnetism) come from
the same roots but are very different in application as
well as in results. Hypnotism uses words and suggestion;
magnetism when properly done needs neither of the two.
• Dr. Mesmer himself was the re-discoverer of works done
over the ages by great numbers of healers who had
profound effects on their fellows in previous epochs.
Interestingly, Franz Hartmann has written that
Paracelsus was the true re-discover of Mesmerism.
• Mesmer’s real claim to fame is that he brought the
idea and opportunity, potential and practice of magnetic
healing before the eyes of thousands and thousands of
the public in the 18th century.
• He made his own discovery, studied, researched and put
forth his animal magnetism to his patients and
colleagues, scientists and physicians most directly in
Austria and France and points in between.
• Anton Mesmer had an extraordinarily keen mind,
observing spirit, radiant hand, and clairvoyant eye
which guided his studies and work.
• Many, many were healed and even more were relieved of
their ills simply by the touch – although it was a
different kind of touch than you might imagine.
• He added inventions of magnetic apparatus which
allowed for aiding numbers of sick and injured at the
same time.
• Mesmer’s teachings were spread widely in Europe before
the French Revolution, but lost traction for various
reasons including obstruction by medical politics and
the great turmoil of the period.
• Mesmer’s magnetism was resurrected in the 19th century
especially in England, but never gained a firm foothold
in any major medical institutions.
• Scholars and physicians of the old schools did not
understand Mesmer’s simple but subtle work. All the
while, they feared that the dominant, but weak medical
paradigm might be swept away by the healing hands of
Nature. They used all kinds of tactics including
ridicule and slander to prevent this opportunity from
spreading Mesmer’s doctrine and implementation of this
simple method of healing.
Many times in his several writings, Anton Mesmer spoke
that his major desire was for his discovery to touch
humanity. His greatest reward would be to know that he
had done something which would benefit the whole of
humankind.
Mesmer’s recompense is long overdue, while the
21st-century may be able to understand what he was
trying to share and that the gift of healing can be
shared much more widely in the coming days.
Let the reader beware that such a gift may not be
happily or even grudgingly accepted by the
powers-that-be. Especially as the medical system has
become a vast business and bureaucratic “scientific"
organism which portrays that it alone has the knowledge
and ability to deal with human illness and injury.
Nevertheless, the medical system always falls back on
the healing power of Nature - vis medicatrix
naturae - to support its pills and
operations. The healing power of nature really needs
very little of medical and surgical intervention.
Particularly since such often gets in the way of
Nature’s own efforts.
“The art of medicine
consists of amusing the patient
while nature cures the disease.”
Voltaire
Let the public and the patient recognize that healing
comes from within and that the Nature within them is
connected with that in all living beings – from the
tiniest atom to the planet itself. The abundance of
health in another can often easily bring restoration to
you in many cases. You can do the same for another in
need of healing.
Anton Mesmer brought to public light the gift of Nature
for use in the hands of human beings. This is the
simple, yet profound message that this writer apparently
studied almost two hundred years ago. [Do understand, I
had a different body and name, and lived in a distant
land and spoke another tongue.]
But in the interim, The Angel of Forgetfulness submerged
memories of Mesmer, magnetism and healing upon birth
into the body. It too forty years since receiving
William David's revelations about the work of the past
waiting to be repeated in some form yet to be
determined. Ah, better late than not at all.
So, prior study far and wide in the traditional and
alternative medical fields has been expanded into
subtler dimension. In recent years, “mountains” of
material on Mesmer and animal magnetism and comparable
disciplines have appeared to be read and studied. All
the while, it would be impossible for one person in one
lifetime to research all that has been written on the
subject. In the decade of 1778-1787 alone, the French
National Library collected 14 files of 1000 pages each
on the subject.
The reader is invited to learn about the Healing Gift we
all possess and begin to contribute towards the healing
of others. As we do so, we will help Mesmer receive his
recompense as we go about the work of “Sharing the
Health.”
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