The Inner Eye
 A devouring fire filled my soul … Mesmer If we imagine peering through Dr. Mesmer’s eyes, we can begin to sense what the Paradis affair was all about. What did Mesmer see? What did he want to see? What kind of world was he visualizing for the young woman? What manner of medicine and healing would have eventuated if Anton Mesmer’s paradigm had taken root and blossomed fully in the revolutionary times of late 18th century Europe? Her case boiled down to the fact that the darkness – whatever its immediate sources – rested in her mind and not in her eyes or in her body. But mind and body were not separate in Mesmer’s time, nor are they in ours. “sound mind in a sound body.” Or, is it, “sound body in a sound mind?” Mesmer must have seen them as one and the same when functioning harmoniously. When the universal fluid was allowed to flow freely. When body or mind, family or society interfered with the harmony of the spheres, all manner of illness and injury could eventuate. Dr. Mesmer knew that if Nature was allowed time and opportunity, harmony could and would be restored. But all too often, human beings do not cooperate with Nature. They wish to have their own way and in their own time. Mesmer kept his hand to the pulse of Nature and sensed whether and when the time was right to act. Using the vertu du Magnétisme animal, he touched the vitality within his patients and released the forces needed to produce crises. He thus gave Nature a push and coaxed the weary sick toward the healing opportunities they so craved. Still, he knew quite well that his efforts were only part of the work to be done. “To truly heal a malady, it is not enough to make it disappear to visible incidents: the cause must be destroyed. For example, the blindness that comes from embarrassment in the viscera, is not truly cured but by the relief of the obstruction that has caused it.” (Mesmer may well have been speaking of Fraulein Paradis in this instance.) He goes on, in words worthy of the best physician of any era, to say, “To the physical causes, we must add the influence of moral causes. Pride, envy, greed, ambition, all degrading passions of the human mind are all invisible sources of visible disease. How to radically heal the effects of causes still remaining?” Other layers were of even greater importance in efforts to heal. “It is essential that patients really want to be cured. Above all, they must believe.” These latter requirements were unfulfilled in the case of Maria-Theresia. As they are in the illnesses and traumas of so many in the modern world. The animal magnetism which Mesmer projected was only the outer manifestation of the gifts which he shared with his patients. He changed the lives of many – relieving pain and all manner of symptoms, lifting disease and paralysis, dissipating seizures. But, his vertu could only reach so deep. Patients eventually were turned back upon themselves after having received his healing touch. The rest of the work was theirs. Mesmer’s generous offerings gave time and opportunity to many. There were no miracles – even though it may have seemed so. But, he did bring forth for all who might wished to see and sense one of Nature’s open secrets. Not long after the debacle in Vienna with the Paradis family and the Medical Faculty, the Doctor took himself apart to study with his soul, to recover his life, and to continue his experiments with Truth. Those experiments ultimately became life-long. Stage by stage, he endeavored to expand his awareness of Nature, ways to tap its endless energies, and methods to aid humanity. Mesmer tells in his writings that he went away for three months to do investigations of greater depth than all but a few have ever attempted. Forty days has been the common time of quest in the desert, midst the wilderness, on the mountain top. Anton Mesmer doubled that and then some. He came back with recompense for his efforts. In the midst of his meditations he discovered, “devouring fire filled my soul; I sought Truth no longer with a tender yearning, but filled with the extremest disquiet. Fields, woods, and the neighboring wilderness alone still retained charms for me. There I felt myself nearer to Nature. In the most violent emotion at times I believed that she wildly drove my heart from her. Wearied by her vain enticement, ‘O, Nature!’ I exclaimed in such paroxysms, ‘what dost thous desire of me?’ “Soon again, to the contrary, I believed that I tenderly embraced her, or filled with the wildest impatience, conjured her to fulfill my wishes. Fortunately, my excitement, amidst the silence of the woods, had no witness but the trees; since in truth I must have appeared greatly to resemble a madman. All other occupations were hateful to me. Every moment which I did not devote to my investigations appeared to me a theft committed upon Truth.” Mesmer expanded his study of Nature and the Truth in a most extraordinary way. “Perceiving that whenever we have an idea, we translate immediately and without reflections into the language which is most familiar to us, I formed the bizarre plan to free me from this bondage. Such was the growth of my imagination, that I realized this abstract idea. I thought three months without words. Having ended this deep contemplation, I looked with astonishment around me: my senses deceived me no longer as in the past: the objects had taken new forms …” Mesmer’s sacrifice brought him face to face with truth, while he believed others remained prisoners of words and books and deductive knowledge which were ever prone to error. In later times, he suffered grievously from the shortcomings of language whether it be German or Latin or French. Words only approximated the truths which he repeatedly touched and sensed along the way. Peace returned to the seeker’s soul because he knew even more fully that he was on the lighted path. “Thus did I win the capacity to prove, by experiment, the truth of my supposed theory.” It was in that period that Anton Mesmer fully engaged his Imitative Theory. There and then, he found in full physical truths demonstrated directly to him. This was the substance of animal magnetism for which he had been reaching for months and years. It was not something which could ever be fully depicted in words and writing. For it was like another sense which he had developed. He must help others to do the same. The senses do not describe themselves, they just sense.”It is in vain to attempt to explain to a blind man the theory of colors. He must be shown colors, to sense them. It is the same with Animal Magnetism. It must first be transmitted through the senses. That is the only way to make theory intelligible.” Having drunk the philosophy of nature, Anton Mesmer arrived in Paris like a natural man. Confronted by a disturbed and disturbing civilization, the Doctor of Nature vowed to “pass on to humanity, in all the purity that I had received from Nature, the inestimable benefaction that I had in hand.” Mesmer moved in this period from being a talented healer to become an impassioned genie. |
Home Page