Mesmerism

Mesmerism – or animal magnetism, as it was called early on – arose when the late eighteenth‐century physician Franz Anton Mesmer developed a therapeutic method of using magnetic forces to balance a universal fluid within the human body. Later practitioners emphasized the trance that Mesmer's method seemed to bring about, along with the mesmerist's power over his subject's will. In the 1840s James Braid's fascination with this seemingly “somnambulic” state of trance led him to coin the term hypnotism (from the ancient Greek word for sleep). While some regarded mesmerism/hypnotism as legitimate medicine, others saw it as an occult or spiritual practice. It helped to lay the groundwork for modern spiritualism and was of great interest to late nineteenth‐century psychical researchers investigating paranormal phenomena. Intriguing to the Victorian public at large as well as to numerous literary authors, ideas of mesmeric influence informed and were informed by popular visions of gender, racial, and other social relations.