WE’RE OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD
The Wizard from Vienna – Vincent Buranelli
If you’re yet to watch the film Mesmer, the 1994 movie starring Alan Rickman in the titular role, then it’s must-see hypno-TV in my and Kev’s humble opinion. You can watch it for free on YouTube here or here’s the trailer if ye still hesitate that my voice is gospel.
Once you’ve seen it, it will be impossible for you to imagine Franz Anton Mesmer, the mastermind of mesmerism, as anything but a melodramatic, romantic fop. Which makes reading today’s book, The Wizard from Vienna: Franz Anton Mesmer and the Origins of Hypnotism, all the more enjoyable in avataring Alan Rickman around in your mind’s eye.
Published in 1976, Vincent Buranelli’s biography covers Mesmer’s rise to medical and scientific infamy in Vienna and, later, Paris during mesmerism’s peak in the 1770s and 1780s. Mesmer is depicted as an earnest, passionate, sensitive man. But Buranelli is critical, too, showing us Mesmer’s petty, egomaniacal, and blindly obstinate sides.
Most books about hypnotism summarise Mesmer’s contribution in simplistic binary terms: as either a misunderstood, prescient, and persecuted (occult) genius; or a cynical charlatan. The author weaves so many contemporary sources into the story that we benefit from a broader, more complex picture of Mesmer. For instance, the allegiances and fallings out between Mesmer and his disciples and rivals is a confusing soap opera amidst all the miraculous healings and ‘scientific’ proclamations attracting the main attentions.
Then there’s the whiff of scandal and sex that dogged Mesmer throughout his crusade to have his discovery of ‘animal magnetism’ acknowledged. Contrary to the chosen focus of the Alan Rickman film, Buranelli dismisses any prospect of impropriety between Mesmer and his famous patient Maria Theresia Paradis, a celebrated pianist who suffered from functional blindness and ‘hysteria’... Aside from any silly girlish feelings Maria projected on to the innocent and ever-professional Mesmer, of course.
The laying of his hands upon women’s abdomens to soothe gynaecological pain raised eyebrows and fuelled gossip. But the main complaint against Mesmer’s close proximity to women seems to have been with him perhaps using trickery to produce somnambulistic ‘oracle’ feats. A delightfully bitchy report is by contemporary French portrait painter Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, who visits one of Mesmer’s clinics. She spots that a young woman, post-mesmeric-crisis, was accurately divining the time with her eyes closed... while Mesmer’s feet were pressed upon hers, presumably pressing the hours and minutes.
I’ve written before about how early ‘mesmeric’ amusements are often indistinguishable from crude and sometimes accidental/incidental ‘mental magic’ tricks that we see in witchcraft, Spiritualism, and mentalism. It seems Mesmer’s need for showmanship – complete with flowing lilac robe and magic wand – was part of his downfall. The book particularly highlights how Mesmer’s name became notorious alongside Cagliostro and Casanova as a triumvirate of European conmen-adventurers drawn to Paris and its society.
With the official investigation into the merits of animal magnetism – Benjamin Franklin’s 1784 Royal Commission – approaching, Mesmer became more volatile. Having failed to persuade the scientific and medical establishment of his point of view, he sends a missive to none other than Queen Marie Antionette to seek her intervention. It’s worth having the late, great Alan Rickman narrate the letter to you in your mind, as his overly familiar, overly confident tone is extraordinary stuff! He addresses her as a social equal, is impertinent and insulting of her royal husband and parents, and gripes about money and his personal political problems. It’s “vintage Mesmer”, as Buranelli quips.
Mesmer, the book concludes, was wholly wrong about his theory of animal magnetism, but was right about some of its related granular insights. And that’s why you should read it. It can be daunting to challenge – and change – your beliefs about hypnosis (or anything). But better that than to stagnate in a small pond of your own isolated ideas, as Mesmer did, instead of braving new and bigger waters.
