Citation Needed - Franz Mesmer

Episode Date: June 10, 2020

Franz Anton Mesmer (/ˈmɛzmər/;[1] German: [ˈmɛsmɐ]; 23 May 1734 – 5 March 1815) was a German doctor with an interest in astronomy. He theorised the existence of a natural energy transference occurring between all animated and inanimate objects; this he called "animal magnetism", sometimes later referred to as mesmerism. (In modern times New Age spiritualists have revived a similar idea.[citation needed]) Mesmer's theory attracted a wide following between about 1780 and 1850, and continued to have some influence until the end of the 19th century.[2] In 1843 the Scottish doctor James Braid proposed the term "hypnosis" for a technique derived from animal magnetism; today the word "mesmerism" generally functions as a synonym of "hypnosis". --- Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.  

So it's like a flight of whiskey or beer, but it's cheese. So you get to try a bunch of different cheeses. They, they're right. I have that. It's called a cheese plate, heath. No, right, but mine would be served in whiskey glasses. Oh, that's different. You are getting sleepy. But, but I'm not though.

You are getting so sleepy. No, I had caffeine. I'm not though you are getting so Sleep No, I had caffeine I'm fine. Hey, no, what up? I think Tom is trying to hypnotize me Hey, we're doing France. We're doing France mesmer this week. So I guess it's in theme Slight Yeah, that could be it no, but sometimes he just does this until you do what he wants. He'll just do it for a really long time. I was so, so, I have a, you want to sleep. Look at the watch.

It's swinging back and forth. You're supposed to use a pocket watch. You're just waving your wristwatch in his face back to the side of the wrist. Okay, all right. Well, he's clearly not quitting anytime. Yes, I am so very sleepy. In fact, I am now asleep. Great. I knew it would work. You will transfer all of your money to this bank account. And in the memo, you will write for butt stuff. Okay, but wouldn't giving you money for butt stuff also kind of like play joke on yourself. Like you'd have to deposit that check that you got sleep. Just saying you got paid for butt stuff. Sleepy for you to. How is giving you all the money different from you doing no work and getting the same amount of money as the rest of us?

How's that different than? Then diesel. Yeah. Yeah. You are getting sleepy. Okay. All right. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Now it's fine. Memo section. Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts because this is the internet and

that's how it works now. I'm Cecil and I'll be helping mesmerize you tonight but I'll need some help so let me introduce the panel. First up, two guys that don't even know how animal magnets work, Ethan Tom. I know what that is, that's how they keep uh... the horses on yeah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha age that is in danger of breaking a hypnosis. Oh, Noah. Yeah. No, I'm part of an up-and-a-demental decline at this point that proscioticis is the only legitimate thesis I've

got left, so I'll look at you. I'm going to bring it up. Hey, patrons. You're paying for Eli's doctor to deliver a baby right now. And if you'd like to learn how to give us money for a human right like, not yet like food, shelter, or medicine because our country just gave us these bootstraps and nothing else. Be sure to stick around until the end of the show.

I ate my bootstraps, was that wrong? I'm out of bootstraps. And with that out of the way, tell us, Ethan, what person place thing, concept, phenomenon, or event will we be talking about today? Well, we're going to be talking about Franz Mesmer and animal magnetism. Ooh, get excited folks. And Tom, you thought animal magnetism was going to involve frying up some meat in an induction cooktop.

I did. Are you ready to tell us how disappointed you are? No, I did say much longer topic than we have. Time for a C-so-wet to stick to for C. So I guess that's all right, Tom. Let's start it off. Who was Franz Mesmer? Well, Franz Mesmer was born in 1734. Well, there's your first mistake right there. Yeah. It gets worse in Isanung, Germany, and a second.

Could have been a first time. His father was a master for aster Whatever that is and his mother was quote a locksmith's daughter. Nice. I don't know if That phrasing is just representative of the rampant misogyny of defining a woman by the occupation of the man Most responsible for her or if it's maybe a commentary and how defining someone by their job and shrines and maintains class distinctions, or if it's in fact just like some wonderfully backhanded slight to the children of locksmiths, but still there you have. Damn, you son of a locksmith. Locksmiths, they could have just called their Mrs. Mesmer and just left it at that.

It's just so weird. So Mesmer, it was a Jesuit. He graduated school having studied both law and medicine, finished his studies in 1766. With the publication of his thesis titled, on the influence of the planets on the human body. Now the idea here is basically a kind of medical astrology. He was inspired by Newton's findings

that celestial bodies influence the tides, that's real. And Mesmer thought that the sun and moon influenced tides. That's real. And Mesmer thought that the sun and moon influenced tides within the human body. Being influenced by the moon, that's lunacy. Oh, literally. Yeah. And by the way, before anybody gets to impress with the fact that he like studied both law and medicine, keep in mind that a we knew a pamphlets worth about and killed them back then. If you check Web MD while you're watching Judge

Judy, you've technically achieved that same distinction. Yeah. Also, it's thesis was largely plagiarized from work done by Richard Meade, a contemporary of Newton's. But I love this. Wikipedia excuses the plagiarized from work done by Richard Meade, a contemporary of Newton's. But I love this. Wikipedia excuses the plagiarism by saying, quote, doctoral thesis, we're not expected to be original. Lots of great sources are made of other people's words. I guess you're saying that you're in a great, or fuck you.

You know, Webster didn't fucking make up any of those words. I'm just saying. So we else's. What the fuck is this? So at 1768, Mesmer married, and I'm not making this up, he married Anna Maria Von Posh, a wealthy widow. So basically Cougar Spice, that's a married Cougar Spice.

Now he's all set up in that posh lifestyle. Mesmer set himself up in Vienna as a doctor, living the high life, entertaining Mozart and Hayden in his mansion. In fact, when Mozart wasn't able to secure performance of his one act opera, I'm gonna mispronounce this, Bastien, Un Bastien. Mesmer arranged a performance to be played

in his own private garden. And for his part, Mozart actually wrote Mesmer into his comedic opera, Khosef von Tute, I probably mispronounced that too. You know, back then, being a law doctor might have been a pretty good pickup line. Now, everyone thinks a half a million dollars in student loan debt is a turn off, which is, you think they wouldn't think that, but I'm going to need a swipe left or right on your credit report. If we're going to get to swipe left or right on your credit report. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Just a link to experience on your fucking Tinder bio.

So befriending Mozart was pretty much the last sensible thing that Mesmer will ever be known for because now he goes full on like CVS as seen on TV aisle craze. Like, remember how Mesmer thought you had like tides in your body that could be affected by the moon? And how that idea in 1766 wasn't considered bat shit fucking nuts. Well, Mesmer figured that if there were tides in the human body, then maybe he could influence those tides. I don't know, by magnets, because why not?

Do you have a magnet, the size of the moon? So in 1774, Mesmer treated Franciscan Osterlin for her case of hysteria by inducing in her an artificial tide. Now, the process goes like this. First, the patient swallows some iron. What? Then, yep, just, I'm getting there, right? That's not at all dangerous.

Just random iron, who knows? Just you like deep throw to poker for a fire or something? Like what is happening? Just, just got a kettlebell and a stomach. It's all gone. Oh, that'd be Russian. Then Mesmer puts magnets all over this hysterical woman. And finally, and this is where it all come together, both the patient and the doctor lie to each other

and pretend that something's happening. Yeah, chiropractors are great, but they're not title enough. So the best thing, like if this wasn't still a multi-million dollar business for people who haven't even swallowed the fucking iron, it would sound way sillier to us. haven't even swallowed the fucking iron. It would sound way sillier to us. So in this case,

Francis reported feeling mysterious streams of fluid flowing through her body. And yeah, she totally wasn't hysterical again for several hours. It's not it's the iron. It's not really a mystery. You swallow a bunch of iron. Was it more than four hours, Tom? More than four. If you're attraction last more than four hours, Tom? More than four hours.

If you're attraction lasts more than four hours. Contact a medical astrologist. Right, so like this fake bullshit, kind of they just pretended that it worked, right? So you would think that maybe Mesmer would conclude from this that like eating a bunch of iron and then jiggling it around with magnets that was the solution. I mean, that's what he did, but instead Mesmer concluded that what was probably true that he treated tides of energy flowing throughout the patient's body, he did not attribute the success to the magnet thing that he literally had just done.

Instead, Mesmer figured that he influenced the energy tides in his patient because he himself had actually accumulated so much of his own magnetism that he was now the solution. And he abandoned the use of the magnet. Wow. He was a magnet the size of the moon. He made his thing.

Now, if he gave this girl an orgasm with a magnet and didn't call it a compass, he is missing a marketing opportunity. And he just now straight me as the type that would miss a little bit. Exactly. No, no. So this was the beginning of the idea of animal magnetism.

And while anyone who's seen heath and a low cut top would not doubt its existence. And Galeende. Animal magnetism as described by Mesmer And while anyone who's seen heath in a low cut top would not doubt its existence and galley and day Animal magnetism as described by mesmer is somewhat more in doubt Well, while the audience gets their mysterious fluids flowing while they think of a scantily clad heath We should take a break for some apropos of nothing Turtle neck too. It doesn't have to be low cut. I'm just saying like this Shed her parent, either way.

Come on, Buster. Hey, Buster. Oh! Oh, Jesus, are you fucking stuck to the door again? Is your pet's animal magnetism getting you down? Buster, do you erase all these VHS tapes? You can do something about it. Have you seen my other fucking earring?

Uh, did you check the dog? I can hate you so much. Yeah, I was fucking stuck to him. Yeah, I was stuck to him like I said. Yeah. Yeah, shocking. Now with the copper coats, we put the power of copper into a stylish little jacket Talk to him! Yeah, talk to him like I said. Talk to him again. Shocking. Now with the copper coats, we put the power of copper into a stylish little jacket for

your dog. Hey, he's not sticking the door anymore. And he looks adorable. Thanks, copper coats. That's right. The magic of copper. It's as much bullshit as animal magnetism. And my dogs are Thritis' gone. No my dog's arthritis is gone.

No, it's very much not. Oh yeah, you're right, it's not. So, Tom, when we left off, we were learning about the only lawyer in history to give a woman a non-faked orgasm. Is there any way you could give us more insight into Franz's mindset here? Sure, I'd be happy to. In fact, let me quote directly from Mesmer on how animal magnetism is supposed to work. This is a quote. Modern philosophy has admitted a plenum, or universal principle of fluid matter, which

occupies all space, and that as all bodies moving in the world abound with pores, this fluid matter introduces itself through the interstices and returns backwards and forwards, flowing through one body by the currents which issue their from to another as in a magnet, which produces that phenomenon, which we call animal magnetism. You change any term in that to chloroquine and it's a Trump coronavirus press conference guaranteed. You can change none of the terms. It's my tender bio. He continues, quote, this fluid consists of fire, air, and spirit, and like all other fluids, tends to an equilibrium, therefore it is easy to conceive how the efforts which the bodies

make towards each other produce animal electricity, which in fact is no more than the effect produced between two bodies, one of which has more motion than the other, a phenomenon serving to prove that the body which has most motion communicates it to the other until the medium of motion becomes an equilibrium between the two bodies and then this equality of motion produces animal electricity. All right, you heard it.

So grab your fedora, start nagging and take plenty of cocaine so you can vibrate around the bar like a fucking asshole. Women love that. start nagging and take plenty of cocaine so you can vibrate around the bar like a fucking asshole. Women love that. I just in case you guys didn't catch that because it's written purely in goddamn gibberish. Basically, there's invisible energy juice everywhere.

And it moves around and it gets in your pores. And sometimes it's also electricity kind of. Well, yeah, but mostly like when your dog chases its tail. Right. Anyway, since everyone has just energy juice everywhere and sometimes one person has too much energy juice or maybe too little, you can rebalance your energy tides if you're near a person whose energy juice tide is more better than your energy juice. Boy, you can see why he hit it behind gibberish now. So it's cookies all that sounds you have to put that into the context of medical treatment in the late 1700s, which was in no way more insane than animal magnetism.

So people were really fucking interested in this idea, and they were probably a little tired of being told that the problem was always, you have too much blood, let me help you out. So, did they ever add blood? Just like, what a full leech on you to spit the blood back in. They did that in one out of four times, it didn't work out so well.

So, so Mesmer begins to gain a bit of notoriety, and he was invited to weigh in on whether exorcisms were real. And Mesmer, I fucking love this. With no trace of irony whatsoever, found that the exorcist himself was sincere, but that the exorcism wasn't successful because it rid the patient of demons. Instead, Mesmer found that the realorcist himself was sincere, but that the exorcism wasn't successful because it rid the patient of demons.

Instead, Mesmer found that the real cure was affected because the priest unknowingly was channeling their animal metabolism. Huh. It's amazing how made up bullshit handshakes with other made up bullshit so well. That's right. Right. It's right. Well, you know, flat earthers and hollow earthers share the same convention. Right. Right. Well, you know, flat authors and hollow authors share the same convention.

Oh my God. That's all you need to know. I have a question though. I have a question though. Where do hollow authors think the GPS satellites are? Like I am dying. They're in the up. Cecil.

Well, a north obviously. That's the one that points up. You guys are not even. All right. I give up. up Cecil. Well, I know, or obviously that's the one that points out. You guys are not even. All right. I give up.

So, as we ran into a touch of trouble when he attempted to cure a blind piano prodigy in a Maria Teresa Apparitas, while he claims that she was cured while they were together, she was, it turns out, still totally fucking blind as soon as she was around, you know, other people. It's the, uh, Eisenberg uncertainty principle right there. Eisenberg. Eisenberg, clever. And Vienna, Vienna had had enough of all this bullshit. It also, he very likely, you know, touched her inappropriately, whatever.

Regardless, he left for Vienna, or he left Vienna for Paris, mired in scandal and failure. Scandal strangely did not follow Franz to Paris. It was embarrassed to be around him at this point. Right? So without it, he quickly set up shop among the wealthy of the city, and his buddy Mozart frequently popped in for visits. In Paris, Mesmer began a hugely successful practice, sometimes treating 200 patients a day. Jesus, that's a weird group on. That's a very strange group on it. So sometimes Mesmer would treat these patients one on one,

and other times perform a kind of like magnetism group therapy. But the individual treatment went like this. Mesmer would sit directly across from the patient, pressing his patient's knees between his own. Then you'd have like, it's really weird staring contest with them, just walking eyes and then moving his hands over the patient's body for a while before finally touching their chest and then just like holding his hands there. Oh, it's a grob on grob on.

It's different. It's a different thing you sign up for. So this went on far, far longer than you would possibly think. Seriously, this nonsense would go on sometimes for hours. And finally, concluded with Mesmer playing some music on something called a glass harmonica, which is basically like a bunch of glass bowls full of water that he would rub

and just make weird sounds. Okay, I'm pretty sure my pot dealer in New York was Franz Mesmer. That's like really similar. The whole thing with the touch of my chest. Is it very familiar? The last one on a cup. Your knees, your hand and the knees.

Staring contest. Can I just get the drugs man? Come on. You got to tell me if you're not a cop. I said so many times that meaningless. I'm not a cop. But you can't obviously see 200 patients a day if you spend like four hours with each one holding onto their tith in your hand while playing the 1700s version of the third, right?

But you can dream, but you can dream time. I was doing the math though. No, I'm glad that doesn't scale. So Mesmer invented the Beckette to scale up the operation. The Beckette was basically like a bathtub full of iron filings and glass bottles. And that's not an invention. Mezmer. Yeah, it's just junk.

It's like an episode of porn. Is what I just invented a table with things on it. No, that's needed. And then did he. Yeah. Well, you get to the, you get to the, to the, to the good part. Yeah, he, if you kind of cut me, all right. Here we go.

So you forgot the part where mesmer would magnetize the water with his magic man magnet energy power. Oh, yeah. Yeah, right. And then yes, you probably feel foolish. And then you stick iron rods in the tub to protrude out from the top. That's the advantage. They stay underwater.

That would fuck you up. Uh-huh. Go ahead. Just a second to work, right? So sick patients, I guess like as long as they were the kind of sick, that means you can't see it. They would press the part of their body that was ailing to the iron rods. And the iron rods would transmit super magnet energy power, I guess, from the bathtub full of trash

into the patient. And that would cure them. That's it. And while all this is happening, by the way, so Mesmer, he still has a role, right? So he would dress as an actual wizard and wander around the room, that's standing. Play his weird glass harmonica, light incense,

run his hands around the bodies of the patient. Okay. If this ends in a messy fight with Mesmer's half naked, weirdly young girlfriend, this is literally my pot dealer. It doesn't not in that way. So the patients would like convuls and flip shit and generally behave like they weren't like a big box church or a sports arena. And then when Mesmer was bored watching people play with his rods, he would occasionally take one of the young women into another room for more intensive private treatment. Okay, I don't want to call you out on the air like this time. But the last four minutes everything you said you just added the name Mesmer to some shit from Chernobyl standard of operations. I'm almost certain.

All right. I just want to point out, we live in weird times. Half the people that hear this would laugh at how silly it sounds and the other half would buy this stuff from Gwyneth Paltrow's website. I can't stick this far enough on my vagina. Is it working yet? I wear this weird rod around my neck all the time. It's totally not a dildo.

It's totally not a dildo. It's an iron cagal egg magnet, a stroller fix. You can book. All right, so you can only dittle your patience in a secret back room for so long while doing your Gargamel cosplay before people start to get a little suspicious. Yeah, they start rating your favorite pizza place, checking your email service. It's like a whole thing. It's awesome.

And your timeline shortens when the king thinks that maybe you're offering your special rod to his wife, Marie Antoinette who was among Mesmer's clientele so King Louis the 16th orders a commission to find out if mesmer's full of shit and also maybe you know if he's sticking it to his Where thing is is that he called his junk cake and that was weird She never actually said that, but that's still hilarious. I know. Still a joke. It's a joke.

I'm sure that was my line, but no, go ahead, have a look. So the king orders Ben Franklin and Antoine LaVosier to check this guy out, right? And so for their part, Franklin and LaVosier were less concerned with Mesmer's wizard games and extracurriculars. Then they were like curious if Mesmer had perhaps accidentally found some new physical fluid. And, you know, and surprisingly, they found nothing and Mesmer left Paris.

And then nothing he ever did again was interesting and he died, which happened to everyone. So, so far, stop shitin' on my dreams. That's cool. That's dreams. That's close. That's close. That's close. New term for losing your license for making a bunch of girls wet,

disbar tholin, disbar tholin. I'm so glad you made that, too. So, what's interesting though about Mesmer and what perhaps separates him from the dozens and hundreds of garden variety charlatans that history reviles and ultimately forgets is that Franz Mesmer was actually kind of on to something. Even the Royal Commission that investigated him realized this, noting that there was an effect on the patient when Mesmer treated them, though to their credit they were a student

off to attribute the success to what they called the imagination of the patient. Mesmer didn't find energy tides, and he didn't stumble on it some special wizard powers he could put in the bathtub. What he did harness, however, was the power of suggestion. And many credit mesmer as the father of hypnosis. I am not at all convinced that hypnosis holds up to much serious scrutiny,

but it's impossible to deny that Mesmer had a massive impact and that the power of the placebo is not only real, but it can be used effectively in the short-term treatment of a number of afflictions, which is why we've replaced Eli's stomach medicine with lactose. He's dead now. And if you'd like to summarize what you learned in one sentence, Tom, what would it be? My bathtub full of broken glass may serve a purpose. You're an inventor.

You're ready for the quiz. Well, I'm not wearing this wizard cable out pants for nothing. See, all right. All right. That was its own reward, but I'm glad there was other purposes as well. Thank you. I'm glad to be appreciated. All right. So obviously the term mesmerise has its roots in the exploits of France, mesmer. And since three fifths of the regulars on this show have surnames, which of the following terms is most likely to survive the podcast and become a term of general use in the future. Hey, to end retires, to make tall.

To loosen us. When you go for a four short version of a thing by doing three answers instead of four, but still cheat your way out of it by doing a lazy meta joke in the middle. Or see Bosnichis when you take time off of work to look after your pre-kid, she has a hand. He's a baby yet. Eli, this makes no pre-kid. It's just doing jumping jacks next to your car, getting ready to go to the hospital.

What the fuck are you doing? He'll warm it up. Swarm it up. He's not doing jumping jacks. All right. Well, I would say it's Bosnichis, but obviously there's no use from Eli or for Eli. So I think it's got to be N-Rite ties to make tall. I also would have accepted N-Rite ties to make ramen. No, it's a great gas, but I will be the only one remembered by history.

It'll be Lucien. I just sorry. I was being. Great. Great. So true. So true. All right. We know Franz Monser would have been amazing for a made on TV guy.

So what's the best made for TV device? Franz Monser would have created a the Netherguard weasel. B. The Mamm Wow. C. Mamm Wow was amazing. The magic bullet or D the tuggy. That's great. It obviously doesn't need the tuggy. That's why I know and they don't need the magic bullet. He's got that cover. He's right. So they're not there. Garden Weasel didn't

really come into play until after the 70s. So you didn't really need that. It's got to be Mammoth. It is the Mammoth. Maybe? Yes, it's definitely the Mammoth. Definitely a Mammoth. Excellent. All right, Tom, one more for you.

All right. So obviously, the important takeaway from this episode is the magnetic orgasm device called the compass. That's super important and amazing. Which of the following is their best ad slogan? A, the compass, flotorian tearing at its finest. Flotorian tearing.

B, the compass, just north of the labia. See, the compass, shoot your load zone. Well, it can't be A. It doesn't mean any sense. There's nothing to find up there. B, again, confusing, nothing. Belly button? What do you know what that means? So it's gotta be C, shoot your load stone.

The only thing that makes any sense. No, it was actually A and B. Damn it! Wrong, every time. Every time, not just on the show, just every time. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. All right, well, it looks like Heath,

you are the winner this week. Fantastic. Let's get some Noah next week. What do you think? All right, Noah it is. All right, well, for Heath, Tom and Noah, I'm Cecil, thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week, and by that Noah will be an expert on something else.

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