Mesmerism: Being the First Translation of Mesmer's Historic Memoire sur la Decouverte du Magnetisme

2019 Reprint of 1948 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition software. Franz Friedrich Anton Mesmer [1734-1815] was a German doctor who theorized the existence of a natural energy transference occurring between all animated and inanimate objects; what he called animal magnetism, later also referred to as mesmerism. Mesmer's theory attracted a wide following between about 1780 and 1850 and continued to have some influence thereafter. 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". This publication is a reprint of the first English translation in 1948 of Mesmer's historic Memoire sur la Decouverte du Magnetisme Animal to appear in English. It was originally published in French in 1779.