The psychologically sensitive novel Alissa Walser‘s In the Beginning Was Night Music deals with the historical event of the medical treatment of Theresa von Paradis in the clinic of the Viennese doctor and magnetist Mesmer, its fragmented success and the subsequent international sensation. Mesmer describes the treatment of “Jungfer Paradis”, the improvement of complaints through Mesmer’s approach and the end of the healing process by Father Paradis in his view in “ Abhandlung über die Entdeckung des thierischen Magnetismus” ( Treatise on animal magnetism). She hoped that his treatment would cure her. She was good friends with Mesmer and frequented his palace on the Landstraße in Vienna. She was a well-known pianist and composer in Vienna. Maria Theresia Paradis was blind from the age of three. He started to receive much criticism from the medical establishment and it is believed that especially one patient caused Mesmer to be called a fraud and charlatan, the blind pianist Maria-Theresa Paradis (1759-1824). However, not everyone liked Mesmer’s shows and his unusual methods. He claimed to have healed haemorrhoids, menstrual difficulties and even blindness, and paralysis with his approach and went on tour giving demonstrations his his techniques in Europe. The Case of Maria-Theresia Paradisįranz Mesmer became rather famous. In many productions Despina uses the oversized dummy of a horseshoe magnet. In Mozart‘s opera “ Così fan tutte” (1790) based on a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte, Mesmerism is satirically presented: Guglielmo and Ferrando fake a suicide by poison and are “healed” in a parody of Mesmer’s magnetization method by the hastily summoned doctor (in reality the disguised maid Despina). This was achieved with the magnet as well as complex hand gestures and touch which became known as the ‘mesmeric pass’ Mesmerism Mesmer’s system rested on his belief that illness was caused by depleted levels of ‘animal magnetism’, and that these could be replenished by the healer transmitting some of his own abundant magnetic force across the ether to the patient. However, Mesmer probably did not believe that fluid was actually draining from her body per se and from a modern day perspective, the results were probably achieved by hypnosis. He was able to induce his patient the sensation of a fluid draining from her body and taking her illness with it.
For a cure, Mesmer apparently used a magnet in order to disrupt the gravitational tides adversely affecting his patient. Mesmer described Oesterline’s symptoms as convulsive malady and it is assumed that she moved into Franz Mesmer’s house in order to receive a decent care. The woman was apparently suffering from “ the most troublesome symptoms of which was that the blood rushed to her head and there set up the most cruel toothaches and earaches, followed by delirium, rage, vomiting and swooning“. One day, Mesmer met the 27-year old Franzl Oesterline who helped Mesmer to increase his fame. He found that often the healing methods were more terrifying than the conditions doctors intended to treat and he favoured a more gentle approach. He founded a practice in Vienna in his mid-30s and it is further assumed that Mesmer through the years of practice was increasingly dissatisfied with the conventional medical approaches at the time.
When Treatment often was more Terrifying then Illnessīack then, it is believed that Mesmer’s theory did not arouse much controversy. In his thesis, Mesmer revived the probably ancient idea that the planets of our solar system extrude invisible rays that affect our bodies, an effect which he called ‘animal magnetism’. Later on, he became increasingly interested in the field of medicine and became a doctor in 1766 with his thesis ‘ De influxu planetarum in corpus humanum‘ ( The influence of the planets on the human body). – Franz Anton Mesmer (Propositions Concerning Animal Magnetism, 1779) Franz Mesmer and the Idea of Animal Mechanismįranz Mesmer was born in 1734 in Germany and studied theology at the University of Vienna, as well as philosophy and law. “A responsive influence exists between the heavenly bodies, the earth, and animated bodies.” He spent his career offering this controversial therapy to wealthy aristocratic clients in several European capitals. This system of therapeutics was the forerunner of the modern practice of hypnotism. Mesmer theorised that there was a natural energetic transference that occurred between all animated and inanimate objects that he called animal magnetism, sometimes later referred to as mesmerism. On May 23, 1734, German physician Franz Anton Mesmer was born.
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