His belief was that there was a magnetic “fluid” within the universe which influenced the health of the human body. He experimented with magnets to influence this field and assist the healing process. Successes in this area led him to conclude by around 1774 that the same effect could be created by passing his hands, at a distance, in front of the subject’s body and using some sort of invisible energy (animal magnetism) which came from his body. Ten years later, at the request of the French King Louis XVI, Mesmer’s theories were scrutinised by a series of French scientific committees. Despite accepting that the results claimed by Mesmer were truthful, the committee based its findings on the working practices of one of Mesmer’s disgruntled former students and concluded that the effects of Mesmerism were most probably due to belief and imagination in the patient rather than any form of invisible energy being transmitted. Feeling discredited by the committee’s findings, Mesmer left Paris and went into exile.

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