The Royal Commission on Animal Magnetism involved two entirely separate and independent French Royal Commissions, each appointed by Louis XVI in 1784, that were conducted simultaneously by a committee composed of four physicians from the Paris Faculty of Medicine (Faculté de médecine de Paris) and five scientists from the Royal Academy of Sciences (Académie des sciences) (the "Franklin Commission", named for Benjamin Franklin), and a second committee composed of five physicians from the Royal Society of Medicine (Société Royale de Médecine) (the "Society Commission").
Each Commission took five months to complete its investigations. The "Franklin" Report was presented to the King on 11 August 1784 – and was immediately published and very widely circulated throughout France and neighbouring countries – and the "Society" Report was presented to the King five days later on 16 August 1784.
The "Franklin Commission's" investigations are notable as a very early "classic" example of a systematic controlled trial, which not only applied "sham" and "genuine" procedures to patients with "sham" and "genuine" disorders, but, significantly, was the first to use the "blindfolding" of both the investigators and their subjects.According to Devereaux, et al. (2002, p. 4): "Blinding (or masking) in [randomised controlled trials] is the process of withholding information about treatment allocation from those who could potentially be influenced by this information. Blinding has long been considered an important safeguard against bias. Benjamin Franklin, in 1784, was probably the first to use blinding in scientific experimentation. Louis XVI commissioned Franklin to evaluate mesmerism, the most popular unconventional "healing fluid" of the eighteenth century. By applying [an actual] blindfold to participants, Franklin removed their knowledge of when mesmerism was and was not being applied. Blinding eliminated the intervention's effects and established mesmerism as a sham. From this work, the scientific community recognised the power of blinding to enhance objectivity and it quickly became, and remains, a commonly used strategy in scientific research."Jensen, et al. (2016), pp. 2–5.Zabell (2016), p. 32.
Both sets of Commissioners were specifically charged with investigating the claims made by for the existence of a substantial (rather than metaphorical) "animal magnetism", , and of a similarly (non-metaphorical) physical "magnetic fluid", . Further, having completed their investigations into the claims of d'Eslon"The commissioners' reports of 1784 were based upon d'Eslon's clinic and patients and not Mesmer's; thus, mesmerism was studied without studying Mesmer." (Gravitz, 1994, p. 50.) – that is, they did not examine Franz Mesmer, Mesmer's theories, Mesmer's principles, Mesmer's practices, Mesmer's techniques, Mesmer's apparatus, Mesmer's claims, Mesmer's "cures" or, even, "mesmerism"The term "Mesmerism" was introduced by in his Mesmerismus (1814), which he wrote after a month-long visit with Mesmer, in Meersburg, in September 1812. According to Buranelli (1975, p. 201), Wolfart's work included "some of the best eye-witness notes we have on Mesmer"; and, also Buranelli (ibid.) notes that Wolfart "took the final Mesmer manuscript away with him to be [subsequently] published under the title Mesmerismus". For more on Wolfart's Mesmerismus and its contents, see, for instance, Gauld (1992), pp. 86–94; Crabtree (1993), pp. 114–116; and Pattie (1994), pp. 248–270. itself – they were each required to make "a separate and distinct report".Duveen & Klickstein (1955), p. 287.
From their investigations both Commissions concluded (a) that there was no evidence of any kind to support d'Eslon's claim for the substantial physical existence of either his supposed "animal magnetism" or his supposed "magnetic fluid", and (b) that all of the effects that they had observed could be attributed to a physiological (rather than metaphysical) agency. Whilst each Commission implicitly accepted that there was no collusion, pretence, or extensive subject training involved on the part of d'Eslon, they both (independently) concluded that all of the phenomena they had observed during each of their investigations could be directly attributed to "contact",Note that the contemporary English translation (Godwin, 1785, passim), consistently rendered the "Franklin Commission's" technical term as "compression" – which, given that the (contemporary) translator(s), most likely, had some direct understanding of d'Eslon's techniques, strongly suggests that d'Eslon's degree of "contact" was of a far greater intensity than just a superficial stroking.In his summary of the "Society Commission's" report (i.e., Poissonnier, et al., 1784), Pattie (1994, pp. 156–158) notes that the report's references to the issue of d'Eslon's "contact", and its mention of "a lengthy application of the hands, the heat produced by this application, and the irritation excited by friction" (, Poissonnier, et al. p. 15) seems to indicate that "d'Eslon used actual contact and pressure of the hands more than Mesmer did" (Pattie, 1994, p. 156). "imagination",That is, the "response expectancy" of Kirsch (1997), and certain aspects of the "role enactment theory of hypnotism" postulated by Theodore Sarbin and William Coe in the mid-1960s (i.e., Coe & Sarbin, 1966). and/or "imitation".That is, the "imitation" that is universally observed in the circumstances of "behavioral contagion" such as, for example, "the 'contagious' yawning reflex of individuals exposed to the yawning of others".
Reasons for the investigation
According to Armando & Belhoste (2018, pp. 6–8), the true history of Mesmer, of Mesmer's version of 'animal magnetism', and of the rationale, conduct, investigations, experimentation, and findings of the 1784 Royal Commissions has been seriously distorted by the modern ("cherry picking") concentration upon "the transformations of animal magnetism after 1820 [in relation to] hypnotism",There is also another modern distortion through the consistent prochronistic misrepresentation of the Commissioners' use of "blinding" and "sham" procedures, due to the ("cherry picking") in support of the modern understandings of "placebo", rather than, that is, in examining the historical significance of one of the first-ever "controlled trials". and, especially, upon "the elements of continuity and analogy between the various versions of psychoanalysis".Namely (Armando & Belhoste (2018, pp. 6–7), the direct connections "between Mesmer and Freud" (e.g., see Ellenberger, 1970; Chertok & de Saussure, 1979; and Crabtree, 1993) and, in contrast, "the distance between [them]" (e.g., see Gauld, 1992).
Consequently, to accurately understand the contemporary significance of the Commissions' work, and the matters that they severally and collectively examined (and, as well, those which they did not) it is important to identify the wide range of significant tensions, disputes, and circumstances prevailing at the time, which prompted the need for an official investigation of the particular nature and type that was undertaken, and the sort of (implicit) issues – in addition to the more specific questions of medicine and of science – that their inquiries would, hopefully, address.
Moreover, in order to gain a balanced understanding of the contemporary significance of the Commissions – as stand-alone historical events – appointed at a specific time, in specific circumstances, with specific goals and, further, in order to apprehend the nature of their investigations, their findings, and the immediate consequences of their reports, a complex of different factors need to be examined (as has been suggested by Craver & Darnden, 2013):
Tensions within the royal family Prior to his arrival in Paris in 1777 – with a letter of recommendation from Chancellor von Kaunitz of the Habsburg monarchy to the Austrian Ambassador to France, the Comte de Mercy-Argenteau (who, in turn, introduced Mesmer to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy (1720–1800), the Director of the Academy of Sciences) – Mesmer was already known to Marie Antoinette.Mesmer's brother, Joseph, had been "writing-master to Marie Antoinette, then about thirteen years old", and "the personal physician to [her mother] the empress Maria Theresa had stood as a witness at Mesmer's wedding in St. Stephen's Cathedral" (Walmsley, 1967, p. 264).
At the urging of her two closest friends, Marie-Paule Angélique d’Albert de Luynes (1744–1781), "the Duchesse de Chaulnes" and Marie Thérèse Louise de Savoie-Carignan (1749–1792), "the Princess of Lamballe", both of whom "had benefited from Mesmer's treatment", Marie Antoinette had been able to arrange for both Mesmer and d'Eslon to be officially "interviewed" by (an otherwise unidentified) representative of the King on 14 March 1781 (Walmsley, 1967, p. 267). At the conclusion of the interview, Mesmer reluctantly agreed to the proposed conditions: that a number of his (previous and current) patients be examined by a team of "commissioners" – it was also stipulated that, as a "requirement" of the King, Mesmer was to "remain in France", until his "doctrines" and his "principles" had been thereby "established", and that he was "not [to] leave except by permission of the King" – and that, if the commissioners' reports were "favourable", the government would issue "a ministerial letter" to that effect (Pattie, 1994, p. 110).
Within two weeks Mesmer had rescinded his agreement, on the grounds that it had been made under duress,"He had signed, he declared, the proposals of two weeks ago through weakness and respect for the opinions of others, but he should never have allowed himself to do so" (Pattie, 1994, p. 111). and a new "interview" was conducted, involving Mesmer, d'Eslon, the unidentified bureaucrat, and the Minister of State, Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux de Maurepas.
Once again, Mesmer rejected the offer made on behalf of the King; and, having been told that the King's decision was final, and given that the impetus for the first interview had come from the Queen, Mesmer wrote an extraordinary letter (translated at Pattie, 1994, pp. 112–115), the nature of which would have meant imprisonment in the Bastille, if it had been written 20 years earlier.
So, there were many reasons for the 1784 Commission to satisfy the (French) interests of the King, rather than the (Austrian) interests of his queen.
Social impact
Mesmer's overall stress on the quest for "harmony" as a therapeutic outcome and, especially, given the demonstrated fact that the effects of his 'animal magnetism' – predicated upon the presence of a force analogous to gravity – were equally demonstrated by all, regardless of age, gender, class, race, intellect, etc.,Castronovo, 1999. was an important influence on many of the moves (and 'movers') within French society towards democracy and greater equality.See: Fuller, 1982; Darnton, 1968, esp. pp. 106–125; Armando, 2018; Armando & Belhoste, 2018; Belhoste, 2018; Rance, 2018; and Zanetti, 2018.According to Belhoste (2018, p. 29), in the final section (viz., "Moral", meaning "Morality") of his final published work, Mesmerismus (Wolfart, 1814, pp. 225–341), "we find texts on the organization of society, legislation and government, education, justice and worship, as well as a draft constitution, which indisputably show that Mesmer had fixed political ideas, closely linked to his theory of animal magnetism and his moral philosophy."
Festering political issues The increasingly unpopular was under considerable pressure from many quarters; and, within five years of the Commissions' Reports, the French Revolution had broken out. The storming of the Bastille took place on 14 July 1789; and four years later, King Louis XVI was executed on 21 January 1793, and his Queen, Marie Antoinette, the daughter of Empress Maria Theresa, and the sister of Emperor Joseph II, was executed on 16 October 1793.