MES'MEBISM, the doctrine of animal magnetism. so named from its author, Frederic Anthony Mesmer, a German physician. Its 1778, Mesmer propounded a theory, according to which all the phe nomena of life are referred to the motion and agency of a certain universal mag netic fluid, which admits of being influ enced by external agents, and especially by magnetic instruments. Wonderful effects were said to bare been produced by him and others who co-operated with him, upon animal bodies, and many cures performed by the agency of a certain magnetical apparatus. The use of mag netic instruments is now quite exploded, and the principal means used to produce the effects of mesmerism are such us touching and stroking with the hands, according to rule, breathing, on a person, fixing the eye upon him, &e. The mes merized person must always be of a weaker constitnt ion than the mesmerizer, and, if possible, of a different sex, and must also believe devoutly in the science. The effects produced upon the person to whom mesmerism is communicated, or the mesmeree, as he is called, consist partly in bodily sensations, as chilliness, heaviness, flying pains, si:e.; partly in a
diminished activity of the external sen ses; partly in feinting, convulsions, sleep, with lively dreams, in which the mesme reo is transported to higher regions, ob serves the internal organization of his own body, prophesies, gives medical pre scriptions, receives inspired views of heav en and hell, purgatory, &c.; reads sealed letters laid on his stomach, and when awakened is totally unconscious of what he has experienced. Six stages or de grees of mesmerism have been enume rated, viz—the walking stage, the stage of half-sleep, mesmeric sleep or stupor, somnambulism, self-contemplation or Clairvoyance, universal illumination, in which the patient knows what is going on in distant regions, :Ind all that has hap pened or will happen to those persons , with whom he is brought into mesmeric relation, and so forth. More mesmerism has been associated with phrenology, so that by touching certain organs, the patient, when mesmerized, is toggle to dance, sing, fight, or steal,