Friedrich Anton Mesmer (1734-1815)was an Austrian physician who worked with a vital, moving "universalfluid," present everywhere, allowing no vacuum, capable ofpenetrating bodies. It was the basic, primordial "ocean offluid" which directed and controlled all natural processesand was responsible for the progress and outcome of all diseases.It could be activated by any magnetized object and manipulatedby any trained person. Disease was the result of "obstacles"in the fluid's flow through the body, and these obstacles couldbe broken by "crises" (trance states often ending indelirium or convulsions - through the processes of "perturbation,""coction," "evacuation") in order to restorethe harmony of organismic fluid flow.
Some individuals have consideredthat the section on Mesmerism was inappropriately included inthe Organon. But Hahnemann considered the phenomenon so importantas to culminate the Organon by means of it. We shall now takea look at what he has to say on the subject and the twentiethcentury advances and forms of this therapeutic approach.
Inthe fifth edition ofthe Organon Hahnemann included some very illuminating remarkson the subject which were deleted (by the editor Haehl ?) in thesixth edition. We include them here to bring about a greater undertandingof Mesmerism in the context of the Organon.
First of all the Mesmericpractice requires a state of health on the part of the practioner:
§288fn "a man in the full bloom of Living Power" - "with ... full-blown somatic power"
He describes the Mesmericactivity as
§288.2 "distributing the Living Power uniformly throughout the organism), when it is abnormally accumulated (heaped up) in one part or deficient in other parts"
Twentieth Century Radionicsis essentially a continuation of the Mesmeric processthrough detection of a quantifiable and hence measurable levelof vitality in tissues and organs with the capacity to also makeadjustments in the same.
The Broussais treatment (examined by Hahnemannin §74) was able to alter the amount of the Living Powerin the organism, albeit downwards along a sliding scale betweenhealth and death by manipulation of regimen.
§60fn. For Broussais it was only necessary to tone down the Living Power of the patient, to lower it more and more and see! the more frequently he had him bled and the more he had the vital humour sucked out of him ... the more the patient lost the capacity to feel pains or to express his aggravated state.
For the most part, the Organon addressesthe qualitative reformulation of the Living Power by properlyselected medicines. In prescribing the correct potency and dosageof a given medicine Hahnemann enters the realm of quantity. Inthese culminating aphorisms particularly, Hahnemann acknowledgesthe quantitative aspect of bio-energy in and of itself.
fifth edition §293fn "this positive empowerment and immediate saturation with Living Power (which no more belongs to the category of palliatives than does eating and drinking when hunger and thirst are present) is no mean auxiliary to the actual treatment of the whole disease by homeopathic medicines."
And in fact it has superior advantages
"...for the immediate communication and restoration of the vital force to some one weakened part or to tbe whole organism,?a purpose which through no other agent other than mesmerism can be attained so certainly and so entirely without disturbance of the rest of the medicinal treatment. "
In the fifth edition Hahnemann states that a medicine given in the right'quality' but in the wrong quantity can be adjusted "mesmerically."
§293fn Imperfect homeopathists, who think themselves monstrously clever not infrequently deluge their patients in difficult diseases with doses of different medicines, given rapidly one after the other, which, although they may have been homeopathically selected and given in high potentiated attenuation, bring the patients into such an over excited state that life and death are struggling for mastery, and the least additional quantity of medicine would infallibly kill them. In such cases a mere gentle mesmeric pass and the frequent application, for a short time, of the hand of a well-intentioned person to the part that is particularly affected, produce the harmonious uniform distribution of the vital force throughout the organism, and therewith rest, sleep and recovery.
This quantifying balance of the vitalityis also the principle at work in the use of the Bio-Circuits asdeveloped by L.E.Eeman.
Hahnemann also acknowledged the fact thatthis balancing of the bio-energy could take place
§288.2 "... even at some distance..."
Treating at a distance is an integral partof both Quimby's "absent treatment"and Radionics treatment through theuse of witness samples.
In the fifth edition he made the bold statement that Mesmerism.
"... acts homeopathically, by the production of symptoms similar to those of the diseased state to be cured; "
This statement would indicatethat mesmerism also had a qualifing aspect. The question is wasthis statement deleted because Hahnemann realized the erroneousnature of this contention or because it was a highly controversialaspect?
The most profound twentieth century developmentin the manipulation of bio-energy is the joint Osteopathic andOrgonomic therapeutic discoveries.
Dr. WilliamSutherland discovered the 'primaryrespiratory mechanism' at the structural level. Dr. Wilhelm Reichdiscovered'orgonotic pulsation' at the functional level. Regimenal orgonetherapy entails the quantitative re-distribution of impoundedorgone energy through conversion, accumulation and stimulationby which the orgone energy is restored to free circulation inaccordance with the goal of health - "full orgonotic pulsation."
Reich named this
§288.3 "...great nature-power..." (groþe Natur-Kraft)
Orgone Energy (present inside and outsidethe organism), or in accordance with Hahnemann's term, 'Life Energy'(§72), which through a process of CONVERSION
§288.2 " ...extinguishes the morbid mistunement of the Living Principle, replacing it with the normal 'tuning' of the mesmerist. "
Reich also developed the principle of theACCUMULATION of Life Energy.
§289.1 ".. the above-mentioned modes of practicing Mesmerism are based on a dynamic influx into the sufferer of more or less Living Power.."
Orgone Accumulators are apparatuses constructedof alternating layers of organic and inorganic material, but othermodes of accumulation can also raise the orgonicity or 'Life Energy'quotient of the individual such as the twentieth century juicingand other dietetic regimens.
The third facet of regimenal orgone therapyis STIMULATION (Vegetotherapy - breathing and muscle manipulation).
§290.1. Hereto also belongs in part the so-called massage, by which a robust, good-natured person separately lays hold of the muscles of the limbs, chest and back of the one who has been chronically diseased, though is now cured, but is still in the process of slow recovery and still suffering from emaciation, weak digestion and lack of sleep; the muscles are moderately pressed and, as it were, kneaded, whereby the Living Principle is stimulated in its counter-action to restore the tone of the muscles and of their blood and lymph vessels. The mesmeric impinging action is naturally the main thing in this procedure, which may not be exaggerated with those who still suffer from emotional [Gem¸t] irritability.
Reich envisioned a true Medical Orgone Therapybut fell short of realizing the resonant relationship that hisconcepts held in common with the Hahnemannian theory.
§63 Each life-impinging Potence, each medicine, retunes the Living Power more or less and arouses a certain alteration of condition in man for a longer or shorter time.
In this final conceptual space of histextbook,Hahnemann found a therapeutic focus for the friendlyrival of medicine in a heightened form of regimen, which in itslower phases he had been extolling throughout his life and throughoutthe Organon as being just as important as medicine itself. Thisavowal of the possibility of energy manipulation is more propheticof things to come than it was historic of things past.