David Schmit. History of Psychology, 8, No. 4, (2005), pp. 403-434.
Abstract
Mesmerism, the French method of treating illness and inducing trance, was introduced to the U.S. in 1836. A cohort of Americans took to the practice enthusiastically, publishing materials, presenting lectures attended by thousands, conducting empirical investigations, and treating untold numbers of ill people. These practitioners understood their profession addressed the mind and they often referred to their work as “psychology.” The mesmerists speculated about mind-brain links and investigated “interior states,” “mental healing,” and the controversial “higher mind powers” such as clairvoyance. Antebellum culture is the backdrop for this study of the rise, fall, and dispersion of mesmerism in America. Evidence provided warrants a re-appraisal of mesmerism’s significance for nineteenth-century psychology.
Additional commentary: This article documents how widespread mesmerism was in the mid- decades of the nineteenth century in the U.S. and describes its several avenues of expression. The work undermines a commonly held belief among ranks of psychologists that “there was no psychology” before the time when academic psychology institutionalized in the 1880s. In reality, by the 1840s, mesmerism was both enormously popular and had an investigative arm that was generating novel ideas about how the mind worked and how people could be healed and influenced by mental practices. Its impact in the making of American psychology has been underestimated.
