Do You Believe in Magic?

Part II: True Healers Do

In our first essay on the subject, we synopsized the magical writings of noted British and American authors. They were no small talents but renowned and brilliant writers in the likes of Dickens and Thackeray, Emerson and Thoreau, Melville and Hawthorne and Poe. The list of writers from past generations who bowed to magic/magnetism and explored them in their works might have been stretched to great lengths.

We merely touched upon continental authors beginning with Emmanuel Swedenborg. But, we could have gone on to mention the Germans Goethe and Novalis, the Frenchmen Hugo and Balzac, and the Russians Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky.



The presence of mysterious, subtle but powerful forces in our midst can not be denied – nor can they be proven by modern measures. Still, we thank the literary giants of old for our first view of magic and magnetism. Now, we begin to explore these ideas from a healing angle. Next time, we intend to bring magic-magnetism to our very own doorsteps – for practical use at home.

We can go back millennia for evidence of magic used in public. Temples in Egypt and Greece called upon magical magnetic forces in their daily practices. Sickness was treated among other means by magnetic passes, the laying on of hands, and breathing on the affected part of the body. As well as the Egyptians and Greeks, the ancient Chinese, Hindus, Persians, Chaldeans, and Romans were familiar with spiritual and magnetic phenomena.

The greatest magicians of more recent history in the West include those detailed in the Holy Bible. Moses and Aaron were magicians (churchmen prefer to call them miracle workers) who performed their feats before Pharaoh himself as they embarrassed his own less effective staff.

History tells us that Jesus Christ was considered a “common magician.” But, the magic he performed in broad daylight far surpassed anything displayed in his time until the present: in the form of turning water into wine, walking on water, feeding thousands with a few fishes and loaves, instantly healing all manner of ills and raising the dead.

Jesus Christ was The Magician of the last two thousand years. There have been many lesser ones since. Magic practiced outside the confines of the church (see Religion and the Decline of Magic by Keith Thomas) was strictly forbidden as can be readily seen from the many thousands of witch trials held in the Middle Ages in Europe. As many as 50,000 were executed – often burned at the stake. Then just as sadly, up to 80 percent of the witches were women – magicians in fact or in potential.

In relatively modern times, Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim aka Paracelsus (1493-1541) was a truly magical wonder worker. Because he grew up in a medical family and attended and even taught in established schools, he was never branded a witch. Suspicions remain to this day that he may have been murdered. Paracelsus certainly offended many of his colleagues at the same time he shone light on their ignorant ways. Much of his following words could still be addressed rightly to many in the modern medical guild.

“You have entirely deserted the path indicated by Nature, and built up an artificial system, which is fit for nothing but to swindle the public and to prey upon the pockets of the sick. Your safety is due to the fact that your gibberish is unintelligible to the public, who fancy that it must have a meaning, and the consequence is that no one can come near you without being cheated. Your art does not consist in curing the sick, but in worming yourself into the favour of the rich … You live upon imposture, and the aid and abetment of the legal profession enables you to carry on your impostures, and to evade punishment by the law. You poison the people and ruin their health …”

We must interject similar words written a century ago by the great American pundit Mark Twain: “The doctor’s insane system has not only been permitted to continue its follies for ages, but has been protected by the State and made a close monopoly — an infamous thing, a crime against a free-man’s proper right to choose his own assassin or his own method of defending his body against disease and death.”

Dr. Franz Hartmann wrote that Paracelsus made the rediscovery of vital magnetism which was attributed two centuries later to Anton Mesmer under the name of animal magnetism and subsequently called mesmerism. Paracelsus worked with the invisible Mumia which may be transferred from one living being to another. He said it was the vehicle of life and of vital magnetism. The Mumia he equated to the life-principle. He used not only human magnetism but also that of animals and plants to bring about mysterious magnetic cures.

From Paracelsus we move on to the most acclaimed public magician of modern times – Anton Mesmer. Mesmer, like Paracelsus, bowed to and learned from Nature while he navigated life in 18th century Austria and eventually graduated from the medical school in Vienna. He spent much time studying metal magnets as he sought to use them as others had in trying to heal the sick and injured.

Mesmer inevitably realized that he himself had more power – much more – than the metals he passed over his patients. His experiments expanded and he had many therapeutic successes. Mesmer attracted a variety of the sick and depleted to his small hospital above the Prater Park and the Danube river in Vienna. Like Paracelsus, he also drew detractors as well as supporters to his work. Mesmer, the recent medical graduate, embarrassed the elder physicians eventually causing them to order him “to put an end to the imposture.” The Medical Faculty denounced Dr. Mesmer’s methods, calling them fraudulent and demanding that he stop practicing his brand of medicine or leave Vienna. 

Mesmer was not about to give up his discovery and gift, but did give up Vienna. Before long, he appeared in Paris and produced greater successes while encountering more obstacles. Along the way, Mesmer wrote a number of books to explain his discovery and created Societies of Harmony to teach his method and open its use to physicians and laymen alike. So, Mesmer the Magician produced a craze in Paris for almost a decade. Mesmeromania reigned even though he never gained entré into the medical establishment.

Turbulent times followed with the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. Mesmerism, Magnetism and Magic spread quietly thanks to some of his followers to the hinterlands of neighboring countries and even as far as Russia and America. With the passing of Mesmer and the appearance of a new generation, healing magick was renewed most notably through the hands of Jules du Potet de Sennevoy.

Du Potet took up magnetism near the time of Mesmer’s death in 1815. He was also a student and lover of Nature – the trees and forests, streams and rivers, the air and sun. Du Potet consulted briefly with prominent magnetists of the day in France. Rather than take a medical degree, he devoted five years to teach himself magnetism. Then, he ventured to share his version of animal magnetism, to produce healings and magic in public, and to write and teach widely in France and beyond. Du Potet edited a journal of magnetism and wrote several books including one called Magnetism and Magic.

Magnetism and magical healing eventually gained traction in the United Kingdom when Monsieur du Potet visited and toured England circa 1837. Early in his stay, he gave Dr. John Elliotson “lessons” in animal magnetism. Elliotson had already brought the stethoscope among other innovations into English medicine. Thanks to du Potet, he soon became a true believer and potent practitioner of magnetism. But, his beliefs and public demonstrations eventually met orthodox resistance and he was forced to leave the University College Medical School and Hospital in London. Nonetheless, “Dr. Goodenough” – as the writer William Makepeace Thackeray deemed him – developed a wide following for his works as well as The Zoist journal which he published for a dozen years and volumes.

Magnetism crossed the Atlantic in many ways in the late nineteenth century. Most notably, self-proclaimed magnetic healers appeared across America in the Midwest in the likes of Paul Caster, Andrew Taylor Still, and Daniel David Palmer. The latter two materialized and scientized their magnetic works to create osteopathy and chiropractic.

Next time we will discuss Magic, Magnetism and You.