Magnetic Therapy and Vienna
I just stumbled upon an article on CSICOP: “Magnetic Therapy: Plausible Attraction?”
Long considered only a component of quack medicine, magnetic therapy has received a boost from a recent study at the Baylor College of Medicine. Is it plausible?
Some people I know are totally into “magnetic healing chains” and stuff like that. So, as a long time esoteric consumer stuff sceptic, I read James D. Livingston report.
It started in Vienna:
The development in eighteenth-century England of carbon-steel permanent magnets more powerful than lodestones brought renewed interest in the possible healing powers of magnets, and among those interested was Maximilian Hell, a professor of astronomy at the University of Vienna. Hell claimed several cures using steel magnets, but he was rapidly eclipsed by a friend who borrowed his magnets to treat a young woman suffering from a severe mental illness. The friend was Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815), and Mesmer’s success with the “magnets from Hell” led directly to his widespread promotion of his theory of “animal magnetism.” Although he first used actual magnets, he later found he could “magnetize” virtually anything — paper, wood, leather, water — and produce the same effect on patients. He concluded that the animal magnetism resided in himself, the various materials simply aiding the flow of the “universal fluid” between him and the patients.
Related posts:
A japanese movie I quite enjoyed uses Mesmer’s “animal magnetism / animal hypnosis” as the main theme. In “Cure” directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (not the one who made the “7 samurai” and “rashomon”) the strange amnesic medicine student Mamyia is suspected to be deeply involved in some atrocious murders where victims are marked with a big X. Detective Takabe does not want to believe in the all to obvious course of events and finds Mamiya to be the one important link.
Movielink: Cure
Clemens
unfortunately, this kind of treatment only works when you take off your aluminum foil deflector beanie, so you better find yourself a qua^H^H^Hdoctor with a well shielded practice.