TRADICIÓN
Mesmerismo
El nombre se lo puso su autor y se volvió palabra corriente. Meheust lo consigna así: «He named this discovery “animal magnetism” (Tiermagnetismus or tierischer Magnetismus), a term that would soon become part of the current vocabulary.» «Hanegraaff (ed.) — Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism, ed. inglés · p. 108». Hammer data la creación y la llama por su género: «In the 1770s, Austrian physician Franz Mesmer created a form of alternative medicine.» «Hammer — Claiming Knowledge (2004) · p. 78», con una sola causa para todo mal: «Every illness, he claimed, is ultimately caused by an imbalance in the animal magnetism» «Hammer — Claiming Knowledge (2004) · p. 78». Hanegraaff fecha el traslado y repite el nombre del método: «Having practiced for some years as a physician in Vienna, Mesmer moved to Paris in 1778, where he rapidly achieved fame with his new method of treatment called "animal magnetism"» «Hanegraaff — New Age Religion and Western Culture (1996) · p. 445». Y Atwood, que escribe desde dentro de la práctica, enumera los nombres que circulaban sin elegir entre ellos: «The ordinary effects of Animal Magnetism, or Mesmerism, or Vital Magnetism, or by whatever other term the unknown agency is better expressed, are now so familiarly known in practice that it will be unnecessary to describe them; they have attracted the attention of the best and leading minds of the present age, who have hailed with admiration a discovery which enables man to alleviate pain and maladies insurmountable by other means, and by benevolent disposition of is proper vitality, acting in accord, to restore health and equilibriate repose to his suffering fellow creatures.» «Atwood — A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery (1850) · p. 119». Owen añade los que corrían en Inglaterra: «Often referred to as electro-biology or animal magnetism, mesmerism incorporated a practice and philosophy which fed directly into a spiritualist understanding of the material spiritual world.» «Owen — The Darkened Room (1990) · p. 135».
De dónde viene lo dicen sus estudiosos de tres maneras que no coinciden. Meheust lo hace nacer de un cruce: «Thus mesmerism was born from an unlikely combination of efforts: the attempt to interpret exorcism from a rational standpoint; experimentation in magnetic medicine; and the first tentative theories of electricity and magnetism.» «Hanegraaff (ed.) — Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism, ed. inglés · p. 108», y apunta lo que su autor callaba: «What Mesmer did not admit was that he had found himself, in a way, in the same situation as Gassner.» «Hanegraaff (ed.) — Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism, ed. inglés · p. 108». Faivre lo remonta a la tesis doctoral: «In order to research the cause of universal gravitation, Mesmer postulates (from his doctoral thesis De influxu planetarum in corpus humanum, 1766) the existence of an invisible fluid that flows everywhere and that serves as a vehicle for mutual influence among heavenly bodies, Earth, and living things.» «Faivre — Access to Western Esotericism (1994) · p. 88». Hanegraaff lo remonta más atrás todavía: «Mesmer's fluid is a modern manifestation of long-standing speculations about a "subtle" agent, deriving ultimately from the Aristotelian and Stoic concepts of pneuma and the Platonic ochema» «Hanegraaff — New Age Religion and Western Culture (1996) · p. 448», y Hammer rebaja la novedad del procedimiento: «In fact, Mesmer’s cures were not all that novel. If one disregards the scientistic explanations, mesmeric healing was very much part of a folk tradition of exorcism and laying on of hands.» «Hammer — Claiming Knowledge (2004) · p. 237».
El fluido es el centro de la doctrina y de la disputa. Hanegraaff resume por Ellenberger los cuatro principios: «A subtle physical fluid fills the universe and forms a connecting medium between man, the earth, and the heavenly bodies, and also between man and man. (2) Disease originates from the unequal distribution of this fluid in the human body; recovery is achieved when the equilibrium is restored.» «Hanegraaff — New Age Religion and Western Culture (1996) · p. 445», y «certain techniques, this fluid can be channeled, stored, and conveyed to other persons. (4) In this manner, "crises" can be provoked in patients and diseases cured» «Hanegraaff — New Age Religion and Western Culture (1996) · p. 446». La ambigüedad del agente es para él la clave del caso: «Just as Mesmer's invisible fluid was intermediate between spirit and matter, so his system could be regarded as mediating between religion and science.» «Hanegraaff — New Age Religion and Western Culture (1996) · p. 445». Andrew Jackson Davis, que dictó su libro en trance magnético, lo dice desde dentro y con otra física: «The foundation of this science can not be doubted: for it is admitted that there are existing two fluids, which may here be termed Magnetism and Electricity.» «Andrew Jackson Davis — The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind (3.ª ed., Nueva York, 1847) · p. 69», «Magnetism composes the sphere — rather the atmosphere — by which every person is individually surrounded.» «Andrew Jackson Davis — The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind (3.ª ed., Nueva York, 1847) · p. 72», y explica así la insensibilidad del magnetizado: «This fluid being withdrawn, the patient is not susceptible of external impressions, simply because the medium by which these are transmitted is absent.» «Andrew Jackson Davis — The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind (3.ª ed., Nueva York, 1847) · p. 73». Hammer mide el saldo posterior: «Mesmerists believed in a universal magnetic fluid; modern esotericists have abandoned this concept entirely. Similarly, spiritualists used the vocabulary and ideas of their own time to explain the seemingly paranormal.» «Hammer — Claiming Knowledge (2004) · p. 283».
La operación tenía rito, mueble y libro. Hammer describe la forma: «Mesmer created a variety of healing rituals to redress these imbalances. These rituals routinely involved a crisis followed by a cure.» «Hammer — Claiming Knowledge (2004) · p. 79», y el objeto: «Mesmer’s invention, the baquet, was similarly constructed, and was designed as an accumulator of animal magnetism. An oak cask was perforated to allow the insertion of metal rods. Inside the cask were containers holding “magnetized” water, i.e. water touched by Mesmer. These containers were, in turn, placed in water, iron filings, broken glass, sand or crushed iron ore.» «Hammer — Claiming Knowledge (2004) · p. 237», con el texto que le dio fondo teórico: «In 1779, he published his best-known explanation of animal magnetism, Mémoire sur la découverte du magnétisme animal, in which the method is described and given a theoretical background.» «Hammer — Claiming Knowledge (2004) · p. 237». Lévi mide ese mueble contra otras cadenas: «Mesmer’s wooden tub was a rather imperfect magical chain; many great circles of the illumined, in various northern countries, have more powerful chains.» «Lévi — Dogma y ritual de la alta magia · p. 121». Myers describe el método y lo reduce: «He believed primarily in a sanative effluence, and his method seems to have been a combination of passes, suggestion, and a supposed "metallotherapy" or "magneto-therapy"—the celebrated baquet—which no doubt was merely a form of suggestion.» «Myers — Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death (abreviación, s. f.) · p. 152», aunque le reconoce a su autor una deuda que no da por saldada: «To Mesmer, still more markedly, we owe the doctrine of a nervous influence or effluence passing from man to man,—a doctrine which, though it must assume a less exclusive importance than he assigned to it, cannot, in my view, be altogether ignored or denied.» «Myers — Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death (abreviación, s. f.) · p. 152». Owen consigna la regla del pase: «Strictly speaking, mesmeric passes did not actually touch the body but moved just above it.» «Owen — The Darkened Room (1990) · p. 155», y la definición que daba de su oficio una practicante inglesa: «The science of organic magnetism, or mesmerism, was ‘the knowledge of the ways and means by which the magnetic fluid is intentionally or unintentionally directed or projected to any given spot, and caused to permeate, and consequently affect, organic or inorganic matter’.» «Owen — The Darkened Room (1990) · p. 154».
La comisión de 1784 está en el corpus por tres bocas que no la leen igual. Hammer la nombra y la fecha: «The most parsimonious analysis of Reiki energy is analogous to that of the commission led in 1784 by Benjamin Franklin to ascertain the nature and effects of animal magnetism» «Hammer — Claiming Knowledge (2004) · p. 24», cita su dictamen: «it is not, like the electric fluid, luminous and visible; its action is not, like the attraction of the loadstone, the object of our sight; it has neither taste nor smell, its process is silent, and it surrounds you and penetrates your frame, without your being informed of its presence by the sense of touch [. . .] not one of the commissioners felt any sensation, or at least none which ought to be ascribed to the action of magnetism”.» «Hammer — Claiming Knowledge (2004) · p. 24», y da el día del informe: «ing machine. Their report was published on August 11, 1784. The baquet had been carefully examined for electric and magnetic properties, and was pronounced to possess neither.» «Hammer — Claiming Knowledge (2004) · p. 238», con el saldo que le adjudica al conjunto de comisiones: «Mesmerism, which indubitably produced publicly verifiable effects, was critically investigated by several scientific commissions, and was dismissed in no uncertain terms.» «Hammer — Claiming Knowledge (2004) · p. 368». Meheust recoge la objeción de Husson sobre el alcance de aquel juicio: «Husson argued that it had been Mesmer’s practices that had been judged — not somnambulism, of which Mesmer had been ignorant.» «Hanegraaff (ed.) — Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism, ed. inglés · p. 109», y fecha el portazo final: «On June 15, 1842, after a turbulent session, the Academy of Medicine decided to have nothing further to do with animal magnetism, and not to accept any more papers on the subject.» «Hanegraaff (ed.) — Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism, ed. inglés · p. 110». Blavatsky niega la validez del procedimiento: «There can be no doubt of two things, viz.: that the committee began their work under strong prejudices and only because peremptorily ordered to do it by the king; and that their manner of observing the delicate facts of mesmerism was injudicious and illiberal» «Blavatsky — Essential Works (siete obras reunidas, 1877–1892) · p. 215», apunta quién lo firmaba: «It is a curiosity of science," says Howitt, "that Benjamin Franklin, who had himself experienced the ridicule of his countrymen for his attempts to identify lightning and electricity, should have been one of the Committee of Savants, in Paris, in 1778, who examined the claims of mesmerism, and condemned it as absolute quackery!» «Blavatsky — Essential Works (siete obras reunidas, 1877–1892) · p. 447», invierte la carga de la prueba: «To assert so dogmatically that mesmerism and animal magnetism are but hallucinations, implies that it can be proved. But where are these proofs, which alone ought to have authority in science? Thousands of times the chance was given to the academicians to assure themselves of its truth; but, they have invariably declined» «Blavatsky — Essential Works (siete obras reunidas, 1877–1892) · p. 209», y opone a la condena los premios oficiales: «In 1820 the Prussian government instructed the Academy of Berlin to offer a prize of three hundred ducats in gold for the best thesis on mesmerism. The Royal Scientific Society of Paris, under the presidency of His Royal Highness the Duc d'Angouleme, offered a gold medal for the same purpose» «Blavatsky — Essential Works (siete obras reunidas, 1877–1892) · p. 217».
El sonambulismo parte la tradición en dos y le da su descendencia. Hammer fecha la innovación: «In 1784, one of these disciples, the marquis de Puységur, introduced a significant innovation into mesmerism. The marquis surmised that Mesmer’s cures were due to an altered state of consciousness, which he called magnetic sleep or somnambulism, and discovered that this state could involve a much wider range of phenomena than the crisis-cure pattern.» «Hammer — Claiming Knowledge (2004) · p. 79», con el caso en que nació: «One of Puységur’s servants, Victor Race, had been afflicted with a respiratory ailment accompanied by fever, and the marquis attempted to cure him by mesmeric means.» «Hammer — Claiming Knowledge (2004) · p. 524», y el nombre que se le dio: «Puységur named the new mesmeric symptom magnetic sleep or somnambulism.» «Hammer — Claiming Knowledge (2004) · p. 524»; el cisma llegó a la institución: «The Société de l’Harmonie, i.e. the organization which had served as a focal point for the mesmerists, split in two. The orthodox mesmerists remained in one camp, while the reformists who followed Puységur founded their own branch based in Strasbourg.» «Hammer — Claiming Knowledge (2004) · p. 239». Hanegraaff nombra la escisión doctrinal: «Ellenberger is referring to the split which eventually occurred in mesmerism between those who followed Mesmer in ascribing the effect of mesmeric treatment to an invisible fluid of "subtle matter" (the magnetic force), manipulated by the healer; and those who explained the same effects in psychological terms» «Hanegraaff — New Age Religion and Western Culture (1996) · p. 446», con el reparto en tres que recoge en nota: «Ellenberger makes a further distinction, arriving at three theories: the "fluidists" believed in Mesmer's physical fluid, the "animists" in psychological phenomena, and an intermediate theory believed that a physical fluid was directed by the will of the healer» «Hanegraaff — New Age Religion and Western Culture (1996) · p. 446». Blavatsky registra el paso técnico: «The experiments of Mesmer were vastly improved upon by the Marquis de Puysegur, who entirely dispensed with apparatus and produced remarkable cures among the tenants of his estate at Busancy» «Blavatsky — Essential Works (siete obras reunidas, 1877–1892) · p. 217». Regardie llega a invertir la adjudicación: «Were we to call the processes of Mesmer and the violent effects in the artificial crisis which he encouraged as “Mesmerism,” then the real discoverer of Animal Magnetism, as it has been known for the last hundred years, as a phenomenon rather than as a theory, is the Marquis de Puységur, the acknowledged founder of the experimental school.» «Regardie — The Philosopher's Stone, ed. anotada de los Cicero (2013) · p. 95», «It is to him that are due the processes now generally known as mesmeric—processes which are productive of results differing considerably from those produced by Mesmer himself.» «Regardie — The Philosopher's Stone, ed. anotada de los Cicero (2013) · p. 95», y Sugrue lo dice en una línea: «It was de Puysegur, not Mesmer, who in 1784 discovered hypnotism.» «Thomas Sugrue — There Is a River: The Story of Edgar Cayce (1942, 1945; ed. 2015) · p. 19».
Con el hipnotismo la relación es de sucesión disputada. Regardie fecha la palabra: «The term hypnotism as a less objectionable and more scientific term for certain aspects of the mesmeric state was first coined in 1843 by a Manchester physician, Dr. James Braid.» «Regardie — The Philosopher's Stone, ed. anotada de los Cicero (2013) · p. 96». Myers consigna lo que ese hallazgo le hizo a la doctrina: «When Braid discovered that hypnosis could be induced without passes, the mesmerists felt that their theory of a sanative effluence was dangerously attacked.» «Myers — Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death (abreviación, s. f.) · p. 153», y no separa los dos nombres al contar el logro: «This induced analgesia has from the first been one of the main triumphs of mesmerism or hypnotism.» «Myers — Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death (abreviación, s. f.) · p. 172». Hanegraaff traza la línea entera: «This Mesmeric trance was developed by Amand-Marie-Jacques de Chastenet, Marquis de Puysegur (1751-1825), into a less violent type of trance. Originally referred to as "induced somnambulism", today it is known as hypnosis» «Hanegraaff — New Age Religion and Western Culture (1996) · p. 453». Kardec, que escribe desde el espiritismo, niega que la diferencia sea de naturaleza: «455. The phenomena of natural somnambulism occur spontaneously and independently of any known external cause; but, in persons endowed with a special organization, they may be produced artificially through the action of the mesmeric agent. The only difference between the state designated as mesmeric somnambulism, and natural somnambulism is, that the one is artificially produced, while the other is spontaneous.» «Allan Kardec — The Spirits' Book (White Crow Books, 2010) · p. 207», defiende el procedimiento contra la objeción del charlatán: «Natural somnambulism is a notorious fact, the reality of which few now dispute, notwithstanding the marvelous character of the phenomena it presents. Why, then, should mesmeric somnambulism be regarded as more extraordinary or incredible, simply because it is produced artificially, like so many other things? Charlatans have abused it, some persons will reply; but that fact only affords an additional reason for not leaving it in their hands. When science shall have taken possession of it; charlatanism will have much less credit with the masses; but, meanwhile, as somnambulism, both natural and artificial, is a fact, and as a fact cannot be argued down, it is making its way, despite the ill-will of its adversaries, and obtaining a footing even in the temple of science, which it is entering by a multitude of side-doors, instead of entering by the principal one. Its right to be there will, ere long, be fully recognized.» «Allan Kardec — The Spirits' Book (White Crow Books, 2010) · p. 207», y pone la facultad en el alma: «The cause of the clairvoyance of the mesmeric and of the natural somnambulist is identically the same: it is an attribute of the soul, a faculty inherent in every part of the incorporeal being which is in us, and has no other limits than those assigned to the soul itself. The somnambulist sees wherever his soul can transport itself, at no matter what distance.» «Allan Kardec — The Spirits' Book (White Crow Books, 2010) · p. 208».
Con el espiritualismo la relación es de fundamento, y quienes lo dicen marcan también dónde se separan. Hanegraaff reparte los papeles: «While Swedenborgianism provided spiritualism with a theoretical framework, including descriptions of the other world sufficiently 'graphic and literal'112 for the matter-of-fact attitude of the time, it was Mesmerism which stood at the foundation of spiritualist practice.» «Hanegraaff — New Age Religion and Western Culture (1996) · p. 453», recoge la fórmula de Ellwood: «Robert S. Ellwood is essentially correct in stating that 'spiritualism is Swedenborgian ideology, mixed with an experimentation with transic states inspired by mesmerism'» «Hanegraaff — New Age Religion and Western Culture (1996) · p. 452», y señala el hecho que lo hizo posible: «Important for us is that subjects in a somnambulic state induced by mesmerism frequently displayed mediumistic abilities. The implications, given the cultural climate of the times, were far-reaching.» «Hanegraaff — New Age Religion and Western Culture (1996) · p. 454». Owen mide lo mismo del lado de la curación: «Perhaps the closest and most important influence upon spiritualist healing was mesmerism.» «Owen — The Darkened Room (1990) · p. 135», enumera los fenómenos: «actual physical effects that were thought to prove the transmission of a force or fluid from the operator to the mesmerised person, or from inanimate substances to the subject; phreno-mesmerism, or phrenology; and community of sensation, including clairvoyance .» «Owen — The Darkened Room (1990) · p. 135», y el legado: «All this, combined with mesmerism’s radical impulse and its association with an earlier occult tradition, directly influenced a spiritualist healing practice which promoted the concept of a healing energy or force, disdained the use of drugs, and was open to all .» «Owen — The Darkened Room (1990) · p. 135». Braude nombra lo que se tomó: «Spiritualism adopted from mesmerism the notion that entranced individuals could heal disease» «Braude — Radical Spirits (2001) · p. 136», y dónde se dejó de coincidir: «But while mesmerism attributed the healing agency enabled by trance to a universal» «Braude — Radical Spirits (2001) · p. 136», «mesmeric fluid, Spiritualists transformed the healing trance into a form of» «Braude — Radical Spirits (2001) · p. 137». Faivre data el relevo: «In 1848 a year after Andrew Jackson Davis's The Principles of Revelation (a great classic of mesmerist literature in the United States), spiritualism arose. The Fox sisters at Hydesville, also in the United States, questioned spirits through the intermediary of mediums, but these were no longer intermediary entities like angels, but spirits of the dead who respond, this time by the mechanical gimmick of tapping on a table in a preestablished code.» «Faivre — Access to Western Esotericism (1994) · p. 98», y Hammer sitúa el escenario del espiritismo francés: «The early history of French spiritism is less well documented than its Anglo-American counterpart.16 Spiritist phenomena were frequent in the salons of the mesmerists.» «Hammer — Claiming Knowledge (2004) · p. 483».
Las voces que hablan desde dentro son dos en este corpus, y no dicen lo mismo. Davis abre por ahí la fundamentación de su libro entero: «In order that the real foundation of my impressions may be established, it is necessary to first explain the admitted science known as Animal Magnetism» «Andrew Jackson Davis — The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind (3.ª ed., Nueva York, 1847) · p. 68», numera los estados: «There are properly four magnetic states. In the first, no particular phenomena are witnessed, only that, the external organs being in some measure divested of their ordinary share of magnetism, a feeling of dulness pervades the system.» «Andrew Jackson Davis — The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind (3.ª ed., Nueva York, 1847) · p. 75», identifica el vínculo entre los dos cuerpos: «The chain of sympathy which connects the mind of the operator with that of his subject, is animal electricity, — the same fluid which is the agent of all muscular motion.» «Andrew Jackson Davis — The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind (3.ª ed., Nueva York, 1847) · p. 76», describe la operación por la voluntad: «The operator sits down with the determination to put his subject to sleep : all the powers of his mind are concentrated on this object. His will being exercised to this point, the electric fluid passes from his own brain and nerves, to the brain and system of his patient, and forms between the two, a chain of sympathy.» «Andrew Jackson Davis — The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind (3.ª ed., Nueva York, 1847) · p. 76», y le niega al fenómeno todo carácter sobrenatural: «Thus the phenomenon, known as magnetic, does not controvert or subvert in any way the laws of Nature; but instead thereof, such should be looked upon as a progression and further development of the laws which govern organic beings.» «Andrew Jackson Davis — The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind (3.ª ed., Nueva York, 1847) · p. 74». Atwood reconoce la deuda con la palabra que la nombra: «We allude to Mesmerism: not ashamed, but grateful to acknowledge the neglected Door-keeper that gave us first introduction to the vestibule of antique science.» «Atwood — A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery (1850) · p. 297», identifica el agente con el de los alquimistas: «And this we take to be the identical agent which is spread abroad in the present day mesmerizing, the photogenic medium, our New Imponderable, for it is the Common Soul; also the subject-matter of the Alchemists aforesaid, when they call it a thing indifferent, abject, and exposed in all hands, moving here below in shadowy manifestation, invisibly and unconsciously converted to every will and various use.» «Atwood — A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery (1850) · p. 126», y le da el lugar de llave: «And with the development of these Mysteries we have been enabled to connect Alchemy; and with these both, in their preliminary practice, the modern art, called Mesmerism, strikingly accords; which we have proposed suggestively, therefore, as a first key opening to the vestibule of this Experiment, where sits the Sphinx with her eternal enigma, still to perplex intruders, and open to philosophers only the inner halls of Light.» «Atwood — A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery (1850) · p. 386». Y en la misma obra lo aprieta: «What has mesmerism t do with these things? What wisdom does it unfold? What is its philosophy, or has it yet made an attempt even to investigate the subject-being, the cause of its own effects?» «Atwood — A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery (1850) · p. 120», y lo mide: «The whole process of the Mystery was intended to purify the impure vital atmosphere which surrounds each individual life. The action of mesmerism is a very external way — an imitation of the Divine Art of the separation of which Paracelsus speaks.» «Atwood — A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery (1850) · p. 409». Las dos cosas van aquí, y no se concilian.
Las negativas y los deslindes pesan tanto como las adhesiones. Blavatsky lo pone dentro de otra cosa: «Mesmerism is the most important branch of magic; and its phenomena are the effects of the universal agent which underlies all magic and has produced at all ages the so-called miracles» «Blavatsky — Essential Works (siete obras reunidas, 1877–1892) · p. 176», y le quita a su autor la originalidad: «The doctrine of Mesmer was simply a restatement of the doctrines of Paracelsus, Van Helmont, Santanelli, and Maxwell, the Scotchman; and he was even guilty of copying texts from the work of Bertrand, and enunciating them as his own principles» «Blavatsky — Essential Works (siete obras reunidas, 1877–1892) · p. 216», aunque lo aduzca como testigo: «But neither the great First Cause nor its emanation--human, immortal spirit--have left themselves "without a witness." Mesmerism and modern spiritualism are there to attest the great truths.» «Blavatsky — Essential Works (siete obras reunidas, 1877–1892) · p. 473». Lévi adjudica la prioridad al mismo sitio: «But Paracelsus had discovered magnetism well before Mesmer and had pushed to its limits this marvelous discovery, or rather this initiation into the magic of the ancients,» «Lévi — Dogma y ritual de la alta magia · p. 154». Kardec concede una parte y retiene la otra: «It is not by us, who have witnessed its prodigies and studied all its phases during thirty-five years, that the action of somnambulism could be contested, and we admit that many spirit-manifestations may be thus explained; but we assert that sustained and attentive observation shows us a host of facts in which any intervention of the medium, otherwise than as a passive instrument, is absolutely impossible.» «Allan Kardec — The Spirits' Book (White Crow Books, 2010) · p. 35». Y Mary Baker Eddy, citada por Braude, corta por lo sano: «Is spiritualism or mesmerism included in Christian Science?” Eddy asked rhetorically in a publication designed to provide answers to frequently asked questions. “They are wholly apart from it,” was her clear reply» «Braude — Radical Spirits (2001) · p. 164».
en la biblioteca: 2 obras adscritas · 0 autores vinculados
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cada adscripción se consigna en la ficha de su obraQué dicen de ella las obras
cómo la define cada obra, con su pasajeP. D. Newman — Angels in Vermilion: The Philosophers' Stone, from Dee to DMT (2021)
Asprem y Granholm (eds.) — Contemporary Esotericism (2013)
Atwood — A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery (1850)
Alice A. Bailey — A Treatise on Cosmic Fire (1925)
Alice A. Bailey — A Treatise on White Magic (1934)
Blavatsky — Essential Works (siete obras reunidas, 1877–1892)
Braude — Radical Spirits (2001)
Copenhaver — Magic in Western Culture (2015)
Crookall — The Study and Practice of Astral Projection (1960)
Faivre — Access to Western Esotericism (1994)
Le Mystère des Cathédrales — Fulcanelli (ed. norteamericana de Brotherhood of Life)
Gurdjieff — Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson (1950)
Hammer — Claiming Knowledge (2004)
Hanegraaff — Esotericism and the Academy (2012)
Hanegraaff (ed.) — Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism
Hanegraaff — New Age Religion and Western Culture (1996)
Allan Kardec — The Spirits' Book (White Crow Books, 2010)
Kripal — Authors of the Impossible (2010)
Strieber y Kripal — The Super Natural (2016)
Lévi — Dogma y ritual de la alta magia
Mahatma Letters — a A. P. Sinnett (facsímil de la 2.ª ed. de 1926)
Moore — Gurdjieff: The Anatomy of a Myth (1991)
Myers — Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death (abreviación, s. f.)
Owen — The Darkened Room (1990)
Pike — Morals and Dogma (1871)
The Case of Patience Worth — Prince (University Books, 1964)
Principe — The Secrets of Alchemy (2013)
Regardie — The Philosopher's Stone, ed. anotada de los Cicero (2013)
Thomas Sugrue — There Is a River: The Story of Edgar Cayce (1942, 1945; ed. 2015)
Valiente — The Rebirth of Witchcraft (1989)
Wellbeloved — Gurdjieff: The Key Concepts (2003)
Afirmaciones
97 entradas«He named this discovery “animal magnetism” (Tiermagnetismus or tierischer Magnetismus), a term that would soon become part of the current vocabulary.» — [AFIRMA] el nombre que Mesmer le puso a su hallazgo y su paso al vocabulario corriente.
«Thus mesmerism was born from an unlikely combination of efforts: the attempt to interpret exorcism from a rational standpoint; experimentation in magnetic medicine; and the first tentative theories of electricity and magnetism.» — [AFIRMA] de qué combinación improbable hace nacer el mesmerismo: interpretar el exorcismo en clave racional, la medicina magnética y las primeras teorías de la electricidad.
«What Mesmer did not admit was that he had found himself, in a way, in the same situation as Gassner.» — [AFIRMA] lo que Mesmer no admitía, según Meheust: que en cierto modo se hallaba en la misma situación que el exorcista Gassner.
«In the 1770s, Austrian physician Franz Mesmer created a form of alternative medicine.» — [AFIRMA] la década y el género con que Hammer abre su cronología.
«Every illness, he claimed, is ultimately caused by an imbalance in the animal magnetism» — [AFIRMA] la tesis única que Hammer atribuye a Mesmer sobre la causa de la enfermedad.
«Having practiced for some years as a physician in Vienna, Mesmer moved to Paris in 1778, where he rapidly achieved fame with his new method of treatment called "animal magnetism"» — [AFIRMA] los años de Viena, el traslado a París en 1778 y el nombre del método.
«The ordinary effects of Animal Magnetism, or Mesmerism, or Vital Magnetism, or by whatever other term the unknown agency is better expressed, are now so familiarly known in practice that it will be unnecessary to describe them; they have attracted the attention of the best and leading minds of the present age, who have hailed with admiration a discovery which enables man to alleviate pain and maladies insurmountable by other means, and by benevolent disposition of is proper vitality, acting in accord, to restore health and equilibriate repose to his suffering fellow creatures.» — [AFIRMA] los tres nombres que la agencia recibía y la familiaridad práctica que Atwood le supone al lector.
«Often referred to as electro-biology or animal magnetism, mesmerism incorporated a practice and philosophy which fed directly into a spiritualist understanding of the material spiritual world.» — [AFIRMA] los otros dos nombres corrientes en Inglaterra y lo que Owen dice que el mesmerismo aportó a la comprensión espiritualista.
«In order to research the cause of universal gravitation, Mesmer postulates (from his doctoral thesis De influxu planetarum in corpus humanum, 1766) the existence of an invisible fluid that flows everywhere and that serves as a vehicle for mutual influence among heavenly bodies, Earth, and living things.» — [AFIRMA] qué postula Mesmer y desde dónde, según Faivre: ya en su tesis doctoral, un fluido invisible que fluye por todas partes.
«Mesmer also bestows an initiatory character on his activities by creating a ''Society of Harmony" in 1783 whose numerous symbols are drawn from the Masonic tradition.» — [AFIRMA] el carácter iniciático que Faivre le reconoce a la actividad, con la Sociedad de la Armonía de 1783 y sus símbolos masónicos.
«Animal magnetism is not only a fashion or an isolated episode with no future, but one of the vivid events of culture at the twilight of the Enlightenment, in the subsequent Naturphilosophie, in literature, and in the history of dynamic psychiatry up to and including Freud.» — [AFIRMA] el alcance que Faivre le reconoce al magnetismo animal, que niega que sea moda o episodio aislado.
«A subtle physical fluid fills the universe and forms a connecting medium between man, the earth, and the heavenly bodies, and also between man and man. (2) Disease originates from the unequal distribution of this fluid in the human body; recovery is achieved when the equilibrium is restored.» — [REPORTA] los dos primeros principios del mesmerismo en la formulación de Ellenberger que Hanegraaff cita.
«certain techniques, this fluid can be channeled, stored, and conveyed to other persons. (4) In this manner, "crises" can be provoked in patients and diseases cured» — [REPORTA] los dos últimos principios de esa misma formulación, cuya enumeración se parte en el salto de plana.
«Mesmer's fluid is a modern manifestation of long-standing speculations about a "subtle" agent, deriving ultimately from the Aristotelian and Stoic concepts of pneuma and the Platonic ochema» — [AFIRMA] de dónde hace venir Hanegraaff el fluido: de las especulaciones sobre un agente sutil que remontan al pneuma aristotélico y estoico y al ochema platónico.
«Just as Mesmer's invisible fluid was intermediate between spirit and matter, so his system could be regarded as mediating between religion and science.» — [AFIRMA] el paralelo que Hanegraaff traza entre el fluido y el sistema, ambos intermedios.
«Mesmerists believed in a universal magnetic fluid; modern esotericists have abandoned this concept entirely. Similarly, spiritualists used the vocabulary and ideas of their own time to explain the seemingly paranormal.» — [AFIRMA] el saldo doctrinal que Hammer mide: los mesmeristas creían en un fluido magnético universal que los esoteristas modernos abandonaron del todo.
«Mesmer created a variety of healing rituals to redress these imbalances. These rituals routinely involved a crisis followed by a cure.» — [AFIRMA] la forma del rito mesmérico según Hammer: una crisis seguida de una cura.
«Mesmer’s invention, the baquet, was similarly constructed, and was designed as an accumulator of animal magnetism. An oak cask was perforated to allow the insertion of metal rods. Inside the cask were containers holding “magnetized” water, i.e. water touched by Mesmer. These containers were, in turn, placed in water, iron filings, broken glass, sand or crushed iron ore.» — [AFIRMA] cómo estaba hecho el baquet y para qué, en la descripción de Hammer.
«In 1779, he published his best-known explanation of animal magnetism, Mémoire sur la découverte du magnétisme animal, in which the method is described and given a theoretical background.» — [AFIRMA] el libro de 1779 en que Mesmer describe el método y le da fondo teórico.
«In fact, Mesmer’s cures were not all that novel. If one disregards the scientistic explanations, mesmeric healing was very much part of a folk tradition of exorcism and laying on of hands.» — [AFIRMA] el juicio de Hammer sobre esa novedad: quitadas las explicaciones cientificistas, la sanación mesmérica era propia de una tradición popular de exorcismo e imposición de manos.
«Mesmer’s wooden tub was a rather imperfect magical chain; many great circles of the illumined, in various northern countries, have more powerful chains.» — [AFIRMA] la medida que Lévi le toma a la cubeta de Mesmer frente a los círculos de iluminados del norte.
«He believed primarily in a sanative effluence, and his method seems to have been a combination of passes, suggestion, and a supposed "metallotherapy" or "magneto-therapy"—the celebrated baquet—which no doubt was merely a form of suggestion.» — [AFIRMA] el método de Mesmer según Myers, que reduce el baquet a una forma de sugestión.
«To Mesmer, still more markedly, we owe the doctrine of a nervous influence or effluence passing from man to man,—a doctrine which, though it must assume a less exclusive importance than he assigned to it, cannot, in my view, be altogether ignored or denied.» — [AFIRMA] la deuda que Myers le reconoce a Mesmer y que dice no ignorable ni negable del todo.
«Strictly speaking, mesmeric passes did not actually touch the body but moved just above it.» — [AFIRMA] la regla del pase mesmérico dicha en sentido estricto.
«The science of organic magnetism, or mesmerism, was ‘the knowledge of the ways and means by which the magnetic fluid is intentionally or unintentionally directed or projected to any given spot, and caused to permeate, and consequently affect, organic or inorganic matter’.» — [REPORTA] la definición del magnetismo orgánico que Owen cita de una practicante inglesa, centrada en la dirección del fluido magnético.
«The most parsimonious analysis of Reiki energy is analogous to that of the commission led in 1784 by Benjamin Franklin to ascertain the nature and effects of animal magnetism» — [AFIRMA] quién encabezó la comisión de 1784 y qué se le encargó averiguar.
«it is not, like the electric fluid, luminous and visible; its action is not, like the attraction of the loadstone, the object of our sight; it has neither taste nor smell, its process is silent, and it surrounds you and penetrates your frame, without your being informed of its presence by the sense of touch [. . .] not one of the commissioners felt any sensation, or at least none which ought to be ascribed to the action of magnetism”.» — [REPORTA] el dictamen de esa comisión citado del informe de Bailly: el fluido no es luminoso ni visible, no tiene sabor ni olor, y ningún comisionado sintió nada atribuible a su acción.
«ing machine. Their report was published on August 11, 1784. The baquet had been carefully examined for electric and magnetic properties, and was pronounced to possess neither.» — [AFIRMA] el día del informe y su primer resultado sobre el baquet, en frase que arranca en la plana anterior.
«Mesmerism, which indubitably produced publicly verifiable effects, was critically investigated by several scientific commissions, and was dismissed in no uncertain terms.» — [AFIRMA] el saldo que Hammer le da al conjunto: efectos verificables públicamente, varias comisiones críticas y una desestimación sin ambigüedad.
«Husson argued that it had been Mesmer’s practices that had been judged — not somnambulism, of which Mesmer had been ignorant.» — [REPORTA] la objeción de Husson sobre el alcance de aquel juicio: lo juzgado fueron las prácticas de Mesmer y no el sonambulismo.
«On June 15, 1842, after a turbulent session, the Academy of Medicine decided to have nothing further to do with animal magnetism, and not to accept any more papers on the subject.» — [AFIRMA] la fecha en que la Academia de Medicina resolvió no ocuparse más del magnetismo animal ni aceptar trabajos sobre él.
«There can be no doubt of two things, viz.: that the committee began their work under strong prejudices and only because peremptorily ordered to do it by the king; and that their manner of observing the delicate facts of mesmerism was injudicious and illiberal» — [AFIRMA] los dos cargos que Blavatsky le hace al comité: trabajó con prejuicio y por orden del rey, y observó mal unos hechos delicados.
«It is a curiosity of science," says Howitt, "that Benjamin Franklin, who had himself experienced the ridicule of his countrymen for his attempts to identify lightning and electricity, should have been one of the Committee of Savants, in Paris, in 1778, who examined the claims of mesmerism, and condemned it as absolute quackery!» — [REPORTA] lo que Howitt apunta de Benjamin Franklin, que había sufrido la burla por identificar rayo y electricidad y firmó la condena.
«To assert so dogmatically that mesmerism and animal magnetism are but hallucinations, implies that it can be proved. But where are these proofs, which alone ought to have authority in science? Thousands of times the chance was given to the academicians to assure themselves of its truth; but, they have invariably declined» — [AFIRMA] la inversión de la carga de la prueba que Blavatsky propone a los académicos.
«In 1820 the Prussian government instructed the Academy of Berlin to offer a prize of three hundred ducats in gold for the best thesis on mesmerism. The Royal Scientific Society of Paris, under the presidency of His Royal Highness the Duc d'Angouleme, offered a gold medal for the same purpose» — [AFIRMA] los premios prusiano y francés de 1820, que Blavatsky opone a la idea de un asunto marginal.
«In 1784, one of these disciples, the marquis de Puységur, introduced a significant innovation into mesmerism. The marquis surmised that Mesmer’s cures were due to an altered state of consciousness, which he called magnetic sleep or somnambulism, and discovered that this state could involve a much wider range of phenomena than the crisis-cure pattern.» — [AFIRMA] la innovación de 1784 que Hammer atribuye al marqués de Puységur y el nombre que le dio.
«One of Puységur’s servants, Victor Race, had been afflicted with a respiratory ailment accompanied by fever, and the marquis attempted to cure him by mesmeric means.» — [AFIRMA] el caso en que nació esa innovación, con el nombre del sirviente y su dolencia.
«Puységur named the new mesmeric symptom magnetic sleep or somnambulism.» — [AFIRMA] los dos nombres del síntoma nuevo: sueño magnético o sonambulismo.
«The Société de l’Harmonie, i.e. the organization which had served as a focal point for the mesmerists, split in two. The orthodox mesmerists remained in one camp, while the reformists who followed Puységur founded their own branch based in Strasbourg.» — [AFIRMA] el cisma institucional: la Société de l'Harmonie se parte entre ortodoxos y reformistas de Estrasburgo.
«Ellenberger is referring to the split which eventually occurred in mesmerism between those who followed Mesmer in ascribing the effect of mesmeric treatment to an invisible fluid of "subtle matter" (the magnetic force), manipulated by the healer; and those who explained the same effects in psychological terms» — [AFIRMA] de qué escisión habla Hanegraaff: los que atribuían el efecto a un fluido de materia sutil y los que lo explicaban en términos psicológicos.
«Ellenberger makes a further distinction, arriving at three theories: the "fluidists" believed in Mesmer's physical fluid, the "animists" in psychological phenomena, and an intermediate theory believed that a physical fluid was directed by the will of the healer» — [REPORTA] el reparto en tres que la nota recoge de Ellenberger: fluidistas, animistas y una teoría intermedia.
«The experiments of Mesmer were vastly improved upon by the Marquis de Puysegur, who entirely dispensed with apparatus and produced remarkable cures among the tenants of his estate at Busancy» — [AFIRMA] el paso técnico que Blavatsky registra: Puységur prescinde del aparato y cura entre sus arrendatarios de Busancy.
«Were we to call the processes of Mesmer and the violent effects in the artificial crisis which he encouraged as “Mesmerism,” then the real discoverer of Animal Magnetism, as it has been known for the last hundred years, as a phenomenon rather than as a theory, is the Marquis de Puységur, the acknowledged founder of the experimental school.» — [AFIRMA] la distinción que Regardie propone entre el mesmerismo de Mesmer y el magnetismo animal como fenómeno, cuyo descubridor hace a Puységur.
«It is to him that are due the processes now generally known as mesmeric—processes which are productive of results differing considerably from those produced by Mesmer himself.» — [AFIRMA] a quién adjudica Regardie los procedimientos hoy llamados mesméricos y la diferencia de resultados que les atribuye.
«It was de Puysegur, not Mesmer, who in 1784 discovered hypnotism.» — [AFIRMA] la adjudicación con que Sugrue abre su prefacio, que da el hipnotismo a Puységur y no a Mesmer.
«The term hypnotism as a less objectionable and more scientific term for certain aspects of the mesmeric state was first coined in 1843 by a Manchester physician, Dr. James Braid.» — [AFIRMA] la acuñación del término hipnotismo por James Braid en 1843 y la razón que Regardie le atribuye.
«When Braid discovered that hypnosis could be induced without passes, the mesmerists felt that their theory of a sanative effluence was dangerously attacked.» — [AFIRMA] lo que el hallazgo de Braid le hizo a la doctrina: los mesmeristas sintieron atacada su teoría de una efluencia sanativa.
«This induced analgesia has from the first been one of the main triumphs of mesmerism or hypnotism.» — [AFIRMA] el triunfo que Myers le reconoce al mesmerismo o hipnotismo desde el principio, sin separar los dos nombres.
«This Mesmeric trance was developed by Amand-Marie-Jacques de Chastenet, Marquis de Puysegur (1751-1825), into a less violent type of trance. Originally referred to as "induced somnambulism", today it is known as hypnosis» — [AFIRMA] quién convirtió el trance mesmérico en otra cosa, cómo se llamó primero y cómo se llama hoy.
«455. The phenomena of natural somnambulism occur spontaneously and independently of any known external cause; but, in persons endowed with a special organization, they may be produced artificially through the action of the mesmeric agent. The only difference between the state designated as mesmeric somnambulism, and natural somnambulism is, that the one is artificially produced, while the other is spontaneous.» — [AFIRMA] la tesis que Kardec firma con su propia voz: la única diferencia entre el sonambulismo mesmérico y el natural es que uno se produce artificialmente.
«Natural somnambulism is a notorious fact, the reality of which few now dispute, notwithstanding the marvelous character of the phenomena it presents. Why, then, should mesmeric somnambulism be regarded as more extraordinary or incredible, simply because it is produced artificially, like so many other things? Charlatans have abused it, some persons will reply; but that fact only affords an additional reason for not leaving it in their hands. When science shall have taken possession of it; charlatanism will have much less credit with the masses; but, meanwhile, as somnambulism, both natural and artificial, is a fact, and as a fact cannot be argued down, it is making its way, despite the ill-will of its adversaries, and obtaining a footing even in the temple of science, which it is entering by a multitude of side-doors, instead of entering by the principal one. Its right to be there will, ere long, be fully recognized.» — [AFIRMA] la defensa de Kardec frente a la objeción del charlatán, que él convierte en razón para no dejar el asunto en sus manos.
«The cause of the clairvoyance of the mesmeric and of the natural somnambulist is identically the same: it is an attribute of the soul, a faculty inherent in every part of the incorporeal being which is in us, and has no other limits than those assigned to the soul itself. The somnambulist sees wherever his soul can transport itself, at no matter what distance.» — [AFIRMA] la tesis de Kardec sobre la clarividencia, atributo del alma y sin más límites que los del alma misma.
«It is not by us, who have witnessed its prodigies and studied all its phases during thirty-five years, that the action of somnambulism could be contested, and we admit that many spirit-manifestations may be thus explained; but we assert that sustained and attentive observation shows us a host of facts in which any intervention of the medium, otherwise than as a passive instrument, is absolutely impossible.» — [AFIRMA] lo que Kardec concede y lo que retiene frente a la explicación por el magnetismo: admite que muchas manifestaciones se expliquen por sonambulismo y sostiene que hay hechos donde el medium es solo instrumento pasivo.
«While Swedenborgianism provided spiritualism with a theoretical framework, including descriptions of the other world sufficiently 'graphic and literal'112 for the matter-of-fact attitude of the time, it was Mesmerism which stood at the foundation of spiritualist practice.» — [AFIRMA] el reparto de papeles que Hanegraaff hace: el swedenborguianismo dio el marco teórico y el mesmerismo estuvo en el fundamento de la práctica espiritualista.
«Robert S. Ellwood is essentially correct in stating that 'spiritualism is Swedenborgian ideology, mixed with an experimentation with transic states inspired by mesmerism'» — [REPORTA] la fórmula de Ellwood sobre la composición del espiritualismo, que Hanegraaff da por esencialmente correcta.
«Important for us is that subjects in a somnambulic state induced by mesmerism frequently displayed mediumistic abilities. The implications, given the cultural climate of the times, were far-reaching.» — [AFIRMA] el hecho que Hanegraaff subraya: los sujetos en estado sonambúlico inducido por mesmerismo mostraban con frecuencia facultades mediúmnicas.
«Perhaps the closest and most important influence upon spiritualist healing was mesmerism.» — [AFIRMA] la influencia principal que Owen le encuentra a la curación espiritualista, con su adverbio de duda a cuestas.
«actual physical effects that were thought to prove the transmission of a force or fluid from the operator to the mesmerised person, or from inanimate substances to the subject; phreno-mesmerism, or phrenology; and community of sensation, including clairvoyance .» — [AFIRMA] las tres clases de fenómenos del mesmerismo británico: efectos físicos que probarían la transmisión de una fuerza o fluido, frenomesmerismo y comunidad de sensación.
«All this, combined with mesmerism’s radical impulse and its association with an earlier occult tradition, directly influenced a spiritualist healing practice which promoted the concept of a healing energy or force, disdained the use of drugs, and was open to all .» — [AFIRMA] lo que el mesmerismo legó a la curación espiritualista, incluida su asociación con una tradición oculta anterior.
«Mesmerism, according to its advocates, acts most intensely on nervous and impressionable females.» — [REPORTA] el ataque del Lancet que Owen cita, que empieza por el efecto del mesmerismo sobre mujeres nerviosas e impresionables.
«Dr John Elliotson, the remarkable physician who edited the mesmeric journal, the Zoist, was forced to resign his post at London’s University College after an attack led by the Lancet and amidst bitter and acrimonious debate .» — [AFIRMA] el caso con que Owen documenta la reacción médica: la renuncia forzada de John Elliotson, que editaba el Zoist.
«Spiritualism adopted from mesmerism the notion that entranced individuals could heal disease» — [AFIRMA] lo que el espiritualismo tomó del mesmerismo según Braude.
«But while mesmerism attributed the healing agency enabled by trance to a universal» — [AFIRMA] dónde empieza la diferencia, en frase que el troceo parte entre planas.
«mesmeric fluid, Spiritualists transformed the healing trance into a form of» — [AFIRMA] el remate de esa diferencia: del fluido mesmérico universal a una forma de mediumnidad.
«In 1848 a year after Andrew Jackson Davis's The Principles of Revelation (a great classic of mesmerist literature in the United States), spiritualism arose. The Fox sisters at Hydesville, also in the United States, questioned spirits through the intermediary of mediums, but these were no longer intermediary entities like angels, but spirits of the dead who respond, this time by the mechanical gimmick of tapping on a table in a preestablished code.» — [AFIRMA] cómo data Faivre el espiritualismo: en 1848, un año después del clásico mesmerista de Andrew Jackson Davis, con las hermanas Fox en Hydesville.
«The early history of French spiritism is less well documented than its Anglo-American counterpart.16 Spiritist phenomena were frequent in the salons of the mesmerists.» — [AFIRMA] el escenario en que Hammer sitúa los fenómenos espiritistas franceses y el estado de su documentación.
«After a few false starts, mesmerism reached America in 1836. One of the marquis de Puységur’s pupils, Charles Poyen, established an itinerant mesmerist practice in New England. Poyen remained in North America until 1840, and taught literally hundreds of people the techniques of mesmerism.» — [AFIRMA] la vía por la que el mesmerismo llegó a Estados Unidos en 1836, con Charles Poyen y sus cientos de alumnos.
«By that time, the first do-it-yourself manual of animal magnetism (Thomas C. Harthorn's translation of the French mesmerist J.P.F. Deleuze, entitled Practical Instructions in Animal Magnetism) was already available to an American audience, and scores of similar books or pamphlets would flood the market in the decades to follow» — [AFIRMA] el primer manual de magnetismo animal al alcance del público estadounidense, traducción de Deleuze, y la inundación de folletos que siguió.
«Impressed by Poyen, Quimby established himself as a mesmeric healer and, like many of his colleagues, he used an assistant (named Lucius Burkmar) who acted as a medium during healing sessions. In a trance state, Burkmar displayed clairvoyant and telepathic abilities, which enabled him to diagnose people's illnesses and prescribe a cure which would harmonize their vital fluids.» — [AFIRMA] cómo trabajaba Quimby con su médium Lucius Burkmar y qué hacía este en trance.
«In order that the real foundation of my impressions may be established, it is necessary to first explain the admitted science known as Animal Magnetism» — [AFIRMA] por dónde empieza Davis a fundamentar sus impresiones: por la ciencia admitida del magnetismo animal.
«The foundation of this science can not be doubted: for it is admitted that there are existing two fluids, which may here be termed Magnetism and Electricity.» — [AFIRMA] el punto de partida físico que Davis toma por admitido: dos fluidos, magnetismo y electricidad.
«But when all parts are in perfect unison and harmony, then the system is thoroughly magnetized. In order to demagnetize it, you must in some way overcome the equilibrium, and extract the positive power by a power still more positive; and this will produce the unconscious state called the magnetic.» — [AFIRMA] la definición operativa que Davis da del estado magnético: vencer el equilibrio y extraer el poder positivo con un poder más positivo.
«Magnetism composes the sphere — rather the atmosphere — by which every person is individually surrounded.» — [AFIRMA] la esfera personal que Davis deriva del magnetismo, atmósfera que rodea individualmente a cada persona.
«This fluid being withdrawn, the patient is not susceptible of external impressions, simply because the medium by which these are transmitted is absent.» — [AFIRMA] la explicación que Davis da de la insensibilidad del magnetizado: retirado el fluido, falta el medio que transmite las impresiones.
«There are properly four magnetic states. In the first, no particular phenomena are witnessed, only that, the external organs being in some measure divested of their ordinary share of magnetism, a feeling of dulness pervades the system.» — [AFIRMA] los cuatro estados magnéticos que Davis numera y el primero de ellos.
«The chain of sympathy which connects the mind of the operator with that of his subject, is animal electricity, — the same fluid which is the agent of all muscular motion.» — [AFIRMA] con qué identifica Davis la cadena de simpatía entre operador y sujeto: la electricidad animal, el mismo fluido del movimiento muscular.
«The operator sits down with the determination to put his subject to sleep : all the powers of his mind are concentrated on this object. His will being exercised to this point, the electric fluid passes from his own brain and nerves, to the brain and system of his patient, and forms between the two, a chain of sympathy.» — [AFIRMA] cómo describe Davis la operación: la voluntad concentrada del operador hace pasar el fluido eléctrico de su cerebro y sus nervios a los del paciente.
«This is often supposed to be the clairvoyant state; but it is not. It stands in analogy to natural somnambulism» — [AFIRMA] lo que Davis niega del tercer estado y la analogía que pone en su lugar, la del sonambulismo natural.
«Thus the phenomenon, known as magnetic, does not controvert or subvert in any way the laws of Nature; but instead thereof, such should be looked upon as a progression and further development of the laws which govern organic beings.» — [AFIRMA] la tesis con que Davis le niega lo sobrenatural al fenómeno magnético y lo hace progresión de las leyes que gobiernan a los seres orgánicos.
«In the autumn of 1843, a Mr. Grimes delivered in Poughkeepsie a number of lectures on Animal Magnetism, performing during his course a number of illustrative experiments.» — [REPORTA] lo que el escriba data en el otoño de 1843: las conferencias sobre magnetismo animal de un Mr. Grimes en Poughkeepsie, con experimentos ilustrativos.
«The singular powers claimed for Mr. Davis were first brought into public notice by the experimental assistance of Mr. William Levingston, by whom he continued to be mesmerized for many months.» — [REPORTA] lo que Bartlett data en la asistencia experimental de William Levingston, que siguió mesmerizando a Davis muchos meses.
«We allude to Mesmerism: not ashamed, but grateful to acknowledge the neglected Door-keeper that gave us first introduction to the vestibule of antique science.» — [AFIRMA] la deuda que Atwood reconoce con el mesmerismo, al que llama la portera desatendida que le dio la primera introducción al vestíbulo de la ciencia antigua.
«And this we take to be the identical agent which is spread abroad in the present day mesmerizing, the photogenic medium, our New Imponderable, for it is the Common Soul; also the subject-matter of the Alchemists aforesaid, when they call it a thing indifferent, abject, and exposed in all hands, moving here below in shadowy manifestation, invisibly and unconsciously converted to every will and various use.» — [AFIRMA] la ecuación de Atwood: el agente que hoy anda mesmerizando es el Alma Común y la materia sujeta de los alquimistas.
«And with the development of these Mysteries we have been enabled to connect Alchemy; and with these both, in their preliminary practice, the modern art, called Mesmerism, strikingly accords; which we have proposed suggestively, therefore, as a first key opening to the vestibule of this Experiment, where sits the Sphinx with her eternal enigma, still to perplex intruders, and open to philosophers only the inner halls of Light.» — [AFIRMA] cómo enlaza Atwood misterios, alquimia y mesmerismo, que propone como primera llave que abre al vestíbulo del experimento.
«Previous to the purificative rites little change, therefore, was effected. It gave a passing experience to the multitude, and in a few awakened the desire and hope of better things; just as amongst us Mesmerism, which of all modern arts is most pertinent to this philosophy as working in the same matter, affords entrance together with the imagination of another life.» — [AFIRMA] el lugar que Atwood le da entre las artes modernas, la más pertinente a esta filosofía por trabajar en la misma materia.
«The perpendicular line is the Divine line in all things; the transverse line is the contrary; the two united form a cross +. In mesmerizing and de-mesmerizing we form a +. It is curious that by this peculiar action the perpendicular line should withdraw you from sense while the transverse restore you to it.» — [AFIRMA] la cruz que el Table Talk describe en la operación: al mesmerizar y desmesmerizar se forma una cruz, y la perpendicular aparta del sentido mientras la transversal restituye a él.
«What has mesmerism t do with these things? What wisdom does it unfold? What is its philosophy, or has it yet made an attempt even to investigate the subject-being, the cause of its own effects?» — [AFIRMA] las preguntas con que Atwood aprieta al mesmerismo: qué sabiduría despliega, cuál es su filosofía, y si ha intentado investigar el ser-sujeto que causa sus propios efectos. El troceo imprime t do por to do.
«The whole process of the Mystery was intended to purify the impure vital atmosphere which surrounds each individual life. The action of mesmerism is a very external way — an imitation of the Divine Art of the separation of which Paracelsus speaks.» — [AFIRMA] el lugar que el Table Talk le da a la acción del mesmerismo, vía muy externa e imitación del arte divino de la separación de que habla Paracelso.
«Mesmerism is the most important branch of magic; and its phenomena are the effects of the universal agent which underlies all magic and has produced at all ages the so-called miracles» — [AFIRMA] la jerarquía que Blavatsky fija: el mesmerismo como rama principal de la magia y sus fenómenos como efectos del agente universal.
«The doctrine of Mesmer was simply a restatement of the doctrines of Paracelsus, Van Helmont, Santanelli, and Maxwell, the Scotchman; and he was even guilty of copying texts from the work of Bertrand, and enunciating them as his own principles» — [AFIRMA] lo que Blavatsky le niega a Mesmer y a quiénes remite la deuda: Paracelso, Van Helmont, Santanelli y el escocés Maxwell.
«There are two kinds of magnetization; the first is purely animal, the other transcendent, and depending on the will and knowledge of the mesmerizer, as well as on the degree of spirituality of the subject, and his capacity to receive the impressions of the astral light» — [AFIRMA] la distinción de Blavatsky entre magnetización animal y trascendente, que hace depender la segunda de la voluntad y el saber del mesmerizador.
«But neither the great First Cause nor its emanation--human, immortal spirit--have left themselves "without a witness." Mesmerism and modern spiritualism are there to attest the great truths.» — [AFIRMA] los dos testigos que Blavatsky aduce para la Primera Causa y el espíritu inmortal: el mesmerismo y el espiritualismo moderno.
«But Paracelsus had discovered magnetism well before Mesmer and had pushed to its limits this marvelous discovery, or rather this initiation into the magic of the ancients,» — [AFIRMA] la adjudicación de prioridad de Lévi, que da a Paracelso el descubrimiento del magnetismo mucho antes que a Mesmer.
«Is spiritualism or mesmerism included in Christian Science?” Eddy asked rhetorically in a publication designed to provide answers to frequently asked questions. “They are wholly apart from it,” was her clear reply» — [REPORTA] la pregunta que Mary Baker Eddy se hacía y la respuesta con que separa la Ciencia Cristiana del espiritualismo y del mesmerismo.
«Ennemoser argues that the ancient forms of temple healing were based upon a “natural science” whose basic principles were the same as those of modern mesmerism.» — [AFIRMA] la tesis de Ennemoser sobre la curación en los templos antiguos, fundada en una ciencia natural de principios idénticos a los del mesmerismo moderno.
«In other words: against the cold rational knowledge of the brain associated with the cerebral system, the German Romantic mesmerists highlighted the superior spiritual “knowledge of the heart” associated with its ganglionic counterpart.» — [AFIRMA] la jerarquía que Hanegraaff les resume a los mesmeristas románticos alemanes, con el saber del corazón por encima del saber frío del cerebro.
«The German Romantic mesmerists insisted that they were exploring facts of consciousness (Thatsachen) that belonged to the natural order and had nothing to do with “miracles” or the supernatural.» — [AFIRMA] la autocomprensión que Hanegraaff les consigna: exploraban hechos de la conciencia pertenecientes al orden natural y sin nada que ver con milagros ni con lo sobrenatural.