Two Exhibits Celebrating the 300th Birthday of Benjamin Franklin: Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), Anton Mesmer (1734–1815), and Animal Magnetism

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Benjamin Franklin, who came to France, in 1776, as envoy of the United States of America, found Paris a prey to “mesmeromania”. Author of a theory of the electric fluid, he could not be indifferent to Antoine Mesmer’s theory of a magnetic fluid. This article relates how, after having attempting to form an opinion by himself, he happened to be at the head of a commission appointed by the king to investigate animal magnetism. The members of this commission carried out a series of experiences, during Antoine Mesmer’s absence, with one of his nearest followers, Charles Deslon, to conclude that “imagination, touching and imitation” were the whole of the animal magnetism and Benjamin Franklin considered Antoine Mesmer a quack. From that time, he took no further interest in that matter and when, in 1785, Marie-Jacques de Chastenet, marquis of Puységur, discovered hypnosis, Benjamin Franklin didn’t perceive the importance of this discovery.