Ghosts, Trances, and the Magnetic Dream: The Strange World of Early Mesmerism and Spiritualism

In the candlelit parlours of 19th-century Europe and America, crowds gathered, breathless and expectant. A woman closed her eyes and slipped into a deep, eerie trance. A table lifted from the floor with no visible hands. Knuckles rapped out coded messages from the spirit world.

This was not the world of stage magic or trickery — at least, not officially. It was the heart of two remarkable movements that promised to unlock the hidden forces of the universe: mesmerism and spiritualism.

A Mysterious Fluid and the "Magnetic Sleep"

It all began with a man named Franz Anton Mesmer, a charismatic German physician in the late 1700s. Mesmer introduced the idea of "animal magnetism", a mysterious invisible fluid he claimed coursed through all living things. When this vital force became blocked or imbalanced, Mesmer argued, illness followed. His solution? Using his hands, magnets, and intense stares to realign the flow and restore health.

His sessions were legendary. Patients sat around a giant tub known as a baquet, clutching iron rods that supposedly conducted the magnetic energy. In many cases, they would tremble, fall into convulsions, or swoon into "magnetic sleep" — a trance-like state in which they became strangely suggestible or even clairvoyant.

Marie-Thérèse Paradis, a famous blind pianist of Vienna, was among his early patients. Mesmer claimed partial success in restoring her sight, but controversy and scandal followed him closely. Ultimately, an official French royal commission (which included Benjamin Franklin) investigated and dismissed Mesmer’s theory, concluding that the effects were due to imagination, not any physical fluid.

Yet even as Mesmer himself faded from the spotlight, the fascination with these altered states only grew.

The Séance Boom

By the mid-1800s, something even stranger was happening. Spiritualism exploded onto the scene with the now-famous Fox sisters of Hydesville, New York. In 1848, young Kate and Margaret Fox claimed they could communicate with a spirit named "Mr. Splitfoot" — through a series of mysterious knocking sounds.

Word spread like wildfire. Within months, spiritualist mediums were hosting séances, where tables danced, disembodied hands materialized, and ghostly voices filled darkened rooms. Table-turning parties became the social craze of the 1850s, where guests would place their hands lightly on a table and wait for it to tip, rock, or even levitate.

One celebrated medium, Daniel Dunglas Home, amazed audiences on both sides of the Atlantic with his dramatic séances. Witnesses — including serious-minded scientists and skeptical aristocrats — swore they saw him float across a room or handle burning embers without injury. Though many suspected trickery, no one conclusively exposed Home during his lifetime.

The Mesmeric Roots of Spiritualism

Curiously, the world of mesmerism and spiritualism were deeply entwined. Many early mediums began their journeys after experiencing mesmeric trances. These states of deep relaxation and heightened sensitivity seemed to open the door to communications with unseen realms.

Andrew Jackson Davis, sometimes called the "Poughkeepsie Seer," underwent a mesmeric induction at age 20 and emerged claiming to have toured the spirit world. His 1847 book, The Principles of Nature, blended mesmerism, spiritualist ideas, and a grand vision of the afterlife, inspiring countless others to explore trance mediumship.

In London, Dr. John Elliotson, a prominent physician, held public demonstrations of mesmerism in the 1830s. His patients would exhibit strange anesthetic effects or even predict future events while entranced. Though his reputation suffered, the public’s appetite for the mysterious only grew stronger.

Faith, Science, or Spectacle?

For many believers, spiritualism and mesmerism offered a thrilling bridge between science and spirituality. They were living proof that unseen forces existed — whether magnetic, psychic, or divine. For sceptics, they were fertile ground for fraud, self-delusion, and Victorian melodrama

Yet there’s no denying their impact. Mesmerism laid the foundations for modern hypnosis and psychotherapy, while spiritualism foreshadowed today's booming interest in paranormal investigation, psychic readings, and the New Age movement.

Looking back, it’s clear that these early experiments weren’t just about ghosts or magnetic fluids. They were about something far deeper: humanity’s eternal yearning to understand the invisible, to touch the untouchable, and to believe — just for a moment — that magic might be real.

Anastasia Di