American mesmerism affords an opportunity to study science and society during a seminal period in the building of the nation. Bursting into American consciousness in the mid-nineteenth century, mesmerism simultaneously penetrated religious, scientific, medical and burgeoning popular cultural spheres of activity. The controversial practice, with its electro-magnetic nerve forces and inexplicable trances, incited feelings of awe, consternation, and creativity in people who came in contact with it. What on earth was this inexplicable mesmeric trance? A new scientific discovery? A religious revelation? A remarkable cure-all? A hoax? Most Americans encountered mesmerism in public lectures where they experienced a beguiling fusion of scientific investigation of the mind, community theater, and public medical clinic. On those lecture stages enduring tensions activating American life played out: sacred and secular, belief and skepticism, and imagination and rationalism. Studying mesmerism opens a portal to conflicts that shaped and continue to shape American culture.
A prime objective of this Science & Society Professional Development Fellowship (PDF) is to examine the discourse mesmerism provoked to understand how this demonstration of "public science" was used to construct knowledge. A second objective is to examine how mesmerism contributed to nineteenth-century psychology. The core of mesmeric practice (inducing a person into trance altered thinking, feeling, and bodily functions) is the seminal "experimental" event from whence discoveries and applications emanated. Dynamic mind-body phenomena that could be manipulated for scientific inquiry, potent "mind-powers" for self-enhancement and healing, and intense feelings of "sympathy" that passed between the mesmerist and the entranced were incorporated into an intriguing view of human nature that "seeded" several nineteenth-century therapies (such as hypnosis) and three religious sects. How mesmerism impacted the development of American psychology is not well understood.
PDF funding will support research and training for the PI during a 2008-9 academic sabbatical. Project methodology is historical research, critical analysis of period texts, papers, and periodicals, and historiographies in the history of science. The training component will take place at the University of Minnesota's History of Science, Technology and Medicine (HSTM) program. Coursework will address research methods and historiography in the history of science. Consultations with faculty (especially faculty sponsor Sally Gregory Kohlstedt) will guide the PI's research. Products of this PDF are three presentations at history of science/history of social science conferences and three chapters toward a book on American mesmerism (to be completed by 2010). Knowledge and skills acquired by the PI will be used to improve instruction in the history of psychology and the history of science for students at the College of St. Catherine.
Proposed research will advance understanding of a view of human nature held by previous generations of Americans that broadly impacted the nineteenth century. It will elucidate mesmerism's public expression, explore its role in the construction of scientific knowledge in its era, and advance understanding of the psychological mind-body practices and theories of social dynamics that were derived from it. With this training and sabbatical support, the PI will be able to research and write the history of American mesmerism in a much more accurate, historiographically sophisticated way and contribute substantially to the history of psychology. Scholarship, dissemination, and teaching in the history of psychology and history of science will remain a central goal for the PI long after the conclusion of the fellowship.
