ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with a brief descriptive overview of the key themes running through French neo-mesmerism as it evolved – and declined – during the period from c. 1880 into the first years of the new century. It aims to suggest some ways in which the movement might begin to be understood within the larger institutional and social context of fin-de-siècle French psychiatry. Neo-mesmerism began the process of defining itself by taking the old biomagnetic fluid of Mesmer and the old magnetizers, and recasting it in terms of the professional concerns and technical vocabulary of late-nineteenth-century French psychiatry. The final stage of neo-mesmerism’s effort to define and justify itself within the framework of orthodox medicine and natural science manifested itself in a series of attempts to make the radiating biomagnetic force objectively tangible to sceptical colleagues. For some neo-mesmerists concerned with the task, the technology of photography seemed to beckon like a promise.
