---
title: "Royal Commission on Animal Magnetism"
chunk: 1/17
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Commission_on_Animal_Magnetism"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:45:20.529918+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

The Royal Commission on Animal Magnetism involved two entirely separate and independent French Royal Commissions, each appointed by Louis XVI in 1784, that were conducted simultaneously by a committee composed of four physicians from the Paris Faculty of Medicine (Faculté de médecine de Paris) and five scientists from the Royal Academy of Sciences (Académie des sciences) (the "Franklin Commission", named for Benjamin Franklin), and a second committee composed of five physicians from the Royal Society of Medicine (Société Royale de Médecine) (the "Society Commission").
Each Commission took five months to complete its investigations. The "Franklin" Report was presented to the King on 11 August 1784 – and was immediately published and very widely circulated throughout France and neighbouring countries – and the "Society" Report was presented to the King five days later on 16 August 1784.
The "Franklin Commission's" investigations are notable as a very early "classic" example of a systematic controlled trial, which not only applied "sham" and "genuine" procedures to patients with "sham" and "genuine" disorders, but, significantly, was the first to use the "blindfolding" of both the investigators and their subjects.

The report of the ["Franklin"] Royal Commission of 1784 ... is a masterpiece of its genre, and enduring testimony to the power and beauty of reason. ... Never in history has such an extraordinary and luminous group [as the "Franklin Commission"] been gathered together in the service of rational inquiry by  the methods of experimental science. For this reason alone the [Report of the "Franklin Commission"] ... is a key document in the history of human reason. It should be rescued from obscurity, translated into all languages, and reprinted by organizations dedicated to the unmasking of quackery and the defense of rational thought.
Both sets of Commissioners were specifically charged with investigating the claims made by Charles-Nicolas d’Eslon (1750–1786) for the existence of a substantial (rather than metaphorical) "animal magnetism", le magnétisme animal, and of a similarly (non-metaphorical) physical "magnetic fluid", le fluide magnétique. Further, having completed their investigations into the claims of d'Eslon – that is, they did not examine Franz Mesmer, Mesmer's theories, Mesmer's principles, Mesmer's practices, Mesmer's techniques, Mesmer's apparatus, Mesmer's claims, Mesmer's "cures" or, even, "mesmerism" itself – they were each required to make "a separate and distinct report".

Before the ["Franklin" Commission's] investigations began, [Antoine Lavoisier] had studied the writings of d'Eslon and [had] drawn up a plan for the conduct of the inquiry. He decided that the commissioners should not study any of the alleged cures, but [that] they should determine whether animal magnetism existed by trying to magnetize a person without his knowledge or making him think that he had been magnetized when in fact he had not. This plan was adopted by the commissioners, and the results came out as Lavoisier had predicted.
From their investigations both Commissions concluded (a) that there was no evidence of any kind to support d'Eslon's claim for the substantial physical existence of either his supposed "animal magnetism" or his supposed "magnetic fluid", and (b) that all of the effects that they had observed could be attributed to a physiological (rather than metaphysical) agency. Whilst each Commission implicitly accepted that there was no collusion, pretence, or extensive subject training involved on the part of d'Eslon, they both (independently) concluded that all of the phenomena they had observed during each of their investigations could be directly attributed to "contact", "imagination", and/or "imitation".

For clearness of reasoning and strict impartiality [the "Franklin" Commissioners' report] has never been surpassed. After detailing the various experiments made, and their results, they came to the conclusion that the only proof advanced in support of Animal Magnetism was the effects it produced on the human body – that those effects could be produced without passes or other magnetic manipulations – that all these manipulations, and passes, and ceremonies never produce any effect at all if employed without the patient's knowledge; and that therefore imagination did, and animal magnetism did not, account for the phenomena.

== Reasons for the investigation ==

The rise of mesmerism [was] symptomatic of several philosophical and psychological conflicts: spirit/mind vs. body; science and philosophy vs. psychology and the imagination; rationalism and empiricism vs. the irrational and unknown; [and] consciousness vs. the unconscious.
According to Armando & Belhoste (2018, pp. 6–8), the true history of Mesmer, of Mesmer's version of 'animal magnetism', and of the rationale, conduct, investigations, experimentation, and findings of the 1784 Royal Commissions has been seriously distorted by the modern ("cherry picking") concentration upon "the transformations of animal magnetism after 1820 [in relation to] hypnotism", and, especially, upon "the elements of continuity and analogy between mesmerism [sic] the various versions of psychoanalysis".
Consequently, to accurately understand the contemporary significance of the Commissions' work, and the matters that they severally and collectively examined (and, as well, those which they did not) it is important to identify the wide range of significant tensions, disputes, and circumstances prevailing at the time, which prompted the need for an official investigation of the particular nature and type that was undertaken, and the sort of (implicit) issues – in addition to the more specific questions of medicine and of science – that their inquiries would, hopefully, address.
Moreover, in order to gain a balanced understanding of the contemporary significance of the Commissions – as stand-alone historical events – appointed at a specific time, in specific circumstances, with specific goals and, further, in order to apprehend the nature of their investigations, their findings, and the immediate consequences of their reports, a complex of different factors need to be examined (as has been suggested by Craver & Darnden, 2013):