---
title: "Royal Commission on Animal Magnetism"
chunk: 15/17
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"
---

=== Response of the Paris Faculty of Medicine ===
Immediately following the release of the reports of the two Commissions, the Paris Faculty of Medicine "pressure[d] its own members to renounce animal magnetism" (Crabtree, 1993, p. 32).
The Faculty identified some thirty of its docteurs-régent, including François Louis Thomas d'Onglée and Charles-Louis Varnier, who "openly favored animal magnetism or were suspected of so doing". According to the contemporary account of Thomas d'Onglée (1785, passim), the thirty "magnetic physicians" were subjected to "abuse" and were presented with a declaration, of which it was demanded that they sign. Both Thomas d'Onglée and Varnier, among others, refused to sign the declaration (and were, thereby, immediately expelled). The declaration in question read:

No Doctor may declare himself a partisan of animal magnetism, through writings or through practice, under penalty of being removed from the role of docteurs-régents.

=== D'Eslon's response ===
D'Eslon immediately published an attack on the commission's reports, in which he criticized their failure to investigate the longer-term effects of his treatments, and their refusal to accept his (alleged) "cures" as proof of the existence of "animal magnetism", as well as noting that, "the commissioners' recommendation that the practice of magnetism should be prohibited ... would hardly be possible [to implement]", because, apart from those within the medical profession who had been trained by himself and by Mesmer, "a large number of other people had, as a result of their own study, begun to practice it" (Pattie, 1994, p. 171).
In addition to his specific criticisms of the reports of the two Royal Commissions – and to emphasize the significance of the Royal Commissions' refusal to investigate either the alleged efficacy of his treatment procedures (i.e., investigate d'Eslon's actual practices, rather than just the veracity (or not) of his theoretical claims, and that alone), and the alleged curative effects of  his standard, extended regimens of "magnetic" treatment – d'Eslon published an 80-page supplementary volume (i.e., d'Eslon, 1784c), that provided the case histories of 115 individuals (the majority of whom were identified by name), that had been successfully treated by d'Eslon's procedures for a very wide range of diseases.
On 10 December 1784, and in support of d'Eslon, one of his associates (and a former student), Louis Caullet de Veaumorel, published a set of Mesmer's class notes that de Veaumorel had acquired from one of Mesmer's "disloyal" students.
Caullet de Veaumorel's work, which made no mention of d'Eslon's theories, teachings, or clinical procedures, went into three editions. Caullet de Veaumorel stressed that although, as a "disciple of d'Eslon", he was bound by his "word of honour" not to reveal any of d'Eslon's teachings, he was entirely free to publish Mesmer's material – and, in doing so, he had not altered one word of Mesmer's "maxims" – and, moreover, he was certain that, given Mesmer's dissemination of his ideas through his already published works, Mesmer would not be "offended" by the publication of his aphorisms.
Although Mesmer protested to the Journal de Paris that Caullet de Veaumore's Aphorismes "were a distorted account of his lectures", according to Pattie (1994, p. 213), "they [were] accurate" and, moreover, "they agree[d] with later writings of Mesmer".

=== Mesmer's response ===

In his own responses to the Commissions' Reports, Mesmer stressed that – simply because he had not been involved in any of their investigations – the Commissioners' conclusions had nothing whatsoever to do with his (metaphorical) "animal magnetism"; and, because their conclusions only applied to d'Eslon's theories and practices, any responses to those conclusions were entirely the concern of d'Eslon alone.
Further, and immediately following the publication of the Reports of the two Commissions, both Nicolas Bergasse (1750–1832) (Bergasse, 1784) and Antoine Esmonin, Marquis de Dampierre (Esmonin, 1784) wrote strong criticisms of the Commissions' orientation, investigations, and findings; and, separately, a number of Mesmer's followers published a composite volume (i.e., Mesmer, et al., 1784) of 478 pages, which included a number of previously published items written by Mesmer, as well as a number of shorter and up-to-date contributions from a range of various authors describing their continued success with animal magnetism.

== The "Franklin Commission's" investigations considered to be a "classic" example of a controlled trial ==
[T]his is the first scientific investigation that we know of into what would today be considered a paranormal or pseudoscientific claim. ... [And it is clear that] the control of intervening variables and the testing of specific claims, without resort to unnecessary hypothesizing about what is behind the "power", is the lesson modern skeptics should take from this historical masterpiece.
The detailed studies of Stephen Jay Gould (in 1989) and John Kihlstrom (in 2002) drew disciplinary attention to nature and the form of the commission's extended examination as a "watershed moment" in the history of science – subsequent to which things were never the same.
If the commission was not the first, it was, at least, one of the very earliest examples of a controlled trial; and, in particular, one that included the use of physical (rather than metaphorical) blindfolds – which were used from time to time on both the experimenters and their experimental subjects – as well as testing both "sham" and "real" procedures on both "sham" and "real" patients.
Inspired by Gould and Kihlstrom's studies, a number of other scholars in other scientific domains – such as, for example, Shermer (1996), Kaptchuk (1998), Green (2002), Best, Neuhauser, and Slavin (2003), Herr (2005), Lanska & Lanska (2007), Kaptchuk, Kerr & Zanger (2009), Davies Wilson (2014), Jensen, Janik & Waclawik (2016), Zabell (2016), Donaldson (2017), and Rosen et al. (2019) – have also identified the commission's examination as a previously unrecognized "classic" example of a controlled trial.

=== The "Franklin Commission's" legacy ===