---
title: "Royal Commission on Animal Magnetism"
chunk: 13/17
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"
---

On 4 September 1784, Bailly presented a third, brief (15 page) courtesy report to the Royal Academy of Sciences (Bailly, 1784b) on behalf of himself, Franklin, Le Roy, de Bory, and Lavoisier (i.e., those Commissioners who were also Academy members), which provided their Academy colleagues with a brief account of the commission's proceedings, the rationale behind its investigations, and the results. Noting that all of their investigations were jointly conducted with the four members of the Paris Faculty, and that all nine shared the same "interest in [discovering] the truth", they stressed that all the findings of their combined efforts were unanimous (p. 2).

==== The importance of "the Sciences" ====
Further (p. 4), given that the understanding of the Sciences – "which [collectively] are increased by [establishing] the truth" (qui s'accroissent par les vérités) – is increased by "the suppression of error": i.e., given that "error" is always "a bad leaven that ferments and, in the long run, corrupts the mass into which it has been introduced". By contrast, however, in those cases wherein the "error" has been generated by "The Empire of Science", and has spread to "the multitude" – not only to divide and agitate minds, but also, in deceptively presenting a means of curing the sick, prevent them from seeking their cures elsewhere – "good Government has an interest in destroying it".
Moreover, anticipating the later remarks of Louis Brandeis ("Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the best policeman": Brandeis, 1913, p. 10), the Commissioners (p. 4) remarked that, in terms of the "good Government" of an "Enlightened nation", "the distribution of light is a fine use of authority!" (C'est un bel emploi de l'autorité, que celui de distribuer la lumière!).
Not only did they endorse the Administration's decision to conduct an inquiry, but they also "embraced the honour [implicit in] its choice" of their own appointment as Commissioners.

==== Physics ====
Noting that the "greater" and "more extraordinary" a discovery, the more difficult it was to settle on suitable proof, they reported that, as physicists, they were unable to detect the presence of d'Eslon's supposed (substantial) "fluid" (p. 6). From this absence of "physical evidence", they were forced, instead, to "examine the affections of the spirit and the ideas of those who had been exposed to the action of 'Magnetism'"; and, from this, ceased to be "physicists", and became nothing more than "philosophers" (p. 8).

==== Chemistry ====
However, having been unable to operate as physicists, they had decided to follow the standard procedures of "chemists" – who, having "decomposed substances" and thereby discovered their "principles", assured themselves of the "exactness" of their findings by "recomposing" the same substances from their "reunited" constituents (p. 9).

==== Imagination ====
Given their inability to detect any (substantial) 'magnetism' – and, from their observations that the "effects" (that were attributed by d'Eslon to the supposed 'magnetism' and the supposed 'fluid') were only manifested when the subjects believed they were 'magnetised' (and were not manifested when they were unaware that they had been 'magnetised') – the Commissioners concluded that the "principle" involved was the subject's "imagination"; and, therefore, as a consequence of their investigations, they were well satisfied that they had been "fully successful" in experimentally proving that the observed "effects" had been produced "by the power of the imagination alone" (p. 9).
More than a century later, and entirely consistent with the Commissioners' findings, both Jean-Martin Charcot (of the "Hysteria School" of hypnosis at the Salpêtrière hospital), and his rival, Hippolyte Bernheim (of the "Suggestion School" of hypnosis at Nancy in Alsace-Lorraine), were united in their views that all of the supposed "miracle cures" at Lourdes were due to "auto-suggestion".

== The reports of the "Society Commission" ==

The "Society Commission's" investigations produced two separate reports.

=== The report of four of the five Commissioners ===
The first of the two reports, made by four of the five Commissioners (of 39 pages) – namely, Charles-Louis-François Andry, Claude-Antoine Caille, Pierre Jean Claude Mauduyt de La Varenne, and Pierre-Isaac Poissonnier – was presented to the King on 16 August 1784.
Given that the "Society Commissioners'" investigations were far less complex than those conducted by the "Franklin Commission" – and, also, given that the (smaller number of) experiments that they described "duplicate[d] similar ones in the ["Franklin Commission's"] Report" (Pattie, (1956), p. 156) – the report itself is briefer (39 pages), far less complex, and, therefore, far less influential. The Report was divided into two sections: