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From Nordan Symposia
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Most contemporary histories, however, do not delve into the religious literature but look more toward the objective, scientific approach to the study of states of consciousness in the West, which they maintain begins only with Franz Anton Mesmer in the late eighteenth century.
Most contemporary histories, however, do not delve into the religious literature but look more toward the objective, scientific approach to the study of states of consciousness in the West, which they maintain begins only with Franz Anton Mesmer in the late eighteenth century.
===FRANZ ANTON MESMER===
===Franz Anton Mesmer===
A remarkable healer of what are called psychosomatic and hysterical illnesses, Mesmer (1734–1815) was knowledgeable in medicine, psychology, hermeticism, and alchemy. He postulated that people possess two distinct realms of consciousness, the ordinary waking state and an underlying unseen realm. In this invisible realm two related powers seem to be activated. The first is an exchange of rarefied energies or "fluids" between individuals that allows certain sensitive persons to influence others by their presence; that is, to influence them in more subtle ways than are generally believed operative in human exchanges. The second is a faculty of superior intelligence and will. The recognition of these submerged potentials as put forth by Mesmer and the psychologists who succeeded him led to investigation into the powers, scope, and subtleties of the unconscious as opposed to the functioning of normal everyday waking consciousness.
A remarkable healer of what are called psychosomatic and hysterical illnesses, Mesmer (1734–1815) was knowledgeable in medicine, psychology, hermeticism, and alchemy. He postulated that people possess two distinct realms of consciousness, the ordinary waking state and an underlying unseen realm. In this invisible realm two related powers seem to be activated. The first is an exchange of rarefied energies or "fluids" between individuals that allows certain sensitive persons to influence others by their presence; that is, to influence them in more subtle ways than are generally believed operative in human exchanges. The second is a faculty of superior intelligence and will. The recognition of these submerged potentials as put forth by Mesmer and the psychologists who succeeded him led to investigation into the powers, scope, and subtleties of the unconscious as opposed to the functioning of normal everyday waking consciousness.
