Cultural History of Mesmerism

Mesmerism or animal magnetism, which a German-born heterodox physician, Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) founded, was the therapy by so called “magnetic fluid”. Since nineteenth century, people have become suspicious of the existence of magnetic fluid and mesmerism\u27s medical efficacy. But afterword, mesmerism continued to have important effects on the cultural history from the era down to modern times, for instance in the fields of opera, ballet, literature, paintings, social thought, psychoanalysis, alternative medicine, etc. This paper discusses the cultural morphology of mesmerism and mesmeric representations from W. A. Mozart to Kurosawa Kiyoshi, a cineaste in modern Japan