Mesmerism is super interesting. Describing it as "just a placebo effect" or "just in the mind" misses the point, because most treatments don't get these kinds o

Mesmerism is super interesting. Describing it as "just a placebo effect" or "just in the mind" misses the point, because most treatments don't get these kinds of effects. There was a theater to Mesmerism that is still poorly understood. I would consider it closest to something like Landmark or Est -- almost certainly going to be more effective than the majority of psychotherapies. Benjamin Franklin was on the committee that proved that the purported mechanism of Mesmerism was invalid. There is no "mesmeric fluid." But no one doubted the efficacy of the treatments.