A company offers expensive accessories that work on the magnetic principle and promises, although it does not explicitly call for it due to the law restricting it - health improvements
In the photo: Franz Mesmer and a patient, in the 18th century
Last week, the Seven Days supplement of Yedioth Ahronoth published a huge article about the new trend in the occult world: magnetism.
They say suckers don't die, they just change. Well in the story before us suckers both die and change, and the charlatans make money from it. a lot of money. I will not make an advertisement for this or that company here, but from what appears in the article for the price of one magnetic mattress, this site can be maintained for three years. As someone who suffers from diabetes, I would be happy if there was a treatment that would save me the need for medication, diet and lifestyle changes. It should be noted that the company presents its products as quality of life products. The reporter, Eran Bar-Gil, who concludes that although he is convinced that the members of the company and its members believe in the ability of magnets to help various ailments, their explanations do not convince him. It's just a shame that in the meantime he has given four very valuable pages of latest news to such puzzling parties.
Healing with magnetism, or mesmerism, is the story of a medical trick that drove Paris crazy in the 18th century and is named after its inventor, Franz Anton Mesmer (MESMER) who in the news article became "Esmer" for some reason. The healer plays a social role and hypnotizes the patients. Mesmer used immense power of suggestion to send his patients into sleep-like trance states. He was so successful that his name is used (in English and other European languages) to describe the hypnotic effect of one person on others.
In the early 1770s, Mesmer, a Viennese doctor who received his doctorate on plagiarism - plagiarism, when he copied from the works of others regarding the influence of the planets on health (it should be noted that at that time astrology had a scientific status). He met the Viennese Maximilian Hell, a healer that today we would call alternative.
Dr. Hell healed people using magnetized iron braces. Hal's "proof" of magnetic healing was only that it works. He had many satisfied customers. Mesmer copied without permission (again plagiarism) Hel's magnetic healing method and claimed that the method works because there is a magnetic fluid floating around everything, but sometimes it encounters a disturbance and an intervention is required for it to flow properly again. According to Mesmer, Hell blocked the flow of the magnetic fluid with his magnets. Mesmer claims that this can be done without the magnets.
Instead of explaining that it is actually the placebo phenomenon, meaning a random effect for the better even without any external intervention, he preferred to build a theory about the existence of animal magnetism, which causes it to have the ability to correct the flow of the universal magnetic fluid.
Mesmer also discovered that although he didn't need a magnet to get results, there was a dramatic effect of waving a magnetic pole in front of a person's face, or sitting the patient in magnetized water. In short - a whole show of so-called scientific healing turned the issue into a drama for the masses. He even managed to elicit from some of his clients entertaining behavior ranging from sleeping, through dancing, to twitching.
Mesmer did what today is called hypnosis, both in concert halls and in his clinic, and what faith healers do in circuses and churches. But he did it to many patients at once while making a big show of his magnetic healing.
With the help of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Mesmer opened a magnetic institute where he convinced his clients to sit on their feet in a bath of magnetized water while holding cables attached to magnetized trees. However, after his activities began to arouse suspicion, King Louis XVI decided in 16 to establish a committee of scientists to examine his claims.
Among the committee members were Benjamin Franklin, the American inventor and statesman, the well-known chemist Antoine Lavoisier, and Dr. Joseph Guillotine, after whom the execution machine is named. The committee focused on testing the "magnetism" theory; The expected conclusion: there is no scientific basis for Mesmer's assumptions. The committee's investigations included testing independent variables and isolating them. The committee determined that Mesmer is a rogue and if there was a cure, it was only a spontaneous cure. Franklin, it must be remembered, was the one who discovered in 1747 that electricity and magnetism are one force and described how it works and a few years later conducted the lightning confinement experiment.
It's a shame that the reporter discovered the skepticism in the fine print and in the quotes, and nevertheless gave four pages of publicity to the publication of so-called success stories of a technique that has passed its time along with astrology, and maybe this is also the reason why more people believe in anti-science and astrology, because of the latest news?
