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Mesmer and the Franklin Commission: The First Blind Test

In 1784 Benjamin Franklin helped investigate "animal magnetism." The method they used still shapes science.

Quick answer

What did Benjamin Franklin find about Mesmer?

In 1784, King Louis XVI appointed commissions, including Benjamin Franklin and the chemist Antoine Lavoisier, to investigate animal magnetism, the healing force claimed by Franz Anton Mesmer. Using some of the first blindfolded, controlled tests, they found that patients reacted only when they believed they were being magnetized. They concluded the effects came from imagination, not a physical force. A separate secret report to the king warned of moral dangers.

Timeline

  1. 1778Franz Anton Mesmer arrives in Paris and becomes famous for group treatments with magnetized tubs.
  2. March 1784Louis XVI appoints a royal commission including Franklin, Lavoisier, Joseph-Ignace Guillotin and Jean-Sylvain Bailly.
  3. 1784The commission runs blindfold experiments at Franklin's home in Passy.
  4. August 1784The public report concludes animal magnetism does not exist and its effects come from imagination.
  5. 1784A secret report to the king warns that the treatments could be morally dangerous to women patients.

What is documented, and what is not

On the record

  • The commission and its public report are well documented.
  • Its tests are considered early examples of placebo-controlled, blinded experiments.
  • A secret report was submitted to the king.

Disputed or unproven

  • Mesmer and his followers rejected the findings.
  • How much mesmerism influenced the later development of hypnosis is a matter of interpretation.

Common questions

What was animal magnetism?

Mesmer's theory that an invisible fluid flowed through all living things and that a practitioner could redirect it to heal.

Why does the Franklin Commission matter?

It used blindfolds and controls to separate real effects from expectation, an approach at the heart of modern clinical trials.

What was in the secret report?

It warned the king that the intense physical sessions, often between male practitioners and women patients, posed moral risks.

Read the record yourself

Links go to official archives, museums, agencies and published research. Search links open the archive's own search for this topic.

THE FICTION BUILT ON THIS RECORD · FILE 057 · VOLUME XBen Franklin Proved Mind Control Was Fake. The King Got a Second Report.They did not prove it was fake. They proved it worked without him.Read the first pages free →

Last reviewed 2026-10-13. This page covers the public record only. Archive files are dramatized and always marked as files.

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