From Mesmer to Freud: Magnetic Sleep and the Roots of Psychological Healing
Yale University Press, New Haven. 1998. 413 pp.
ISBN 0-300-05588-9

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From Mesmer to Freud describes how the discovery of magnetic sleep-an artificially induced trance-like state-in 1784 marked the beginning of the modern era of psychological healing. Magnetic sleep revealed a realm of mental activity that was not available to the conscious mind but could affect conscious thought and action. This book tells the story of the discovery of magnetic sleep and its relationship to psychotherapy.

"Crabtree brings new insights to the field of animal magnetism, showing how it was a cultural movement to which we are still indebted. The book will appeal to all interested in the exploration of the human mind."
--Henri Ellenberger, author of Discovery of the Unconscious.

"For generations, the history of mesmerism and animal magnetism has been trivialized in anecdotal, sensationalistic histories. With this massive, authoritative, and intricately detailed study by the Canadian psychologist Adam Crabtree, this has now changed. Beginning with the late eighteenth-century Viennese physician Franz Anton Mesmer and concluding with the early work of Pierre Janet and Sigmund Freud, Crabtree reconstructs a full and remarkably rich tradition of inquiry into psychological healing, hypnotic consciousness, mind/body dualities, and 'dual' or 'double' personality. Historical readers will learn here that this story forms a major episode in nineteenth-century European and American thought and culture. Mental health professionals with an interest in hypnotherapeutics and multiple personality theory will be enlightened to learn that what the author calls 'the alternative consciousness paradigm' boasts a dramatic, century-long tradition before Janet and Freud."
--Mark S. Micale, author of Approaching Hysteria

"Crabtree has written a monograph that describes in detail the role of mesmerism
in the historical evolution of dynamic psychological psychotherapy....Crabtree previously compiled what is in my judgment the best bibliography of animal magnetism and hypnotism (Animal Magnetism, Early Hypnotism, and Psychical Research, 1988)....Between Ellenberger, Gauld, and now Crabtree, the serious student of the history of hypnosis and psychotherapy will have at hand the best secondary sources available today."
--American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis

"Adam Crabtree, in a scholarly and thoughtful book, has clearly established the seminal role of animal magnetism in modern dynamic psychiatry. In a carefully documented and exquisitely referenced text, Crabtree has established how the concepts initiated by Mesmer and his colleagues under the rubric 'animal magnetism' have led to our current conceptualizations of psychodynamic processes and psychopathology. This book will be quite a revelation to those who conceive of Franz Anton Mesmer only as a purple-cloaked charlatan preying on vulnerable hysterics to his own profit...[Crabtree's] comprehensive review of a massive literature is most impressive....This book is a thoughtful review of the history of the development of psychotherapy, which demonstrates how much the field owes to insights derived from the use of magnetic sleep and its sequelae. It also forces the reader to review his or her own conceptualization of subconscious processes and how they interact with the conscious state. It can be warmly recommended to all who wish to enlarge their foundation of knowledge in the history of the evolution of psychotherapy and who wish to admire the genius as well as the occasional failings of the progenitors of the field."
--Journal of the American Medical Association

"Crabtree clearly presents and thoroughly documents his systematic understanding of the "alternate-consciousness paradigm" (p. Vii) that, after Mesmer, competed with spiritualistic reductionism on the one hand and physicalistic reductionism on the other for the allegiance of scientists, philosophers, and physicians. His historical account of what recent psychotherapy owes to Mesmer's opening up "the possibility of an intrapsychic cause of metal disturbance, pointing to the influence of unconscious mental activity as the source of unaccountable thoughts or impulses" (p. Vii), is primarily of interest to his fellow practicing psychotherapists, but it also make valuable reading for historians, sociologists, psychologists, and philosophers."
-Isis

"With laudable clarity of exposition, and with formidable erudition, [Crabtree] traces the effect of Mesmer's animal magnetism on psychological thought in the 19th century."
--The Sunday Telegraph

"Crabtree's historical detail is always informative and entertaining. . . . The book does much to remedy the current neglect of hypnosis and its therapeutic possibilities."
--The Independent on Sunday

"Crabtree's book . . . carefully [traces] some of the early roots of the alternate-consciousness paradigm that Freud and his later followers subsequently developed. . . . [It presents] an excellent, sweeping outline of the progression of ideas and intellectual traditions from which later psychodynamic therapies arose. . . . The historical reach of this book makes it worthy of inclusion in any library's section on the history of science. Today's clinicians and researchers could also explore this work with profit and emerge with a better understanding of how the efforts of several centuries' worth of pioneer explorers of the mind combined to incubate the concepts that we now use to understand the basic aspects of the human psyche."
--New England Journal of Medicine

"Tracing the origins of psychological healing back to "magnetic sleep" in 1784, the author of this interesting and readable text shows the development of the "alternate consciousness" paradigm of mental illness from its roots with Mesmer and Puységur through Freud. . . . Anyone interested in the intellectual roots of dissociation, hypnosis, and multiple personalities will find this exploration worthwhile."
--Readings: A Journal of Reviews and Commentary in Mental Health

"Adam Crabtree's study is the latest, and one of the most scholarly, contributions to this literature. It is beautifully produced, well written, and meticulously researched. . . . an excellent study that will be of much use to a number of audiences, especially within the history of medicine and psychiatry. This work will help future researchers to explore the historical issues surrounding the relationship between the volatile, charismatic phenomena of altered states of mind, and the historical development of medicine and psychiatry."
--Bulletin of the History of Medicine

"[Crabtree] keeps us intrigued with both his stated focus on ferreting out the roots of our current clinical wisdom, as well as with his silent dropping of 'plums' along the way. . . . This book is a must for academics in mental health."
--Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic

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