Discord Harmony. The development and dynamics of the mesmerist movement at the end of the Old Regime

The diffusion of animal magnetism, i.e. Franz Anton Mesmer's system of cosmologic theories and therapeutic practices, as well as its influence in France at the end of the 18th century, have been pointed out fifty years ago by Robert Darnton. This article resume the study of this phenomenon based on new sources, focusing on the composition and vicissitudes of the Society of Universal Harmony, which was established in 1783 in order to bring together Mesmer's disciples. Since Darnton, the historiography on mesmerism has concentrated on a small "radical" stream, gathered around the lawyer (and future deputy) Nicolas Bergasse, assuming that its components were the only ones who developed the political aspects and anti-institutional implications of animal magnetism. The more than 400 members who formed the majority of the Society have therefore been neglected. The analysis of the Society's records, which makes it possible to retrace the flow of affiliations up to early 1787, provides, on the contrary, a more complex and articulated image of the mesmerist movement, its internal conflicts and its links with the social, cultural and politic dynamics at the eve of the French Revolution.