Article ID: CBB052727305

Ancient harmony for a new order. Mesmerism, music and Timaeus of Locri (2023)

unapi

Amparo Fontaine (Author)


Laboratorio dell'ISPF
Volume: 20
Pages: 1-25
Publication date: 2023
Language: English


This essay traces the cosmological and musical background of Franz Anton Mesmer’s theory of animal magnetism to the ancient cosmology of Timaeus of Locri, Plato’s alleged source for his Timaeus. In the 1760s, two French translations and comments of this source were produced by the Marquis d’Argens and Charles Batteux. The essay explores this relationship in two aspects of Mesmer’s theory. Firstly, the conception of the magnetic fluid as a blend between the metaphysical idea of the “soul of the world” and the imponderable fluids in physics. Secondly, the harmonic cosmos presented in Mesmer’s Théorie du monde et des êtres organisés (1784), which links the origins of the universe with the physical body, and results in a moral and ideal social order.

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Authors & Contributors
Fara, Patricia
Finger, Stanley
Florey, Ernst
Gallo, David A.
Gould, Stephen Jay
Guicciardini, Niccolò
Journals
Acta Baltica historiae et philosophiae scientiarum
Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology
History of Psychology
Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society
Journal of the History of Ideas
Publishers
Kaufmann
Laffont
Meltemi
Musica Arcana
Payot
Princeton University Press
Concepts
Mesmerism
Therapeutics
Music
Medicine
Quackery
Science and religion
People
Mesmer, Franz Anton
Franklin, Benjamin
Mozart, Wolfang Amadeus
Beethoven, Ludwig von
Gilibert, Jean-Emmanuel
Haydn, Franz Joseph
Time Periods
18th century
19th century
20th century
17th century
Enlightenment
Renaissance
Places
Europe
France
British Isles
Germany
Hungary
United States
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