Biography of a Yogi Paramahansa Yogananda and the Origins of Modern Yoga

66 Biography of a Yogi

However, although in its properly historical context hypnotism is simply a
more metaphysically conservative derivative of Mesmerism and the two terms
sometimes continue to be used synonymously, their differentiation may take
on an entirely different set of valences in metaphysical and occult circles. For
instance, Helena Blavatsky, in responding to a query on how one should differen-
tiate between Mesmerism (or magnetism) and hypnotism, purports to quote the
work of French psychologist Amédée H. Simonin in his Solution du problème de
la suggestion hypnotique (1889) to explain that

while “in Magnetism (mesmerism) there occurs in the subject a great

development of moral faculties”; that his thoughts and feelings “become

loftier, and the senses acquire an abnormal acuteness”; in hypnotism, on

the contrary, “the subject becomes a simple mirror.”

...

“In hypnotism instinct, i.e., the animal, reaches its greatest develop-

ment; so much so, indeed, that the aphorism ‘extremes meet’ can never

receive a better application than to magnetism and hypnotism.” How true

these words, also, as to the difference between the mesmerized and the

hypnotized subjects. “In one, his ideal nature, his moral self— the reflec-

tion of his divine nature— are carried to their extreme limits, and the

subject becomes almost a celestial being (un ange). In the other, it is his

instincts which develop in a most surprising fashion. The hypnotic lowers

himself to the level of the animal. From a physiological standpoint, mag-

netism (‘Mesmerism’) is comforting and curative, and hypnotism, which is

but the result of an unbalanced state, is— most dangerous.”^23

It should be noted that no passages that could yield the above translations actu-
ally appear in Simonin’s original French. Nevertheless, Blavatsky’s (invented)
references reflect an appraisal of the respective connotations of Mesmerism as
opposed to hypnotism and the relative merit of their associated practices that
must have been current in Theosophical as well as broader metaphysical circles.
It is notable that some forty years later Yogananda, when accused of hypnotism
by an outraged Miami police chief, argued that he practiced magnetism, which
was to be seen as an entirely different matter. Swami Kriyananda (1926– 2013), a
Westerner who was one of Yogananda’s most fervent direct disciples, describes
“magnetism” as a force that is

generated by the amount and quality of the energ y one projects. And this

energ y depends on the strength of a person’s will power. “The greater the

will,” was Yogananda’s frequently iterated maxim, “the greater the flow of