Yogis Without Borders 67
energ y.” ... Success in every aspect of life depends on the strength of a
person’s magnetism to attract it.^24Thus, magnetism, in Yogananda’s interpretation, loses all association with its mes-
meric origins and becomes instead a metaphysical principle of personal will akin
to a strengthened form of the Law of Attraction as it was espoused in contempo-
rary New Thought circles.^25
Although Yogananda’s version of magnetism seems at first glance to be totally
divorced from its roots in Mesmer’s principle of animal magnetism, the two phe-
nomena share a crucial commonality. Mesmer’s own practice, despite its some-
what ignoble end, is significant precisely in its attempted synthesis of the occult
with the scientific. Notwithstanding his fervent assertions that there was nothing
“supernatural” or “magical” about his method, Mesmer’s eccentric presentation,
lilac robe and all, was clearly meant to lend a degree of mystique to the proceed-
ings. While this aura of esotericism only aided in discrediting Mesmer’s technique
as parlor charlatanism in the eyes of the scientific community, it reflected a key
element of how Mesmer viewed himself in relation to the technique. He was the
modern magus turned scientist— an adept who had mastered control over a mys-
tical but thoroughly natural universal principle that held the key to the most fun-
damental aspects of material reality.
The most notable manifestation of “parapsychological” Mesmerism can be
found in American Spiritualism, which eventually closed the loop by return-
ing to the European parlors that first nurtured its previous incarnation. The
American mesmeric boom began in 1836 when Charles Poyen, a French disciple
of the Marquis de Puységur, began a lecture tour across New England. By 1843
there were two hundred mesmerists practicing in the Boston area alone.^26 While
much of American Mesmerism took the form of traveling mesmerists who
would earn their living by diagnosing illnesses through clairvoyant somnambu-
lism, a more cosmically expansive strand soon began to gain momentum. This
was chiefly owed to the influence of Swedenborgian cosmologies, which pro-
vided an effective map to a multi- leveled universe populated with spirits pos-
sessed of various degrees of development. Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688– 1772),
a celebrated Swedish mystic and seer, left behind a voluminous body of publica-
tions cataloguing his trance- state journeys into celestial and infernal realms as
well as the diverse planets of the known cosmos. While Swedenborg himself
advised great caution in communing with spirits and ultimately insisted that it
was the exclusive role of the spiritual adept— meaning himself— to engage in
such potentially perilous otherworldly contact, his experiential narratives and
theological tracts ultimately became blueprints for an unprecedented level of
popular trance practice.