Franz Mesmer

Franz Mesmer was a German physician who developed the theory of animal magnetism (also referred to my some as Mesmerism). However, in his final years he became defamed, and he fell into exile. He fled from Vienna to Paris, living there for two decades until his death 1815. What he did in the final twenty years of his life remain largely mysterious.

A descendant of Franz Mesmer, Professor Anna Mesmer continues in the vein of her ancestor. She established the Franz Mesmer Institute for the Study of Psychic Phenomenon and operated it until 1890 when she, like Franz before, became disgraced and disappeared.