On June 30, 1957, Mr. Manly P. Hall lectured on the topic of the human magnetic field and the related research efforts of Anton Mesmer. Mr. Hall explained Mesmer’s theories regarding the existence of a human magnetic field and his therapies to treat energy flow blockages. The great Hall insight in this lecture was that the individual must make themselves “receptive” to the magnetic field energies if they want to live, have energy and good health. Mr. Hall elaborates on how choices of food, activities, and most importantly, thoughts and emotions can affect the flow of energy from the magnetic field to the body. He describes how the collective magnetic field of the masses or of a strong individual can influence another person for better or worse. By taking into consideration these concepts, the individual has a greater incentive to do the self work that improves vitality, health and happiness, especially in times of turmoil and chaos. Although Mesmer’s treatments were never accepted by the scientific community, Mr. Hall believed his working principles of the magnetic field were useful and worth reconsideration today.
Mr. Hall described the human magnetic field as an area of “receptive electricity” that surrounds, penetrates, and encases the physical body. The body lives in a sea of energies, pure universal energy, cosmic energy, solar, planetary, and other varied kinds, but the human magnetic field is not receptive to all the energies that exist. Throughout evolutionary ages, the human magnetic field has been conditioned to receive certain energies that sustain the composite nature of the human body. The composite nature of the human body consists of mineral, plant and animal energies, with the addition of spiritual energies, which distinguish the human from other life forms. These energies are also named, physical, vital, emotional and mental energies, respectively. From the magnetic field, energies flow into the physical body via conditioned courses, thereby animating and enlivening it. If there are blockages that disrupt the flow of energy into the body, the result is fatigue, disease, or dysfunction. When the physical body completely disassociates from its magnetic field, death results.
The body, via the human magnetic field, takes in energies from various sources. Physical energy is received from the earth’s magnetic field. Vital energy comes from the sun and is present in the atmosphere. Since air is a carrier of solar energy into the body, a person can increase their energy by avoiding shallow breathing and adopting proper breathing habits. Emotional energy comes from the reflected solar energy of the planets. As the planets reflect the sun’s energy, it becomes conditioned by those planets having different effects on the emotions. And lastly, spiritual energy, which is not passively received by the physical body as are the other energies, but must be consciously drawn into into the body by mental concentration and spiritual devotion. Mr. Hall said, “by creating interests, attitudes, desires, in this direction, he draws this energy to himself. Therefore, it [spiritual energy] is more available and more practically useful in the lives of devout persons.”
A theme throughout all of Mr. Hall’s work and teachings is the idea of becoming receptive to energies, whether they be merely vital for good health or divine for enlightenment. And the key to becoming receptive is relaxation. Mr. Hall stated, “the individual who wants to live must be receptive to the magnetic field which is sustaining him. Receptivity is keyed to relaxation.” Tension restricts the flow of energy into the body and creates energy blockages responsible for fatigue and dysfunction. Mr. Hall said, “One of the most common causes of obstruction is tension, which obstructs because it locks and causes the structure to lose its receptivity to life. Tension, therefore, creates receptivity to death.”
The natural pattern and flow of energy, as set by Nature, provides all that is necessary for the human to sustain themselves and carryout various intended purposes of life. However, excessive pressure from extravagant ambitions and appetites, negative emotions, fears, hates and prejudices, all of these restrict the flow of energy from the magnetic field to the physical body. They create blockages and deplete the body’s energy. Mr. Hall stated, “the individual who is nervous, upset, stress-ridden, ambitious, frustrated, neurotic, psychotic, can never bring through a powerful current of magnetic energy.” So, the reader can make a logical conclusion that vitality and health are keyed to moderation in all things and cultivating more positive thoughts and emotions.
Mr. Hall explains that energy is drawn into the body via conditioned polarities or receptive poles within the person. This concept of a receiving pole is like a receiving antennae within ourselves. A receptive pole are those concentrated thoughts and feelings that an individual chooses to hold and cultivate. Thoughts and feelings structure the magnetic field and thereby create either open flowing energetic pathways, or alternatively, create pressures that block and cut the body off from life’s energies. For example, Mr. Hall said, “wherever fear is present, we know what it does to the magnetic field of the individual. It locks him; it blocks the flow of energy. World-fear could block the flow of energy from the magnetic field of the earth to the human body.”
Every person has a different magnetic field structure based on their activities, thoughts, emotions, and life choices. Mr. Hall said, “even the church you go to may affect your magnetic field; the foods you eat; the interests you indulge, the concepts and attitudes which you hold.” A person’s magnetic field can also be affected by another person or by the collective magnetic field of a group or mass of people. To be susceptible to negative influences by others, Mr. Hall explains that the person has to have that receptive pole within his magnetic field. If the individual has the tendency to feel hate, fear or prejudice and if the collective energy of society is charged with those same sentiments, that person will be more easily inclined to act on those negative tendencies. If the individual is in sympathy with the collective thought and feeling, it will intensify the individual’s own thoughts and feelings and inclinations to act. However, if the person has eliminated that pole of hate and prejudice within themselves, no matter how strong society’s collective force is, the individual will not be receptive to it. It will not affect that person. Mr. Hall said, “our protection against any form of negative force is always the absence of that quality in ourselves or the constructive control and redirection of that quality. If we have transformed fear into faith within ourselves, the collective fear of all mankind cannot shake it.”
In an earlier and unpublished 1950 lecture on Mesmer *, Mr. Hall elaborated in more detail about how thoughts and feelings contaminate the magnetic field and thereby cause all kinds of ailments. He said, “Mesmer also believed that the individual, …, is forever contaminating his own magnetic sphere with his own thoughts. It was as though the human body were surrounded by a large bottle, and anything you sent out stayed in the bottle but slightly outside of you so you did actually stew in your own juice.” In this earlier and current lecture, Mr. Hall said polluting the magnetic field with negative thoughts and emotions is similar to polluting a river or the atmosphere with toxins. The air becomes unfit to breath and the water unfit to drink. Therefore, the individual is cut off from the necessities that support life. Similarly, “if the human being is permitted to remain constantly in his own magnetic field, he gradually contaminates himself, that is, unless he shows a positive and constructive attitude. … His own atmosphere can accept and purify and transmute a certain amount of negative material cast off from his own mental and emotional life, but if too much is cast off, then the zone is polluted and becomes the direct source of poison, so that after that, this person living in the inversion of his magnetic field poisons himself.”
Mesmer hypothesized that physical, mental and emotional disorders resulted from energy flow blockages and stagnation in the magnetic field. He explored ways to artificially amplify the flow of energy to a sufficient level to disrupt those blocks and restore the natural flow of energy to the body. Mesmer found that energy could be transferred from one individual to another. So, one therapy involved linking several individuals together like a battery with their feet in a tub of water to create an amplified energy current to circulate through a patient and disrupt blockages. Successful disruption of energy blocks would result in a period of hysteria and then fainting. Mr. Hall called this “a tremendous discharge of psychic tension.” Mesmer’s therapies were dismissed because most of his patients would eventually relapse. Also, other contemporaries associated Mesmer’s theories on magnetism with spiritualism, which caused the scientific community to completely dismiss his work. Mr. Hall believed there was value in Mesmer’s therapies and that the relapses were likely the result of the patients resuming the habits that caused the problems in the first place.
Interestingly, in that earlier 1950 lecture on Mesmer, Mr. Hall explains how many healings at evangelical Christian revival meetings could have actually occurred according to Mesmer’s principles of clearing energetic blockages. During a revival meeting, individuals become emotionally charged up in group prayer or song, perhaps speaking in tongues, reaching a state of ecstasy and hysteria before passing out. Then after the person recovers consciousness, they claim be to healed from their ailments and to have seen the glory of God. Similar to Mesmer’s theories, Mr. Hall proposed the healing effect was achieved because the individual built up an enormous amount of emotional energy that was sufficient to break up and clear an energetic blockage and release the psychic or energetic tension causing the disorder. After experiencing an emotional catharsis, the body relaxes and the natural flow of energy is restored. These concepts also give an understanding of how various other healing modalities may work, such as breath work, yoga, meditation, martial arts, acupuncture and massage. All of these healing modalities reduce or release tension, disrupt energy blockages, and thereby increase the circulation of energy.
The most important take away from this lecture is that a person wields the power of their own magnetic field. The magnetic field is a receptive area that receives all the energies necessary to sustain the physical body. Those energies flow into the body like a river unless it becomes restricted or contaminated with mental and emotional negativity. Vitality and health require an unrestricted flow and circulation of energy through the body. Tension, fear, hate and negative emotions restrict this flow of life. So, these concepts give the person a rational incentive to do the self work that needs to be done, to reform bad habits and negative attitudes and to moderate ambitions and appetites. Mr. Hall convincingly explains how the person’s efforts to grow and mature are indeed truly rewarded with more vitality, health, and happiness.
In conclusion Mr. Hall said:
“We have from the whole concept a valid and reasonable incentive to recognize that the growth of ourselves as persons, the maturing and enriching of our lives, the attainment of hope, faith, and love, the living of a relaxed, orderly, moderate existence — these things become the basis of health, happiness, security and peace of soul for ourselves. They protect us against the burdens which arise from tension and depletion. They tell us very clearly as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is; so is his body, his function, his environment, his capacity to work and play, his capacity to live and enjoy.”
* Anton Mesmer and the Theory and Practice of Magnetic Healing, Manly P. Hall, July 23, 1950, unpublished lecture notes.