Physician Franz Anton Mesmer developed a mystical healing technique in the eighteenth century based on the belief that an invisible magnetic fluid connected all living beings and planets in the universe.

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Physician Franz Anton Mesmer developed a mystical healing technique in the eighteenth century based on the belief that an invisible magnetic fluid connected all living beings and planets in the universe. He treated aristocratic patients in dimly lit Paris salons by pressing iron magnets against their bodies while playing an ethereal glass harmonica, often inducing dramatic convulsions and weeping. King Louis XVI eventually commissioned a scientific panel, including Benjamin Franklin, which concluded that Mesmer's magnetic fluid did not exist and any healing was purely the result of the patients' imagination. Mesmer accidentally discovered the placebo effect and hypnosis, proving that wealthy people will pay a premium to have a strange man wave magnets over them as long as the mood lighting is right