Toward Ecosophy

Franz Anton Mesmer, whose researches into animal magnetism were discussed in a post here last week, was far from the only scientist of his time to stumble across evidence of the life force that traditional occultists call "ether."  The gentleman to the left is another such scholar, and a considerably more important one. His name was Baron Dr. Carl von Reichenbach, and he was one of the great scientific minds of the nineteenth century. Born in Germany in 1788, he made important discoveries in the fields of geology, chemistry, and metallurgy; he's the person who first figured out how to extract creosote, paraffin, and phenol from coal, launching half a dozen major industries in the process; he was elected to the Prussian Academy of Sciences, one of the three most prestigious scientific bodies in the world in his time. Oh, and he also became very, very rich from his patents and the factories he built and managed. He did all this, what's more, by the time he was fifty. 

In 1839, looking for new fields for his omnivorous intellect, he decided to take up the infant field of psychology. Of course, being the capable experimentalist that he was, he set out to find things that he could test empirically, and so his first major project was to find out what environmental factors influenced phobias, hysteria (the mental illness now called "conversion disorder'), somnambulism, and neurasthenia -- this last was a very widespread condition of "nerve weakness" that basically went away once Freud traced it to its emotional roots. That was what led him into forbidden territory. 

He noticed, to be precise, that certain people -- "sensitives" was his term for them -- seemed to be able to perceive things the rest of us can't, and that these people are more likely to end up with emotional and mental problems due to their sensitivity. He found, for example, that many sensitives could apparently see magnetism when in total darkness -- they could tell which end of a bar magnet was which, and differentiate between a bar magnet and an identical iron bar that hadn't been magnetized. Of course this made him think of Mesmer, whose works he then read, and he proceeded to run a series of experiments intended to settle the question of whether he was dealing with magnetism or with some other force that seemed to act something like magnetism. 

You guessed it. He found that he was dealing with a new force, one that seemed to act like magnetism in some ways, like electricity in others, and like heat in still others. It was radiated by all living things, and also by the sun and moon; it could be caused to flow along wires like electricity, but didn't set off the various devices used in those days to detect current or static electrity; it seemed to flow with particular force from the palms of the human hand. He named it Od, or Odic force. 

Of course, being the experienced and capable scientist that he was, he wrote up his experiments and their results in great detail and published them. (That's the English translation on the right.)  And the scientific community -- did it say, "Wow, here's something new from von Reichenbach, he's always worth reading, let's check it out"?  Not a chance. With a few noble exceptions, they did what scientists almost always do when confronted with evidence for the life force:  they pulled a James Randi -- that is, they launched a flurry of ad hominem attacks and then ran experiments that changed crucial variables, and when those didn't get the same results (quelle choque!), announced a failure to replicate. It's a familiar song and dance, and it was already well practiced by von Reichenbach's time. 

What's more, nobody talks any more about Carl von Reichenbach, the brilliant chemist who discovered a galaxy of coal tar derivatives, the successful industrialist who made millions.  No, it's Carl von Reichenbach, the crackpot who claimed to have discovered something that does not exist, cannot exist, must not exist, and must therefore be shouted down in the shrillest possible tones if anyone is so rash as to notice it.  Again, it's a familiar song and dance. 

Fortunately von Reichenbach was rich enough that he didn't have to care, and he kept doing his researches, publishing a second volume of results later on. Those volumes are still available in print and online -- here's a link to the first, and here's a link to the second, both in English and free for the downloading -- and they played a very important role throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, inspiring researchers and occultists alike. We'll be encountering his concepts repeatedly as this series of explorations proceeds.