Karl Kiesewetter (1854 1895) was the most influential German theosophical writer of his time, and wrote several books on the history of esotericism and occultism. This biography of Mesmer (1734 1815) was first published in Leipzig in 1893. It begins with two very substantial historical chapters. The first discusses practitioners of 'animal magnetism' before Mesmer, citing evidence dating back to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and Babylonian cuneiform records. The second discusses the history of visions, dreams, trances, soothsaying and divination, referring to the Greeks and the Gnostics. The...
Karl Kiesewetter (1854 1895) was the most influential German theosophical writer of his time, and wrote several books on the history of esotericism an...