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Week 12 - Reflection, Successes & Failures
It’s the end of the semester and my film is finally completed. It’s easy to feel unsatisfied at the end of any film project because there is always so much to learn through experience. What can I do better? What can be done more efficiently? What to work on next time? I am beginning to understand the expectations to set upon myself. These are all rhetorical questions as they don’t necessarily have definitive answers, but instead consist from life lessons, the more experience I have the fewer questions I will have at the end of a project. However, looking at this from a critical perspective is important. Analysing the specific word of mesmerisation I ask myself if it is defined within my film. Within my first blog post I defined mesmerisation as something that captures the complete attention of someone, something that hypnotises a person into a form of stasis, or something that renders gratification/satisfaction in someone. Interestingly, looking back at this definition I feel it has a stronger correlation with awe-inspired.
My own opinion about my piece is unfortunately prejudiced as I understand the intent of my film, it’s hard to view the piece from an outsider's perspective. However, I will try my best. I believe the first act has a strong relationship with my definition. The high paced cuts, the jarring sound design, shots that seem meaningless all have a deeper meaning if analysed. Utilising these methods I believe captures the attention of an audience, before they realise what they are watching they’ve already watched half the film, when you come towards the second act of the film that slows down the pacing drastically, the utilisation of the drums builds off some sense of suspense that something is going to happen to reignite the pacing of the first act, it’s only when you get to the end of the film that you understand nothing actually happens, it’s boring and slow. The ideal audience will wonder what they watched and will build their own interpretation. It is in our human nature to build stories, the sensation a viewer feels when they believe they cracked the code, that they and only they have fully understood the reasoning behind a piece renders a form of gratification in the audience that makes them feel special. Whether they are drawing parallels from the two acts or if they dissect them to define each act as its own narrative does not matter. This is mesmerisation.
That is of course an ideal audience. However, if I were to look in the opposite direction to a viewer that hates this piece, that is also in a sense a reaction I am after. If someone is willing to watch a film they hate until the end then they are still coat-tailing under my definition of mesmerisation, their attention is captured throughout the film.
Finally, I wonder if this delivers a heightened multisensory experience. Unfortunately, the answer for me is still unknown. I don’t believe I personally fully understand what a heightened multisensory experience is supposed to feel like. I would love to visit an exhibit that delivers that sensation. I can’t say for certain that I have experienced this through film. Can a HMsEX truly be captured purely through an audio visual relationship? I personally don’t believe it can, I think the sensation of awe is achievable but at no point does that mean it’s heightened, I am not stimulating my olfactory or tactile senses.That said I do believe you can create heightened experiences without physical stimulation. However, for this it would need to be following a method that deceives the brain. Perhaps the feeling of being rained on but not feeling the rain is a HMsEX that does not require your tactile senses to be engaged. Ultimately, if I were to be honest with myself, I don’t believe I do deliver a heightened multisensory experience. The idea that sharp sound design and visuals can elicit that experience eludes me, is it truly possible? I would love to be proven wrong.
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Week 11 - Boredom is unique
After receiving terrible feedback with my film in week 10, I realised I had to go a different direction with my piece. The confusing cuts are unsettling but overall a bad choice, it doesn’t deliver a HME nor mesmerisation. Looking at the yoga sequence you can truly understand how boring it is. There is nothing to it, it’s not fast paced, it's not exciting, it’s just standard. That thought is actually what resided with me. Standard. I’ve spent weeks in lockdown going through the daily motions, but the ultimate singularity of experience I’ve had is boredom. Poetically the sensation of boredom is unanimous to everyone. Everyone has felt boredom at some point in their lives, it’s the starting line for creativity. It’s the finish line for an office worker, and it’s the medium for all of us inbetween. I found myself curious about yoga and actually was questioning my friend about it. It’s reasoning, the positives from it, the aftereffects of it. What is surprising is that yoga is actually profoundly boring. That’s not to say she is bored when doing yoga, but that it’s not exhilarating, it’s the reset button. By doing it, you focus on the basic necessities we need as humans, your breathing, your muscle fibres, the temperature of your skin. These sensations are what make up yoga, you get back to the basics. Carrying this idea with me to my film, the yoga sequence in its truest essence is meant to be simple. After incorporating it as the second act to my film, I found it to have a profound connection with the first act. If the first act is raw emotions uncontrollable, with a deep desire to escape, then the second act is its polar opposite. It’s the calmness. You can control your body the way you want, but you cannot control your environment, accept your environment, accept your situation and you will find freedom like the birds in the sky. Don’t feel restricted by your circumstances, acceptance is important and boredom is essential to our journey.
With a bit of research into this idea of boredom, I found an article from Maria R. Ebling discussing the importance of boredom in our day to day lives. When conducting a study on the evolutionary purpose of boredom, they found that the more bored people are the more creative the outcome they can make is (Ebling 2015, p.5). This of course supports me with my choice to keep the yoga sequence to be boring. By instilling a slow pace to the viewer, it allows them to dissect what they are viewing, it slows them down and allows them to think about the contrast, the symbolism and in turn develop a creative solution to form a new interpretation. One I may not think of myself. This could heal someone, or it may mean nothing. It could mesmerise them through hidden meaning, or it could influence them to take action. Open interpretations are exciting, and through boredom we can find deeper meaning.
Ebling. M.R 2015, The Importance of Being… Bored, IEEE Pervasive Computing, vol 14, no. 2, pp. 5-8
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Using hard cuts to black with the sequence to build tension but also to gauge sections I will fill with footage.
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Week 10 - Build a two part experience
After failing in week 9 to create an equilibrium between a heightened multisensory experience and a mesmerising experience, I find myself looking at a different method to build upon. If I cannot do both in one film, then will breaking this into two films be the solution. Regardless, time is running out and I must do something. I decided a couple weeks ago that the idea of making three films is unrealistic, instead it would be best to focus my energy into one refined piece but after my thoughts from week 9 I decided it was necessary to incorporate a second act to the film. If narrative is the way I feel mesmerised then it should be the way I mesmerise my viewer. That said, this is not the solution. I spent the week watching the new Star Wars Visions, in the hope of finding a unique experience amongst this series. All I had heard so far was how great this is, what an exciting opportunity ect ect. But what I found from watching this was it was an underwhelming failure. Not because the animation isn’t amazing, or the sound design isn’t fantastic, but that Disney did it’s usual shit to try and create a short film like they make their feature films. The three act structure. Not only is this a terrible idea for short films because you aren’t delivering any act long enough, but you don’t gain any interest in any of the characters. You’re thrown into a world with the basic laws of Star Wars which leaves endless potential and you throw in a sub par plot with three acts. Now this is just my opinion but I like to compare this idea with “Love, Sex, Robots”. Another series made from multiple unique animation styles and unrelated stories. What I think LSR does better than Visions is its ability to disassociate from narrative for an open interpretation. With that thought in mind I went back to the editing project.
About a week in advance I had taken the opportunity to shoot a yoga flow sequence with the idea of incorporating it into my film, the way I would do this I did not have the answer and felt the urge to find it through editing trial and error. I threw the yoga sequence together and found it profoundly boring, uninspired and basic. Hmmm. My first instinct was of course first to remove that boringness by trying to combine it into my current sequence, cutting from rage and chaos from the male to calmness through yoga with the female. The experience was unique but confusing. I felt like I was removing the entire film I had been creating. I need to learn to disassociate myself from my work and be okay with destroying what I’ve created but in doing so I found myself very unhappy with the result. I decided to test it with my friends and received unanimous negative feedback. I had stepped into the belly of the beast and killed the film with me. Not the response I was after, this is not the way. I decided to look back at what I first had. The boring yoga sequence, with no score, no emotion. However, what I did find is that boring in itself is actually an experience. An experience people don’t agree with but it is different.
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Week 9 - HME and Mesmerisation’s Polarity
After compiling my first rough cut I began thinking about how I can make my piece produce more of a heightened experience. I personally believe with this piece it does deliver the sense of mesmerisation through it’s mystery but being quite simple it doesn’t explore the multisensory experience. Suggestions from Shaun have been to implement more jarring sound design, abrupt transitions, and to force the audience to feel uncomfortable. Will this create a HME? I decided to run with it and explore this idea. Also utilising the thoughts from my previous week about the McGuffin I decided to shoot further shots during the psyche sequence to allow this section to deliver the strongest form of HME.
After shooting this sequence I began questioning the state of the film. The piece is an experimental exploration about chaos, the different approaches to chaos and the singularity everyone has in their mind that brings them to a calmer state. Destroy the three act structure, strip narrative and let chaos rule the viewer. With my first compiled sequence I had a piece that demonstrated my attempt at a heightened multisensory experience. Jarring cuts, hard boiled sounds, repetition and the McGuffin. These are the techniques I’ve chosen to enhance my HME. Does it succeed? To that I don’t really know the answer, it doesn’t entirely establish a heightened sense, but to me it does deliver a unique experience, a film unlike other films. Now if I were to say this does succeed as a HME, does it fulfill a mesmerising experience. Well now we unfortunately move towards an area of polarity, and regardless of the answer, equilibrium seems unachievable.
From my experience I feel mesmerised by beautifully driven narratives. It’s the character development, the raw acting, the tension of the scenes and the release. To me a mesmerising film is Whiplash. Not because of it’s sound design or score, not because of the amazing cinematography. It’s because of the retribution, it's the underdog story, the build up and then the final knockout to finish. When you deliver that awe inspired narrative with hard hitting music that makes your heart race, that is where we find mesmerisation. So when we dissect that, remove the narrative, remove the characters and just have music and jarring cuts, we lose mesmerisation. We unfortunately don’t have a hand in hand experience with HME and mesmerisation in film. At no point is Whiplash building a HME experience besides from the experience you feel to turn down the volume because the audio leveling is so outrageous that the sound designer obviously intended to deafen his audience. But that isn’t a HME. That is my problem, the idea that these work hand in hand for a two dimensional film doesn’t seem possible. I would love to be proven wrong.
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Week 8 - The McGuffin
Following week 7 exploring symbolism in filmmaking, the most pronounced movie trope for it’s effectiveness to engage, confuse and irritate the audience is the McGuffin (also spelled MacGuffin). It’s week 8 now and the clock is ticking fast. Coming towards a wrap on my first experimental piece, Shaun pointed out to me that I have been utilising the McGuffin in my film, and to steer into that would create a stronger HME and also a more mesmerising piece. So what is a McGuffin? It’s essentially a plot device established in the first act of a film that dictates the characters’ motivations. In Hitchcock’s method of using the McGuffin, he would first establish the McGuffin in the film without revealing what it is. By establishing the McGuffin you can develop confusing reasons for why the characters are behaving a certain way. “Stories involving a MacGuffin begin with a degree of confusion” (Digou 2003). Hitchcock has also stated that it is essential that the McGuffin be explained midway through the story or the anticipation will continue to build and distract the audience from the characters (Truffaut 1983, p.139). With Mamet’s definition, he does not explain every detail about the McGuffin, however the information he does supply is sufficient enough to convince the audience of its significance to the characters (Digou 2003). At no point do you need to reveal entirely what the McGuffin is. However, by establishing these plot points, the viewer asserts interest within the plot.
The usage of the McGuffin has changed since Hitchcock first coined the term. No longer is it a miscommunicated concept that the audience will continue to ponder. Now it is something that orientates the plot and can be expanded upon. A classic example of a successful McGuffin under Hitchcock's definition would be the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. Its contents, while they remain unknown, have a significant role within the plot because of how they influence the characters’ actions. Whereas the more recent definition for McGuffin from modern cinema is shown in movies like The Lord of the Rings (2001). The one ring to rule them all, while it has no emotional significance to the audience, has a large value to the overall plot established in the first act. In Inception (2010), the spinning top, while it similarly has no emotional significance to the viewer, has a large effect on the overall plot because it is unclear whether Cobb is still in a dream or not. The McGuffin can even be found in comedies, for example Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle (2004). The white castle is the McGuffin as it dictates the actions of the characters while not having any emotional significance to the audience. Exploring this idea of the McGuffin for my own experimental film, I will focus more on Hitchcock's definition of the McGuffin. The main difference of course is the fact that my film does not follow the typical three act structure, therefore there is no point in the film at which to conclude the McGuffin. However, a strong use for it can be found from the aeroplane flying overhead - symbolic of freedom. By expanding upon the scene when we enter the character’s psyche, cutting between the fire, the aeroplane and the man rapidly, I establish my McGuffin, the desire to escape while feeling trapped in one's situation, the emotions burning inside as your desires build and build and build, until they burst and your fire is extinguished.
Digou, M 2003, ‘Hitchcock's MacGuffin In the Works of David Mamet’, Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 270-275.
Masterclass 2020, Writing 101: What Is a MacGuffin? Learn About MacGuffins in Film, Literature, and Popular Culture, Masterclass, viewed 19 September 2021, <https://www.masterclass.com/articles/writing-101-what-is-a-macguffin-learn-about-macguffins-in-film-literature-and-popular-culture#where-did-the-macguffin-originate>
Truffaut, F 1983, Hitchcock, Simon and Schuster, New York.
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Week 7 - Death, Destruction, Delete, Restart
If week 6 was challenging then week 7 is death. This blog is becoming more of a journal about my loss to insanity. I find myself smacking my head on my desk dazed, lost and confused about what it is I am doing. Why is it that I struggle so much on something I’m so passionate about. I like to think about the silly song from “Dumb and dumber”. ‘Anything you can do I can do’ much, much worse. This week is all about hitting the refresh and restart button. My editing work from week 6 looks horrible and the only salvageable section is the very beginning. The countdown, the fast rolling of death and destruction cutting to the sound of a rolling film, and the chaos of war to the sound of an assault rifle firing. Everything else is rubbish and must go. I decided to reshoot the shots around the house and rather than focusing on a film about pure chaos. Focusing on the emotional chaos established in a character through the use of symbolic messaging. Fire is the raw emotion of heat, symbolic of love, hatred and rage. It’s uncontrollable and destructive. Wind is smooth and soothing, it is free and calms us down, it can blow away your anxiety. The sun beaming down makes you perspire, it’s anxiety, it’s stress. The cool river flowing through the earth, it unblocks your chakras and heals your spirit. These four emotional states are significant within the piece because it symbolises the transformation of the protagonist's emotional state. However, it is interpretable in any way the viewer seeks. Shove all of this into a film and cut, cut, cut, CUT. This is experimental, this is what I should be doing. It’s not easy, no not at all. But throwing symbolism into a piece is mesmerising as the viewer feels they are unlocking a doorway to the ins and outs of something more. A door closing, is the idea of abandonment, loss or defeat. An aeroplane flying is desired freedom, you can see it, but you don’t have it. Pushing people to understand these symbolic messages is the classic McGuffin and a concept I will further develop next week.
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Week 6 - Experimental Film
Week 6 has been a challenging week. I began filming shots around the house that I would be implementing in my first chaos piece that would be built to mesmerise and confuse the audience to what they are watching, but almost to the same extent have the ability to entrance them to continue watching. I went into the editing room and I tried compiling the footage in certain ways but to no end found myself stuck editing nothing of quality. How incredibly de-motivational. With no luck in editing I began exploring experimental film making, and fell down the rabbit hole. I found that most of the “experimental” films were really not very experimental aside from visually. Most if not all of them indicate some sort of emotional state in which it refers to. The characters go through an isolating experience that gives them an out of body sensation, developing into sheer mental chaos. It got me thinking, is this experimental? Is it experimental because the audience is intended to have multiple interpretations? Or is it experimental because the visuals are crazy and the shooting process wasn’t planned? Was there no clear idea when shooting this and it came out through the editing? What is experimental? I fall back into these questions and question my own work. To develop my own piece I ask myself these questions. I find that for this experimental piece, the lack of clarity allows me to discover the film amongst the viewers. Every time I add another shot to the mix I can question it without a clear answer. If I continue this unclear process then I am eventually able to create something that is interpretable in multiple ways as there is no right or wrong answer. This must be what experimental is. Honestly the most terrifying aspect of having no clear vision is the fact that the outcome may be horrendous, or mesmerising. That answer will surely emerge as I delve further into this process. With my research about experimental filmmaking I stumbled across this quote from Jenni Olson “I think the biggest misconception about experimental film in general is that it is always difficult and inaccessible.” While my current conception of myself is “can I really do this?” I like to think about this quote and at least believe that something will arise from this piece. It is inaccessible at the moment, but as I approach a finished product, the clarity and vision of this film will become clearer. I am sure I can eventually say the same as Jenni Olson.
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Week 5 - Integrated sound design
After compiling my first rough cut for an edit and passing it onto Shaun for feedback, I started wondering the further impact I could develop in my own work with finer tuned sound design. While past weeks I have been influenced creatively on my own idea, this week I focused more on the theory of successful sound design. Sound is usually not the point of interest, specifically in film, sound’s role is to be unnoticed. It is to enhance the overall experience and successful sound design is not recognised as often as beautiful visuals because you are not consciously thinking about it. Realistically sound is the manager of a good film. It controls the viewers expectations and directs their emotions, therefore it is easy to go unnoticed as you were entranced by the visuals because of the sound design.
In Bubaris (2014) (Sound in museums - museums in sound), he discusses the idea of the “silent” museum (This referring to the silence enforced by museums that shed an aura of high culture). While the reasoning of holding silent exhibitions is to allow the viewer to be entranced by the artwork, it actually has more of a cultural significance than a practical. While the silence is to allow the viewer to not be distracted, Bubaris (2014) discusses the fact that sound in an exhibit actually encourages viewers to have different interpretations in the dialogue depending on the audience. Bubaris (2014) also discusses the use of diegetic and non-diegetic sounds and the roles both have within the framework of an exhibition. While practically museum spaces are a very different medium to which my user will view my work, the theory behind the ways they enhance the experience are applicable. The use of non-diegetic sounds in an exhibit as Bubaris suggests is to allow the visitors to derive meaning within their visit depending on the time in which they entered. While diegetic sounds are the ones set up by the exhibit, they are directional and the main focal point within the sound design. This differentiation of non-diegetic and diegetic sound can also be interpreted as background and foreground sound. While the two play their own specific roles, it is up to the viewer and the designer to direct the source of the sound and form their own interest around it. This gives me clarity to my own work as it helps dictate the foreground and background sound. Within my own pieces while the use of music is the foreground sound within some of the pieces, it is also the background sound in others. Whether I intend to utilise the music as the focal point within the sound design or the background will determine the experience my audience has. To go into further detail. My first piece will have music intended as the background noise. However, depending on the audience it may have a larger focal point, therefore I’ll have to carefully navigate ways to create more focal sound in the foreground to allow it to become a subconscious experience. This is juxtaposition to the second piece, as the second piece has the music in the foreground and dialogue as the background, the intention of this second piece to be an experience focusing around the music, therefore the background sound design must be utilised to enhance the musical experience and not diminish it.
Another aspect I had not considered until this week was brought to my attention by Everrett (2019) (A Curatorial Guide to Museum Sound Design). In his paper he discusses the struggles he and his team had to come up with an affordable method to allow multiple exhibits to play sound simultaneously in an open plan exhibit. He discusses in his paper that while an affordable means would be to have each exhibit have headphones the users could utilise, evidence suggested that reliance on headphones could be detrimental to the overall experience. One of the difficulties I find as an editor is comprehending the different mediums to which the audience views your work. Despite editing my audio with headphones to have optimal clarity, it is very important to consider the fact that most users will not view the work with headphones. I must design my sound to be experienced amongst multiple mediums, whether that is through a TV, headphones or a mobile phone. It is a very essential aspect I must consider when finalising my works to ensure the experience is substantial regardless of the device it is viewed upon.
Bubaris, N 2014, ‘Sound in museums - museums in sound’, Museum Management and Curatorship, Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 391-399.
Everrett, T 2019, ‘A Curatorial Guide to Museum Sound Design’, Curator the museum journal, Vol. 62, pp. 269-291.
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Week 4 - Awe-inspired Goosebumps
Do you feel that chill down your spine, the tingles through your arms all the way to your fingertips? The hairs on your arms stand tall and firm? Goosebumps. This week I’ve been exploring the meaning behind goosebumps. Why we get them when we’re satisfied and how it correlates to mesmerisation.
I’ve found through my research that awe inspired events have a strong correlation with getting goosebumps. In a study conducted back in 2018, researchers found that candidates experienced awe inspiring events when subjected to the heightened multi-sensory experience of virtual reality. They found that “43.8% of participants experienced goose bumps: awe ratings positively correlated with the occurrence of goose bumps with those who experienced goose bumps having shown significantly higher ratings of awe than those who did not” (Quesnel & Riecke 2018, p. 1). The effectiveness of heightened multi sensory experiences developing mesmerising inspired events becomes apparent in this study as the use of imagery, audio, olfactory signals, and tactile sensations immerses the users into believing they are within the environment beyond a basic virtual reality experience. With this information, I’ve strengthened my own understanding of the necessity for immersive experience when developing any heightened multi sensory experience. Although in their research they found that virtual reality induced higher reactions of awe-inspiring events over 2D video (Quesnel & Riecke 2018, p. 3), they also found that mesmerising sensation can also be elicited through a variety of stimuli. “Music and video are highly effective and are often accompanied by chills/goosebumps” (Quesnel & Riecke 2018, p. 4). This conclusion is derived from studies conducted by numerous authors exploring the capacity of music and film to induce the ‘chills’. Triggering the sensation of goosebumps within my users is a key component I will be exploring within my final pieces. After furthering my knowledge on the requirements for art elicited chills (Wassiliwizky, E 2015), I was originally expecting that most viewers would experience the sensation of ‘being moved’ more so from sad scenes over joyous scenes. This hypothesis was backed by the results of Panksepp’s (1995) study on chills based on sad songs versus happy songs, in which he discovered that sad songs elicit chills more than happy songs. This theory, however, proved to be false after Wassiliwizky’s study. Wassiliwizky tested his hypothesis to see if sadness in a film scene would evoke chills more than joyous scenes would. However, after his testing they found that both sad scenes and happy scenes elicited the same amount of chills/goosebumps. The idea was devised that while sad scenes presented the sadness as the foreground, the background would be happy, and vice versa for happy scenes. A general example of this may be a farewell event in juxtaposition to a reunion. A farewell event, while in the foreground is a sad experience, in the background has connotations of happiness as you may be excited for where the future may lead (Wassiliwizky 2015, p. 6).
With this knowledge my idea for my trilogy of films has been further clarified into three main categories again almost testing on the same theories that Wassiliwizky (2015) and Panksepp (1995) have experimented on. In the three films, rather than exploring mesmerisation through three films displaying different definitions of mesmerisation (my previous idea), I plan to explore creating mesmerising films that emphasize strong emotional differences. Clarifying these three different emotional states, I want my first film to present a neutral base. Exploring the idea of awe-inspiring work through the use of visual aesthetics and sound design. The second film presents the idea of sadness, displaying sadness within the foreground with happiness in the background. The final film presents joy, displaying happiness in the foreground with sadness in the background. Keeping in mind that I am developing a heightened multi sensory experience, rather than delving into unchartered waters of developing any virtual reality programs but instead exploring film making from an analytical perspective (as this is my specialty). I wish to create an immersive emotional experience that will not only create a mesmerising memory within the viewer's mind, but will altogether change the ideas of a heightened multi sensory experience not being purely something that stimulates all the sensors but rather specifically targets visual and auditory sensors into creating a heightened emotional experience.
Quesnel, D and Riecke, BE 2018, ‘Are You Awed Yet? How Virtual Reality Gives Us Awe and Goose Bumps’, Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 9, pp. 1-4.
Wassiliwizky, E, Wagner, V, Jacobsen, T and Menninghaus, W 2015, ‘Art-elicited chills indicate states of being moved’, Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, Vol. 9, pp. 1-9.
Panksepp, J 1995, ‘The Emotional Sources of "Chills" Induced by Music’, Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol 13, No. 2, pp. 171-207.
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Week 3 - The etymology of mesmerism
I began this week by diving into the complex history of mesmerism which the idea of being mesmerised is derived from. Franz Anton Mesmer aptly described as the “Wizard of Vienna” is where the history of mesmerisim begins. Mesmer was a qualified medical doctor but also a patron of the avant-garde arts. Mesmerism developed from the idea of healing his patients through the use of hypnosis. Mesmer would diagnose his patients with an “inbalance of ‘animal magnetism’, an invisible force field that suffused the entire cosmos and all its component parts.”(Brown 2008, p. 3) Fortunately he had a means of channeling this invisible fluid back into his patients using magnets. Mesmer would be able to induce a relaxed, trance-like state that would remove the existing symptoms creating a long lasting cure. This medical practice was later revisited in the 19th century when Mesmer attempted to get his practice officially recognised by the scientific establishment but was dismissed as the idea of cosmic energy being channeled was considered much too close to quackery. However, the idea of mesmerism developed an alternative narrative that is now known as the placebo effect. Franz Mesmer had a long line of satisfied customers that could not comprehend his practice, but the truth behind it was the ability he held to mesmerise his patients. Even if his practice was considered nonsense, the truth behind it was the treatment he was able to provide to his patients psychologically.
Brown, S 2008, ‘ Mesmerizing marketing: a compact cultural history’, European Business Review, Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 1-4.
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