Ueber Lebensmagnetismus und über die magischen Wirkungen überhaupt

Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1857. FIRST EDITION. Modern marbled boards; water stain on both top and bottom edges throughout most of book. First edition of the author’s treatise on vital magnetism. Carus here examines mesmerism or animal magnetism deeming it “life magnetism.” He makes the assumption that humans are connected to the whole world by means of this life magnetism. “The dual nature of our entire mental existence, conscious and unconscious, is the knowledge of which provides the real key to understanding countless processes in our lives in general...” He further delves into the world of magic, studying the scientific and social mythology of pendulums, dowsing rods, table turning, sleep walking, dreaming and clairvoyance. He ends the work with a chapter entitled “Magical effects in life, in science and in poetry and art.”


Carus (1789-1869) was a German physiologist, naturalist, psychologist, and an accomplished landscape painter. He laid the foundations of depth psychology, which refers to the practice and research of the science of the unconscious, covering both psychoanalysis and psychology. It is further defined as the psychological theory that explores the relationship between the conscious and the unconscious, as well as the patterns and dynamics of motivation and the mind. This was well before the more well-known theories of Freud, Jung, and Adler. He makes a clear distinction between the conscious and sub (or un) - conscious. In the human, life manifests as psyche, the first level of which is the unconscious. He sees man primarily as a psychological being, through whose unconscious he is connected with all life both as nature and as that spiritual principle which inheres in and transcends nature.