Essays on Hegel's Philosophy of Subjective Spirit

The Dark Side of Subjective Spirit

The Dark Side of Subjective Spirit Hegel on Mesmerism, Madness, and Ganglia Glenn Alexander Magee Introduction Hegel’s treatment of animal magnetism constitutes one of the most extensive discussions of any topic in the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit. That Hegel took a strong interest in such an unusual subject is never denied by scholars—but seldom also do they consider what its true importance is for Hegel’s philosophy. In this chapter I will present an overview of Hegel’s treatment of animal magnetism and its place in the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit. Elsewhere I have dealt at greater length with the details of Hegel’s discussion of animal magnetism.1 In the present essay I will focus on why the topic was so important for him and what its place is in the Hegelian system. Specifically, I will argue that Hegel saw his ability to explain animal magnetism as a confirmation of the truth of speculative philosophy—and simultaneously a refutation of science done from the standpoint of the Understanding. I also believe that it is now possible to identify one of the major sources for Hegel’s understanding of animal magnetism: the strange speculations of G. H. Schubert in his seminal 1814 work Die Symbolik des Traumes. 55 56 / Glenn Alexander Magee Hegel on Magic The “Anthropology” section of the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit deals with “Nature-Spirit” (Naturgeist), that part of us that is deeper and prior to self-aware mind.2 Hegel’s technical term for this is “the soul” (die Seele), which he characterizes as the “sleep of Spirit”—Spirit in its most rudimentary , primal form.3 Soul is further divided into “natural soul” (natürliche Seele) “feeling soul” (fühlende Seele), and “actual soul” (wirkliche Seele). The natural soul is all that which works within us below the level of consciousness . Feeling soul is a conglomeration of sensations and impressions: consciousness in its most primitive form, prior to the distinction of subjective from objective. The transition to actual soul involves the development of individual subjectivity out of this infantile confusion. Hegel places his discussion of what we would call today “paranormal phenomena” under “feeling” because he claims that feeling can occur without the participation of the senses at all. This discussion, in fact, constitutes the bulk of the section “Feeling Soul.” Hegel states that “feeling, or the subjective way of knowing, dispenses wholly, or at least in part, with the mediations and conditions indispensable to an objective knowledge and can, for example, perceive visible things without the aid of the eyes or without the mediation of light.”4 This is the reason why psychic phenomena such as clairvoyance or precognition (the ability to see the future) seem to involve the acquisition of knowledge without the mediation of the senses. Hegel also tells us that when the individual is at the level of feeling soul another subject may exercise control over it. Hegel calls this controlling, external entity the subject’s Genius. In infancy the individual lives largely at the level of feeling soul, and another person, such as its mother or father, may act as its genius. Adults may, under certain circumstances, return to the level of feeling soul for a time. Under such conditions, another individual may act as their genius and control them. This idea is central to Hegel’s theory of animal magnetism. He says, further, that all such relationships involve “a magic tie,” and that they may display “magnetic phenomena.”5 Hegel explains his use of the word “magic” in a Zusatz: “[T]his term connotes a relation of inner to outer or to something else generally, which dispenses with any mediation; a magical power is one whose action is not determined by the interconnection, the conditions and mediations of objective relations; but such a power which produces effects without any mediation is ‘the feeling soul in its immediacy.’”6 A magical relationship is, first of all, unmediated. Second, it annuls the distinctions of time and space. As Hegel makes clear later on, this means that magic is incompre- The Dark Side of Subjective Spirit / 57 hensible to the Understanding and can only be understood by speculative philosophy. Magic for Hegel includes paranormal phenomena, but it is not confined to these. For instance, Hegel describes the power of a stronger mind over a weaker, and even the power of the mind to spontaneously move the body as “magical...