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Personality from the Val Passiria: Dr. Joseph Ennemoser
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Dr. Joseph Ennemoser (1787 – 1854)
The doctor and scientist Josef Ennemoser was born on 15th November 1787 at Egghof in Rabenstein Passeier. He went to school in Meran and then on to university in Padua, Innsbruck and Berlin.
The Tyrolean struggles for freedom happened in the middle of his time at university, and as secret writer for Andreas Hofer and officer of the Passeier home guard (Schützen) took part in these rebellions. After the fights Joseph moved to Berlin and studied at the university. Johann Gottlieb Fichte was head of the university at the time, and also Joseph’s philosophy lecturer. Professor Karl Christian Wolfart introduced the medical student from Rabenstein into the world of depth psychology and psychotherapy therefore carried on the work of the Viennese doctor Franz Anton Mesmer. Laying on of hands, hypnosis and suggestion became adjuvants of medicine.
In 1813 Ennemoser joined the Lützowsche Freikorps, became an officer and fought together with his poetry friend Theodor Körner against the troops of Napoleon. He returned to Berlin as „Knight of the Iron Cross“ and continued with his studies and graduated in 1816.
As a young doctor he worked England, Holland and Poland where he was know for his use of magnetisms and hypnosis.
In 1819 Ennemoser was appointed professor at the university in Bonn by the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm. Joseph was to lecture anthropology, psychological medicine and pathology even though he was just 32 years old. Ennemoser used the time at the university to publish various papers.
Joseph Ennemoser became one of the most well known academics in Germany on the subject of „animal magnetisms“ as this esoteric subject was then called. „Under animal magnetism we understand the physical and psychological phenomena that appear when healing diseases“ wrote Ennemoser and together with Mesmer and Wolfart he was the forerunner of the psychoanalysis from Sigmund Freud.
Today this area is included in parapsychology and PSI phenomena.
A famous murderer Adolph Moll who was sentenced to death was in a prison by Bonn at this time. Ennemoser used Moll to think about, research and study the interaction of body and soul with anthropological examinations. In his 1825 publication Ennemoser compared the murderer with a stone on a cliff and wrote in a critical way ending with a critic against the prison system “ it betrays intelligence if you just smash the stone that is threatening to fall rather than to place it in a secure place and use in a useful way. …… shouldn’t the moral vitiations be helped through a better and more appropriate furnishing of the prison instead of locking up people like animals whereby they will probably turn into murderers?“
Apart from the fight against the inhuman prisons, Ennemoser also fought for the humane treatment of mentally ill patients who, at this time, were treated particularly badly. Instead of the usual looney bins he pressed for sanatoriums for the poorest of the poor.
One of his specialities was the presentation of the history of magic. He saw through the world of vision, dreams and fortune telling and ended his show with an examination of magic, obsession and convulsions. He visited the seeress Maria von Mörl in Kaltern and came to the conclusion that she did not have to make miracles happen; it was just that the people did not fully understand the laws of nature. Graf Reisach von Innsbruck called him the unbelieving Dr Ennemoser.
Ennemoser wrote about the conclusion of his life in the book „The ghost of a person in nature, ort he psychology in agreement with natural history” which was published in 1849. Starting in space, he describes the life of minerals, plants, animals and people. He dedicates the second half of the book to the spirit of people, the human soul, and feelings and senses.
A large proportion is dedicated to the observations of the changing of the body and soul, one of Ennemoser’s favourite themes. He was convinced that human body has an immortal soul from the time it is conceived.
While Ennemoser had not been politically active in Bonn, when he was in Innsbruck and Munich, this completely changed. In 1848 he started publishing the “Innsbrucker Zeitung” which was full of political themes and regularly criticised by a Catholic extreme group.
Ennemoser was particularly worried about the economical situation of the teachers and the rural priests, which landed him in the line of fire of the higher priests, something which damaged his reputation even after he had died.
In the last years of his life, Ennemoser lived in Munich and worked as a doctor. Due to his very good reputation, he had a lot of patients from all over Europe. The cosmopolitan doctor and scientist had a reputation as being very well read, having a good character and legally minded.
He died when he was 67 as a result of spleen trouble. He wanted to be buried when his grave would be looked upon by the mountains so he is buried in the village graveyard in Rottach/Eggen. He left behind his wife, Marianne Hochmut from Rattenberg in Tyrol and the two daughters Josephine and Wilhelmine.
The well known professor was quickly forgotten, and the world ignored the products of his knowledge. His thinking was too mythical for the developing materialism, and for the catholic mystics such as Görres, he believed too much in science.
It wasn’t until the end of the 20th century that his time came around. Karl Boegner and Renate Riemek wrote about him in 1980 saying that he was one of the best known 19th century researchers.
The Passeier home guard (Schützen) kept his memory alive and were the only visitors at his grave in Eggern which was looked after by their buddies in the area.
The published works of Dr Josef Ennemoser have been collected by the Passeier culture and tradition club, and it is possible that his inheritance was probably ruined on purpose.
Dr. Heinrich Hofer
