Made of the stuff of probability waves, starlight, planetary cycling, mighty mountains, continents, and oceans of our silver blue sphere, genetic journeys, language, learning, and loving, we each were birthed by this glorious universe that continues to show us its awesome majesty with each year cycling, each day dawning, each breath repeated, and each moment unfolding. We can only be joyous with the realization that so much of this awesome majesty is reflected in human consciousness. It is precisely this fact that enables us to call ourselves Sparks of God.
All words have a history. But some are particularly interesting to explore when it comes to psychology—because they're directly born from it. How many times have you been mesmerized by something, so captured by it that it was like you were in a trance? The word "mesmerize" dates back to an 18th century Austrian physician named Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815). He established a theory of illness that involved internal magnetic forces, which he called animal magnetism. (It would later be known as mesmerism.)