A device and a method for guiding or applying force to a magnetic implant within the body of a patient. The device includes a bed for support of the patient, a set of separately energizable electromagnets or separately controllable permanent magnets so arranged to produce magnetic fields of varying orientations in a treatment region of the patient, and a processor that controls the currents in the electromagnets, or shutters on the permanent magnets to produce a selected magnetic field and/or gradient for guiding or moving the implant. The magnets are configured to allow a medical imaging device to be used to provide a real-time display of an operating procedure in which magnetic guidance is used. The method for guiding the implant includes the placing of the body on the bed, which may be servo-controlled, inserting a magnetically-guided implant into the treatment region, arranging the magnets around the body so that they can supply the necessary magnetic fields and/or gradients through appropriate energization of subsets of the magnets, and applying current or shutter control to subsets of the magnets to provide a guiding magnetic field for the implant, which may occur while real-time medical imaging of the procedure is occurring. The bed may be moved under servo control to provide further control of the direction and magnitude of the magnetic field affecting the implant.