The Marquis de Puységur – John Elliotson – James Braid – Charles Lafontaine
The Marquis de Puységur [1751 - 1825] was a French aristocrat and discovered Mesmerism via his brother the Count of Chastenet. With a keen interest in this field, the Marquis practiced his art on several patients, one of whom was a 23 year old peasant employee of his family. Victor Race, as the lad was known, was particularly easy to hypnotise and entered into a different kind of sleeping trance that had not previously been encountered with Mesmerism. The Marquis observed it’s similarity to natural sleep-walking referred to as somnambulism and named this newly discovered state as ‘Artificial Somnambulism’.
The Marquis’ fame and notoriety grew until the onset of the French Revolution in 1789. After spending a period in prison he became the focus of the latest generation of Hypnotists. They adopted his method of inducing the Sleep Trance as apposed to the old methods of Mesmer. Puységur always considered himself a disciple of Mesmer and never took credit for the procedure that is now known as Hypnotic Induction. He concluded in a speech he once delivered to a French Masonic Society that the principles of Animal Magnetism could be concluded with just two words. Believe and Want.
In 1834 a new physician was appointed to the University College Hospital in London. His name was John Elliotson [1791 - 1868] He was a 43 year old Englishman who had studied as an MD at both the University of Edinburgh and than at Jesus College, cambridge. Elliotson tried to develop Mesmerism for new therapeutic purposes and the advancement of medical science. He tended to use poor Irish Immigrant workers as his subjects as he felt that middle class subjects brought an ‘undesirable obtrusion of their own’ . This in part, led to Elliotson’s downfall as all the effects of his works took place in the subjects mind and the credibility of these people left a lot to be desired.
He was finally discredited during trials to prove his theories. These were brought about through his fierce debates with Thomas Wakely, the editor of the newly formed Lancet medical journal. He needed to prove his own credibility and that of his publication. Elliotson was forced to resign from the hospital but continued to practice Mesmerism and edit the the magazine The Zoist which was dedicated the the subject. He was also a state theorist.
The next significant person in the History of Hypnotherapy is a man called James Braid [1795 - 1860]. James was born in scotland and attended the University of Edinburgh from 1812 to 1814. He obtained his diploma of the Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of the City of Edinburgh in 1815. As a surgeon specialising in both eye and muscular conditions, James was very well respected although his skills with the knife are not what he is remembered for most. Ironically, James Braid gained his diploma in the same year that Franz Mesmer died but did not become interested in ‘mesmerism’ until 1841 when he saw a demonstration given by the Swiss mesmerist Charles Lafontaine.
Charles Lafontaine [1803 - 1892] also became an influence on another famous person, namely George Du Maurier [1834 - 1896]. George du Maurier wrote one of the most famous novels of its time ‘Trilby’ which featured a character called Svengali, who was a rogue and an irresistible hypnotherapist.
James Braid examined Lafontaine’s mesmerised subjects and came to the conclusion that they were in a different physical state. He then became convinced that he had discovered a natural psychophysiological mechanism underlying these genuine phenomena and wasted no time in giving a series of lectures in Manchester. He then began to experiment using his own method and wrote a report entitled ‘Practical Essay on the Curative Agency of Neuro-Hypnotism’ . After failing to have this paper read before the British Association, James arranges another series of public lectures which began in December 1841. James tried to summarise the various schools of thought about mesmerism to disassociate himself from the satanic views of the church on the subject.
He suggested there were 4 theories:
- Those who believe them to be owing entirely to a system of collusion and delusion.
- Those who believe them to be real phenomena but produced solely by imagination, sympathy and imitation.
- The animal magnetists or those who believe in some magnetic medium set in motion as the exciting cause of the mesmeric phenomena.
- His view, that the phenomena are solely attributed to a peculiar physiological state of the brain and spinal cord.
Although James Braid was the first person to use the terms Hypnotism, Hypnotise and Hypnotist in English, the words Hypnotique, Hypnotisme and Hypnotiste had already been used by the french magnetist Baron Etienne Félix d’Henin de Cuvillers as early as 1820. He was however, the first person to use the word hypnotism in the sense as we understand it today, referring to a psychophysiological theory as opposed to the occult theories employed by the magnetists.
He stated that he used this term to separate himself from the mesmerists and any theories that you could wield an irresistible or mystical power over your subjects. He spent time explaining various sources of fallacy that may have misled the mesmerists and he was the first person to give a public explanation of the trick. He explained that his induction technique utilised intense abstraction or concentration and was induced by getting the subject to fix their thoughts and sight on a specific object whilst suppressing their respiration.
He went on to say that a subject with the fixation of both the visual and mental eye on an object not exciting in nature whilst in a quiet relaxed position, would become wearied and provided that the subject favours the feeling of stupor which they feel creeping over them during such time, a state of somnolency would be induced. It is then during this state that the subject is liable to be directed to manifest the mesmeric phenomena. James Braid thought of hypnotism as creating a state of nervous sleep which differed from normal sleep. He discovered that the most effective way to induce it was through visual fixation on a small bright object held about 18 inches above and in front of the eyes. He regarded the physiological condition underlying hypnotism to be the over exercising of the eye muscles through the straining of attention. He was averse to Mesmer’s idea that a magnetic liquid caused the hypnotic phenomena as anybody could bring about a state of hypnosis in themselves provided they follow his rules. Because of Braid’s importance in the progress of Hypnotism, it is sometimes, although rarely referred to as Braidism. His importance was also recognised with the foundation of the James Braid Society. Initially James Braid was initially a State Theorist but he moved to a clearly Non State theory towards the end of his career.
