By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers
Owing to his immediate popularity, Anton Mesmer generally credited as the
“discoverer” of the subconscious laying the foundation for modern
Psychology, developed a method of treating people en
masse with the notorious Baquet - a device consisting of a large drum filled
with bottles of water which Mesmer had previously magnetized.
Around the drum, up to twenty patients could be arranged in order to
benefit simultaneously from Mesmer's superabundance of animal magnetism. With
the introduction of the Baquet, Mesmer's treatment procedures became
increasingly like theatre: Mesmer would appear wearing a cloak decorated with
alchemical symbols and then play the glass harmonica (an instrument that
produced an eerie, ethereal sound). Large mirrors were erected in his magnetic
salon to reflect invisible fluids and his assistants, like stage hands, were
positioned to catch his convulsing patients. Contemporary woodcuts show a
magus-fike figure raising his hand and making women
on the other side of the room swoon. It was an impressive show.
Needless to say, Mesmer soon attracted a following - who eventually practised under the aegis of the Societe
de I'Harmonie, an unusual hybrid of college and
masonic lodge dedicated to the practice of mesmerism.
By 1784 Mesmer's disciples were such a conspicuous presence that Louis
XVI commanded that mesmerism should be the subject of two official
investigations. The first was undertaken conjointly by the Academie
des Sciences and the Academie de Medecine,
while the second was undertaken by the Societe
Royale. With respect to the latter, it is interesting to note that one of the
panel members was Benjamin Franklin, not only the American ambassador, but also
the inventor of Mesmer's much-loved glass harmonica.
The findings of these investigations were unequivocal: Yes, it was true
that patients benefited from Mesmer's treatment, but this benefit had nothing
whatsoever to do with Mesmer's animal magnetism. Treatment gains were best
attributed to a psychological factor that the learned gentlemen described as
'imagination' - or what modern doctors would now call the placebo effect. A
powerful expectation of improvement, once aroused in a patient, is often
followed by the remission of symptoms (irrespective of the treatment's
theoretical potency). For centuries, physicians have known that through the
agency of the mind the body can be 'fooled' into feeling better. Mesmerism was
simply a means of exploiting expectations of improvement in credulous patients.
Even though both investigations attacked Mesmer's theoretical
framework, the Societe de I'Harmonie
continued to expand, and new branches were established all over France.
However, as with any expanding empire, it was difficult to maintain sovereignty
in the more remote outposts. Many of Mesmer's disciples started modifying his
procedures, and some – influenced perhaps by the two enquiries - challenged his
orthodoxy concerning the role of animal magnetism. Rifts opened. Factions
emerged. The centre would not hold.
Mesmer could not keep the movement he had created in check. Moreover, at the
same time his authority was being seriously undermined by humorists who mocked
his excesses in cartoons, popular songs, and satirical plays. Mesmer's
reputation was finally irreparably damaged when he was invited to attend a
meeting of the Lyons Societe de I'Harmonie.
Prince Henry of Prussia was in Lyons on a private visit and
presented himself to Mesmer as a demonstration subject. The Prince's high
social rank and obvious scepticism were sufficient to
overwhelm Mesmer, who discovered that his remarkable powers had chosen a most
inopportune moment to desert him. He left Paris in 1785, and for many years his
whereabouts were completely unknown. Even so, the Mesmeric bandwagon he had
left behind rumbled on, continuing to attract the interest of a new generation
of would-be mesmerists.
For the next twenty years Mesmer wandered through Europe - a man of
reduced but significant means. A man who preferred the company of birds to
people. When Mesmer died in 1815 most practitioners who called themselves
mesmerists had no idea where he was, and, more importantly, none of their
number was using his techniques to provoke therapeutic crises. They were doing
something quite different.
Unlike Mesmer, Amand Marie Jacques de Chastenet, Marquis de Puysegur,
was a genuine aristocrat, whose ancestral home was a large castle and extensive
estate near Soissons. Puysegur was also a
distinguished artillery officer and a keen amateur scientist (with a special
interest in electricity).
He was introduced to Mesmer's doctrine of animal magnetism by his
brother, Comte Antoine-Hyacinte, but from the very
beginning, expressed reservations about the propriety of inducing violent
crises in vulnerable patients. Indeed, he found the phenomenon undignified, if
not repellent. Subsequently he experimented with a more gentle therapeutic
procedure that did not necessitate a dramatic, convulsive climax.
From 1784 Puysegur began offering magnetic treatments
to the peasants on his estate. His first two patients were young women
suffering from toothache, both of whom were cured in the absence of crises. Puysegur's next patient, Victor Race (a young man with a
respiratory disease), proved to be even more interesting. Victor responded to
the treatment procedure in a very unusual way. After seven or eight minutes he
fell into a kind of steep, during which he was able to hold a perfectly
sensible conversation, answer questions, sing songs, mimic shooting, and dance
to imagined music; however, on waking, Race had no memory of any of these
things.
Puysegur experimented with other patients, and began
to employ special instructions that encouraged 'sleep'.
Still encumbered by Mesmer's theoretical framework, Puysegur
assumed that he had stumbled upon a new form of crisis - albeit a less dramatic
form than Mesmer's convulsive original. He called his new discovery 'the
perfect crisis'; however, this term was soon superseded by 'magnetic sleep' and
then finally 'artificial somnambulism' (suggesting a progressive willingness to
abandon Mesmer's vocabulary). Somnambulism is the medical term for
sleepwalking, and Puysegur had obviously recognized
that the two states (magnetic sleep and the sleepwalker's trance) were close
cousins. Puysegur was leaning towards a psychological
explanation, and eventually he concluded that artificial somnambulism had
nothing to do with animal magnetism (a supposed physical force), but rather the
imposition of the magnetizer's will on that of his subject.
Thus began a major rift in Mesmeric circles. Two factions emerged:
traditionalists, who followed Mesmer's doctrine to the letter, and
revisionists, who were more enthusiastic about Puysegur's
new technique and explanatory framework. The latter group abandoned the
provocation of dramatic crises, focused on sending their patients to sleep, and
experimented with simpler treatment methods. They also questioned the efficacy
of group treatments such as the Baquet. Mesmerism no longer required the
presence of a magus and enough props to stage an amateur production of The
Magic Flute. In fact, mesmerism no longer required Mesmer.
In Puysegur's wake, artificial somnambulism
was understood to be therapeutic in several ways. Firstly, the trance state
itself was thought to be beneficial because it possessed the same properties as
any restorative or satisfying sleep. Secondly, when entranced, individuals were
suggestible to the extent that certain symptoms could be removed by way of a
simple command. However, such 'treatments' were only superficially effective,
insofar as symptoms tended to reappear on waking. Finally, because artificial
somnambulism was a kind of sleep, a dialogue could be established with
pathogenic parts of the mind that were normally inaccessible. Thus, treatment
sometimes took the form of a discussion between doctor and patient, with the
patient replying to questions in his or her sleep. This presumably had a
precedent in exorcism, during which priests were often called upon to bargain
with evil spirits for the release of their host. Even so, the procedure merits
obvious comparison with contemporary psychotherapy.
It is of some interest to note that a little-known Bavarian priest,
Johann Joseph Gassner, acquired a considerable
reputation as a healer by provoking therapeutic crises in his patients two
years before Mesmer developed his magnetic treatment. According to Gassner, however, the therapeutic crises he provoked were
caused by demonic entities, with whom he would converse before completing their
exorcism with an authoritative command.
Although Puysegur succeeded in transforming
the practice of mesmerism, he was a reluctant revolutionary. He always
considered himself a loyal follower of Mesmer and never intended to undermine
the master's teachings. Indeed, he visited the great man twice, accompanied by
Victor Race, to share his discoveries, but Mesmer responded coldly and was
obviously unimpressed, considering artificial somnambulism to be of little
significance. After all, when his own patients had 'drifted off' he had thought
nothing of it.
Artificial somnambulism proved to be an extremely useful tool for
probing the human mind. Indeed, Puysegur's
experiments revealed phenomena that could only be explained if the standard
Enlightenment model - with its emphasis on rationality and transparency - was
substantially revised. For example, the fact that patients could not remember
what had happened to them while entranced suggested that the mind could keep
secrets from itself. Clearly, Puysegur's patients
could not have forgotten events that had transpired only a few moments earlier.
This suggested that memories of being in the trance (and associated
experiences) were present in the mind, but inaccessible. Puysegur
went on to demonstrate the mind's capacity for self
deception even more dramatically by experimenting with what is now known
as post-hypnotic suggestion. If an entranced individual is given a command to
perform a simple behaviour (for example, 'Scratch
your nose whenever you hear the word "dog ... ), the command will continue
to be obeyed even after waking. Such an individual will have no recollection of
being given the command and will probably confabulate if asked to explain why
the behaviour is being performed. Puysegur
had succeeded in hiding a set of instructions in the mind, thus demonstrating
that there was a part of the mind which - although not available for conscious
inspection - could nevertheless still influence behaviour.
A further intriguing observation of Puysegur's
was that some of his patients seemed to be more knowledgeable when 'asleep'
than when 'awake'. For example, several individuals were able to diagnose their
own problems and recommend treatments. This begged certain questions. Was
artificial somnambulism allowing patients to recover information that had
simply been forgotten? Or was there some vast, submerged library in the mind
that could be consulted during sleep? Needless to say, the early romantic
philosophers became particularly interested in Puysegur's
work, being inclined to believe that his patients were obtaining information
from the world soul the universal unconscious. Artificial somnambulism was
quickly perceived as a possible short cut to the numinous.
Puysegur also discovered that the
mind was capable of not only concealing information from itself, but also
concealing (or at least denying) powerful sensory experiences. Patients were
told that they would not feel pain in certain areas of the body, which could
then be pricked with pins and probed with heated objects without causing any
discomfort. If the sensory apparatus was still functioning, then those parts of
the mind allocated for the registration of pain were being shut off. A door was
being closed on pain, thus keeping it outside of awareness.
Unfortunately, Puysegur's investigations were
interrupted by the revolution of 1789, and he spent two years in prison;
however, when he was released he was able to recover his estate and go on to
become the mayor of Soissons. He also continued to investigate artificial
somnambulism. By the time of his death in 1835, almost all 'mesmerists'
employed his procedures rather than those of Mesmer.
But there can be few individuals to whom the gods of posterity have been less
generous than Puysegur. In the early years of the
nineteenth century I mesmerism' (so called) continued to be endorsed by fringe
medical practitioners (and a growing band of travelling entertainers); however,
within a very short space of time the name of Amand-Marie-jacques de Chastenet, Marquis de Puysegur, sunk into total obscurity. Yet he had developed a
method of exploring the mind which would prove to be of incalculable
significance for future students of the unconscious.
From its inception to the 1840s mesmerism was never endorsed as a legitimate
treatment by the medical establishment. Even Puysegur's
more credible methods were still regarded with considerable suspicion; however,
from the 1840s mesmerism began to attract the attention of several British
doctors, whose scientific credentials granted it a degree of vicarious
respectability.
John Elliotson was appointed professor of
medicine at the University of London in 1831. He founded University College
Hospital, established a link between pollen and hay fever, and pioneered iodine
treatment for goitre. In addition, he was the first
doctor in England to make extensive use of the stethoscope, an instrument that
many of his colleagues were happy to dismiss as a European fad.
Elliotson became interested in
animal magnetism after attending various staged demonstrations conducted by
visiting continental mesmerists. He was particularly impressed by the induction
of anaesthesia. When in a trance state, subjects
could be pinched or have their nostrils packed with snuff without showing any
signs of discomfort. Such phenomena suggested that mesmerism could be used to
moderate pain during surgery (the very first recorded use of ether was not
until 1842 and that of nitrous oxide, 1844). In 1843, Elliotson
published a pamphlet titled 'Numerous Cases of Surgical Operations without Pain
in the Mesmeric State'. This represented the first attempt to collect together
existing documented cases of mesmeric surgical anaesthesia,
the first of which was a mastectomy performed by Jules Cloquet in 1829.
Unfortunately, Elliotson's reputation was diminished
after his involvement with the Okey sisters - two adolescent patients who
proved to be remarkably compliant experimental subjects. Elliotson
used them to demonstrate the power of 'animal magnetism', first on the wards
and then in the public theatre of the hospital. The girls could be made to go
rigid, swoon, and perform astonishing feats of strength.
Unfortunately, Elliotson's demonstrations
degenerated into an undignified stage show, attracting large audiences which
included not only doctors, but also aristocrats, members of parliament,
writers, and anybody of sufficient social rank to gain entry. The behaviour of the Okey sisters became increasingly
idiosyncratic and unpredictable. They entertained Elliotson's
audiences by adopting a peculiar, childish mode of speech, by using bad
language, and showing little or no respect to even the most distinguished
members of the gathering. Elliotson's demonstrations
became a combination of slapstick comedy and mild sexual titillation. A
subsequent investigation concluded that Elliotson was
being duped by two crafty imposters - an allegation that Elliotson
simply refused to accept. Eventually the hospital authorities informed Elliotson that he should refrain from practising
mesmerism in the hospital and that he should discharge the elder Okey sister
immediately. Elliotson responded by resigning his
post.
Among the great and the good attending Elliotson's
demonstrations had been Charles Dickens. The two men became firm friends, and Elliotson taught Dickens how to mesmerize. The author
subsequently experimented with his own family, and later successfully healed
some of his associates. It has been suggested that Dickens' extraordinary power
to captivate large audiences at public readings of his work was in part due to
the exercise of his mesmeric gift. Dickens insisted that his audience should
always be able to see his face, and if the audience wasn't responsive he was
quick to complain that they were not 'magnetic'.
Although Elliotson was spurned by his
university colleagues, he was warmly accepted in Dickens' elevated social
circle and his medical practice prospered. In spite of his unwise association
with the Okey sisters, Professor Elliotson's
endorsement of mesmerism was a turning point. Mesmerism had embarked on the
road to respectability.
After the publication of Elliotson's pamphlet
on the use of mesmerism as a surgical anaesthetic,
news began to reach London of a lone enthusiast practising
in Bengal. This was James Esdaile, a Scottish surgeon with the East India
Company, who ran the so called Native Hospital. Using a mesmeric trance state
to induce anaesthesia, Esdaile had conducted several
major operations with good results. These included arm and breast amputations
as well as the removal of numerous scrotal tumours
(which were endemic in the Bengali population). One of these tumours weighed more than the patient, and had to be
manipulated with a rope-and-pulley system attached to the rafters. Clearly,
Esdaile was a man with considerable nerve.
Remarkably, Esdaile had never seen a professional mesmerist induce a
trance state. He based his own procedures on an account given to him by a
friend, and subsequently developed a somewhat idiosyncratic technique that accommodated
local influences (such as yogic breathing and stroking). Although his technique
was improvised, an official investigation was impressed by his results and in
due course he became the founder and superintendent of The Calcutta Mesmeric
Hospital. He left India in 1851 and returned to Scotland, where he lived a
relatively uneventful life of semiretirement.
During his six years in India Esdaile performed several thousand
operations on mesmerized patients. Moreover, he kept careful records and tabulated
his successful results. Only sixteen deaths were reported, at a time when only
50 per cent of surgical patients were expected to survive. Sadly, Esdaile's
findings were not given the consideration and exposure they deserved because of
the British medical establishment's racist views. It was suggested that
'natives' of the subcontinent were so different from Europeans that they might
actually enjoy surgical procedures. Therefore, it was impossible to assess the
effectiveness of mesmeric anaesthesia on the basis of
Esdaile's work.
It was yet another Scottish surgeon, James Braid, who finally earned
mesmerism scientific respectability; however, the task was not an easy one, and
to achieve it the concept of mesmerism had to be thoroughly rehabilitated. Even
a name change was necessary.
Like Elliotson, Braid's first experience of mesmerism
was at a public demonstration - on 13 November 1841. Braid was so intrigued by
what he saw that, one week later, he returned to see the whole thing again
(when it was repeated by popular demand). Braid was convinced that he had
witnessed a genuine phenomenon; however, he was not satisfied with any of the
existing explanations. Even some sixty years after Mesmer's heyday there was
still talk of emanations and magnetic fluids (particularly among stage
performers who sought to sensationalize their act).
At both demonstrations Braid had observed that during 'nervous sleep'
the subject's eyes remained firmly closed. He subsequently concluded that the
trance state had been induced by neuromuscular exhaustion, brought about
through protracted staring. Two days later, to test his theory, Braid invited a
dinner-party guest to stare, without blinking, at the top of a wine bottle.
Within minutes the man was asleep. Braid subsequently repeated this experiment
with his wife and manservant, who also obligingly fell asleep.
Braid's initial approach, then, was to understand nervous sleep
primarily as a physiological phenomenon. He later elaborated his account to the
extent that he acknowledged the importance of a psychological factor - 'focus
of attention' - as another necessary precipitant of nervous sleep. Braid's
explanatory framework is very straightforward and marks a radical departure
from all that went before. Concepts such as animal magnetism, or Puysegur's 'imposition of will', are completely rejected in
favour of more basic elements. Braid subsequently
spent the next eighteen years of his life researching nervous sleep, and in
1843 renamed it neurypnology. He later chose another
name, hypnosis, which proved to be so 'catchy' it soon replaced mesmerism,
artificial somnambulism, and nervous sleep - going on to achieve international
currency.
Braid used hypnosis to treat a wide range of problems, from spinal
curvature to epilepsy. Moreover, he often provided a rationale for his
successes that demonstrated his fealty to respectable science. Thus, he claimed
to be able to cure deafness because the auditory nerve - an object familiar to
neurologists - could be excited under hypnosis. Even so, Braid's successes
probably owed as much to the placebo effect as did Mesmer's. Braid's
explanations were simply much more attractive to the conservative medical
establishment and he was subsequently able to publish his findings in
mainstream academic journals. As a direct result of Braid's publications,
hypnosis was rescued from the world of quacks, mountebanks, and music hall to
be delivered safely into the hands of neurologists and physiologists; but just
as the scientists were becoming used to the idea that hypnosis was respectable
after all, it was more or less hijacked by a burgeoning fringe religion -
spiritualism.
Among spiritualists, communication with the dead was usually accomplished after
entering a trance state; but such trance states could also be conceptualized as
'self-hypnosis'. Moreover, many hypnotic subjects began spontaneously to report
receiving messages from the spirit world. Be that as it may, even though the
culture of spiritualism was steeped in superstition and absurdities, certain
previously unseen 'psychological' phenomena emerged that captured the attention
of the academic and medical communities. The unexpected result was even greater
scientific interest in the function and capabilities of the unconscious mind.
The spiritualist movement was inspired by the life and works of the
Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. He wrote a number of exegetical works -
allegedly under the tutelage of spirits and angels - and described
transcendental journeys in books such as On Heaven and its Wonders and on Hell
(1758). After his death his visionary teachings were promulgated by a religious
sect - the Swedenborgians. Congregations were soon established in northern
Europe and, shortly after, America. By the mid nineteenth century the concept of
communicating with the dead had become popularized under the banner of
spiritualism, whose priest-class - mediums - typically entered a trance state
to receive information from favoured spirit guides.
As the movement grew, spiritualist meetings became increasingly
theatrical, seances being often enlivened by table-turning, rapping, and the
occasional levitation. But such occurrences could easily be dismissed as
conjuring tricks (stage magic had become something of an art during the course
of the eighteenth century); however, other spiritualist phenomena were far more
difficult to explain away - most notably, automatic writing and automatic
drawing.
In the 1840s a number of spiritualists began to produce literary and
artistic works that had been completed while entranced. It was subsequently
claimed that these works were accomplished under the influence of spirit
guides. Because the writing and drawing was performed without volition, the
term 'automatic' was employed to describe the manner in which they were
executed. A perplexing feature of these automatic phenomena was that sometimes
works of outstanding quality were produced by individuals who had received
little or no formal education. For example, Andrew Jackson Davis, the son of a
New York leather worker, wrote numerous books of scientific and philosophical
interest, including Principles of Nature (1847), which became a best-seller.
Moreover, examples of automatic drawing were so technically proficient - and
distinctive - the 'automatic style' exerted an influence on the early
symbolists.
For those who wished to account for automatic phenomena without
recourse to spirit communication, the unconscious became an invaluable
explanatory concept. In 1854, for example, Michel Chevreul
suggested that all messages from the spirit world might be nothing more than a
transliteration of unconscious thought. Chevreul - a
sceptic with impeccable credentials - had already demonstrated in 1833 that the
movements of the divining rod were unconsciously directed by the dowser.
Automatic writing and drawing were subsequently considered as further
examples of the richness of unconscious life. As the romantics had suggested,
the engine of imagination was probably submerged below the awareness threshold.
Therefore, entranced mediums were simply surrendering control of their hands to
the creative genius of the unconscious; however, the fact that many mediums
claimed to be taking dictation or receiving instruction from spirit guides
suggested another intriguing possibility - that parts of the unconscious could
evolve into fully fledged secondary (or even tertiary) personalities. The
unconscious might actually be inhabited by lesser selves amalgams of
inaccessible memories that had become organized around a kind of
proto-identity.
This arresting idea (that parts of the unconscious could acquire the
properties of an independent identity) resonated with a rare medical phenomenon
that had been observed (but never explained) since the end of the eighteenth
century - split or multiple personality.
As early as 1791, Eberhardt Gmelin reported a
case of what he described as 'exchanged personality'. The case in question was
a young German woman who regularly swapped her Teutonic sensibilities for those
of a French aristocrat. When her alter ego took over she spoke only French and
adopted gallic affectations, and when she reverted she had no knowledge of
events witnessed as a Frenchwoman. It should be noted that, even in this
pioneering case study, there is no suggestion that the woman was the victim of
possession. Multiple personality was understood to be a purely psychological
phenomenon.
After Gmelin a few cases of multiple
personality were reported in the literature, but the proper scientific study of
the phenomenon did not begin until the publication in 1840 of a monograph by a
general practitioner Antoine Despine. In this work, Despine reported the case of an eleven-year old girl
suffering from paralysis. During the course of her treatment she developed the
habit of slipping into an altered state of consciousness, in which she became
ill-mannered but also miraculously recovered the use of her legs. Eventually,
her polite and impolite personalities fused together. Despine's
study failed to arouse a great deal of interest in academic circles, but from
the 1840s onwards cases of multiple personality were recognized and reported
with increasing frequency.
As the nineteenth century progressed, enough cases were reported to
discriminate between different manifestations of multiple personality. For
example, in some cases two personalities each knew about the other whereas in
other cases both personalities were mutually amnesic (i.e. ignorant of each
other's existence). The relationship between personalities could also be
asymmetric - with only one being amnesic of the other. Finally, a number of
cases were known to have several sub-personalities: a community of identities
in which each sub-personality might have complete, partial, or no knowledge of
every other sub-personality; thus, personality A might be fully aware of B,
partially aware of C, and completely ignorant of D. Whereas personality D might
be fully aware of A, partially aware of B, and completely ignorant of C. And so
on.
These findings had enormous implications for the evolving model of the
human mind. Whereas initially one horizontal division had been proposed, to
separate upper and lower regions (conscious and unconscious), it now seemed
that a multiplicity of divisions was possible. An almost infinite number of
complete and partial partitions could be erected, enabling the mind to
accomplish endless permutations of self-deception. In the latter half of the
nineteenth century two distinct models of the mind became consolidated under
the banners of dipsychism and polypsychism.
Advocates of dipsychism believed in the double ego -
the presence of a secondary personality, largely concealed in the unconscious.
The most contentious issue surrounding dipsychism
concerned whether the hidden mind received information exclusively through the
gateway of consciousness or whether information could arrive by other pathways.
In the former model, the hidden mind was organized around forgotten information
and trace perceptual experiences; but in the latter, it was suggested that the
hidden mind might develop from more exotic material - the most likely source
being mystical in nature (such as the romantic world soul).
Polypsychism was an altogether more
complicated idea. Advocates of this approach viewed the human psyche as a
community of lesser minds, whose operation was co-ordinated
by a master (or executive) mind. The arrangement might be compared to a
classical orchestra. Each of the individual sections - for example, strings,
wind, or brass - can function independently; however, they are usually united
under the conductor's baton. In polypsychism, lesser
minds can function independently like the sections of an orchestra. They
possess a specialist repertoire (unique memories and unconscious regions);
however, these lesser minds usually work together under the watchful eye of the
master mind. This overseeing mind - the conductor - is the identity we
recognize as ourselves when we introspect. Obviously, polypsychism
provided the best account of complex multiple-personality cases. Extending the
orchestral analogy, the conductor might be temporarily indisposed, allowing the
first violin to leap on to the podium and turn an orchestral concert into a
string concert. Needless to say, the heads of the other sections might also be
capable of hijacking the programme in much the same
way.
Eventually scientific investigators concluded that spiritualist
phenomena could be explained entirely within the frameworks offered by either dipsychism or polypsychism. For
example, the physician Theodore Flournoy (the teacher of Carl Jung, see first
part of our article series) undertook a five-year study of the medium Helen
Smith. His results were published in From India to the Planet Mars: A Study of
a Case of Somnambulism with Glossolalia (1900).
Flournoy concluded that Helen Smith's revelations were merely .romances
of the subliminal imagination', derived largely from forgotten sources (for
example, books read as a child). He subsequently coined the term cryptomnesia to describe the phenomenon. Flournoy also
concluded that Helen Smith's spirit guide, Leopold, was merely an unconscious
sub-personality.
Romanticism had established an intellectual climate which favoured the recognition of unconscious mental activity.
Subsequently, hypnotism, phenomena associated with spiritualism, and reports of
multiple personality, reinforced the view that any model of mind that failed to
acknowledge the unconscious must be incomplete. Indeed, the concept of
unconscious mental activity had become an essential explanatory vehicle - at
least for those who professed a scientific outlook; however, new ideas about
the mind did not respect the boundary between art and science, and throughout
the nineteenth century many literary works appeared which were distinctly
'psychological'.
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