Armand Chastenet -
Marquis de Puysègur

A FOLLOWER OF DR. MESMER;
      . . . was an artillery officer who, after learning the techniques of magnetism (later referred to as mesmerism), returned to his country estates to apply it to the sick among the farmers who worked his fields.   Not only were his initial attempts crowned with success, but he also found that subjects could be relieved of their symptoms, without undergoing the dramatic and often violent convulsions central to Mesmer's technique.

      Even more striking was his discovery of artificial somnambulism, in the response of a young peasant (Victor), to the mangetic treatment of a febrile inflammation of the lungs.

   After a short period of exposure to Puysègur's passes, Victor fell into an apparent sleep and then began talking with an animation that was unusual for him in his ordinary waking state.
   Puysègur was surprised to find that when his subject reverted once more to his normal personality, at the conclusion of the therapeutic session, he had no recollection of what had happened during the mesmeric trance (amnesia).

      The discovery of a mesmerically-induced state in which many phenomena seemed to occur, led to widespread and enthusiastic experimentation by Puysègur and his followers.   This experimentation soon led to the clear recognition of practically all of the major Mesmeric-Hypnotic phenomena acknowledged today:   the motor automatisms and catalepsies, amnesias, anaesthesias, positive and negative hallucinations, post-Hypnotic phenomena, and individual differences in susceptibility.
      Today we recognize these phenomena as typical of both spontaneously occuring hysterical Somnambulism and Hypnotic Trance.

^«The Docterine Of Will Power^»

      To Puysègur and his followers, the curative fluid was secreted by the mesmerist's brain and passed along his nerves to the peripheral organs, in response to his Will.   The manufacture and transmission of the vital fluid depends on the mesmerist's exuberant faith and unaltering self-confidence in his own dominating powers.   Albeit an easy vehicle, for the expression of the mesmerist's egoistic fantasies, the docterine of Will Power nevertheless represented an advance in translating the interpersonal aspects of the mesmeric process into psychological terms.

      The Marquis is recognized for the pivotal importance of Mesmerically-induced Somnambulistic States.