Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

by Charles MacKay

  Mademoiselle Martineau was magnetised by M. Dupotet, and it was expected that her case would prove not only the transfer of the senses, but the power of divining remedies. Her eyes having been bandaged, she was asked if she could not see all the persons present? She replied, no; but she could hear them talking. No one was speaking at the time. She said she would awake after five or ten minutes sleep. She did not awake for sixteen or seventeen minutes. She announced that on a certain day she would be able to tell exactly the nature of her complaint, and prescribe the proper remedies. On the appointed day she was asked the question, and could not answer. [Report of the Commissioners, p. 139.]

  Mademoiselle Couturier, a patient of M. de Geslin, was thrown into the state of somnambulism, and M. de Geslin said she would execute his mental orders. One of the Committee then wrote on a slip of paper the words “Go and sit down on the stool in front of the piano.” He handed the paper to M. de Geslin, who having conceived the words mentally, turned to his patient, and told her to do as he required of her. She rose up, went to the clock, and said it was twenty minutes past nine. She was tried nine times more, and made as many mistakes. [Idem, p. 139.]

  Pierre Cazot was an epileptic patient, and was said to have the power of prophecy. Being magnetised on the 22nd of April, he said that in nine weeks he should have a fit, in three weeks afterwards go mad, abuse his wife, murder some one, and finally recover in the month of August. After which he should never have an attack again. [Idem, p. 180] In two days after uttering this prophecy, he was run over by a cabriolet and killed. [Foreign Quarterly Review, vol. xii. p. 439] A post mortem examination was made of his body, when it was ascertained beyond doubt, that even had he not met with this accident, he could never have recovered. [At the extremity of the plexus choroides was found a substance, yellow within, and white without, containing small hydatids. – Report oltre Commissioners, p. 186.]

  The inquest which had been the means of eliciting these, along with many other facts, having sat for upwards of five years, the magnetisers became anxious that the report should be received by the solemn conclave of the Academie. At length a day (the 20th of June 1831) was fixed for the reading. All the doctors of Paris thronged around the hall to learn the result; the street in front of the building was crowded with medical students; the passages were obstructed by philosophers. “So great was the sensation,” says M. Dupotet, “that it might have been supposed the fate of the nation depended on the result.” M. Husson, the reporter, appeared at the bar and read the report, the substance of which we have just extracted. He was heard at first with great attention, but as he proceeded signs of impatience and dissent were manifested on all sides. The unreasonable inferences of the Commissioners – their false conclusions - their too positive assertions, were received with repeated marks of disapprobation. Some of the academicians started from their seats, and apostrophising the Commissioners, accused them of partiality or stolidity. The Commissioners replied; until, at last, the uproar became so violent that an adjournment of the sitting was moved and carried. On the following day the report was concluded. A stormy discussion immediately ensued, which certainly reflected no credit upon the opponents of Animal Magnetism. Both sides lost temper - the anti-magnetists declaring that the whole was a fraud and a delusion; the pro-magnetists reminding the Academy that it was too often the fate of truth to be scorned and disregarded for a while, but that eventually her cause would triumph. “We do not care for your disbelief,” cried one, “for in this very hall your predecessors denied the circulation of the blood!” - “Yes,” cried another, “and they denied the falling of meteoric stones!” while a third exclaimed “Grande est veritas et praevalebit!” Some degree of order being at last restored, the question whether the report should be received and published was decided in the negative. It was afterwards agreed that a limited number of copies should be lithographed, for the private use of such members as wished to make further examination.

  As might have been expected, magnetism did not suffer from a discussion which its opponents had conducted with so much intemperance. The followers of magnetism were as loud as ever in vaunting its efficacy as a cure, and its value, not only to the science of medicine, but to philosophy in general. By force of repeated outcries against the decision of the Academie, and assertions that new facts were discovered day after day, its friends, six years afterwards, prevailed upon that learned and influential body to institute another inquiry. The Academie, in thus consenting to renew the investigation after it had twice solemnly decided (once in conjunction with, and once in opposition to a committee of its own appointment) that Animal Magnetism was a fraud or a chimera, gave the most striking proof of its own impartiality and sincere desire to arrive at the truth.

  The new Commission was composed of M. Roux, the President; and Messieurs Bouillard, Cloquet, Emery, Pelletier, Caventon, Oudet, Cornac, and Dubois d’Amiens. The chief magnetiser upon the occasion was M. Berna, who had written to the Academie on the 12th of February 1837, offering to bring forward the most convincing proofs of the truth of the new “science.” The Commissioners met for the first time on the 27th of February, and delivered their report, which was drawn up by M. Dubois d’Amiens, on the 22nd of August following. After a careful examination of all the evidence, they decided, as Messieurs Bailly and Franklin had done in 1784, that the touchings, imagination, and the force of imitation would account satisfactorily for all the phenomena; that the supposed Mesmeric fluid would not; that M. Berna, the magnetiser, laboured under a delusion; and that the facts brought under their notice were anything but conclusive in favour of the doctrine of Animal Magnetism, and could have no relation either with physiology or with therapeutics.

  The following abridgment of the report will show that the Commissioners did not thus decide without abundant reason. On the 3rd of March they met at the house of M. Roux, the President, when M. Berna introduced his patient, a young girl of seventeen, of a constitution apparently nervous and delicate, but with an air sufficiently cool and self-sufficient. M. Berna offered eight proofs of Animal Magnetism, which he would elicit in her case, and which he classed as follow: –

  1. He would throw her into the state of somnambulism.

  2. He would render her quite insensible to bodily pain.

  3. He would restore her to sensibility by his mere will, without any visible or audible manifestation of it.

  4. His mental order should deprive her of motion.

  5. He would cause her, by a mental order, to cease answering in the midst of a conversation, and by a second mental order would make her begin again.

  6. He would repeat the same experiment, separated from his patient by a door.

  7. He would awake her.

  8. He would throw her again into the somnambulic state, and by his will successively cause her to lose and recover the sensibility of any part of her body.

  Before any attempt at magnetisation was made by M. Berna, the Commissioners determined to ascertain how far, in her ordinary state, she was sensible to pricking. Needles of a moderate size were stuck into her hands and neck, to the depth of half a line, and she was asked by Messieurs Roux and Caventon whether she felt any pain. She replied that she felt nothing; neither did her countenance express any pain. The Commissioners, somewhat surprised at this, repeated their question, and inquired whether she was absolutely insensible. Being thus pressed, she acknowledged that she felt a little pain.

  These preliminaries having been completed, M. Berna made her sit close by him. He looked steadfastly at her, but made no movements or passes whatever. After the lapse of about two minutes she fell back asleep, and M. Berna told the Commissioners that she was now in the state of magnetic somnambulism. He then arose, and again looking steadfastly at her from a short distance, declared, after another minute, that she was struck with general insensibility.

  To ascertain this, the girl’s eyes having been previously bandaged, Messieurs Bouillard, Emery, and Dubois pricked her one after the other with needles.
By word she complained of no pain; and her features, where the bandage allowed them to be seen, appeared calm and unmoved. But M. Dubois having stuck his needle rather deep under her chin, she immediately made with much vivacity a movement of deglutition.

  This experiment having failed, M. Berna tried another, saying that he would, by the sole and tacit intervention of his will, paralyze any part of the girl’s body the Commissioners might mention. To avoid the possibility of collusion, M. Dubois drew up the following conditions: – “ That M. Berna should maintain the most perfect silence, and should receive from the hands of the Commissioners papers, on which should be written the parts to be deprived of motion and sensibility, and that M. Berna should let them know when he had done it by closing one of his eyes, that they might verify it. The parts to be deprived of sensibility were the chin, the right thumb, the region of the left deltoid, and that of the right patella.” M. Berna would not accept these conditions, giving for his reason that the parts pointed out by the Commissioners were too limited; that, besides, all this was out of his programme, and he did not understand why such precautions should be taken against him.

  M. Berna had written in his programme that he would deprive the whole body of sensibility, and then a part only. He would afterwards deprive the two arms of motion – then the two legs – then a leg and an arm - then the neck, and lastly the tongue. All the evidence he wished the Commissioners to have was after a very unsatisfactory fashion. He would tell the somnambulist to raise her arm, and if she did not raise it, the limb was to be considered paralyzed. Besides this, the Commissioners were to make haste with their observations. If the first trials did not succeed, they were to be repeated till paralysis was produced. “These,” as the Commissioners very justly remarked, “were not such conditions as men of science, who were to give an account of their commission, could exactly comply with.” After some time spent in a friendly discussion of the point, M. Berna said he could do no more at that meeting. Then placing himself opposite the girl, he twice exclaimed, “Wake!” She awakened accordingly, and the sitting terminated.

  At the second meeting, M. Berna was requested to paralyze the right arm only of the girl by the tacit intervention of his will, as he had confidently assured the Commissioners he could. M. Berna, after a few moments, made a sign with his eye that he had done so, when M. Bouillard proceeded to verify the fact. Being requested to move her left arm, she did so. Being then requested to move her right leg, she said the whole of her right side was paralyzed – she could neither move arm nor leg. On this experiment the Commissioners remark: “M. Berna’s programme stated that he had the power of paralyzing either a single limb or two limbs at once, we chose a single limb, and there resulted, in spite of his will, a paralysis of two limbs.” Some other experiments, equally unsatisfactory, were tried with the same girl. M. Berna was soon convinced that she had not studied her part well, or was not clever enough to reflect any honour upon the science, and he therefore dismissed her. Her place was filled by a woman, aged about thirty, also of very delicate health; and the following conclusive experiments were tried upon her:-

  The patient was thrown into the somnambulic state, and her eyes covered with a bandage. At the invitation of the magnetiser, M. Dubois d’Amiens wrote several words upon a card, that the somnambule might read them through her bandages, or through her occiput. M. Dubois wrote the word Pantagruel, in perfectly distinct roman characters; then placing himself behind the somnambule, he presented the card close to her occiput. The magnetiser was seated in front of the woman and of M. Dubois, and could not see the writing upon the card. Being asked by her magnetiser what was behind her head, she answered, after some hesitation, that she saw something white – something resembling a card – a visiting-card. It should be remembered that M. Berna had requested M. Dubois aloud to take a card and write upon it, and that the patient must have heard it, as it was said in her presence. She was next asked if she could distinguish what there was on this card. She replied “Yes; there was writing on it.” – “Is it small or large, this writing?” inquired the magnetiser. “Pretty large,” replied she. “What is written on it?” continued the magnetiser. “Wait a little-I cannot see very plain. Ah! there is first an M. Yes, it is a word beginning with an M.” [The woman thought it was a visiting-card, and guessed that doubtless it would begin with the words Monsieur or Madame.] M. Cornac, unknown to the magnetiser, who alone put the questions, passed a perfectly blank card to M. Dubois, who substituted it quietly for the one on which he had written the word Pantagruel. The somnambule still persisted that she saw a word beginning with an M. At last, after some efforts, she added doubtingly that she thought she could see two lines of writing. She was still thinking of the visiting-card, with a name in one line and the address on the other.

  Many other experiments of the same kind, and with a similar result, were tried with blank cards; and it was then determined to try her with playing-cards. M. Berna had a pack of them on his table, and addressing M. Dubois aloud, he asked him to take one of them and place it at the occiput of the somnambule. M. Dubois asked him aloud whether he should take a court card. “As you please,” replied the magnetiser. As M. Dubois went towards the table, the idea struck him that he would not take either a court or a common card, but a perfectly blank card of the same size. Neither M. Berna nor the somnambule was aware of the substitution. He then placed himself behind her as before, and held the card to her occiput so that M. Berna could not see it. M. Berna then began to magnetise her with all his force, that he might sublimate her into the stage of extreme lucidity, and effectually transfer the power of vision to her occiput. She was interrogated as to what she could see. She hesitated; appeared to struggle with herself, and at last said she saw a card. “But what do you see on the card?” After a little hesitation, she said she could see black and red (thinking of the court card).

  The Commissioners allowed M. Berna to continue the examination in his own way. After some fruitless efforts to get a more satisfactory answer from the somnambule, he invited M. Dubois to pass his card before her head, close against the bandage covering her eyes. This having been done, the somnambule said she could see better. M. Berna then began to put some leading questions, and she replied that she could see a figure. Hereupon, there were renewed solicitations from M. Berna. The somnambule, on her part, appeared to be making great efforts to glean some information from her magnetiser, and at last said that she could distinguish the Knave. But this was not all; it remained for her to say which of the four knaves. In answer to further inquiries, she said there was black by the side of it. Not being contradicted at all, she imagined that she was in the right track; and made, after much pressing, her final guess, that it was the Knave of Clubs.

  M. Berna, thinking the experiment finished, took the card from the hands of M. Dubois, and in presence of all the Commissioners saw that it was entirely blank. Blank was his own dismay.

  As a last experiment, she was tried with a silver medal. It was with very great difficulty that any answers could be elicited from her. M. Cornac held the object firmly closed in his hand close before the bandage over her eyes. She first said she saw something round; she then said it was flesh-coloured – then yellow – then the colour of gold. It was as thick as an onion: and, in answer to incessant questions, she said it was yellow on one side, white on the other, and had black above it. She was thinking, apparently, of a gold watch, with its white dial and black figures for the hours. Solicited, for the last time, to explain herself clearly – to say, at least, the use of the object and its name, she appeared to be anxious to collect all her energies, and then uttered only the word “hour.” Then, at last, as if suddenly illumined, she cried out that “it was to tell the hour.”

  Thus ended the sitting. Some difficulties afterwards arose between the Commissioners and M. Berna, who wished that a copy of the proces verbal should be given him. The Commissioners would not agree; and M. Berna, in his turn, refused to make any fresh experiments. It was impo
ssible that any investigation could have been conducted more satisfactorily than this. The report of the Commissioners was quite conclusive; and Animal Magnetism since that day lost much of its repute in France. M. Dupotet, with a perseverance and ingenuity worthy a better cause, has found a satisfactory excuse for the failure of M. Berna. Having taken care in his work not to publish the particulars, he merely mentions, in three lines, that M. Berna failed before a committee of the Royal Academy of Medicine in an endeavour to produce some of the higher magnetic phenomena. “There are a variety of incidental circumstances,” says that shining light of magnetism, “which it is difficult even to enumerate. An over-anxiety to produce the effects, or any incidental suggestions that may disturb the attention of the magnetiser, will often be sufficient to mar the successful issue of the experiment.” [“Introduction to the Study of Animal Magnetism,” by Baron Dupotet de Sennevoy, London, 1838, p. 159.] Such are the miserable shifts to which error reduces its votaries!

  While Dupotet thus conveniently forbears to dwell upon the unfavourable decision of the committee of 1837, let us hear how he dilates upon the favourable report of the previous committee of 1835, and how he praises the judgment and the impartiality of its members. “The Academie Royale de Medicine,” says he, “put upon record clear and authenticated evidence in favour of Animal Magnetism. The Comissioners detailed circumstantially the facts which they witnessed, and the methods they adopted to detect every possible source of deception. Many of the Commissioners, when they entered on the investigation, were not only unfavourable to magnetism, but avowedly unbelievers; so that their evidence in any court of justice would be esteemed the most unexceptionable that could possibly be desired. They were inquiring too, not into any speculative or occult theory, upon which there might be a chance of their being led away by sophistical representations, but they were inquiring into the existence of facts only – plain demonstrable facts, which were in their own nature palpable to every observer.” [“Introduction to the Study of Animal Magnetism,” p. 27.] M. Dupotet might not unreasonably be asked whether the very same arguments ought not to be applied to the unfavourable report drawn up by the able M. Dubois d’Amiens and his coadjutors in the last inquiry. If the question were asked, we should, in all probability, meet some such a reply as this: – “True, they might; but then you must consider the variety of incidental circumstances, too numerous to mention! M. Berna may have been over anxious; in fact, the experiments must have been spoiled by an incidental suggestion!”