The most famous somnambulist of his time.

By the middle of the 19th century, Alexis Didier has become the most famous somnambulist of his time. Indeed, when he died in 1886, he was celebrated by several magnetic reviews as ‘the greatest clairvoyant in modern times’.

Alexis was born in Paris in march 1826, from a poor family. His mother had ten children, and his father repaired shoes for a living. He was thinly built and his health, it seems, was frail. He was a very clever man, and, at the time he practiced, did not suffer any particular psychological disorder. He first became an apprentice, because his family could not afford to pay his studies. As he suffered fits of epilepsy, at the age of fourteen, his mother sent him to a mesmerist, who succeeded in restoring his health. But, during the process of the cure, he became a somnambulist, and he discovered his powers.

Then, around 1842, he met a well-known mesmerist, Jean Marcillet, a former officer of the Royal Guard. Marcillet understood that this youth had exceptional magnetic powers, and decided to work with him. The two men went on tour in the northeast of France, especially in Normandy, giving both public and private demonstrations. They also had a cabinet in Paris, where people could come for private consultations.

In 1843, at the age of sixteen, Alexis was already famous. People came from everywhere to consult him, sometimes from England, where his fame had spread into certain circles of the aristocracy. Indeed the British were even the first to discover him as a research subject.

For instance, the first report ever written on Alexis was by a British physician, Dr Edwin Lee, who had heard of him in London, and came to Paris to consult him. At first skeptical, he quickly was convinced that Alexis’ abilities were genuine. He wrote a report on his observations, which he sent on June 1843 to the President of the Parisian medical society.

This report was never published in France, but Lee published it in London.

In may 1844, while touring in the North of France, Alexis and Marcillet gave seances in Calais. Upon seeing the British coast across the channel, Marcillet had the sudden conviction that they must cross over and conquer England. He was not the first. Dupotet came first in 1837, and Lafontaine in 1840, but Marcillet and Alexis had something very different in mind for their neighbors. Actually, they were totally unprepared for such a trip, as neither spoke a single word of English; their only contact in London was Baillière, a French publisher established in London, and specialized in medical books. But through Baillière, who was well introduced in magnetic circles, they managed to convince Dr Elliotson[1], the leading figure of animal magnetism in England, to give them a chance. Elliotson organized a private séance with a very sophisticated audience. The first cession began with some difficulties, as Alexis was intimidated by this new audience, who spoke a language that he did not understand. Gradually, however, he gained confidence, and the meeting turned into a triumph. The people were completely stunned by what they had seen. Some newspapers, in the following days, including the Lancet, celebrated the young somnambulist.

Alexis and Marcillet stayed in London until the end of the summer, and where invited for private cessions by aristocrats; Lord Adare was one of them. They met skeptics too,convinced some of them, but needless to say, they could not convince Dr. Forbes, the leading skeptic figure, and Dr Elliotson[1]’s greatest enemy.

But, in fact, Alexis was never caught cheating – he was not even suspected on the basis of tangible facts. Forbes’ arguments relied upon what we call in French ‘une pétition de principe’, that is, the assumption that such phenomena are impossible, and must therefore be considered as mere tricks.

Meanwhile, back in France, Alexis’ fame kept growing.

In 1847 he gave demonstrations for the royal family. The same year, he was confronted with Robert-Houdin, the most celebrated conjuror of the time, and the spiritual father of all modern conjurors. In letters later published the conjuror admitted frankly that he could neither produce, nor explain the feats he observed. In one letter he wrote:

‘The more I reflect upon the facts I observed, the more I am convinced that they cannot by produced by my art’.

While thoroughly blindfolded, he would read texts or words enclosed in boxes, sealed envelopes, or simply people’s pockets. He would read sentences in an uncut book taken at random in a library. People would just give him the number of a page, and he could read a sentence of this page. He could ‘travel’ to a remote place, visit the consultant’s office, and read the title of a book left on purpose on the table. He could give a diagnosis of another person’s health problem. Based on an object having some link with a person, he could give the name of this person, or her address, or her dog’s name.

In 1851, reverend Chauncey Hare Townshend[2], a friend of Dickens, a well know painter and poet, who wrote two books on animal magnetism, met Alexis in Paris. This is one of the feats he reports:

‘Alexis now seemed rather fatigued. I made him a few passes over him to relieve him, and then proceeded to test his power of reading through obstacles. I brought out of the next room Lamartine’s Jocelyn, which I had bought that day, I opened it, and Alexis read some lines with closed eyes. (…) Then, suddenly, he said: “How many pages further down would you wish me to read?”. I said “eight”. I had heard of this faculty, but never witnessed it. He then traced with his fingers slowly along the page that was opened, and read: “a dévoré d’un trait toute ma sympathie”. I counted down eight pages from the page I had first opened, and found, exactly where his fingers had traced, the line he had read. It was correct, with the exception of a single word. He had read “déchiré” au lieu de “dévoré”. Human incredibility began to stir in me, and I really thought perhaps Alexis knew Jocelyn by heart’.

Alexis kept demonstrating his powers until 1855. But his health deteriorated and impaired him from continuing his demonstrations. He died in 1886, probably from a liver cancer.

[1] http://goalhypnosis.blogspot.com/2012/01/one-of-earliest-to-advocate-use-of.html

[2]Chauncy Hare Townshend, born Chauncy Hare Townsend (1798, Godalming, Surrey – 1868) was a 19th century English poet, clergyman, mesmerist, collector, dilettante and hypochondriac. He is mostly remembered for bequeathing his collections to the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) and the Wisbech & Fenland Museum in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire.

In the 1830s Townshend studied mesmerism, and was the chief British exponent of the art after Dr. John Elliotson[1]; he published two books and some articles and letters on the subject. Elliotson introduced Townshend to Charles Dickens, who also had an interest in mesmerism, and the two became lifelong friends. Townshend's volume of poetry The Three Gates (1859) was dedicated to Dickens, who in turn dedicated Great Expectations to Townshend; Dickens also gave Townshend the original manuscript of the novel, and his crystal ball.

Discipline versus Regret

It’s said discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons
Regret is an accumulated affect a year from now, two years from now. Forgive.

Whenever you see something that needs to be corrected start there.
Then do it on airlines and ships all the time. It’s called a course correction. We seldom apply the same principle in our own lives.

“Success is not something you run after, like a new job.
Success is something you attract by the person you become.”

Learn to be congruent with the language you use. Whether the language of the corporate, the sales or the marketplace worlds. Be consistent with your language around the house and in the community.

Begin by correcting your error in judgement and your own philosophy.
Do you need a goal?
Set a goal to become learn about the value of time and how to work with people. You’ll discover how to keep your ego in check and you learn to be kind as well as strong.
What you learn on the way is much more valuable than the end result. You learn to give and as you give you receive.
And you don’t have to sell out your principles and your values. And guess what? They may change as you change. But that’s okay.
Learn to stand behind your principle and values.

Come back from disappointment whether it’s health, marriage, family, business, social or personal. You HAVE TO come back.

Practice gratitude. Have courage. Be congruent. Be resilient. Discover joy. Never judge. Trust. Be honest. Have hope. Keep FAITH. And always forgive.

It’s never what you acquire but what you become.

Claims and Endorsements: Are they always true?

You’ve seen the ads on television, or in magazines or the newspaper where someone makes wild and wonderful claims and presents endorsements where you have no idea whether the have any basis in fact.

This is from “Facts in magnetism, mesmerism : somnambulism, fascination, hypnotism, sycodonamy, etherology, pathetism, etc., explained and illustrated” by W H Rodgers which was published in 1849.

Yes, John Moodie was the sheriff in Belleville, Ontario, Canada. But in her book of 1853 titled “Life in the Clearings versus the Bush” Susanna Moodie[1] paints and entirely different view.

“I remember, about three years ago, going with my husband to hear the lecturers of a person who called himself Professor R---. He had been lecturing for some nights running at the Mechanics' Institute for nothing; and had drawn together a great number of persons to hear him, and witness the strange things he effected by mesmerism on the persons of such of the audience, who wished to test his skill. This would have been but a poor way of getting his living. But these American adventurers never give their time and labour for nothing. He obtained two dollars for examining a head phrenologically, and drawing out a chart; and as his lectures seldom closed without securing him a great many heads for inspection, our disinterested professor contrived to pocket a great deal of money, and to find his cheap lectures an uncommonly profitable speculation.

We had heard a great deal of his curing a blacksmith of _tic-douloureux by mesmerizing him. The blacksmith, though a big, burly man, had turned out an admirable clairvoyant, and by touching particular bumps in his cranium, the professor could make him sing, dance, and fight all in a breath, or transport him to California, and set him to picking gold. I was very curious to witness this man's conduct under his alleged mesmeric state, and went accordingly. After a long lecture, during which the professor put into a deep sleep a Kentuckian giant, who travelled with him, the blacksmith was called upon to satisfy the curiosity of the spectators. I happened to sit near this individual, and as he rose to comply with the vociferous demands of the audience, I shall never forget the sidelong knowing glance he cast across the bench to a friend of his own; it was, without exception, the most intelligent telegraphic despatch that it was possible for one human eye to convey to another, and said more plainly than words could--"You shall see how I can humbug them all." That look opened my eyes completely to the farce that was acting before me, and entering into the spirit of the scene, I must own that I enjoyed it amazingly. The blacksmith was mesmerised by a _look_ alone, and for half an hour went on in a most funny manner, keeping the spectators with their eyes open, and in convulsions of laughter. After a while, the professor left him to enjoy his mesmeric nap, and chose another subject, in the person of a man who had lectured a few nights before on the science of mnemonics, and had been disappointed in a very scanty attendance.

After a decent time had elapsed, the new subject yielded very easily to the professor's magic passes, and fell into a profound sleep. The mesmerizer then led him, with his eyes shut, to the front of the stage, and pointed out to the spectators the phrenological development of his head; he then touched the bump of language, and set the seeming automaton talking. But here the professor was caught in his own trap. After once setting him going, he of the mnemonics refused to hold his tongue until he had given, to his weary listeners, the whole lecture he had delivered a few nights before. He pranced to and fro on the platform, declaiming in the most pedantic voice, and kept us for one blessed hour before he would suffer the professor to deprive him of the unexpected opportunity thus afforded him of being heard. It was a drol scene: the sly blacksmith in a profound fox's sleep--the declaimer pretending to be asleep, and wide awake all the time--and the thin, long-faced American, too wise to betray his colleagues, but evidently annoyed beyond measure at the trick they had played him.”

Tic douloureux or trigeminal neuralgia is a severe, stabbing pain to one side of the face. It stems from one or more branches of the nerve that supplies sensation to the face, the trigeminal nerve. It is considered one of the most painful conditions to affect people.

[1] Susanna Moodie was one of the three Strickland sisters. All authors.
See:
http://pvrguymale.blogspot.com/2012/02/susanna-moodie.html
http://pvrguymale.blogspot.com/2012/02/agnes-strickland.html
http://pvrguymale.blogspot.com/2012/02/catharine-parr-traill.html

God Bless the Internet.

A GIF for You!

Thanks for Reading!

METAPSYCHICS IN THE FUTURE

We are still on the threshold of discovery. We know nothing as yet. We have but gathered a few pebbles at the water's edge of the great tarn of the future; vast reaches of fact and fantasy remain to be sifted in the interest of humanity. And man is certainly as much at liberty to question nature in ethereal spheres as to search for her secrets in the laboratory or to read her laws in the heavens. The end is not yet. I firmly believe that as an agent of physical cure, hypno-suggestion will shortly come to be universally employed by trained nurses for the purpose of carrying their patients through the crises of disease.

Intelligent physicians will anticipate by such treatment an inherited tendency to malignant growths, fortifying through the channels of suggestion the system of the subject against any chemical, mechanical, or emotional cause for the development of cancer. Carcinoma, for instance, being rare under thirty, the physician of the future will keep up the vitality of the threatened tissues, in cases where the heritage is suspected, by powerful suggestions to the sub-personal mind; this treatment may be begun at the age of twenty-five.

A prominent New York surgeon contends that the germ theory, which is universally accepted in explanation of departures from health, will give place to the Psychic Theory which conditions it and makes it possible. Disease, and he does not except cancer, is due to lapse of psychophysical control. The moral as regards treatment is luminous. The intelligent practitioner knows that there is a mental element in every lapse from the normal.

. . .

Suggestion will further be used to regulate fecundity, and so control the population of the earth; to aid the induction of anesthesia in operations (many surgeons are already so using audible suggestions of encouragement to advantage); and as a substitute in the twilight sleep for scopolamine.

Such promises to be the development of the twentieth century, while hypno-science seems further destined to demonstrate immortality on philosophical principles ; to discover the laws that govern telepathic intercourse, clairvoyance and clairaudience; to determine the possibility or impossibility of human communication with discarnate souls (a question left open for our investigation by the New Testament writers); to put a premium on dying, which men now fear, and to give us a sweet and happy and painless passage out of this consciousness, at the summons of the Death Angel.

BODY AND SPIRIT
AN INQUIRY INTO THE SUBCONSCIOUS
BASED UPON TWELVE THOUSAND EXPERIENCES IN THE author's PRACTICE
BY
JOHN D. QUACKENBOS, A.M.,M.D.
1916.

The facts presented in the following pages are based on twelve thousand intimate experiences with the subconscious mind in extra-planetary life. Psycho-physicians should record and make public such experiences, inasmuch as there are so many failures, and so much misunderstanding and misrepresentation exist regarding psycho- therapeutics. Hypnotherapy is trivialized by many medical men, who know nothing of its philosophy and possibilities, and who have never witnessed its uplifting' effects nor its establishment of physical, mental, and moral control. These are they who, in that prevailing spirit of opposition to any radical departure in the treatment of disease, oppugn this most important advance in the healing art, relegating its practice to illiterate mountebanks, religious fanatics, "new-thoughters," and mystics. And what is equally deplorable, the country is flooded with books on suggestion and its psychology by authors who have never practised it themselves nor ever seen it practised, but who derive their theories entirely from a heavy-footed imagination. The erroneous impressions disseminated in this way are a direct menace to a proper under-standing of medical psychology and a consequent deterrent to unhappy sufferers whose only hope lies in its dynamogenic power. Persons without experience of the subconscious mind cannot intelligently discuss its nature and forces.

The strongest of all arguments for the efficacy of suggestion is the argument from experimental knowledge, that subjective conviction which springs from a personal communion with intelligences gifted with supernormal energy and force, that actual sense of their subliminal life and responsiveness to appeal which stands upon the same firm foundation as the certainty of one's own existence. There is no illusion, no imagination, no obsession about such certainty. The facts of practical psychics can no longer be misrepresented nor passed over in contemptuous silence.
. . .
The book is given to the world in the hope that it may prove a source of inspiration to those who wish their fellows well or are themselves searching for spiritual freedom.

J. D. Q.

New York, April, 1910.

Frequently asked questions #8

Q. Is hypnosis mind control?
A. No hypnosis is always used for therapeutic purposes only and is definitely not mind control, more so therapeutic hypnosis is about enabling a person easier access into their own rich internal resources within their sub-conscious mind. People usually don't experience a natural sleep during hypnosis, many do however experience a shift from their left brain (the logical, analytical, and reasoning half) into their right brain (less questioning, more accepting side). Once consciousness is predominant in the right brain, then reality testing becomes much less predominant and the mind is more inclined to accept what it is told.
Audio Recording by pvrguy

Nurses Should be Hypnotists.

Professor John D. Quackenbos, the New York physician who has made some special investigations in hypnotism – and likewise some startling statements concerning it – now suggest that trained nurses should study to become adepts in the science so as to exert as powerful an influence as possible on their patients. The Schulenburg Sticker (Schulenburg, Tex.), Vol. 8, No. 33, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 20, 1902
One can hardly overestimate the significance of suggestion in the hands of the trained nurse — the disciplined woman, acquainted with the natural history of diseases, qualified by education to care scientifically for the sick, and singularly blessed with opportunities that are at once life-serving and life-saving through the evocation of a psycho-physical control adequate to the arrest of exaggerated destructive metamorphosis, the re-establishment of the processes of repair, and thus the carriage of the patient through the crises of disease.

. . .

In her psychic treatment, the trained nurse is never to lose sight of the nervous control automatically operated by the superior spiritual self, which is the power behind the throne of the physical. In less serious cases, she will have abundant opportunity to test the truth of Churchill's philosophy:

"The surest road to health, say what they will,
Is never to suppose we shall be ill.
Most of those evils we poor mortals know,
From doctors and imagination grow.''

That is, no doctors, no imagining that we have any of the diseases they are qualified to treat. But the trained nurse is to be the doctor's coadjutor. She is never to interfere with the physician's treatment, but, assuming it to be correct, render it effective by assurances given through suggestion. This is intelligent supplementary treatment. She is to remember that suggestion implies enlightened anticipation of grave changes. It may not be safe to await the arrival of the physician. She is supposed to know what to do until the doctor comes. She will not take the chance of waiting; too much of life is spent in waiting. For her, now is the appointed time, and the appointed way of escape is in many cases through the channel of suggestion only.

HYPNOTIC THERAPEUTICS
IN
THEORY AND PRACTICE
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS OF TREATMENT BY SUGGESTION

BY John Duncan Quackenbos, A.M., M.D.

1908

The "Proust Phenomenon"

Most everyone has had the occasion of breathing in an odor and suddenly finding themselves lost in the reverie of a memory from long ago; the smell of fresh baked bread perhaps bringing back mornings at Grandma’s house or a certain perfume that always brings back a certain time in high school. Such odor/memory links are known as the "Proust Phenomenon" in honor of Marcel Proust, the French writer who romanticized the memories evoked by the smell of a madeleine biscuit after soaking in tea, in his novel, À la recherche du temps perdu.

In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past (French: À la recherche du temps perdu) is a novel in seven volumes by Marcel Proust. His most prominent work, it is popularly known for its considerable length and the notion of involuntary memory, the most famous example being the "episode of the madeleine."
The role of memory is central to the novel, introduced with the famous madeleine episode in the first section of the novel and in the last volume, Time Regained, a flashback similar to that caused by the madeleine is the beginning of the resolution of the story. Throughout the work many similar instances of involuntary memory, triggered by sensory experiences such as sights, sounds and smells conjure important memories for the narrator and sometimes return attention to an earlier episode of the novel. Although Proust wrote contemporaneously with Sigmund Freud, with there being many points of similarity between their thought on the structures and mechanisms of the human mind, neither author read the other.
The madeleine episode reads:

No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. ... Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it? ... And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea.

Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (1871 –1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time; earlier translated as Remembrance of Things Past). It was published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927.
Proust's father, Achille Adrien Proust, was a prominent pathologist and epidemiologist, responsible for studying and attempting to remedy the causes and movements of cholera through Europe and Asia; he was the author of many articles and books on medicine and hygiene. Proust's mother, Jeanne Clémence Weil, was the daughter of a rich and cultured Jewish family from Alsace. She was literate and well-read; her letters demonstrate a well-developed sense of humour, and her command of English was sufficient for her to provide the necessary assistance to her son's later attempts to translate John Ruskin.
Proust had a close relationship with his mother. To appease his father, who insisted that he pursue a career, Proust obtained a volunteer position at the Bibliothèque Mazarine in the summer of 1896. After exerting considerable effort, he obtained a sick leave that extended for several years until he was considered to have resigned. He never worked at his job, and he did not move from his parents' apartment until after both were dead.
Proust, who was a closeted homosexual, was one of the first European novelists to mention homosexuality openly and at length in the parts of À la recherche du temps perdu which deal with the Baron de Charlus.
His life and family circle changed considerably between 1900 and 1905. In February 1903, Proust's brother Robert married and left the family home. His father died in November of the same year. Finally, and most crushingly, Proust's beloved mother died in September 1905. She left him a considerable inheritance. His health throughout this period continued to deteriorate.
Proust spent the last three years of his life mostly confined to his cork-lined bedroom, sleeping during the day and working at night to complete his novel. He died of pneumonia and a pulmonary abscess in 1922.

Hypnosis has helped many people from all faucets of life.

This is only a partial list.

Sales Motivators, Commercial Airline Pilots, Psychologists, Medical Professionals, Business People, Home makers and Children. People from all walks of life, facing challenges such as stress disorders, nicotine and drug dependency, gambling, addiction, pain management, depression, panic disorder, insomnia, motivation, chronic fatigue syndrome, and many other various behavioral challenges.