---
title: "Jules Liégeois"
chunk: 2/7
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Liégeois"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:27:26.427074+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

At the time of their (1784) inquiries, the two Royal Commissions on Animal Magnetism — one was from the Paris Faculty of Medicine) and the French Royal Academy of Sciences (i.e., Bailly, 1784a; 1800; 1784b), and the other from the Royal Society of Medicine of Paris (i.e., Poissonnier, et al., 1784) — independently and emphatically concluded from their controlled trials and "blind" experiments that the (metaphysical) claims made by Mesmer's former associate, Charles d’Eslon, for the substantial existence of "animal magnetism" (le magnétisme animal) and of a substantial (rather than metaphorical) "magnetic fluid" (le fluide magnétique) were nothing more than a case (as Mesmer himself had argued) of the inappropriate reification of metaphor (i.e, Alfred Whitehead's "fallacy of misplaced concreteness"), and were, therefore, entirely without foundation.

==== Dominant ideas ====
Anticipating the (c.1820) work of Thomas Brown, the Chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh University, James Braid's teacher, in relation to the suggestive influence of "dominant ideas", and the work of Braid himself, in relation to the "mono-ideo-dynamic principle of action" concept (Braid, 1855) that he had developed from the work of his associates William Benjamin Carpenter, and Daniel Noble, both of the (1784) investigatory committees concluded that — having excluded any potential influence from either contact, or imitation — all of the observed phenomena could be attributed to the psycho-physiological agency of imagination.

==== Suggestion ====
It is significant that, a century later, and despite their significant differences in relation to "hypnotism", "hypnosis" etc. (see below), both Charcot (Salpêtrière School) and Bernheim (Nancy School) were united in their overall interest in "suggestion".

==== "Miracles" ====
Both Schools were entirely convinced that the so-called "miracles" — i.e., "counter-intuitive events" attributed to "counterintuitive agents" (Pyysiäinen, 2002) — reported to have taken place at Lourdes were entirely attributable to each individual pilgrim's "imagination" (see Charcot, 1892; and Bernheim, 1889, pp. 196-202); and, as well, as Charcot noted (1893, p.31), "the faith-cure demands special subjects and special complaints — those, namely, which are amenable to the influence of the mind over the body". In a similar vein, Beaunis, of the Nancy School, replicated the earlier work of Prof. Henri Bourru (1840-1914) and M. Prosper Ferdinand Burot (1849-1921) of the School of Naval Medicine, at Rochefort, in producing "stigmata" per medium of "suggestion" (Liégeois 1889a, pp. 294-299).

=== "Hysteria School of Hypnosis" at the Salpêtrière, Paris (fl.1878–1893) ===

 
"At the very outset my studies dealt with hysterical women, and ever since I have always employed hysterical subjects. ... [and] I have chosen rather to deal almost always with the female sex, because females are more sensitive and more manageable than males in the hypnotic state." — Jean-Martin Charcot (January 1890).
"[Unlike Liébeault and Bernheim] Charcot never personally hypnotized any subject. The younger physicians worked with the subjects, and Charcot used them as demonstration subjects after they had learned what was expected of them and had seen other subjects perform. They were unwittingly trained by the physicians and by each other." — Frank Pattie (1967).
"One point that to me appears to be established by incontestable observations, is that the persons, whether men or women, who are susceptible of hypnotization, are nervous creatures, capable of becoming hysterical, if not actually hysterical at the beginning of the experiments. ... The training of the subjects is no easy thing and takes time; and besides, fit subjects are by no means so plentiful as some authors would have us believe." — Jean-Martin Charcot (April 1890).
The "Hysteria School", or "Salpêtrière School", was centred on the theories and practices of Jean-Martin Charcot, a neurologist at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris. The procedures were used upon a very small, limited number of the female "hysteria" inpatients of the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital — i.e., as "hysteria" was understood at the time.
Members of the school held — given that its experimental subjects were all "hysteria" patients, perhaps mistaking correlation for causation — that "hypnosis" was an artificially produced pathological state similar to hysteria. From this, they also argued that, given the pathological nature of the hypnotic state, only medical/neurological professionals had the expertise required to avoid the potential dangers of its application: viz., that of "violently unleashing pathological states in persons of labile disposition" (Mayer, 2013, p. 104). The means of induction employed by Charcot's assistants included those derived from Braid's upwards and inwards squint, as well as wide range of auditory and tactile stimuli:

"[In relation to the means of hypnotization] Charcot's school at La Salpetiere has modified the Braid method, by placing pieces of glass close to the bridge of the nose, by which procedure the convergency of the eyes is increased and sleep comes more rapidly. A blow on a gong or a pressure on some "hypnogenic or hysterogenic" zone — such as an ovary, the top of the head, etc. (see: The "zones" of Albert Pitres) — or the app[r]oaching of a magnet will act on hysterical women." — Fredrik Johan Björnström (1887).

=== "Suggestion School of Hypnosis" at Nancy (fl.1864—1907) ===

Inspired by the theories and practices of the Nancy physician and medical hypnotist, Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault (1823–1904), who had already been independently working with hypnotism and "suggestion" for twenty-five years — delivering his hypnotic treatments to all and sundry free of charge — and united by their opposition to the "hysteria", views of Charcot and his followers at the Salpêtrière, those in the "Suggestion School" collectively held that (i) "hypnosis" was a state similar to sleep, (ii) it was not a diagnostic feature of "hysteria", (iii) it was produced by suggestion, (iv) that the capacity to be "hypnotized" was a normal, natural (and non-pathogenic) ability shared by all, and (v) that the well-attested efficacy of "suggestion", on its own, was significantly enhanced by "hypnotism".