In magnetic somnambulism the entranced subject acquires a lucid faculty to perceive and diagnose disease, in themselves and in others, and to prescribe its remedy and predict its course.
The clairvoyant-diagnosis claim is the high claim of magnetic somnambulism and the one that drew the most belief and the most testing. It did not survive controlled examination. When the Académie Royale de Médecine investigated magnetic somnambulists in 1826-1831, the Husson report granted that magnetizing could induce sleep and altered sensibility but did not confirm any faculty of diagnosis beyond the ordinary senses. The Burdin prize of 1837, which offered money for a somnambulist who could read with the eyes rigorously covered, was never awarded. Under controls, the lucid diagnostic faculty disappeared.
Appears in
Sources
- Recherches, expériences et observations physiologiques sur l'homme dans l'état de somnambulisme naturel, et dans le somnambulisme provoqué par l'acte magnétique — Chastenet de Puységur, Armand-Marie-Jacques de. *Recherches, expériences et observations physiologiques sur l'homme dans l'état de somnambulisme naturel, et dans le somnambulisme provoqué par l'acte magnétique*. Paris: J.G. Dentu, 1811. Wellcome Collection.
- Later French Commissions — Podmore, Frank. 'Later French Commissions.' In *Mesmerism and Christian Science: A Short History of Mental Healing*, 103-121. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011 (Cambridge Library Collection; first published 1909). ISBN 9780511973215. DOI: 10.1017/cbo9780511973215.007.