THE SCIENCE OF THE VIBRATING CORONET
‘Hypnotism – A Science’ – Kathleen Schlesinger and Charles Geniaux
This is not so much a pamphlet as an article retrieved from Volume 10 of Pearson’s Magazine from 1900. A helpful eBay seller physically extracts articles that might be of interest from old magazines and sells them individually to anyone who cares. Of course, with a title like ‘Hypnotism – A Science’ we had to buy it so that we could marvel at what passed for intellectual content 122 years ago.
Sandwiched between ‘Tales Of A Steam Hotel’ (note, “Steam”, not “Steamy”) and ‘From China To Peru’, this piece was actually quite an interesting read. Pitched as only 60 years after Braid’s discovery that Mesmerism wasn’t all bunkum, the authors recount their visit to Dr Bérillon’s Psycho-physiological Institute, not far from Notre-Dame.
(It’s now a Japanese restaurant called Matsudo, so probably not worth a particular pilgrimage unless you happen to already be in Paris, hypno-fans.)
Full of fantastic photographs, the article tells the story of hypnotherapy conducted by Dr Bérillon, from neurasthenia (“an ill-defined medical condition characterized by lassitude, fatigue, headache, and irritability, associated chiefly with emotional disturbance”, according to Google), “misery”, an alcoholic (“a confirmed absinthe drinker”), and a kleptomaniac 15-year-old boy.
The induction of hypnosis itself – for this is well and truly in the realm where somnambulism was considered the gateway to treatment – ranged from the simple command of “Sleep!” to hypnosis machines and, most impressive of all, the vibrating coronet.
The machines were simple clockwork devices that featured a rotating piece that the patient would focus on; not quite the bio-feedback contraption in The Exorcist II, but they still look cool. The vibrating coronet, however, was an absolute beast.
The authors explain that people suffering from neurasthenia were the hardest to hypnotise, and this is where the vibrating coronet would come in. I couldn’t find one on Google so only have the description and picture from the article to go on. Apparently it involved thin bands of metal that went around the head, to steady it I guess, and a branch that “rests on one eyelid”. No more details are provided so I have no real idea how it vibrates, but I guess its construction amplifies any head movement into the branch that touches the eyelid. It sounds horrendous but apparently was an effective method of hypnotising!
(When I get around to making hypnosis machines, I will definitely build a vibrating coronet, if only to wear at the UK Hypnosis Convention.)
There isn’t a great deal of science in the article, but then it did precede Clark Hull’s seminal work by 30+ years. Instead it’s just lots of descriptions and claims that the patient's willpower “was deposed, and the vacancy was momentarily filled by the doctor’s will”.
So: very Braid and post-Mesmer, really, at a time when hypnotism was still a bit of a dark art. (Unlike today, when hypnotism is clearly well-understood by practitioners *cough*.)
The most striking revelation was simply the pace at which people were being seen: “4000 free patients are treated annually at the Clinic; besides these, there is a large number of paying patients from the elegant world.” Indeed, the authors report an average of 30 patients per day – that means Dr Bérillon would have treated more than 30,000 clients in less than three years! A feat that any experienced hypnotherapist could be proud of.
On top of the sheer volume, there was also the claim that 60% were cured, a further 20% benefitted, and only 20% were deemed “incurable”.
Clearly the way hypnotherapists count successes hasn’t changed since Dr Bérillon’s day – how many of those ‘successes’ simply didn’t return to complain when their ailment quickly reappeared?
Regardless, what a great tour through a hypnosis clinic in 1900.
