and now the screaming starts

  • Subscribe to our RSS feed.
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Facebook
  • Digg

Tuesday, 21 July 2009

Mad science: You are getting sleepy . . . and homicidal.

Posted on 07:44 by riya


The latest issue of European Neurology contains an article on Georges Gilles de la Tourette (after whom Tourette's syndrome is named, he's the gent shown above) and his role in the public hysteria about criminal hypnosis that engulfed French pop culture at the end of the Nineteenth Century.

Here's the abstract:

Hysteria and hypnotism became a favorite topic of studies in the fin de siècle neurology that emerged from the school organized at La Salpêtrière by Jean-Martin Charcot, where he had arrived in 1861. Georges Gilles de la Tourette started working with Charcot in 1884 and probably remained his most faithful student, even after his mentor's death in 1893. This collaboration was particularly intense on 'criminal hypnotism', an issue on which Hippolyte Bernheim and his colleagues from the Nancy School challenged the positions taken by the Salpêtrière School. Bernheim claimed that hypnotism was not a diagnostic feature of hysteria and that there were real-life examples of murders suggested under hypnosis, while hypnosis susceptibility was identified with hysteria by Charcot and Gilles de la Tourette, who saw rape as the only crime associated with hypnotism. The quarrel was particularly virulent during a series of famous criminal cases which took place between 1888 and 1890. At the time, it was considered that La Salpêtrière had succeeded over Nancy, since the role of hypnotism was discarded during these famous trials. However, the theories of Charcot and Gilles de la Tourette were also damaged by the fight, which probably triggered the conceptual evolution leading to Joseph Babinski's revision of hysteria in 1901. Gilles de la Tourette's strong and public interest in hypnotism nearly cost him his life, when a young woman who claimed to have been hypnotized against her will shot him in the head at his own home in 1893. It was subsequently shown that hypnotism had nothing to do with it. The delusional woman was interned at Sainte-Anne for mental disturbance, thus escaping trial. Ironically, Gilles de la Tourette may have been partly responsible, since he had been one of the strongest proponents of placing mentally-ill criminals in asylums instead of prisons.

Though we now know that hypnosis is an induced state and that a hypnotic subject cannot be compelled to commit acts against their will, neither fact was widely understood by psychologists in the late 1800s.

Much of this had to do with the fact that hypnosis - then also traveling under the names mesmerism, animal magnetism, and forced somnambulism – came to the attention of the medical community not through study and field observation, but through various pop culture channels, such as stage magic acts and sensationalist newspaper accounts. Often these accounts muddied the issue by conflating hypnotic states with other ailments, such as epilepsy or "hysteria" (the Nineteenth Century's catch all mental ailment). By the time hypnosis became a subject for serious study, these dubious links were so firmly established in the marketplace of ideas that few doctors bothered to question the assumption. Consequently, even medical professionals held to the view the hypnotic states were symptoms of some other illness. More over, hypnosis was not something done to a subject, but rather a psychological flaw within a subject that could be triggered – accidentally or intentionally – by external stimulus.

Because it was as much a pop phenomenon as a subject of medical research, the public's wild imaginings turned quite lurid. Stories about criminals using hypnosis to carry out their foul deeds filled stages, dime novels, and news columns. One of the most common accusations was that men were exploiting hypnotized women, taking advantage of their hypnotic state to rape them. Most infamously, in 1888, Henri Chambige was accused of hypnotizing, raping, and then murdering Madeleine Grille.



Other, more elaborate crimes were suggested as well. The public became fixated on the idea of crimes being committed by an innocent hypnotized proxy. In 1890, this cultural boogeyman came to be embodied in the persons of Gabrielle Bompard and Michel Eyraud (shown above). Bompard and Eyraud were lovers who killed a local bailiff (a sort of semi-private collections official) with an elaborate hanging mechanism of Eyraud design. While Gabrielle seduced the gentleman in her apartment, Eyraud lowered the device around his neck and hanged him. Immediately after the murder, relations between the two murders started to disintegrate. And I do mean immediately: While the body of their victim was still dangling in the air of their apartment, the lovers supposed quarreled, Michel punched Gabrielle, and then they had sex on the floor. After dumping the body of their victim in a trunk and tossing the trunk in a nearby river, the murderous couple fled to the United States. However, the collapse of their relationship but an unbearable strain on them and Gabrielle returned to Paris and turned herself in. Michel was captured a short time later. Gabrielle's lawyer, either genuinely convinced of the possibility or simply taking the tenor of the times and going with it, claimed that his client was the hypnotized dupe of Eyraud.

The case became a public spectacle and became the focus of an intense medical debate over the limitations of hypnotic influence. On one side was Tourette and company, who claimed that hypnotized victims could not be compelled to commit murder. Against them was Hippolyte Bernheim, who claimed to have conducted experiments that proved a hypnotized subject could be talked into killing someone. The experiments involved hypnotizing patients and then convincing them to attack a third party with a weapon the doctors knew to be fake, but the patients believed was real. The details of these experiments – the rate of attacks, who was hypnotized, etc. – are no longer known, but the results were such that Bernheim was convinced.

Bompard's defense did not get her off the hook, but it may have saved her life. She was ultimately sentenced to 20 years. Michel Eyraud was guillotined.

Tourette's involvement with criminal hypnosis hysteria has a weird epilogue. After the Eyraud-Bompard case, Tourette was shot and slightly wounded by one of his own patients. The assailant was a Rose Kamper-Lecoq, who claimed she attacked the doctor under the mesmeric influence of an unknown party.
Email ThisBlogThis!Share to XShare to Facebook
Posted in hypnosis, mad science, true crime | No comments
Newer Post Older Post Home

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Popular Posts

  • Art: It's a gasser!
    Not so long ago, the fine gentleman behind When Is Evil Cool? posted an image of a small crowd of English bobbies in gas masks. I commented...
  • Meta: Awards season.
    Seems like everybody is giving everybody awards these days. And, as living proof that surplus drives down value, even I've received one!...
  • Movies: Fangbanging in the BK.
    Brooklyn's own BAMcinématek has come up with a pretty good alternative to roasting outdoors and sweating your way through the dregs of t...
  • Movies: There's two sides to every global nuclear holocaust.
    This week marks the anniversary of the first record death by robot. On January 25, 1979, Flat Rock, Michigan, autoworker Robert Williams was...
  • Meta: Watch us pull an upset!
    Screamer, Screamettes, and the curious passersby, lend me your ears! Long time readers have probably figured out that I'm not a big ...
  • (no title)
    Neo-folkie Madeline - who was not, I think, named after one of the cats I grew up with, but I like to pretend that she was - has a video tha...
  • Stuff: The Jess List
    In my review of I Sell the Dead , I mentioned that my wife generally hates horror films. When she doesn't find them boring, she finds th...
  • Movies: I want to play a game, Part 3 - Don't everybody all volunteer at once.
    In this last post on what game theory can teach us about the Saw franchise, we're going to cover traps that involve three or more playe...
  • Movies: The second worst thing Bin Laden has ever done to us?
    What hath Kickstarter wrought? It's possible that you were tiring of the zombie craze. Perhaps you've got no more energy for a fast ...
  • Link Proliferation: "To join a cuib, an initiate had to suck the blood from self-imposed slashes in the arm of every other member of the nest."
    I totally flaked on this last Friday, but I meant to hip you to a great post by Zoe, the amazing blogger of the high strangeness that is Zo...

Categories

  • 10 Rillington Place
  • 16 horsepower
  • 2001 Maniacs
  • 2012
  • 2UN
  • a dark matter
  • a reliable wife
  • A-bones
  • abby
  • abrams
  • abu tubar
  • ackerman
  • ackroyd
  • aesop rock
  • africa
  • after dark films
  • Aja
  • aliens
  • all american werewolves
  • Alligator
  • alvin sputnik under sea explorer
  • american psycho
  • american werewolf in london
  • amish
  • anatomy of fear
  • anderson
  • animation
  • antosca
  • apocalypse
  • area 51
  • Argento
  • art
  • arthur
  • as in free you cheap bastards
  • Attenborough
  • Attery Squash
  • Audition
  • audrey's door
  • austen
  • Avatar
  • award
  • Aykroyd
  • babysitter wanted
  • Bacall
  • bacon
  • bad dog
  • baget
  • Balaguero
  • ball peen hammer
  • bara
  • Barker
  • barnes
  • bateman
  • bathory
  • bats
  • Battle Royale
  • Battle Royale 2
  • bauhaus
  • Bava
  • bear in heaven
  • Beatles
  • bed bugs
  • bedbugs
  • bergen street comics
  • Big Alligator River
  • bigfoot
  • bilal
  • biology
  • bitch slap
  • black death
  • black heart procession
  • black history month
  • black moth super rainbow
  • black swan
  • Blackhawk
  • blacula
  • Blitzen Trapper
  • blood creek
  • blood monkey
  • bonnie and clyde versus dracula
  • books
  • Bowie
  • boy detective
  • bradbury
  • breathers
  • Brooklyn
  • Brooklyn Industries
  • brooks
  • Browning
  • Burroughs
  • Burton
  • cabin fever 2 spring fever
  • cabinet of dr. caligari
  • cabrini-green
  • cadence weapon
  • cameron
  • Canada
  • candyman
  • Cannibal Holocaust
  • cannibals
  • captain chaos
  • captivity
  • Carpenter
  • Carroll
  • carter
  • casebook of victor frankenstein
  • castle
  • Castle in Transyvania
  • Castle of the Devil
  • cave
  • Chaney
  • children of the corn
  • chilton
  • chinsang
  • CIA
  • civil war
  • clair
  • clark
  • class of 1984
  • class of 1999
  • clothes
  • Cloverfield
  • cody
  • Cohen
  • combat garters
  • comics
  • Coney Island
  • contest
  • cooper
  • Corman
  • cornered
  • cornish
  • Count Chocula
  • courtesans
  • crap
  • Craven
  • crawford
  • crazy ray
  • creature feature
  • Creature from the Black Lagoon
  • creepy old people
  • crocodile
  • crosley
  • crothers
  • crowley
  • cryptids
  • Cthulhu
  • Cunningham
  • curtis
  • cuthbert
  • D and D
  • d-war
  • Dante
  • danzig
  • Darabont
  • darbont
  • Dark Horse
  • darnielle
  • david
  • dawn of the dead
  • de Védrines
  • Dead Alive
  • deadgirl
  • death ship
  • debbie gibson
  • deed
  • del Toro
  • deluise
  • demon
  • Department of Crazy Crap You Didn't Even Know You Had to Fear
  • depp
  • descent
  • descent 2
  • devil
  • Devo
  • dexter
  • dexter by design
  • dexter is delicious
  • diablo swing orchestra
  • Diary of the Dead
  • dinosaurs
  • documentary
  • doghouse
  • dolphin people
  • dougherty
  • douglas
  • dowdle
  • Dracula
  • Dracula 3000
  • dracula pages from a virgins diary
  • drag me to hell
  • dragons
  • drive-by truckers
  • dungeons and dragons
  • Ebert
  • economics
  • eel
  • el-hai
  • el-p
  • elliott
  • ellis
  • Elvira
  • emerson
  • endo is the bomb
  • evenson
  • evil children
  • evil corporations
  • evil mind museum
  • Exorcist
  • famous monsters of filmland
  • fanaka
  • fashion
  • fear response
  • feminine hygiene
  • ferguson
  • fessenden
  • fever ray
  • fillbach brothers
  • Fleischer
  • flimes
  • food
  • fox
  • francis
  • Franco
  • Frankenberry
  • Frankenstein
  • freaks
  • free stuff
  • Freud
  • freund
  • Friday the 13th
  • fright night
  • from here to eternity
  • Frontier(s)
  • fugue state
  • Fukasaku
  • funerals
  • furlong
  • future of the left
  • Gaiman
  • ganja and hess
  • gas masks
  • gay for johnny depp
  • gay marriage
  • gein
  • genie
  • george washington
  • Ghastly Ones
  • ghost
  • Ghostbusters
  • Ghoul a-Go-Go
  • GI Joe
  • giant monster
  • giant robots
  • gibson
  • Gierasch
  • girly
  • gladfelter
  • glass
  • glover
  • Godzilla
  • Godzilla Raids Again
  • goolrick
  • gorsuch
  • goth
  • gothic
  • grace
  • Grahame-Smith
  • grant
  • Greutert
  • grier
  • grover
  • guest blogger
  • guitar wolf
  • gunn
  • guru
  • guttenberg
  • ha ha tonka
  • Hall
  • halloween
  • hallucinations
  • handsome furs
  • Harel
  • Haring
  • harmon
  • harold and the purple crayon
  • harpes
  • harpoon
  • harrington
  • harryhausen
  • hauer
  • haunt of fear
  • haunted house ride
  • haunted spooks
  • haunted vagina
  • hayward
  • Hellraiser
  • Henseigh
  • hickenlooper
  • high plains invaders
  • high tension
  • Hill
  • Hills Have Eyes 2
  • history
  • hitcher
  • hoax
  • hodag
  • Homecoming
  • Hooper
  • Horn
  • horns
  • Hostel
  • Hostel 2
  • houdini
  • hough
  • house of silent scream
  • house of the devil
  • howard
  • howell
  • hunchback of notre dame
  • Hurt
  • hypnosis
  • I Am Legend
  • I Love Horror
  • i sell the dead
  • i walked with a zombie
  • imp of the perverse
  • improv everywhere
  • Inglourious Basterds
  • insects
  • inside
  • iraq
  • J-horror
  • jack the ripper
  • Jackson
  • Jacobson
  • Jaws
  • jennifers body
  • jigsaw
  • jim carroll
  • joffe
  • johnson
  • Jonah Hex
  • Jones
  • joy division
  • Jung
  • kafka
  • keach
  • kemp
  • kidman
  • Killenger
  • kim
  • King
  • King Kong
  • Kitamura
  • kraken
  • krol
  • kubba
  • kubrick
  • kusama
  • laid to rest
  • lake mungo
  • lampshade
  • land
  • landis
  • Lang
  • Langan
  • Lansdale
  • Last House on the Left
  • Last Winter
  • laugier
  • laymon
  • League of Tana Tea Drinkers
  • lecter
  • led zepplin
  • lee
  • legend of hell house
  • lennon
  • lester
  • let the right one in
  • Lewis
  • lindsay
  • link
  • link proliferation
  • liquid television
  • lliadis
  • lloyd
  • local natives
  • loch ness
  • London
  • London After Midnight
  • Lovecraft
  • lucha
  • mabuse the gambler
  • mad science
  • mad science; hunger; hentges; cannibals
  • maddin
  • magazine
  • magic
  • manasseri
  • manson
  • marebito
  • Mareva
  • Martino
  • martyrs
  • Marvel
  • masque of the red death
  • Mastandrea
  • Masters of Horror
  • mata hari
  • math
  • Matheson
  • maze
  • mcdowell
  • McEwen
  • mcgee
  • mclaren
  • mcquiad
  • medak
  • medean events
  • mega shark versus giant octopus
  • melville
  • mermaid heather
  • meta
  • meteor
  • metropolis
  • Meyer
  • Meyers
  • michael jackson
  • midnight meat train
  • midnight picnic
  • Miéville
  • miike
  • Miss Bugs
  • miss derringer
  • mixel pixel
  • monae
  • money
  • mongolian death worm
  • monkeys
  • monster mash
  • monster squad
  • monte
  • Moore
  • moreland
  • morrison
  • Morrow
  • movie
  • movie news
  • movie posters
  • movies
  • Mulholland
  • Mum and Dad
  • Mummies
  • mummy
  • murakami
  • murderabilia
  • Murnau
  • murphy
  • museum of death
  • music
  • My Barbarian
  • My Bloody Valentine
  • myrick
  • mystery team
  • nanotech
  • Nazi
  • Neanderthal
  • Neanderthals
  • neville
  • news
  • nick cave and the bad seeds
  • night of the demons
  • night of the living dead
  • Nightmare on Elm Street
  • nightmares
  • Nightwatch
  • nine inch nails
  • ninjas
  • Noe
  • nosferatu
  • nova
  • noxon
  • numan
  • NYC Comic Con
  • o'connor
  • obama
  • obamacare
  • Offspring
  • Opera
  • Ott
  • outbreak horror
  • outpost
  • over there
  • paranormal activity
  • park
  • parker
  • peli
  • pengin homosexuality
  • perlman
  • petty
  • Peyo
  • phifer
  • pigeons from hell
  • pink noise
  • piranha
  • pirates
  • pissing blood
  • plague
  • plan 9 from outer space
  • planet of the vampires
  • play
  • Plaza
  • plimptons
  • plum island
  • Plumtree
  • pod cast
  • Poe
  • poetry
  • porter
  • predator
  • predator 2
  • prehistory
  • pride and prejudice and zombies
  • Primeval
  • psychic
  • pulp fiction
  • punishment park
  • pym
  • quarantine
  • radio horror
  • raimi
  • randian
  • random picture
  • rapp
  • raw meat
  • real estate
  • rec
  • red dawn
  • red sands
  • red. del toro
  • religion
  • renfroe
  • rescued from an eagles nest
  • resident evil
  • reynolds
  • reznor
  • richards
  • rines
  • Ring
  • Ring II
  • RIP
  • ripley's believe or not
  • rival schools
  • Rob Zombie
  • robots
  • Rodriguez
  • romance novels
  • Romero
  • rose
  • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead
  • Roth
  • run for your lives
  • RZA
  • sagoes
  • sala
  • sales
  • sand serpents
  • Sandman
  • santa muerte
  • santigold
  • Santo
  • Santo and the Border of Terror
  • Sariento
  • Sasquatch
  • satanism
  • Saw
  • saw 3D
  • saw 6
  • schorr
  • schrader
  • schumacher
  • sci-fi
  • scream
  • Screamin' Lord Sutch
  • scrotum
  • sea monster
  • sea wolf
  • seabrook
  • sendak
  • serial killers
  • Serrador
  • sex
  • sex pistols
  • shady
  • Shambling Towards Hiroshima
  • shark
  • sharktopus
  • Shimizu
  • shower
  • shutter island
  • Shwarzenegger
  • silence of the lambs
  • silent film
  • silent scream series
  • Simmons
  • sims
  • siouxsie and the banshees
  • Siouxsie Sioux
  • six string samurai
  • skeletons
  • skeptic
  • slang
  • slasher
  • slashers
  • Smith
  • smurfs
  • snuff
  • solet
  • solomon
  • Solomon Kane
  • Sondheim
  • soule
  • Southern Gothic
  • speed
  • Spotnicks
  • springsteen
  • stelarc
  • stewart
  • stick figure theater
  • Stine
  • stink ape
  • stocker
  • stockwell
  • stoker
  • strahm
  • straub
  • Stuff
  • Suicide Girls Must Die
  • sullivan
  • super 8
  • surf rock
  • survival of the dead
  • sweat
  • Sweeney Todd
  • t-shirts
  • Takami
  • Takeuchi
  • Tarantino
  • television
  • terminator
  • terri
  • Texas Chainsaw Massacre
  • the blaft anthology of tamil pulp fiction
  • the burrowers
  • the butcher
  • the cramps
  • the devil's daughter
  • the final
  • the fright biz
  • The Great Slasher Research Project of '10
  • the hills run red
  • the impaler
  • the mist
  • the new kids
  • The Number: 73304-23-4153-6-96-8
  • the objective
  • the roberts
  • The Ruins
  • the sadist
  • the screwfly solution
  • the shining
  • the South will sit tight again
  • the sprites
  • The Thing
  • the ugly
  • the walking dead
  • the washingtonians
  • the woods are dark
  • them
  • these united states
  • Thirst
  • tiger
  • time travel
  • to kill a mockingbird
  • torture
  • torture porn
  • Tourneur
  • Toxic Avenger
  • triangle
  • trick r treat
  • trigger man
  • troggs
  • troop
  • tru blood
  • true blood
  • true crime
  • true horror stories
  • turistas
  • Turner
  • Twilight
  • Unbelievable
  • uncanny
  • Uncle Strangley's Dark Mansion of Big Crap Scares
  • under-utilized nightmares
  • Unity Post
  • vamp
  • vampire
  • verne
  • Ving Rhames for Secretary of Pussy
  • vonnegut
  • voodoo
  • watchmen
  • waters
  • watt
  • we will bury you
  • welcome home brother charles
  • welcome to the jungle
  • weller
  • wereshark
  • werewolf
  • werewolves on the moon versus vampires
  • west
  • what horror movie are we today
  • where the wild things are
  • white
  • white denim
  • who can kill a child
  • wild zero
  • Williams
  • winters
  • witches
  • women in prison
  • won
  • woolite
  • World War Z
  • wrestlemaniac
  • wright
  • wrightson
  • x-mas
  • yeah yeah yeahs
  • yeti
  • you say party we say die
  • young
  • yuck
  • zombie strippers
  • zombie survival guide recorded attacks
  • zombieland
  • zombies

Blog Archive

  • ►  2013 (1)
    • ►  January (1)
  • ►  2012 (5)
    • ►  December (1)
    • ►  July (1)
    • ►  April (2)
    • ►  February (1)
  • ►  2011 (53)
    • ►  December (1)
    • ►  November (2)
    • ►  October (4)
    • ►  September (1)
    • ►  August (5)
    • ►  July (7)
    • ►  June (5)
    • ►  April (4)
    • ►  March (11)
    • ►  February (8)
    • ►  January (5)
  • ►  2010 (172)
    • ►  December (4)
    • ►  November (6)
    • ►  October (11)
    • ►  September (7)
    • ►  August (12)
    • ►  July (14)
    • ►  June (16)
    • ►  May (20)
    • ►  April (20)
    • ►  March (14)
    • ►  February (27)
    • ►  January (21)
  • ▼  2009 (269)
    • ►  December (17)
    • ►  November (21)
    • ►  October (28)
    • ►  September (26)
    • ►  August (33)
    • ▼  July (23)
      • Books: Please please me – by ending this ceaseless...
      • Music: Cave rock.
      • Under-Utilized Nightmares: The Mongolian Death Worm.
      • Movies: Over and out.
      • Music: "And we didn’t even consider it hard work."
      • Link Proliferation: There will be bloodsuckers.
      • Movies: But it's got a great personality.
      • Mad science: You are getting sleepy . . . and homi...
      • Books: The literary legacy of Stephen Eff'ing King.
      • Stuff: Fearful taxonomy.
      • Music: Where the sun don't shine.
      • Movies: In which we vivisect the torture porn issu...
      • Art: The men who brought the zombie to America.
      • Comics: Blame it on Kane.
      • Books: "Others are simply too strange and Swedish ...
      • Mad science: Capturing the Imp of the Perverse.
      • Movies: In space, no one can hear you suck.
      • Mad science: They saved Michael Jackson's brain!
      • Books: Dex gets back to basics.
      • Music: Meat the Beatles.
      • Movies: Everything falls into place.
      • Music: "You know me. I hate everyone."
      • Guest Blogger: Zoe on gas mask art.
    • ►  June (23)
    • ►  May (28)
    • ►  April (31)
    • ►  March (27)
    • ►  February (12)
Powered by Blogger.

About Me

riya
View my complete profile