In 1885, the eminent neurologist Jean Martin Charcot convened the experimental Société de Psychologie Physiologique to keep the circle of hypnotic research expanding around his clinic at Salpêtrière. Early papers showcased edgy-enough experiments involving hallucinations, hashish, handwriting analysis, delayed trance effects . . . but at the November assembly, research trends broke out in a gallop in altogether new directions. Charcot had granted a broad research latitude in pursuing “how matter becomes mind,” but nothing in his directive would have encouraged the notion that mind might venture beyond matter. Yet, in four plainly coordinated papers, evidence for “telepathic hypnotism” was set boldly before the gathered membership, all but forcing the Société to take up the gauntlet. At the center of this overture was doctoral candidate, Pierre Janet, and his carefully observed investigation of “sommeil a distance,” but behind it all was Charles Richet, Charcot’s trusty subordinate who had, all the while, an agenda of his own. While this paper’s reconstruction of the Société’s timeline and social networks clearly points to Richet as the impetus for this run on telepathy, the energy he stirred was already there, suggesting a less monolithic materialism than is often assumed regarding his psychiatric cohort. Positivism, even for the French, might be as much a matter of professional conformity as personal ideological commitment. Rather than read the demise of telepathy at Salpêtrière as due to a lack of interest (namely Charcot’s), it would be equally true to consider that such interest was in dangerous excess.
