Progression / Regression: Hypnotism and the Superstitious in Maupassant's Le Horla

Guy de Maupassant's novella Le Horla, published in 1887, was written during what is now considered the "golden age" of hypnotism in France.¹ The 1870s and 1880s have been documented by scholars such as Alan Gauld, Dominique Barrucand, and Henri F. Ellenberger as the time during which hypnotism as a medical treatment gained its most scientifically recognised status in France. This status was mainly ensured by the research of Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893), whose lectures at the Salpêtrière asylum were famous not just in France but throughout all of Europe, and Hippolyte Bernheim (1840-1919), who was based at the Université de Nancy. This period also saw hypnotism being used seriously within medicine not only as a cure for a range of illnesses, but as an anaesthetic. Paul Broca was among a number of doctors using hypnotism on their patients as the only anaesthetic to perform operations. During the 1880s, hypnotism was treated as a medico-scientific field of research to an extent not seen before or since, due to the serious attention of some of the greatest and most recognised medical researchers of the day. Both Charcot and Broca made medical breakthroughs for which they are still remembered today in common medical terminology for example Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease and "Broca's area," the part of the brain named after Broca.² The serious attention of such eminent medical scientists to hypnotism not only gave scientific credit to the practice but also encouraged an upsurge in the research activity surrounding it among the scientific community overall.

Nonetheless, the supernatural could not be completely eradicated from the discussion of hypnotism in the 1870s and 1880s. Indeed the wondrous and mysterious associations linked to hypnotism were exploited by showmen throughout the nineteenth century, Mesmer himself having begun attracting fame through his public shows of magnetism in the 1770s. This tradition continued to be popular throughout the century and some of the best known shows toured across Europe. One such spectacle was performed by the Dane Carl Hansen, who appeared "across Europe between 1879 and 1884" (Crary 235). His show involved hypnotised subjects "engaging in preposterous pantomimes, standing up and singing, eating a raw potato believing it to be a pear; and drinking imaginary champagne from real glasses and thereafter behaving as if intoxicated" (Gauld 303). Such spectacles encouraged emotional reactions in audiences who were there first and foremost for entertainment. However, these shows were often also the first encounter with hypnotism for some of the greatest scientists to engage with the subject seriously. Sigmund Freud was influenced by Hansen, and Bernheim not only saw Hansen's show but insisted on its authenticity, recognising that Hansen was untrained in medicine but nonetheless was able to practise a method that could be studied and utilised for therapeutic purposes.³ Crary has suggested that hypnotism spectacles conceived for entertainment purposes convinced many of the great psychotherapy researchers of the nineteenth century that there was "something important and authentic to study further" (235). The discourse surrounding hypnotism during the 1870s and 1880s was a mixture of both the supernatural and the scientific: the two were bound up together and interdependent. Grimes has described the public discourse on hypnotism at this time as "a blend of ideas about Mesmerism's supernatural powers and hypnotism's practical purpose in the field of psychology" (63). As we will examine later, it is this discord and concord between the supernatural and the scientific within hypnotism, which can be seen within Maupassant's Le Horla.

Hypnotism vs. magnetism

The nineteenth century, as it progresses, sees an increasing rationalisation and categorisation of the world according to scientific method and understanding, resulting in a reduction in the value placed upon superstitions and occult practices. Work and craftsmanship were mechanised; new laws of physics were discovered; and medicine became more empirically disciplined. Claude Bernard,⁴ writing in 1865, describes how science "positions itself in opposition to the wondrous or to superstition."⁵ This antagonistic relationship is to be seen in Le Horla, in the context of hypnotism...