Animal magnetism, the phenomenon so important and central to Spiritualism, manifested itself in France at a comparatively early period in the movement. From correspondence between J. P. F. Deleuze and G. P. Billot from the year 1829, it appears that phantom forms and the phenomenon of apports were well known in this early age. Deleuze more frankly admitted that his experience was more limited.
Almost the full range of the phenomena of Spiritualism are found in Baron Du Potet's Journal du Magnétisme, which records his investigations between 1836 and 1848. His magnetized subjects excelled in clairvoyance, trance speaking, healing, dermography, levitation, fire immunity, telekinesis, apports, xenoglossis, prophecy, crystal gazing, materializations, and descriptions of scenes in the spirit world.
The best early séance records come from Louis-Alphonse Cahagnet, the author of Arcanes de la vie future dévoilés (1848-54), translated as The Celestial Telegraph (1850). He received many evidential communications from departed spirits through his somnambule, Adèle Maginot.
Table turning was introduced into France by Baron Ludwig von Guldenstubbe and the Compte d'Ourches in 1850 and became an epidemic, as in England. Soon other phenomena followed. The famous direct scripts of Guldenstubbe were obtained in 1856.
In that same year Allan Kardec's book Le Livre des Esprits was published, and developments took a radically different route from that in the United States and England. Kardec founded a school of thought called Spiritism that was dominated by the idea of a series of compulsory reincarnations. This was the opposing school to Spiritualism, which followed the American and English ideas. Spiritualism was represented in France by Z. J. Piérart and La Revue Spiritualiste, founded in 1858; Spiritism was championed by Kardec's La Revue Spirite, founded in the same year.
Kardec's school eventually prevailed. Piérart, after years of bitter controversy, retired to the country. By 1864 there were ten periodicals published in France: three in Paris, the two already mentioned and L'Avenir; four in Bordeaux, which, in 1865, were merged into L'Union Spirite Bordelaise; La Médium Evangélique, of Toulouse; L'Echo d'Outre Tombe, of Marseilles; and La Vérité of Lyons. With the exception of La Revue Spiritual-iste all represented the school of Kardec.
Kardec and his followers discouraged physical phenomena. Because of that the stimulus for experimental investigators was largely provided by the visits of D. D. Home, the Davenport brothers, Henry Slade, William Eglinton, Frank Herne, Charles Williams, Elizabeth d'Esperance, Florence Cook, Lottie Fowler, and other famous mediums.
Joseph Maxwell, Camille Flammarion, Eugene Rochas, Paul Joire, Charles Richet, Emile Boirac, Gustav Geley, and Eugèn Osty represented psychical research. Gabriel Delanne founded the Revue scientifique et morale du spiritisme. The first attempt at organized psychical research was La Societé de Psychologie Physiologique and its journal, La Revue des Sciences Psychiques.
In 1890 the Annales des Sciences Psychiques was founded. It was replaced in 1920 by La Revue Métapsychique, the official organ of the Institut Métapsychique. In 1904 the Institut Général Psychologique was established in Paris.
The real benefactor of Spiritism and psychical research arrived during the war in the person of Jean Meyer, a rich industrialist. He founded La Maison des Spirits for spiritistic propaganda and the Institut Métapsychique for psychical research. In 1918 the institute was recognized as a public utility. Meyer endowed it with a portion of his fortune. The work it has carried on in experimentation and in demonstration of supernormal phenomena before invited scientists has been of great importance for psychical research in France.
In 1987, due to the general dissatisfaction with the nature of the research there, the Organisation pour la Recherche en Psyochtronique was established. Such research has had a difficult time in France due to the university system's refusal of official recognition. Much of the work done there at the end of the twentieth century was done "underground." Prof. Remy Chauvin has been one such researcher forced to take his work out of the mainstream due to the overly critical educational establishment.
Sources:
Berger, Arthur S., and Joyce Berger. The Encyclopedia of Parapsychology and Psychical Research. New York: Paragon House, 1991.
Cahagnet, Alphonse. Arcanes de la vie future dévoilés. 3 vols. 1848-54. Translated as The Celestial Telegraph; or, Secrets of Life to Come Revealed Through Magnetism. 2 vols. London, [1850]. Reprint, New York, 1851.
Kardec, Allan. Le Ciel et L'Enfer ou la justice divine selon le Spiritisme. 1865. Translated as Heaven and Hell, or The Divine Justice Vindicated in the Plurality of Existences. N.p., 1878.
——. L'Evangile selon le Spiritisme. 1864. Translated as The Gospel According to Spiritism. London: Headquarters Publishing, 1887.
——. Le Livre des Esprits. Translated as The Spirits' Book by Anna Blackwell. Reprint, São Paulo: Livraria Allan Kardec Editora, 1972.
——. Le Livre des Mediums. Translated as The Book of Mediums by Emma E. Wood. Reprint, New York: Samuel Weiser, 1970.
Osty, Eugene. Supernormal Faculties in Man. London: Methuen, 1923.
Richet, Charles. Thirty Years of Psychical Research. New York: Macmillan, 1923.
