1. Charles Leonard Lafontaine was a French "public magnetic demonstrator", who "had an interest in animal magnetism as an agent for curing or alleviating illnesses".
18 Facts About Charles Lafontaine
1. 2.
Charles Lafontaine was born in Vendome, Loir-et-Cher, France, on 27 March 1803.
3.
Charles Lafontaine was related to the famous fabulist, Jean de La Fontaine; and, belonging to a theatrical family, he was involved with the theatre from an early age.
4.
Charles Lafontaine was about middle age, slightly above middle size, with a well-set muscular frame, and was clothed in black.
5.
Charles Lafontaine's hair was dark, his eye bold, powerful, and steady; and his beard, which was very profuse, descended to his breast.
6.
Charles Lafontaine was a man of middle height, inclined to be stout, with a kind and somewhat serious face.
7.
Charles Lafontaine was introduced to mesmerism in Brussels, in 1831, by the Belgian lithographer, inventor, and scholar Jean Baptiste Ambroise Marcelin Jobard, who later become the director of the Royal Museum of Industry at Brussels.
8.
Charles Lafontaine then went on to study the works of Marquis de Puysegur and Joseph-Philippe-Francois Deleuze and, abandoning the theatre altogether, he began touring parts of Europe.
9.
Charles Lafontaine decided to come to England in June 1841, and soon began to lecture in London.
10.
Charles Lafontaine was neither a closed-minded cynic intent on destroying Lafontaine, nor a deluded and naively credulous believer seeking authorization of his already formed belief.
11.
Braid examined the physical condition of Charles Lafontaine's magnetised subjects and concluded that they were, indeed, in quite a different physical state.
12.
In other words, rather than it being due, as Charles Lafontaine supposed, to the charismatic influence of the operator's downward gaze, compounding the transfer of magnetic fluid that was supposedly being transferred, via the operator, through the subject's thumbs which were being tightly held by the operator, it was a simple biophysiological reflex produced by the subject's upward gaze.
13.
And, at the same time, by using himself as a subject, Braid conclusively proved that none of Charles Lafontaine's phenomena were due to magnetic agency.
14.
Charles Lafontaine conducted several experiments on a somnambulist ; and the success of his experiments, according to Charles Lafontaine, "removed the blindfold from poor Mr Mac Neil", and, at last, allowed him to see the truth of animal magnetism.
15.
Charles Lafontaine returned to France in late 1842, and subsequently travelled widely around Europe and the Mediterranean.
16.
Charles Lafontaine returned to France in January 1850; and, soon after, moved to Switzerland, where he remained until his death.
17.
Charles Lafontaine published the journal Le Magnetiseur: Journal du Magnetisme Animal in Geneva from 1859 to 1872.
18.
Charles Lafontaine died in Geneva, Switzerland on 13 August 1892, a comparatively wealthy man.