Lo oculto y las terapéuticas espiritistas del espíritu y del cuerpo en Francia (1850-1914): De la creencia al saber y vuelta

Abstract

In the period examined, spiritualism developed in France with great vigour. From the very start, a “spiritualist medicine” arose -heir to its precedent, mesmerism, which was put into practice through the subject/object of spiritualistic experiences: the medium. A characteristic of this medicine is the systematic appropriation of the discoveries made by the socially recognised sciences, particularly academic medicine and physics, although often in direct conflict with these same sciences. The relationships between the spiritualistic discourse and the spiritualist in their two principal versions at the time (religion and the works of the Anglo-Saxon Societies for Psychical Research) are noted, and conflicts between spiritualist doctrine and the contemporary developments of experimental psychology, clinical neurology and psychoanalysis are shown.