Baron du Potet — Il Maestro del Sonnambulismo Magnetico/en
| 📚 Fonte primaria: opere del Baron du Potet de Sennevoy (1796-1881) |
| Questa pagina deriva dalle opere del Baron Jules Denis du Potet de Sennevoy (1796-1881) — il più importante magnetizzatore francese della prima metà dell'Ottocento, fondatore della scuola del magnetismo aristocratico francese, direttore della rivista Journal du Magnétisme (1845-1861), iniziatore di Lafontaine e di numerose generazioni di magnetisti. Du Potet è anche autore della monumentale La Magie Dévoilée (1852), opera-ponte fra magnetismo curativo e tradizione magica occidentale.
Documenti Drive ISI-CNV — biblioteca Du Potet:
Opere chiave di du Potet (riferimento):
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The Baron Jules Denis du Potet de Sennevoy (1796-1881) is the great French master of animal magnetism in the post-Mesmerian tradition, whom Donato cites 12 times in his journal Le Magnétisme as one of the indispensable pillars of the tradition from which he comes. Donato explicitly places him in the genealogy of magnetism as the creator — together with Puységur and Deleuze — of the "art of somnambulizing."
Role in Donato's Genealogy
In his introduction to the journal, Donato constructs a genealogy of magnetism that would be lost without its protagonists. He writes:
- "Suppress Mesmer and magnetism, you necessarily suppress de Puységur and magnetic somnambulism... Suppress Deleuze, du Potet, Lafontaine, Charpignon, Liébault, Bernheim, Liégeois, Baréty, Focachon, Charles Richet, Paul Richet, Du Mont-Pallier — their remarkable works, their magnificent contribution to the development and progress of animal magnetism..."
Du Potet is in the genealogy exactly between Deleuze and Lafontaine: he is the central link in the 19th-century chain.
The Art of Magnetic Somnambulism
Donato describes Du Potet in his comparison of the great magnetic methods:
- "Likewise de Puységur, then Deleuze and Du Potet had created the art of somnambulizing and sought to heal with ingenious magnetic passes. Likewise Mesmer had imagined the art of healing with the wand. Likewise also Braid invented the art of hypnotizing..."
Every great magnetizer of the tradition has his "art" — his original technique. Du Potet's is somnambulism through passes. The tradition of "passes magnétiques" — hand movements along the subject's body without touching — was codified by Du Potet in 1820 and remains in ISI-CNV practice through the magnetic passes of the Salamini Technique and other methods.
The Struggle for Truth: Du Potet as a Fighter
Donato also mentions Du Potet as a figure of intellectual resistance against the hostility of official science:
- "Long after de Puységur and Faria, fallen under the blow of ridicule, came du Potet and his disciples, who resumed the struggle with as much perseverance as conviction, for the triumph of a truth that official science stubbornly denied. All their efforts..."
Du Potet is not just a technician — he is an apostle, a fighter, someone who risked his reputation to defend the reality of magnetic phenomena against academic contempt.
The Journal «Le Magnétisme» Founded by Du Potet
A fundamental fact: Donato titles his journal precisely Le Magnétisme — the same name as the journal founded by Baron du Potet decades earlier. This is an explicit homage: Donato perceives himself as the continuator of du Potet's work in the new form of fascination.
Du Potet founded and directed the journal Le Magnétisme from 1845 to 1861 (later Journal du Magnétisme). Donato resumes it in 1880 with the same name — an act of intentional continuity in the tradition.
Influence on the Passes of the ISI-CNV Tradition
Du Potet's passes magnétiques — hand movements along the body without physical contact — survive in ISI-CNV practice through:
- The "magnetic passes" described in the slides of the Salamini Technique
- The "passes" as a first preparatory step before direct fascination
- The approach to the body as an energy field that precedes visual contact
In this sense, Du Potet is not only in Donato's historical genealogy but in the living practice of ISI-CNV teaching.
Sources
- Donato (Alfred d'Hont), Le Magnétisme — Journal de Psycho-Physiologie, Paris 1886: fasc. 1-50, fasc. 50-104, fasc. 104-154, fasc. 154+
- Baron du Potet, Traité complet du magnétisme animal, Paris 1852
See also
- Donato — Il Padre della Fascinazione
- Canonico Mouls — Colui che Scoprì Donato
- Charles Lafontaine — Il Magnetizzatore Franco-Svizzero
- Tecnica Salamini — Induzione con la Luce
- Donato — La Rivista Le Magnétisme (1880-1886)
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