Pickmann e la Fascinazione in Italia — Testimonianze Oculari (1899)/en

Page title: Pickmann and Fascination in Italy — Eyewitness Accounts (1899)

Wikitext to translate:

This page collects Italian eyewitness accounts of fascination from spectacle in the Donatesque area — from Pickmann, imitator of Donato in Italy (1899), to cases of spontaneous fascination documented by Prof. Ottolenghi.

ISI-CNV Drive Source: Pickmann and spontaneous fascination — Drive Scientific source: Morselli: Drive

Pickmann: imitator of Donato in Italy (1899)

Prof. Ottolenghi (Italian criminologist) attends in Siena, in June 1899 at the Teatro della Lizza, the show of Pickmann — an artist who reproduces in Italy the experiences of Donato under the name of "phenomena of attraction and repulsion."

Pickmann's technique (derived from Donato)

Ottolenghi describes the method:

"Pickmann, as I had the opportunity to ascertain last June in Siena at the Teatro della Lizza, having tested the subject's suggestibility (he places his right hand between the subject's shoulder blades, has him fixate on the left hand, and imposes the feeling of a strong backward attraction at the moment he removes his hand from the body), attracts his subjects to himself with his gaze and, even more, with his voice (a command he gives in French and has repeated in Italian by the interpreter)."

The effect on the subjects:

"His subjects, true automatons, go to him rigidly, with head and body leaning forward, eyes wide open, and in vain some, trying to resist, stop in the imposed posture, remaining inert, awaiting a command."

And the management of depth:

"To make the hypnotic state and therefore the automatism more complete, he lightly compresses the eyeballs of some, waking those who tend to pass into a state of lethargy.

This last detail is fundamental: Pickmann, like Donato, actively calibrates depth — waking subjects who go too deep (léthargie) to keep them in the optimal range of conscious fascination.

The first-person subjective testimony

A law graduate (Mr. P.) describes his own experience with Pickmann over two consecutive evenings — one of the most detailed first-person accounts ever written on fascination:

First evening:

"Almost immediately I felt myself violently pulled backward and if P. had not supported me, I would have hit my head on the proscenium stage. [...] I resisted for a moment, trying to oppose my will to that of the hypnotist. But soon after I could no longer resist and felt myself dragged toward him."

"At that moment I found myself in a very strange condition: on one hand the powerful desire to obey P.'s will and on the other the fear of saying something [...] Such a state of mind lasted a few seconds; subsequently [...] I began to breathe heavily, stammered the three words: 'I feel sick' and thought I was suffocating. Proof of this is that P. immediately woke me."

"The state of consciousness during hypnotic sleep remains unchanged; I always understood what was commanded of me, and I always knew what I was doing and saying. I instead noted a great alteration in the state of mental freedom, in that, if it could not be said that I was in a state of complete abulia, certainly my weaker will yielded and molded itself to P.'s will, after very brief resistance."

Second evening:

"I remember very well saying to myself: 'How stupid I am to stay in this position, I'd better get up!' This thought is another clear proof that the psyche was unchanged, but on the other hand I was unable to make any effort to move even a little from the spot where I was and remained motionless until P. woke me."

"I remember very well saying these words to myself: 'Now I will go down the stairs in two leaps and with the greatest speed.' And it really seemed impossible to me that it was necessary to take precautions to descend a few steps that, in the normal state, I had gone up and down without even thinking about it. Instead, when I found myself in front of the first step, I actually felt the fear of falling, and I needed P.'s gaze and encouragement for every step I descended."

Morselli's commentary on fascination as a state

The text directly cites Morselli (pp. 279-282) on the physiological structure of the state:

"The subject, writes Morselli, who experienced its effects, experiences dyspnea, the face and neck become flushed, and he is prey to a kind of vertigo, blurred vision, as if in the midst of a general fog; he no longer perceives anything but the two eyes of Donato, indeed, as the images overlap, he sees only one, a shining point fixed in the middle of the forehead."

The physiological progression: dyspnea → flushing → vertigo → narrowing of the visual field → fusion of the two eyes into a single luminous point.

"The expenditure of muscular force, the fixation of the gaze, the exhaustion of the body's equilibrium centers bring a sudden weakening of volitional energy; consciousness persists, yes, but voluntary movements, especially those of rebelling against the fascinator, are extremely difficult and as if hindered.

"Donatism [...] and with it we can understand fascination, better than all other magnetic and hypnotic processes, leaves patients awake and conscious of themselves for longer, although it removes all voluntary control over their actions. Fascination produces, that is, a state of conscious automatism. Only when fascination is very intense and the individual is continuously subject to it, does he pass into a complete unconscious somnambulistic state."

Group fascination

"Donato, availing himself of the great power of suggestion, simultaneously fascinated a group of twenty, thirty individuals, then sent them to sit in the boxes and armchairs, among the audience. At a sign from the fascinator, they would open their eyes wide, rush to reach him, and it was necessary to restrain them so that they would not tumble into the stalls."

The case of Lina M.: spontaneous fascination

Prof. Ottolenghi documents the extraordinary case of Lina M. (27 years old, 1895, Turin) — a case of spontaneous fascination that lasts 24 hours and literally immobilizes carabinieri and officers.

The mechanism

Lina M., hysterical, falls into spontaneous fascination at the sight of people — especially men in uniform. Anyone who looks at her intensely becomes her "involuntary fascinator" and she cannot look away from him.

The immobilized carabinieri

Four carabinieri on duty stop in front of the shop. Lina looks at them and falls into fascination:

"The carabinieri, who were on duty, having wanted, as was natural, to continue on their way, she went into such frenzies (convulsions, etc.), that she was carried to bed and the carabinieri had to stay around her."

This lasts for hours. Ottolenghi is called and tries to make the carabinieri leave — but he too notes the phenomenon of co-fascination:

"The carabinieri, no less astonished than the others, absolutely passive, did not move, all the more so since L. at the slightest movement of theirs made as if to follow them."

The polyvagal mechanism is transparent: Lina's fascination — her active DV — produces a state of reciprocal autonomic freezing in the carabinieri who look at her.

Ottolenghi's diagnosis

"Not only several very robust bystanders, but not even two health officers were capable of suspending the state of fascination, which ceased only when I drew the patient's attention to myself, that is, provoked a new fascination in her and then made her pass into a state of lethargy, from which she awoke."

Fundamental: the only way to break the fascination toward one subject was to provoke a new one toward another subject (Ottolenghi himself) and then lead her into lethargy. Confirmation that Donato's continuous DV does not "resolve" spontaneously — it requires a deliberate operation.

Importance for understanding fascination

These Italian cases confirm and amplify everything that Donato, Morselli, and De Rochas had already documented:

The state of "conscious automatism" — intact consciousness, suspended voluntary control
Vision narrowing to the luminous point of the operator's eyes (binocular fusion)
The continuous DV that does not resolve spontaneously — requires the operator
Spontaneous co-fascination as a real and documentable phenomenon
Calibration of the optimal range: Pickmann woke those who tended toward lethargy