Hélène Smith

Occultism and the Discovery of the Unconscious

Claudie Massicotte (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

184 Seiten

2023
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-19-768002-5 (ISBN)

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In 1896, a young Genevan medium named Hélène Smith perceived in trance the following words from a Martian inhabitant: "michma michtmon mimini thouainenm mimatchineg." Those attending her séance dutifully transcribed these words and the event marked the beginning of a series of occult experiences that transported her to the red planet. In her state of trance, Smith came to produce foreign conversations, a new alphabet, and paintings of the Martian surroundings that captured the popular and scientific imagination of Geneva. Alongside her Martian travels, she also retrieved memories of her past lives as a fifteenth-century "Hindoo" princess and as Queen Marie Antoinette.

Today, Smith's séances may appear to be nothing more than eccentric practices at the margins of modernity. As author Claudie Massicotte argues, however, the medium came to embody the extreme possibilities of a new form of subjectivity, with her séances becoming important loci for pioneering authors' discoveries in psychology, linguistics, and the arts. Through analyses of archival documents, correspondences, and publications on the medium, Massicotte sheds light on the role of women in the construction of turn-of-the-century psychological discourses, showing how Smith challenged traditional representations of female patients as powerless victims and passive objects of powerful doctors. She shows how the medium became the site of conflicting theories about subjectivity--specifically one's relationship to embodiment, desire, language, art, and madness--while unleashing a radical form of creativity that troubled existing paradigms of modern sciences. Massicotte skillfully retraces the story of this prolific figure and the authors, scientists, and artists she inspired in order to bring to light a forgotten chapter in modern intellectual history.

Claudie Massicotte is a learning designer in San Diego, California. She previously worked as Assistant Professor of Literary Theory and Criticism at Young Harris College and as a Postdoctoral fellow in French and Francophone Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the author of Trance Speakers: Femininity and Authorship in Spiritual Seances, 1850-1930.

List of Figures
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Hélène, or the Ghosts of Depth Psychology

Chapter 1. Bodies
Ventriloquizing Agency: Magic Dolls and Spiritualist Authorship

Chapter 2. Desire
Bearing, Authoring, and the Symbolizations of Excess in Psychoanalysis

Chapter 3. Languages
Extra-Planetary Signs and the Haunted Origins of Modern Linguistics

Chapter 4. Creativity
The Muse of Surrealism: Automatism and the Creative Unconscious

Conclusion: The Enchanted Unconscious

Bibliography
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	21.06.2023
Reihe/Serie	OXFORD STU WESTERN ESOTERICISM SERIES
Zusatzinfo	22 b/w illustrations
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	236 x 157 mm
Gewicht	277 g
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Esoterik / Spiritualität
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Psychologie ► Allgemeine Psychologie
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie
ISBN-10	0-19-768002-X / 019768002X
ISBN-13	978-0-19-768002-5 / 9780197680025
Zustand	Neuware