Correspondence sur le magnetisme vital...

Paris: Albanel et Martin, 1839. FIRST EDITION. Original printed wrappers for each volume bound together into contemporary cloth-backed marbled boards. Slight wear to extremities, very occasional spotting, otherwise an attractive copy. First edition of this rare treatise, written in the form of a series of letters between Billot (1768-1841) and Joseph Phillippe François Deleuze (1753-1835), librarian at the French Natural History Society. The letters describe phenomena such as seances during which supposed visions and communications with spirits were experienced. There are accounts of “magnetic fluid” escaping from human bodies that can be directed only by volition and move like luminous rays emitted by substances in a state of combustion. How the various modes in which the magnetic fluid should be brought into action and the suitable occasions for its employment was a highly contentious issue at the time. Of interest is the use of objects as aids to induce mesmeric states, the first book to consider this subject.

Deleuze, to whom the book was dedicated, approached his subject entirely scientifically. A scholar of considerable repute and one of Puységur’s most distinguished pupils, he is remembered as having established the early theories with regard to the phenomena now called post-hypnotic suggestion. Little, if anything, is known about Billot.

Blocker, p. 39; Caillet, I, 1158; Overmeir & Senior, The Bakken, p. 147; Wellcome, II, p. 168; not in Tinterow.