The Magnetic Mr. Poyen, Part III (Originally published September 15, 2024)

by Bethany Groff Dorau, Executive Director

Well, friends, we have returned for the third and final edition of the mesmerizing (see what I did there?) tale of Charles Poyen, member of the French refugee family of Poyens who escaped to Newburyport during the French Revolution. In case you missed the previous installations of this series, Part One is here, and Part Two is here.

When we last saw our gentleman friend, it was 1836, and Charles Poyen was just embarking on a career as a passionate advocate of Animal Magnetism, the belief that magnetic forces could be channeled and manipulated by trained mesmerists, and this process could cure disease, depression, and anxiety. It could even get you to work on time.

In February 1836, Poyen had gained a measure of success when the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (BMSJ) published an essay that included parts of his lectures on mesmerism. With interest thus piqued, Poyen managed to publish his translation of a French treatise on the subject. His real bread and butter, however, came from the lecture circuit.

There are no images of Charles Poyen on stage or otherwise, so we must rely on the description of the man given in the BMSJ.

"In person, Dr. Poyen was of a middle height; rather slender, yet well formed. Nearly one half of his face was covered, or rather discolored, by a naevus, of a dark-red hue, which greatly modified the natural expression. The cranial region for firmness was raised quite high enough to indicate obstinacy. He was habitually grave, thoughtful, industrious and studious, but not a close reasoner, nor by any means an original or profound thinker. Whatever was marvellous or extraordinary engaged his earnest consideration, particularly if it could be dragged into the service of the dearest of all interests—animal magnetism."

Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802-1866), famed spiritual healer, who was an early supporter of Charles Poyen.

Poyen went to Portland, Maine to see his cousin Abigail (Poyen) Whitter, who had married John Greenleaf Whitter's brother Matthew. While he was there, he gave some lectures which proved modestly popular. He also gained a few ardent fans, one of whom, Phineas P. Quimby, went on to famously mesmerize Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy.

As 1836 wore on, however, the lecture circuit was proving to be a bit of a slog. Worse yet, Poyen's book was hardly flying off the shelves. He needed money, and sent home to his family's sugar plantation in Guadeloupe for an infusion of cash. As author Emily Ogden noted, "had it not been for the proceeds of slavery, American mesmerism might never have gotten off the ground."

Thus financially fortified, Poyen headed off to the mill city of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where his lectures could command a whopping 75 cents a head. This was several days wages for a (generally female) textile factory worker, so attended primarily by the (male) management of the mills. Women were a cheaper workforce than men, and the use of power looms meant that the labor, though dangerous and tedious, was not hard labor. Women were also considered more tractable and easier to manage. Still, productivity at the mills declined when their workers, who put in six 12 to 14-hour days a week, suffered from exhaustion, depression, and physical illness.

Poyen understood his audience, and his lectures began to focus on the benefits of animal magnetism for worker productivity. He also realized that his enthusiastic speeches needed a little more sparkle. He needed a dramatic demonstration, and for this he needed a partner.

Meanwhile, power loom operator Cynthia Ann Gleason was having stomach pains and trouble sleeping. She slept too much, too little or too late, and when she woke up, she felt groggy and listless. Though we may ascribe this to her grueling schedule, Niles Manchester, the part-owner of the factory in which she worked and also a factory physician, thought that Gleason might be "cured" through magnetism.

The Wilkinson Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, built in 1810, would have been a familiar sight to factory worker Cynthia Ann Gleason. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Poyen and Gleason must have sensed an opportunity in their pairing. Poyen met with her, under the watchful eye of factory management, for over a week before their meetings culminated with Poyen placing Gleason into a trance. He “mentally requested the somnambulist (sleepwalker) to go to bed… and told her mentally to sleep until 8 o’clock exactly." And in the presence of senior management, Cynthia Gleeson managed to get her first full night sleep in years, awakening refreshed and ready for her 14-hour shift at 8 a.m. sharp.

Poyen remained in Rhode Island for nearly two months, and when he left to continue his lecture tour, he took Cynthia Gleason with him. They perfected their stage show, with Poyen putting Gleason into a trance and then demonstrating his power over her by having her identify objects held up behind her head, remain asleep despite loud noises or bright lights, and, in one notable case, pass out suddenly at a party while he magnetized her from another room in the house. Bells were rung next to her head, ammonia passed under her nose, pistols shot near her, but Gleason remained entranced. The pair became an overnight sensation and spent 1837 touring around New England. Poyen also published the scintillating Progress of Animal Magnetism in New England: Being a Collection of Experiments, Reports and Certificates, from the Most Respectable Sources. Preceded by a Dissertation on the Proofs of Animal Magnetism. In this book he responded to the criticism that if he really had such magnetic powers, they would work on anyone, not just the talented Miss Gleason. He was not at the height of his powers, Poyen explained, what with the tour and all, and because Gleason was an "experienced somnambulist", she required less of his "magnetic fluid" to get in the zone.

The Newburyport Herald took notice of the pair early in 1838, and was unimpressed. Under the headline "How to Wake a Somnambulist", the paper related a story from a demonstration in Waltham where someone had shouted "Fire", and Miss Gleason, "having no notion of being burned to a crisp", jumped out of her seat and ran.

In December, the Newburyport paper feigned sympathy as it reported that Gleason was "dreadfully frightened" when some young men shot a pistol near her head as she "pretended to be in a profound magnetic sleep". To make matters worse, in the ensuing melee, Gleason was kidnapped by a member of the audience, who "succeeded in running away with the fair imposter" and hiding her for two days.

The story of Gleason's disappearance spread across the country - it was reported from New Orleans to Bangor, Maine. In the end, despite his fervent, and perhaps genuine belief in the healing power of magnetism, it was all too much for the delicate sensibilities of our friend Charles Poyen. In the summer of 1839, he packed up and returned to France.

And then a curious thing happened. Other practitioners of animal magnetism took up the mantle and Charles Poyen's book sales picked up. As his fame grew and he contemplated a return to America, Charles Poyen died suddenly in Bordeaux in 1843, just 36 years old.

Charles Poyen's cousin by marriage, writer and journalist Matthew Franklin Whittier (1812-1883). Private collection.

Animal magnetism obsessed the nation in the 1840's and beyond, attracting the attention (and derision) of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and even making its way into Moby Dick in 1851 as Captain Ahab wields hypnotic power through his "magnetic life". It even became a trope in pornographic literature of the time, with writers describing debauches with mesmerized women.

By the 1860's, animal magnetism had been eclipsed almost entirely by spiritualism, which offered a grieving nation the ability to communicate with the dead. Still, here in 2024, amazon.com will happily sell me a magnetic fork with which to heal myself and my loved ones, and the National Institutes of Health includes magnetic therapy on its list of alternative healthcare options.

Much as I will miss our adventures, I will pull the curtain on Charles Poyen, for the moment anyway, with the kind words spoken of him by his cousin-in-law, Matthew Whittier, in the Portland (Maine) Transcript.

Doctor Poyen...will be remembered as the first propagator of the now popular science of Animal Magnetism in the United States. (He) seemed to see with prophetic vision through the clouds of prejudice the almost universal favor with which that theory is now received. Doctor P. was...an urbane, upright gentleman."