{{Short description|French mesmerist (1796–1881)}} [[File:Portrait of Baron du Potet.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Baron du Potet; frontispiece of ''La magie dévoilée et la science occulte'', 1852 edition.]]
'''Jules Denis, Baron du Potet''' or '''Dupotet de Sennevoy''' (12 April 1796 – 1 July 1881) was a French [[Western esotericism|esotericist]]. He became a renowned practitioner of mesmerism—the theories first developed by [[Franz Mesmer]] involving [[animal magnetism]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Sollier|first=Paul|year=1903|title=L'autoscopie interne|journal=[[Revue philosophique de la France et de l'étranger]]|volume=55|pages=1–41|jstor=41077720}}</ref>
==Life== He was born at [[Sennevoy-le-Haut]], the son of Charles Jean-Baptiste Dupotet, seigneur de La Chapelle et de Sennevoy, and Pierrette Babeau Simone. He was married twice, to Aglaé Saunier in Paris in 1833, and the second time to Marie Isaure Hérault. He died in Paris and is buried in the [[Montmartre Cemetery]].<ref>C.A.P. 291 (1843), Allée Samson, Division 23, Row 3, 15th tomb from the left; gravestone broken.</ref>
==Career== Du Potet was a highly successful mesmerist. Some attributed this to the fact he was missing the thumb on his right hand.<ref name=Clarke>{{cite book |last=Clarke |first=James Fernandez |title=Autobiographical Recollections of the Medical Profession |location=London |publisher=Churchill |year=1874 |oclc=559634098 |url=https://archive.org/stream/autobiographica01clargoog#page/n180/mode/2up |page=161 }}</ref> His reputation was such, apparently, that a man was convicted of murder and executed based on evidence given by "one of Du Potet's clairvoyantes".<ref name=blackmagic>{{cite journal |year=1890 |title=Black Magic in Science |journal=[[Lucifer (magazine)|Lucifer]] |volume=6 |issue=34 |pages=265–75 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_jgbAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA272}}</ref> He operated a free school of magnetism in Paris from 1826 on,<ref name=Deveney>{{cite book |last=Deveney |first=John Patrick |title=Paschal Beverly Randolph: A Nineteenth-Century Black American Spiritualist, Rosicrucian, and Sex Magician |series=SUNY series in Western esoteric traditions |location=Albany, New York |publisher=State University of New York |year=1997 |isbn=9780585042800 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qhs9obpHqhIC&q=Jules+Dupotet+Denis&pg=PA53 |pages=53–55 }}</ref> and from 1837 to 1845 practised magnetic healing in London,<ref name=Goodrick>{{cite book |last=Goodrick-Clarke |first=Nicholas |authorlink=Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke |title=The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction |location=Oxford/New York |publisher=Oxford University |year=2008 |isbn=9780195320992 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IPwoK5XYXrAC&q=Dupotet |page=183 }}</ref> where he successfully treated [[Epilepsy|epileptic]] girls at the [[North London Hospital]]<ref name=Clarke/> and according to a letter to the editor of ''[[The Lancet]]'' his experiments became the talk of the town.<ref>{{cite journal|year=1837|title=Animal Magnetism|journal=[[The American Journal of the Medical Sciences]]|pages=507–509|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AVk9AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA507}}</ref>
For du Potet, who was in correspondence with [[Magnetizer|mesmerists]] worldwide, mesmerism was, not unlike [[Utopian socialism]], an aid in bringing about social transformation, even a revolution.<ref name="Bell">{{cite book|last=Bell|first=Caryn Cossé|title=Revolution, Romanticism, and the Afro-Creole Protest Tradition in Louisiana, 1718—1868|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0wwK-IQ4UZIC&pg=PT177|date=1997-02-01|publisher=LSU Press|isbn=9780807153451|pages=177–79}}</ref> An 1890 article in the English occult magazine ''[[Lucifer (magazine)|Lucifer]]'' praises him as an ardent supporter of mesmerism whose "powerful voice" might have stopped the "travesty" of hypnotism.<ref name=blackmagic/>
Du Potet also pursued occult applications of mesmerism. [[Eliphas Levi]] praised him highly in his ''History of Magic'', and said that magnetism had unlocked for him the secrets of magic.<ref>{{cite book|last=Levi|first=Eliphas |title=The History of Magic |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DIVo4hmp6ooC&pg=PA339|year=1999 |publisher=Weiser |isbn=9780877289296 |pages=339–40}}</ref> Unlike Levi, he believed that trance enabled contact with the dead and with never incarnated spirits, and his circle believed in [[Psychokinesis|remote influence]] by means of magnetic currents.<ref name=Deveney/> He was a member of the [[Theosophical Society]]; his writings were quoted extensively by [[Helena Blavatsky]], who regarded him as an adept.<ref name=Goodrick/> In ''[[The Discovery of the Unconscious]]'', [[Henri Ellenberger]] considers him to have "developed ... delusions of grandeur".<ref>{{cite book |last=Ellenburger |first=Henri F. |authorlink=Henri Ellenberger |title=The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ke1jd_e7AyYC&q=incarnation+of+magnetism&pg=PA906 |location=New York |publisher=Basic Books |year=1970 |page=156 |isbn=9780786724802 }}</ref>
Du Potet published and edited the ''Journal du magnetisme''<ref name="Matlock"/> from 1845 to 1861. Books he wrote include ''Introduction to the Study of Animal Magnetism'' (1838) and ''La magie dévoilée et la science occulte'' (1852), a copy of which was owned by [[Victor Hugo]].<ref name="Matlock">{{cite journal|last=Matlock|first=Jann|year=2000|title=Ghostly Politics|journal=[[Diacritics (journal)|Diacritics]]|volume=30|issue=3|pages=53–71|doi=10.1353/dia.2000.0022|jstor=1566343|s2cid=208688549}}</ref>
== Footnotes == {{Reflist}}
== References == * Gauld, A., ''A History of Hypnotism'', Cambridge University Press, 1992. * [https://archive.org/details/b24872210_0002 Harte, R., ''Hypnotism and the Doctors, Volume I: Animal Magnetism: Mesmer/De Puysegur'', L.N. Fowler & Co., (London), 1902]. * [https://archive.org/details/hypnotismanddoc00hartgoog Harte, R., ''Hypnotism and the Doctors, Volume II: The Second Commission; Dupotet And Lafontaine; The English School; Braid's Hypnotism; Statuvolism; Pathetism; Electro-Biology'', L.N. Fowler & Co., (London), 1903].
==External links== *[http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k123162m.r=Magie.langFR ''La magie dévoilée et la science occulte'', 1852 edition] at [[Bibliothèque nationale de France]]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Potet, Baron du}} [[Category:1796 births]] [[Category:1881 deaths]] [[Category:Animal magnetism]] [[Category:French homeopaths]] [[Category:People from Yonne]]