Charles Poyen

After being put in a trance by Chapelain, Villetard reportedly described Poyen's symptoms exactly, including which food and drink agreed with him, which convinced him to investigate mesmerism.

[4][2] In 1834 Poyen decided to move to the United States for the climate and sailed from Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadaloupe, arriving in Portland, Maine.

[2] The following month, the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (BMSJ) published extracts from Poyen's second lecture: The person who is to be magnetized is placed in the sitting position ...

"[1] Among those listening to Poyen lecture in 1836 in Bangor, Maine, was Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, at the time a watchmaker, later a self-described "mentalist" who influenced the New Thought movement.

"Having sown the seed," the BMSJ wrote, "... a mighty host of animal magnetizers sprung up in a trice; they swarmed throughout the length and breadth of the northern States, like locusts; but having used up the resources of their silly admirers, and devoured the green leaves of vulgar Popularity, they gradually died away, one after another, and have now become, in vulgar parlance, the laughing stock of every commonsense community.

After the manner of Lycurgus, when he had fairly imposed his system of laws upon the Spartans, Dr. P. left the Continent; and when on the point of returning to ascertain the workings of the machinery he had set in motion, death dropped the curtain, and his career on earth was closed forever.