Head crisis pole

Cranial pole of animal magnetism

In Mesmer's pole-and-crisis vocabulary, the head is rendered as the cranial crisis pole, the upper focal end of the patient's magnetic field. The dot is a front-view editorial anchor for a diffuse cranial region; it does not identify a brain structure or a validated physical pole.

Head crisis poleHead crisis poleÉpigastre — solar pivotRight hand discharge pointLeft hand discharge pointRight foot discharge pointLeft foot discharge pointBaquet-era crisis locus

Point 1 of 7 in Animal Magnetism — Poles, Pivot and Crises

Cross-tradition overlaps

No overlapping points are registered for this point.

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Sources

Franz Anton Mesmer, Mémoire sur la découverte du magnétisme animal (primary_canonical)

Mesmer's propositions describe animal magnetism as a universal physical fluid, bodily poles, therapeutic passes, and crises; this is the canonical source for the vocabulary represented here.

Adam Crabtree, From Mesmer to Freud: Magnetic Sleep and the Roots of Psychological Healing (scholarly_modern)

Modern scholarly history of Mesmerism, including crisis and somnambulism and the transition from fluidic explanations to psychological accounts.

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