Mesmerismus Research Institute
Audiovisual Observatory
The Audiovisual Observatory is the institute’s archive of filmed observation: recordings of courses and demonstrations of non-verbal hypnosis made from 2011 to 2026, within more than thirty years of practice. Film allows us to see again, slowly and many times, responses that last only seconds.
The archive in numbers
The archive brings together the institute’s own recordings of courses and demonstrations, catalogued one by one.
Figures as of 26 October 2026, from the Observatory’s own catalogue. Only the institute’s own recordings are counted.
Most frequent phenomena in the coded episodes
| Fascination and fixity | 502 |
|---|---|
| Catalepsy | 283 |
| Regression | 234 |
| Magnetic fall | 189 |
| Magnetic gaze | 188 |
| Involuntary movements | 162 |
| Mesmeric crisis | 135 |
| Analgesia | 124 |
| Release of freeze | 96 |
Episodes are identified by an automated reading of the transcripts against a written codebook, then checked by sampling (14 of 15 confirmed in the first check). One episode can show more than one phenomenon, so the totals by phenomenon exceed the number of episodes. Visual verification of each episode is in progress. Only descriptive metadata are published: no faces, voices or names.
Magnetic fall: the person loses postural tone and sinks or falls backwards, and is supported. Regression: the person relives a past experience, often from childhood, as if it were present. Release of freeze: the end of a stillness or rigidity, often with trembling, a deep breath or tears, after which the body relaxes.
Phenomenological cataloguing
We are cataloguing the archive phenomenologically, which means describing what can be seen before interpreting it. Each sequence is indexed by the visible response (a change of posture, of breathing, of gaze, a stillness, a release), by the technique used and by its context, so that similar responses can be compared across years and people.
Consent and publication
The people who appear in the recordings come first. Only aggregate, descriptive figures are published; the recordings themselves remain in the archive. Recordings enter any research study only where the people filmed have given consent that covers that use; from 2027 our enrolment forms include a specific consent for anonymised research use. Recordings involving health-related information are treated as special-category data under the GDPR, and no study will use them before an ethics review.
Researchers interested in the catalogue can contact the institute.