Brain Vibrations: Lombroso and Others on the Phenomena of Thought Transmission

The study of hypnosis and hysteria led the psychiatrist Cesare Lombroso to investigate a peculiar phenomenon: thought-transference. The performances of the Belgian Jean Lambert, better known as Pickman, le célèbre liseur de pensées, prompted him to deepen his examination of this curious phenomenon, which he regarded as genuine and interpretable within a materialistic framework. For Lombroso, indeed, if one accepts that thought is the effect of a vibration of the molecules of the cortical nerve cells, it is not difficult to imagine that this cortical movement in the transmitting subject (the suggestor), by agitating the ether, could produce a vibrating – dynamic – wave capable of propagating beyond the organism and reaching the brain of the receiving subject (the percipient). Although this hypothesis now appears extravagant, it enjoyed a certain degree of acceptance at the time. The present article seeks to examine this hypothesis in greater detail and to show how Lombroso’s conjecture was indebted to other, not dissimilar, theories circulating during those years.