http://mattersindia.com/goa-to-honor-18th-century-hypnotist-catholic-priest/ Goa to honor 18th century hypnotist Catholic priest Published: 7:09 pm, June 1, 2014 Story By: mattersindia.com reporter
Margao: Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has promised to launch projects to honor an 18th century Catholic monk, who pioneered the scientific study of hypnotism. Abbe Faria was born in 1756 as José Custódio de Faria at Candolim, a town in north Goa, near the famous Calangute beach. He died a Catholic monk in 1819 in Paris. He undertook the study of hypnotism after a suggestion from his father cured his stage fright. Hypnotism is now widely used for pain management and emotional trauma therapy. The revolutionary priest had spent years in France’s infamous prison, Chateau d’If, in solitary confinement for taking part in revolution. During the imprisonment, he steadily trained himself using techniques of self-suggestion. Om May 31, the priest’s 358th birth anniversary, Parrikar said “a lot” has to be done to honor prominent Goans such as Abbe Faria. The Goenkarachem Daiz, an association founded to preserve the Goan culture, organized the commemorative program in association with the Indian Psychiatric Society (West Zone) at Ravindra Bhavan, in Margao, Goa’s commercial capital. The organizers submitted Parrikar several demands such as naming the Institute of Psychiatry and Human Behaviour (IPHB) after Abbe Faria, setting up of a chair in his name at the psychology department at Goa University, establishment of a museum at Abba Faria’s house at Candolim, launching a mental health counseling center at Colvale and releasing a 10-rupee coin and postage stamp celebrating the life of Abbe Faria. “I am giving a blanket assurance, but I will have to study the demands put forward at a separate meeting. I don’t see much difficulty in implementing the same and I feel there is a lot to do be done to honor several other prominent Goans who have made significant contributions to society,” Parrikar said. Parrikar urged the organizers to make the anniversary function an annual event. De la Cause du Sommeil Lucidea, a book originally authored in French by Abbe Faria and now translated in to English by Manohar Sardesai, was released on the occasion. Goa Speaker Rajendra Arelkar released a souvenir at the function where a documentary on the life and works of Faria was screened. Abbe Faria was the son of Caetano Vitorino de Faria and Rosa Maria de Sousa. The father was a descendent of Anantha Shenoy, a Goud Saraswat Brahmin, who converted to Christianity in the 16th century. His parents separated because of “irreconcilable differences” and obtained the Church’s dispensation. Caetano rejoined the seminary that he had discontinued to get married. His mother joined the St. Monica Convent in Old Goa and went on to become its prioress. When Faria was 15, his father took him to Lisbon, the Portuguese capital, and after a year convinced King Joseph I to send them to Rome so that the father could earn a doctorate in theology and the son to study for priesthood. Eventually, the son too earned his doctorate. He dedicated his thesis to Portuguese Queen Mary I, and another study on the Holy Spirit to the Pope. An impressed Pope invited him to preach a sermon in the Sistine Chapel that he attended. When Abbe Faria returned to Lisbon the nuncio informed the queen about the Pope’s honor to him. So, she too invited him to preach to her in her chapel. But the young priest was tongue-tied on seeing the assembly. At that moment his father, who sat below the pulpit, whispered to him in Konkani: Hi sogli baji; cator re baji (they are all vegetables, cut the vegetables). Jolted, the son lost his fear and preached fluently. The priest often wondered how a mere phrase from his father could alter his state of mind so radically as to wipe off his stage fright in a second. The question had far reaching consequences in his life. Abbe Faria followed the work of Franz Mesmer, who claimed hypnosis was mediated by “animal magnetism.” However, the Catholic monk taught that hypnosis worked purely by the power of suggestion and introduced oriental hypnosis to Paris. The monk was one of the first to depart from the theory of the “magnetic fluid” and highlight the importance of suggestion and to demonstrate the existence of “autosuggestion.” He also established that nervous sleep belongs to the natural order. He changed the terminology of mesmerism. Previously, the focus was on the “concentration” of the subject. In Abbe Faria’s terminology the operator became “the concentrator” and somnambulism was viewed as lucid sleep. The method of hypnosis he used was command, following expectancy. The theory of Abbé Faria is now known as Fariism. Wikipedia quotes Mikhail Buyanov, president of the Moscow Psychotherapeutic Academy, hailing the Goan priest as a great and fearless person who fought for truth “rather than for his place at the vanity fair.” Buyanov also regretted that details about the priest’s life remain unknown to historians and lost forever. However, his mystery lies “in his talent, courage, and quest for truth. His mystery was the mystery of someone who was ahead of his time and who blazed a trail for his descendants due to his sacrifice,” said the author of “A Man Ahead of His Times,” a study in Russian of Abbe Faria. François Joseph Noizet, a 19th century French Military General and a student of hypnotism, noted in his dairy about a man in Paris who made the experience of hypnotism public. “Every day, some 60 people used to gather at his residence and it was rare among these, that there were not at least five or six people who were susceptible to fall into a hypnotic trance. He would openly declare that he did not possess any secrets or any extraordinary powers, and that everything he achieved was dependent on the will of the persons he was performing upon.” Abbe Faria left for Parish in 1788, a year after he was implicated in the Conspiracy of the Pintos. In Paris, he became a leader of one of the revolutionary battalions in 1795, taking command of one of the sections of the infamous 10 of the Vendémiaire that attacked the French Convention. In 1797 he was arrested in Marseille for unknown reasons, and sent to the Chateau d’If in a barred police carriage. After a long imprisonment he was released and returned to Paris. In 1811, he was appointed Professor of Philosophy at the University of France at Nîmes, and was elected member of the Société Medicale de Marseille at Marseille. In 1813, realizing that animal magnetism was gaining importance in Paris, he returned to the French capital and started promoting a new doctrine. He provoked unending controversies with his work “On the cause of Lucid Sleep in the Study of the Nature of Man, published in Paris in 1819 and was soon accused of being a charlatan. He retired as chaplain to an obscure religious establishment, and died of a stroke in Paris. He left behind no addresses and his grave remains unmarked and unknown, somewhere in Montmartre. There is a bronze statue in central Panjim, next to the Goa Government Secretariat, of Abbé Faria trying to hypnotize a woman. It was sculpted in 1945 by Ramchandra Pandurang Kamat. Portugal commemorated his 250th birth anniversary by releasing a postcard of this statue. A prominent thoroughfare in the southern Goan city of Margao is named ‘Rua Abade Faria’ (Abbé Faria Street) in his honor. The Mustard Seed Art Company, a theater group from Goa, celebrated the 250th anniversary by staging a play entitled Kator Re Bhaji (cut the vegetable), written and directed by Isabel de Santa Rita Vaz. Alexandre Dumas used a fictionalized version of the Abbé Faria in his famous novel The Count of Monte Cristo. Asif Currimbhoy in his play Abbé Faria narrates the dramatic situations of the life and views of a revolutionary priest and Premier hypnotist. The title was published by Writers Workshop. The Institute of Clinical Hypnosis and Counseling established in Kerala is a memorial to Abbé Faria.
