Catholic Engagement with Animal Magnetism, Spiritism and Therapeutic Hypnotism in Nineteenth-Century Belgium

How did Belgian Catholics' views on hypnotism and earlier forms of animal magnetism change over the nineteenth century, and how did spiritism shape this evolution? From the 1850s onward, the growing influence of spiritism, which co-opted magnetism as a healing method, deepened Catholic suspicion of magnetism and informed investigations such as the 1870s inquiries into the stigmatic Louise Lateau. By the century's end, however, rising academic interest in hypnotism and the successful dismissal of magnetism as unscientific allowed Catholic physicians to embrace hypnotism as a therapeutic tool.