In the Caribbean and Haiti
It seems that New Orleans was the hub through which Mesmerism made its way to Haiti. The banker Kornmann received 2,400 livres from Saint Domingue which means there were at least ten members of the society in Haiti prior to the revolution. But the key connection is a figure called the Armand-Marie-Jacques de Chastenet, Marquis of Puységur. Armand-Marie-Jacques de Chastenet, Marquis of Puységurwas the eldest of three aristocratic French brothers who were trained in the arts of mesmerism. Jacques Maxime de Chastenet, the Viscount de Puysegur (1755-1848), the youngest brother, was a military officer, who used magnetism to treat his soldiers. Antoine Hyacinthe, the Count de Chastenet (1752-1809), the middle brother, was a naval officer who brought mesmerism lo the French colony of Saint Domingue later called Haiti. There magnetism became popular among slaveholders, as well as the enslaved, each having their own benefits. Puysegur at the inaugural discourse of the Harmony Society of Haiti pronounced a discourse where he said: "Humanity! What for a word that now sounds in the New World! Spirits of the americans, stand out! Africans put high your chains! And you, white man, oppressor, self imbued European ... listen! America offer the most striking contrast. In the North of America, native americans are free as Nature is; in the Southern side men are sold as cows; ...We don't want these atrocities; they are the product of a politic that loose its principles, and not the crime of a single man...Slavery is a fight between the master and the slave... The brother of the Marquis developed a technique whereby a tree is magnetised and the peasants on the estate hold the branches of the tree as the magnetic power was passed through them. One of the biographers of Mesmer claimed that "it was during one of these sessions that a group of Negro slaves confused Mesmerism with witchcraft ..., and the authorities banned the practice". Mesmerism supposedly fueled the mix of voodoo and other African spiritual practices that agitated the slave population into rebellion. It was because of this that Mesmer himself boasted that his science was responsible for the Haitian Revolution. In Saint Domingue (pre-Revolutionary Haiti) Magnetism and the ideas of freedom diffused by Puysegur become as a psychic epidemic amongst the Negro slaves, increasing their self esteem and desire to be free, and the French domination ended in a bloodbath. Later Mesmer boasted that the new Republic, now called Haiti, owed its independence to him and his science was responsible for the Haitian Revolution. Mesmerist practices became so widespread among the Black slaves that were incorporated into their original Voodoo cult. The connection between magnetism and voudo is shown by the fact that the voudo priests are called even now "Maitiseurs" a contraction of the frenche word "Magnétiseur".
