Pascal Forthuny (24 March 1872 - 29 April 1962) was a French

art critic An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogue ...

, clairvoyant

medium Medium may refer to: Aircraft *Medium bomber, a class of warplane * Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''The Medium'' (1921 film), a German silent film * ''The Medium'' (1951 film), a film vers ...

and novelist.Anderson, Rodger. (2006). ''Psychics, Sensitives and Somnambules: A Biographical Dictionary with Bibliographies''. McFarland & Company. p. 61.

Biography

Forthuny was born as Georges Léopold Cochet in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

in 1872. He developed his alleged paranormal abilities of

automatic writing Automatic writing, also called psychography, is a claimed psychic ability allowing a person to produce written words without consciously writing. Practitioners engage in automatic writing by holding a writing instrument and allowing alleged sp ...

clairvoyance Clairvoyance (; ) is the claimed ability to acquire information that would be considered impossible to get through scientifically proven sensations, thus classified as extrasensory perception, or "sixth sense". Any person who is claimed to h ...

and psychometry in the 1920s after his son died in a plane crash. He was tested by psychical researchers such as Eugéne Osty and

Charles Richet Charles Robert Richet (; 25 August 1850 – 4 December 1935) was a French physiologist at the Collège de France and immunology pioneer. In 1913, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "in recognition of his work on anaphylaxis". Riche ...

who were convinced he had genuine

paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...

powers. Other researchers were more skeptical. Samuel Soal wrote that Forthuny's work was "not always above suspicion." During an anonymous sitting in 1929, Forthuny had pretended to obtain his name by

but it was discovered that he previously attended lunch with psychical researchers

Eleanor Sidgwick Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick (née Balfour; 11 March 1845 – 10 February 1936) was a physics researcher assisting Lord Rayleigh, an activist for the higher education of women, Principal of Newnham College of the University of Cambridge, and a lea ...

and V. J. Woolley who told him the afternoon sitter was Soal. In 1930, an article in the French magazine ''Psychica'' accused Forthuny of fraud. During one of his alleged clairvoyant demonstrations he was said to have obtained signals from an accomplice who gave him information about his target.

Chair tests

Forthuny was known for carrying out "empty chair" tests in

parapsychology Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, teleportation, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry (paranormal), psychometry) and other paranormal cla ...

. This type of experiment was originally devised by Eugéne Osty at the

Institut Métapsychique International The Institut Métapsychique International (IMI) is a French parapsychological organization that studies paranormal phenomena. It was created in 1919 by Jean Meyer, Gustav Geley Gustav Geley (13 April 1868 – 15 July 1924) was a French physician ...

and conducted with Forthuny in April 1926. Forthuny was shown a marked empty chair in the conference room. He then gave predictions to a stenographer about the unknown person who would occupy the chair such as their appearance or characteristics. Later during the same day the room would be filled with people and the marked chair would be occupied. According to Osty the experiments were a success and evidence for

precognition Precognition (from the Latin 'before', and 'acquiring knowledge') is the purported psychic phenomenon of seeing, or otherwise becoming directly aware of, events in the future. There is no accepted scientific evidence that precognition is a ...

. Criticism of the chair tests came from

Antônio da Silva Mello Antonio is a masculine given name of Etruscan origin deriving from the root name Antonius. It is a common name among Romance language–speaking populations as well as the Balkans and Lusophone Africa. It has been among the top 400 most popular ...

who found the results suspicious as they were never replicated. The controls of the tests were also criticized and they are now considered discredited.Hövelmann, Gerd H; Michels, Hans. (2017). ''Legitimacy of Unbelief: The Collected Papers of Piet Hein Hoebens''. Lit Verlag. pp. 229-242.

Publications

*''Notes et impressions de voyage: En Suisse'' (ill. P. Forthuny), Paris, La Semaine des constructeurs, 1898 *''Le Roi régicide: Roman social'', Paris, Tallandier, 1898 *''La voie idéale: Les étapes inquiètes'', Paris, Fasquelle, 1899 *''Une crise'', Paris, Paul Ollendorf, 1901 *''L'Altesse'', Paris, Tallandier, 1904 *''Amours d'Allemagne: Frieda'', Paris, Pierre Douville, 1907 *''Les vierges solitaires: Roman social'', Pierre Douville, 1909 *''Isabel ou le poignard d'argent: La tragédie des deux Espagne'', Paris, Sansot & Cie, 1911 *''Au seuil de l’âme chinoise !: Essai pour une psychologie de l'apprenti'' sinologue, Paris, P. Dupont, 1915 *''Le vendeur d'huile et la reine de beauté : Maisons closes chinoise'', Paris, Albin Michel, 1918 *''Le miracle des pruniers en fleurs: Roman chinois'', Paris, Albin Michel, 1920 *''Une victoire de la photographie psychique: la romanesque et glorieuse aventure du medium William Hope (de Crew, Angleterre) accusé d'être un imposteur, traîné une année dans la boue, victime d'une sombre machination, enfin reconnu parfaitement innocent et incontestable medium photographe'', Terrier frères et Cie, 1923 *''Les amants chinois'', Paris, Albin Michel, 1924 *''Entretiens avec une outre : Devant la mort de Sarda Nafale et l'entrée des Croisés à Constantinople'', Paris, G. Daugon imp, 1929 *''Je lis dans les destinées : La clairvoyance et ses médiums'', Les éditions de France, 1937

Biography

Chair tests

Publications

References

Further reading