Guy de Maupassant — Le Horla 

Unusual and extraordinary experiences have recently been the focus of a psychology of anomalous experiences (McClenon, 1984, 1994; Reed, 1988; Zusne & Jones, 1982). Among the phenomena addressed by this emergent area of research are alien abduction, ESP, incubus attacks, out-of-body experiences, occult experiences, possession, and other unusual and marginalized experiences. Remarkably, Maupassant touches upon almost all of the phenomena that would be covered by a psychology of anomalous experiences. 

Maupassant's narrative treatment of his own anomalous experiences and those of his protagonists in numerous semi-autobiographical short stories vacillates between, and sometimes combines, folk and scientific accounts—including a straightforward medical account of "madness." Indeed, although many analyses treat Le Horla as a masterful tale of madness and a near clinical account of Maupassant’s own deterioration, the present analysis focuses on Maupassant's creative use of a broad array of available cultural materials to interpret anomalous experiences. 

Hufford (1982, 1988) contrasts cultural and experiential source hypotheses in the context of accounts of anomalous experiences. The cultural source hypothesis is the conjecture that paranormal and occult accounts have their origins solely in social structures, stories, and beliefs that stimulate the imagination and give rise to misinterpretations of everyday experiences. The cultural source hypothesis is not usually articulated as a specific set of theses or conjectures but rather constitutes certain implicit presuppositions of mainstream social science (McClenon, 1994). The cultural hypothesis is probably not best described as an hypothesis but rather as an assumption at the "hard core" (Lakatos, 1970) of what has been referred to as the standard social science research program (Tooby & Cosmides, 1992). This hard core is never tested directly but appears to service a "protective belt" of specific auxiliary hypotheses about specific cultural processes. In contrast, the "hard core" assumption of the experiential source hypothesis is that such cultural accounts have their source in truly unusual, out-of-the ordinary experiences grounded in physical, physiological, and psychological events that do not depend upon any particular cultural context. The experiential hypothesis further states that, although anomalous experiences may be amplified and modified by specific cultural beliefs, the degree to which this is possible is markedly constrained by culturally universal components. As Josephs (1996) points out interesting questions are often neglected in advocacy of one or the other of these perspectives. More interesting to Josephs are questions such as how a " person makes sense of his or her wondrous experiences, how does he or she use them to reframe his or her biography, and how do they serve as semiotic tools for constructing the future" (p. 217)? 

The present analysis has been guided by an interest in understanding how the experiential and the cultural hypotheses might be productively and concretely combined to address the sorts of questions raised by Josephs. The initial assumption here is, consistent with the experiential source hypothesis, that unusual experiences (i.e., anomalous events that have been lived through) motivate post hoc investigative sense making. Essential to this notion of experience "is that it cannot be exhausted in what can be said of it and in what can be grasped of its meaning" (Gadamer, 1960/1988, p. 67). The second assumption is that a primary role of cultural traditions is to serve as a resource for explanatory and narrative accounts of experiences that capture our attention and are deemed worthy of explaining. This view of culture is consistent with the interpretive views of Geertz (1973) for whom culture is "historically transmitted patterns of meanings embodied in symbols" through which we communicate, sustain, and change our "knowledge about and attitudes toward life" (p. 89). The explanatory function of cultural tradition is to highlight conditions, contexts, and processes that potentially predict, prevent, or modify experiences. The narrative role is to render experiences coherent by organizing, ordering, and sequencing the events they comprise, as well as incorporating conditions and contexts suggested by causal explanations (Cheyne & Tarulli, 1998). Traditional cultures have ready-to-hand a finite set of explanations that are shared by many, if not all, members. Modern industrialized cultures also have a large and diverse array of explanations and narratives, many of which are fleeting and few of which are known by the majority of their members. This large and often conflicting set of accounts might be said to compete to provide the most complete, parsimonious, coherent, and otherwise satisfying accounts of significant experiences (Dawkins, 1976). Whether or not such personification of accounts is helpful remains to be seen. It is a significant task, nonetheless, to understand how we sort through, select, and combine our personal understandings of our lived experiences from a wealth of cultural material.

Alien abductions are reported overwhelmingly to take place at night when the victim is asleep or about to fall asleep. A crucial telltale sign of authenticity of the experience is the "sense of presence" in one's bedroom just as one is falling asleep (e.g., Hopkins, 1987). Then there is the almost inevitable paralysis or immobility during which the victim feels "very, very heavy -- as if I weighed ten thousand pounds, or frozen, immobilized," as well as a suffocating feeling during which "You can't breathe, you can't move" (Velez, 1996). Then comes the terror: " . . . usually the first few moments of these experiences involve initial confusion, then shock, fear, terror . . . I was in a pure state of pure panic and terror" (Velez, 1996). Also consistent with the lack of explicit sensory qualities to the auditory and visual hallucinations is the report that aliens communicate through telepathy, bypassing the external senses, and directly entering the mind. "You hear that all in your head. They communicate telepathically. They think at you, and you hear it in your head. Actually, what I hear in my mind -- what I remember hearing in my mind, during hypnosis, is a very soft raspy whisper. Their voices sound like they're whispering in your head"(Velez, 1996). In the course of all of these confusing and frightening experiences abductees are often “floated" up to waiting craft (Hopkins, 1987). The consistency of these features in the literature has been taken by apologists for alien abduction theories as a criterion of genuineness (Whitmore, 1995).

SP and associated HHEs appears to be transcultural with numerous cultures having widely known terms, explanations, and well defined narratives associated with this experience (Adler, 1994; Bloom & Gelardin, 1976; Firestone, 1985; Foster, 1973; Fukuda, Miyasita, & Ishihara, 1987; Hufford, 1982; Ness, 1978; Tillhagen, 1969). SP with HHEs is a likely source of the notion of the traditional images of nocturnal assaults by incubi, witches, mare, spirits, and demons (Keissling, 1977; Roscher, 1900/1979; Simpson & Weiner, 1989), and may be the original referent for the term "nightmare" (Liddon, 1967). Fuseli's famous painting entitled "The Nightmare," for example, seems more likely inspired by the notion of SP rather than any sleeping dream (Schneck, 1969). One of the most thoroughly studied cultural accounts of SP with HHEs is that of the "Old Hag" experience of Newfoundland (Firestone, 1985; Hufford, 1982; Ness, 1978). The "Old Hag" is a very concrete version of an alien presence that sits on the afflicted person's chest while attempting to throttle the helpless victim. The Newfoundlander's notion of the hag likely had its origins in the British Isles where the hag or haegtesse is related to witches (Simpson, 1973), That the Old Hag experience was also well known during Shakespeare's time is suggested by Mercutio's Queen Mab speech:

Maupassant's aliens arrive at the very beginning of his story (although this is not at all evident, at the time, to either the reader or the protagonist) in “a magnificent Brazilian three-master, completely white, wonderfully clean and shining” (Maupassant, 1988, p. 891). It is significant, in view of later developments, that the appearance of this ship interrupts some pleasant reflections on his heritage and love for the countryside in which his forefathers had lived and died. Within a few days he is unwell and depressed, in striking contrast to his near euphoric state at the time of the passage of the Brazilian ship. In addition to several physical symptoms he begins to develop obsessions with the "invisible," with the limitations of the "normal" senses, and with the resulting inability of humans to comprehend the very large and the very small. Even in his initial philosophical rumination we are presented with a metaphor mixing the folk notion of fairies and the scientific notion of physical force.

Maupassant's account of this terrifying seminal experience is an evocative description of a prototypical SP experience with HHEs (See opening quote). There is a sense of presence; first monitoring, then threatening, finally attacking. These impressions are amplified by sensations of pressure on the chest, of being strangled, and of being paralyzed and mute, unable even to cry out. The initial episode is followed by nightly repetition of the experience. During this period he experiences a pervasive sense of presence associated with feelings ranging from vague apprehension to extreme terror. On his walks, he thinks someone is following him, "nearly treading" on his heels. In spite of the extreme proximity of the presence he cannot give it form, cannot fully comprehend the entity that hovers just over his shoulder. He becomes extremely disoriented and suffers episodes of panic and agoraphobia. He does find a brief respite in a holiday to Mont-Saint-Michel. Even here, however, his obsession with that which escapes the normal range of senses is reinforced in his discussion with a monk about legends surrounding Mont-Saint-Michel. After listening to several old stories, Maupassant's character expresses some skepticism regarding the existence of the chimerical creatures of these legends. "If there have been other beings on the earth besides us; how is it," he says,  "that we have never actually encountered them in all this time?" Evoking a metaphor of the power of the invisible wind, the monk replies, “Can we see even a hundred-thousandth part of what actually exists?” (p. 895). 

 Shortly after his return home, his former malady returns and the nocturnal assaults resume. “Last night I felt that somebody was squatting on me, putting his mouth on mine, drinking my life out through my lips. Yes, I really felt he was sucking my life out through my throat, just like a leech would do” (p. 895). During this period he notices that water is mysteriously disappearing from his decanter on the table by his bed. He vacillates between two hypotheses, which will gradually merge.

Shortly after his return from Paris, he speculates that some brain dysfunction must account for these hallucinations. He comments also on his apparent lucidity in the face of incredible experiences. Perhaps, he thinks, some mechanisms associated with dreams explain his experiences, including his daytime fantasies. He persists briefly in his scientific analysis of his symptoms, making reference to notions of cerebral localization current at the time.

Maupassant's protagonist begins to show further signs of agoraphobia about this time. While out walking along the riverbank he is consumed by a growing apprehension of something preventing him from proceeding. He is overcome by a feeling that he must get home as soon as possible. During his outings he is overcome by sudden panic attacks. “Then just as I was getting back into my carriage, and was intending to say: ‘Drive to the station!’ I found myself shouting, in a voice so loud that passers-by turned around: ‘Drive me home!’” (p. 904). 

His impression grows that an entity has taken possession of him and is sapping his will. He has become unable to make the simplest decisions and feels he is a helpless spectator who can no longer control his own body. He concludes that his behavior is controlled by an invisible alien just as that of his cousin was controlled by the "alien will" of the hypnotist in Paris. As a literate member of an industrialized society he seeks authoritative guidance from the local library in the learned treatises of one Herman Herestrauss, "doctor of philosophy and theogony," who has written on "all of the invisible beings which haunt mankind or appear in dreams." In spite of his diligent research he does not find an immediate answer to his own particular possession. The treatise of the learned doctor does, however, instill, or perhaps simply clarify, certain ideas. These are evolutionary ideas about the possibility of the emergence of some new creatures who will be the successors of humans. He then begins to speculate on the possibility of extraterrestrial life in the faraway worlds among the stars. What superior powers must they possess? 

One day he reads an account of “an epidemic of madness, similar to the contagious insanity that attacked European populations in the Middle Ages" (p. 906), sweeping through Brazil. Here a guiding explanatory metaphor is provided by notion of “contagion” by invisible microorganisms, popularized by the late 19th century through the efforts of the Hygienists and Pateurizers (Latour, 1988, Perrot, 1990). The alien possession theme now begins to dominate. He reflects back upon the handsome three-masted Brazilian schooner that sailed past his house on the Seine. He imagines that the entity must have seen him, and his house "white like the ship"—and jumped ashore. “Now I know. I can forsee it. The reign of humanity has come to an end” (p. 904). This is a line of thought encouraged by the evolutionary scenarios inspired by the treatises of Dr. Herestrauss. He speculates that Mesmer had merely foreshadowed a glimpse of the power these beings possess. The learned doctors using hypnosis are, he now thinks, like irresponsible children playing with powerful forces that they scarcely understand. 

The popular notion of hypnosis as the imposition of the "alien" will of the hypnotist upon the helpless subject clearly reinforced the plausibility of the abduction of the will of Maupassant's protagonist by unknown alien agents. This "abduction of the will" metaphor had been emphasized in the demonstrations of hypnotic and post-hypnotic effects encountered in Paris. It was not only the demonstration of a particular phenomenon, but also of a scientific explanation that seized his mind--or rather a constellation of explanations that had evolved over the preceding century. Hypnotism had attained a status as a marginal but very popular quasi-scientific phenomenon at the time of Maupassant's writing. Hypnotism was, then as now, being explored on the margins of science, tinged with an aura of the occult that rendered its scientific investigation suspect. 

Several of Maupassant's short stories refer frequently to Mesmer and the notion of "animal magnetism." The analogy to the effect of magnetism on the "will" of iron bars was already an old and scientifically discredited idea by the time of Maupassant. Mesmer had created a sensation in Paris in the 1770's and 1780's with his version of "animal magnetism." Independent scientific investigations of Mesmer's work had revealed little evidence for anything even remotely analogous to magnetism. Mesmer's own abandonment of the use of magnets suggests that he had come to a similar conclusion himself, but was unable to provide a satisfactory alternative explanation. It was likely as much Mesmer's inability to offer a plausible alternative scientific explanation as any doubts about the validity of the phenomenon itself that lead to his disgrace and withdrawal from Paris (Boring, 1950). The scientific investigations of the learned commissions did not demonstrate that the mesmeric phenomena lacked validity but that the magnetic theory was not credible (Bowers, 1976). It was not the case, however, that the theory was considered inherently nonsensical or far-fetched. It was, on the contrary, quite in keeping with the scientific temper of the time (Dixon & Lawrence, 1992). It was, nonetheless, very susceptible to empirical disconfirmation. Without a solid, or even tentative, alternative scientific explanation, Mesmer's effects, it was concluded, could only be magic or fraud. Mesmer's flair for drama and spectacle doubtless reinforced consideration of these alternatives. 

Later, during much of the 19th century medical journals ignored this hypnosis (in spite of considerable interest and activity by sometimes quite eminent scientists). By the 1860's, however, hypnotism was experiencing something of a revival in France, spearheaded by the work of Charcot at the Saltpêtrière. Charcot was widely acknowledged as the preeminent neurologist of his time and his fame was at its height throughout the 1880s. Maupassant had attended some of Charcot's lectures on the subject (Kellet, 1989). Indeed, Charcot’s lectures were considered social events and were attended by many of the rich and famous and the performances of his hysterical patients were said to rival those of the great opera stars and stage actors of the day (Perrot, 1990). Charcot himself was the model for characters in many novels and plays (Ellenberger, 1970). Moreover, Maupassant knew Charcot personally, having dined with him at the home of Edmond de Goncourt and, on at least one occasion, Maupassant's mother was examined by Charcot himself (Troyat, 1989). Charcot offered a vague but more or less scientifically respectable theory of hysteria that appeared to account for hypnotic phenomena and that was acceptable to the Academy. Hypnosis, as a symptom of hysteria and later as a form of dissociation, consolidated a view that different and opposing forces or souls vied for control of the body. Evocative photographs of patients acting out hysteria for the camera gave substance and credence to sensational newspaper stories of the aboyeuses and possédées and to later forms of mass hysteria that occurred throughout the 19th century in France (Perrot, 1990). 

Thus Maupassant's rough amalgam of popular and marginalized science, contemporary fads and discredited scientific theories, folk images, tabloid journalism and learned treatises, and his own bizarre personal experiences, conjured up a quasi-scientific alien abduction hypothesis. He finds a name for his own particular demon, the "Horla," or rather, imagines that he hears this name spoken by the entity itself. There has been considerable speculation about the manner in which Maupassant came up with that particular name (e.g., Cogny, 1970). Perhaps the most obvious is simply that it is le hors-là—the outside-there—a sort of inverted and perverse Dasein of utter otherness. This is very consistent with one of the most fundamental aspects of the HHEs accompanying SP, the sense of an evil presence, an alien other poised by one's bed waiting to destroy one's body and abduct one's soul. Popular views of hypnosis (“animal magnetism,” “fascination”) reinforced the evolutionary explanation of this particular experience. “In animals, hypnotism appears to result from a kind of paralysis of the will. It looks like a capitulation in front of a superior will” (Lysing, 1892; cited in Laurence & Perry, 1988). Thus, the experience of the alien other, imposing its superior will merges easily with the evolutionary trend of thought suggested earlier and Maupassant quickly incorporates all of this into a crude survival-of-the-fittest analogy.

Thus, the notions of the physical and physiological plausibility of invisible agents and physical forces acting on bodies and minds, multiple agents in one body, alien control of thought and action through hypnosis, life on other planets, progressive evolution?all lend plausibility to the belief in possession by alien entities. The invisible demons of earlier superstitious ages are resuscitated in this marriage of evolution and hypnosis. In the end he accepts the reality of the alien, not as the product of a psychological process of imagination/suggestion or errant brain processes as he had earlier conjectured, but literally as a bodily abduction by a superior alien species. Psychological and neurological interpretations succumb to those of hypnotic mind control and evolutionary biology.

Since alien abduction experiences are typically associated with the onset of sleep, and hence typically followed by sleep, it is tempting to suggest that they will be forgotten or repressed in the morning. Under hypnosis, or the persistent questioning of an interrogator, these would provide raw material for elaboration. This point about hypnosis has been dealt with extensively in the UFO literature by participants on all sides of the issue (Baker, 1997-88; Jacobs, 1992; Klass, 1988), as well as more broadly in the recovered/false memories literature (Spanos, 1996). Nonetheless, the present argument is not that accounts of UFO abductions are false memories, although it is not inconsistent with that view or the possiblity that they are often badly reconstructed, misinterpreted, and misattributed accounts (Clark & Loftus, 1996). Rather the present view is that they are often vivid and accurate memories of real and often truly bizarre experiences for which most members of industrialized societies have no immediate and convincing conventional explanation. The experiences are entirely consistent with nocturnal assault and abduction. Many elect to deny the evidence of their senses and accept mainstream scientific explanations having to do with psychological suggestion or brain functioning. A few, however, take their experiences at face value and continue to describe their experiences in narratively rich terms with incursions of cultural elements consistent with alien abduction.