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The First Woman on Mars
You all know Carl Jung, right? Along with Freud, he is the undiscussed father to psychoanalysis. Both authors have been influenced by a Swiss Professor, that went by the name of Théodore Flournoy. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Flournoy wrote an instant classic, From India To Planet Mars. The book was presented as a study on somnambulism, but it is now considered a pioneer work on multiple personalities.
Literary and historically speaking, there’s a lot more. This essay follows the life of a nineteenth-century woman Flournoy analyzed for years. Strange enough, she claimed to be a regular visitor of Mars.
The first woman to step on Mars
In the nineteenth-century, the research work of Giovanni Schiapparelli made Mars the most gossiped about planet. In 1888, Schiapparelli hand-drew maps of Mars. Based on his observations with an optical refracting telescope, he discovered “canals” on the surface of the red planet. It was the first step into believing there could be water on Mars and thus life.
