Francis Lefebure (1916-1988)

Thesis: La respiration rythmique et la concentration mentale en education physique, en thérapeutique et en psychiâtrie. Thesis (D.M.)–Université d’Alger, 1942. Excerpts PDF

Francis Lefebure

Francis Lefebure, a noted parapsychologist, was born on September 17, 1916 in Paris. His father was a lawyer, his mother a painter and poet.

At the age of 17, Lefebure completed the pre-medical program in Physique, Chimie, and Sciences Naturelles, graduating near the top of his class. He also pursued his interests in yoga and “sciences spirituelles”, with the assistance of his mother. He began his medical studies at the age of 18 in Paris, served as a physician in the French army from 1939-1944, and completed his medical thesis in 1942 at the Université d’Alger during the German occupation of France. After the war, he taught science and worked as a school physician (1944-1959).

He later became director of “cervoscopy” (a brain exploration technique he invented) at Dynam Institut in Paris. He claims to have successfully projected his “psychic double” at a distance to persons who had no prior knowledge of the experiment. He is also known for his work with phosphenes (“a sensation of light experienced upon pressure on, or electrical stimulation of, the eyeball”) and he founded l’Ecole du Docteur Lefebure in 1987 to provide training in what he called “phosphènisme”. He wrote books on phosphenism, the brain, and parapsychological subjects and won various awards for his work.

Francis Lefebure died on March 19, 1988.

Sources:

Melloni’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary. 4th ed. Boca Raton: Parthenon Publishing Group, 2002.

Le Docteur Lefebure, fondateur du phosphènisme. https://www.phosphenisme.com/le-fondateur/. Accessed 29 September 2006.

“LEFEBURE, FRANCIS.” Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology. New York: Garett Publications, Helix Press, 1964.

“Lefebure, Francis (1916- ).” Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology. A compendium of information on the occult sciences, magic, demonology, superstitions, spiritism, mysticism, metaphysics, psychical science, and parapsychology, with biographical and bibliographical notes and comprehensive indexes. 3rd ed. Detroit: Gale Research, 1991.

Photo Source:

Le Docteur Lefebure, fondateur du phosphènisme. https://www.phosphenisme.com/le-fondateur/. Accessed 29 September 2006.

Biographies of selected authors from the New York Academy of Medicine Collection of International Medical Theses written by Kristin W. Andrews, B.A., M.S.L.S.

Last modified: 01/25/21