prosopopesis
prosopopesis noun: a sudden and profound change of an individual's personality, whether spontaneous or induced e.g. in hypnosis.
Noun
prosopopesis
- A sudden and profound change of an individual's personality, whether spontaneous or induced e.g. in hypnosis.
- Mr. Soal declares that while the presence of certain persons is favorable to his duplication of personality and while some persons actually aid the prosopopesis, others have an inhibitive influence.1929, Psychic Research, volume 23, American Society for Psychical Research, page 381
- Later, French psychical researcher René Sudre (1880-1968) discussed what he referred to as prosopopesis or the nonconscious tendency to impersonate, as seen in mediumship, as well as in hypnosis, possession and cases of double and multiple personality.2011, Etzel Cardeña, Michael Winkelman, Altering Consciousness: Multidisiplinary Perspectives, volume 1, ABC-CLIO, →ISBN, page 105
Origin of prosopopesis
From prosopo- (“person, mask”) + -poiesis; introduced by French psychical researcher René Sudre, whose book "Parapsychology" (1926) was published in English by Grove Press in 1962. Possibly influenced by προσωποποιία (prosōpopoiía, “dramatization, prosopopoeia”).
Questions about prosopopesis
- What does prosopopesis mean?
- Prosopopesis means a sudden and profound change of an individual's personality, whether spontaneous or induced e.g. in hypnosis.
- What part of speech is prosopopesis?
- Prosopopesis is a noun.
Words near prosopopesis in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: prosopopesis (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “prosopopesis.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/prosopopesis. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.