Mars, Louis (1906-)
Mars, Louis (1906-)
Professor of psychiatry and former Haitian ambassador to the United States who was also interested in parapsychology. He was born on September 5, 1906, at Grande-Rivière du Nord, Haiti. He studied at the University of Haiti Medical School, Port-au-Prince (M.D., 1927), and took postgraduate training in psychiatry at the Faculté de Médecine in Paris (1935) and at Columbia University in New York City (1939-41).
He became a professor of psychiatry at the Medical School, University of Haiti (1937) and at the Institute of Ethnology, University of Haiti (1946-49). He subsequently served as dean of the Medical School (1947-51) and rector of University of Haiti (1957). Mars joined the Haitian government in 1958 as the minister of foreign affairs. He was subsequently named ambassador to France in 1960 and ambassador to the United States in 1962. After his government service, he became director of Psychiatric Institute of Port-au-Prince (1962).
As a psychiatrist, Mars became interested in the phenomena associated with voudou about which he wrote one book and several articles. He contributed to an article, "Phenomena of Possession," published in Tomorrow (autumn 1954).
Sources:
Mars, Louis. The Crisis of Possession in Voudou. Port-au-Prince, Haiti: State Printing, 1946. Rev. ed. Reed, Cannon and Johnson, 1977.
Mars, Louis, and G. Devereux. "Haitian Voudou and the Revitalization of the Nightmare." Psychoanlytic Review 38, no. 4 (1951).