Stéphane Allix is careful to repeat it in each book: he is a “rigorous and objective journalist”, who “investigates with an implacable rational discipline on extraordinary subjects”. A “serious person recognized as such”, an “analytical” spirit. The bestsellers of this paranormal Tintin, like the productions of his Institute for Research on Extraordinary Experiences (Inrees), nevertheless have the air of Who’s Who pseudosciences: mediums, shamans, specialists in near-death experiences, magnetizers, healers, and even extraterrestrials…
The tragic death of his brother Thomas, who disappeared before his eyes in 2001 in a car accident in Afghanistan, marks a turning point for this former great war reporter. Life after death becomes a real obsession. Served by an alert pen, all his works are driven by the same thesis: consciousness does not disappear with our body. It would be today “a rational hypothesis”, supported by “scientific research” and an “unprecedented accumulation of studies and testimonies”. For Stéphane Allix, it is on the contrary the “materialist vision” which would have everything of an “outdated limiting belief”, now “scientifically untenable”.
At the same time, he married Natacha Calestrémé. “Power couple” of esotericism for twenty years, the two make the series Extraordinary investigations on M6, and each sell hundreds of thousands of books, essentially for the same publisher, Albin Michel, constantly quoting each other. Very recently, they made it known on social networks that their couple has “pursued another path”.
Strange scientific guarantees
It was in 2007 that Stéphane Allix founded Inrees. A high-sounding title, enough to make this SAS pass for a research organization. “Inrees aims to show that the New Age would not be esoteric but scientific”, notes Pascale Duval, spokesperson for the National Union of Associations for the Defense of Families and the Individual (Unadfi). As guarantees, we find personalities like the former doctor Luc Bodin, specialist in energy care, or Jean-Jacques Charbonier, anesthesiologist who defends the idea of life after death, and affirms that consciousness could exist independently of the brain. In 2021, Dr Charbonnier was sentenced on appeal to a six-month suspended prison sentence for “involuntary injuries”, accompanied by a ban on practicing for three years. Another regular at Inrees, Philippe Bobola is presented as “anthropologist, physicist, biologist” and even “psychoanalyst”. Promoter of a “great quantum awakening”, the latter regularly appears alongside conspiratorial figures such as Jean-Jacques Crèvecœur or Ema Krusi. Among the “supporters” highlighted on the institute’s website, in addition to geobiologists, mediums and other alchemists, even includes the name of Idriss Aberkane, the self-proclaimed “hyperdoctor” who has become a star of the conspiracy.
Always with a view to applying “rigorous investigation methods to unexplained subjects”, Stéphane Allix is launching a quarterly magazine, Unexplored. The promise: navigate between “science and spirituality”. Far from giving pride of place to the scientific approach, the articles published mostly do without academic sources. The former journalist prefers to highlight works from the very esoteric Trédaniel editions. Or relay the opinions of disparaged scientists, such as Luc Montagnier, whose remarks on vaccination were the subject of a public denunciation by 106 academicians of medicine. In a 2015 article, but recently revived, a “mindfulness” psychologist tries to rehabilitate the water memory theory. It is based on the controversial media comments of the biologist, now deceased. The water would keep in memory the “waves” of the molecules, and this, even after a great dilution. This theory would justify homeopathy or biodynamics, but it has long been derided by the scientific community.
In Unexplored again, a “specialist in restructuring the energy system” offers five rituals for a “sacred” pregnancy. Among the suggestions, the “vaginal steam bath”. The idea: to regenerate the genital organ, using scents of honey, orange or rose. “Sit over the smoking container, taking care not to burn yourself […]. Your eyes are closed, your senses are turned towards your sex and the sensations”, it is advised. Only effect identified: the risk of intimate burns increases drastically.
An inconclusive test
Also in his bestsellers, Stéphane Allix seeks to give credibility to stories that seem straight out of the series. X Files. The test (more than 250,000 copies sold according to Edistat) is presented as an “incredible experience” providing “proof of the afterlife”: on the death of his father, the author placed different objects (a paintbrush, a tube of painting, a compass, a copy of the Tartar Desert and a personal note) in his coffin. Then he consulted different mediums to check their ability to identify these artifacts. The protocol is inspired by American “researchers” who are trying to validate mediumship, like the controversial psychologist Gary Schwartz, professor at the University of Arizona, or Julie Beischel, founder of the Windbridge Institute and translated into French at the Trédaniel editions. But in spite of himself, The test looks like Knock communication with the beyond. If they really communicate with the deceased, why can’t the mediums directly name the objects? It’s because, argues our Rouletabille, “mediumship is a process that goes mainly through the right brain”… One of them sees “something that has travelled”, which, for the ex-reporter, can only be the compass. As a Tartar Desert, another medium guesses “a comic strip” or a “little child’s notebook”. Several mediums reveal to him that he would have an unknown uncle called “Charles”. Conclusion: “To date, I have not found any trace of another child born to my paternal grandparents. But I remain very disturbed by the fact that three mediums have reported the possible existence of this brother.”
When I was someone else (nearly 80,000 copies sold) is even more extravagant. In full spiritual retreat in the middle of the Amazonian forest, Stéphane Allix dreams of an SS officer, “light brown, almost blond”. A name appears to him: “Alexander Hermann”. Either the Germanic equivalent of a “Laurent Dupont”. Discovering in the archives an Alexander Hermann who disappeared on the Russian front, Stéphane Allix embarks on his trail in Germany and Russia, convinced that he would be a kind of reincarnation of this Nazi fighter. Ultimate proof: an astrologer confirms to him that the “Celestial Noble” appears in their respective “energy chart”, detecting a “metaphysical connection” between the two.
Solicited through Inrees, Stéphane Allix did not respond to L’Express.