Strong uniform static magnetic fields compress the electronic distribution of rare gas atoms and cause a 'spindle effect', which can be illustrated by plotting charge-density functions which depend quadratically on the flux density of the applied field. The fourth rank hypermagnetisabilities of He, Ne, Ar and Kr are predicted to have small positive values. Accordingly, the diamagnetism of rare gas atoms diminishes by a very little amount in the presence of intense magnetic field. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.