Facts in Mesmerism, with Reasons for a Dispassionate Inquiry Into ItCambridge University Press, 24/02/2011 - 598 من الصفحات Chauncy Hare Townshend (1798-1868), poet and collector, was a well-connected friend of Robert Southey and Charles Dickens. He became fascinated with Mesmerism while in Germany and went on to popularise it in England. This book, first published in 1840, was his passionate defence of Mesmerism. Developed in the late eighteenth century by Franz Mesmer, Mesmerism was a kind of hypnosis based on the theory of animal magnetism. With its spiritual associations and uncanny effects, it was an extremely controversial topic in the nineteenth century and its practitioners were widely considered fraudsters. Townshend describes in detail the mental states Mesmerism induces, which he identifies as similar to a state of sleepwalking. Perhaps most fascinating are the eye-witness accounts describing experiments carried out by Townshend on the continent, in which he hypnotised his subjects into feeling his own sensations and knowing things they could not know. |
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action agency Anna Antwerp appears ascer ascertained asked awake body brain called catalepsy cause circumstances colours condition consciousness dium eau de cologne effects electric evident exclaimed exhibited existence experiment external eyes fact faculties feeling felt fingers force forehead hand head hearing human idea imagination impulses inquiry lady least light Mademoiselle magnetic manifest manner matter means ment meric meriser mesmeric influence mesmeric medium mesmeric patients mesmeric sleep mesmeric sleepwaking mesmerised person mesmeriser's mind mode motion nature nerves nervous system Neufchâtel never objects observed occasion once optic nerve organs particular passed peculiar perceive perception perfect perfect darkness perfectly pheno phenomena phenomenon present principle produced proof proved question reason relation remarked remember render replied retina seemed sensation senses sensibility somnambule suppose thing thought tion told touch Townshend truth tympanum uncon usual vibrations vision visual perceptions waker waking