This Is A New Release Of The Original 1909 Edition.

From the 1830s to the Civil War, Americans could be found putting each other into trances for fun and profit in parlors, on stage, and in medical consulting rooms. They were performing mesmerism. Surprisingly central to literature and culture of the period, mesmerism embraced a variety of phenomena, including mind control, spirit travel, and clairvoyance. Although it had been debunked by Benjamin Franklin in late eighteenth-century France, the practice nonetheless enjoyed a decades-long resurgence in the United States. Emily Ogden here offers the first comprehensive account of those boom years. Credulity tells the fascinating story of mesmerism’s spread from the plantations of the French Antilles to the textile factory cities of 1830s New England. As it proliferated along the Eastern seaboard, this occult movement attracted attention from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s circle and ignited the nineteenth-century equivalent of flame wars in the major newspapers. But mesmerism was not simply the last gasp of magic in modern times. Far from being magicians themselves, mesmerists claimed to provide the first rational means of manipulating the credulous human tendencies that had underwritten past superstitions. Now, rather than propping up the powers of oracles and false gods, these tendencies served modern ends such as labor supervision, education, and mediated communication. Neither an atavistic throwback nor a radical alternative, mesmerism was part and parcel of the modern. Credulity offers us a new way of understanding the place of enchantment in secularizing America.

In 1779, Franz Anton Mesmer wrote an 88-page book, Mémoire sur la découverte du magnétisme animal, to which he appended his famous 27 Propositions. While undertaking research, G.F. Frankau obtained, on loan from a private library, an original edition of Mesmer's Mémoire sur la découverte de Magnétism Animal. Realising its medico-historical importance and tempted by a layman's vanity to undertake the translation himself, he eventually decided that the task could only be accomplished by an expert; He secured the services of Captain V. R. Myers of the Berlitz School of Languages. Myer's rendering of the eighteenth-century French is highly praiseworthy. The adjective "mesmeric", the substantive "mesmerism", and the verb to "mesmerise" have not changed their meanings since they first became current-posterity's unique tribute to a unique man.

Excerpt from Animal Magnetism, or Mesmerism and Its Phenomena Among the aids to such study as I have indicated is an acquaintance with those states and conditions of the human spirit which Mesmerism reveals. Among the standard works on that subject, this volume of the late Dr. William Gregory, Professor of Chemistry in the Uni versity of Edinburgh, has always held its place. The present edition is identical with the second, which differed from the first only in the omission of some matter which has now, happily, become irrelevant and unnecessary. The first three chapters of the original edition have been omitted, because it is now no longer needful to defend the reality of the mesmeric phenomena with which Professor Gregory deals under the name of Animal Magnetism. That title, which most investigators have now agreed to abandon, is retained in deference to the author's choice, and because the work is well known under its present name. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Mysticism and esotericism are two intimately related strands of the Western tradition. Despite their close connections, however, scholars tend to treat them separately. Whereas the study of Western mysticism enjoys a long and established history, Western esotericism is a young field. The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism examines both of these traditions together. The volume demonstrates that the roots of esotericism almost always lead back to mystical traditions, while the work of mystics was bound up with esoteric or occult preoccupations. It also shows why mysticism and esotericism must be examined together if either is to be understood fully. Including contributions by leading scholars, this volume features essays on such topics as alchemy, astrology, magic, Neoplatonism, Kabbalism, Renaissance Hermetism, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, numerology, Christian theosophy, spiritualism, and much more. This Handbook serves as both a capstone of contemporary scholarship and a cornerstone of future research.

List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: An Invitation to the Seance1: Discovery of the Island of Mesmeria 2: Animal Magnetism Comes to London 3: Experimental Subjects as Scientific Instruments 4: Carnival, Chapel, and Pantomime 5: The Peripatetic Power of the "New Science" 6: Consultations, Conversaziones, and Institutions 7: The Invention of Anesthesia and the Redefinition of Pain 8: Colonizing Sensations in Victorian India9: Emanations from the Sickroom 10: The Mesmeric Cure of Souls 11: Expertise, Common Sense, and the Territories of Science 12: The Social Body and the Invention of Consensus Conclusion: The Day after the Feast Notes Bibliography Index Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.