Awards

• Winner of North American Council on British Studies British Council Prize 1999
• Winner of North American Council on British Studies British Council Prize 1999.

Overview

Thousands of men and women all across Britain in the Victorian age were being mesmerized, twisted into bizarre postures and speaking out in unknown languages, and the Victorians were literally entranced with this phenomenon. The text focuses on mesmerism: who was entranced, who did the entrancing, why mesmerism was such a compelling experience to so many and how it became equally powerful evidence of fraud and ""unscientific"" behaviour to many others. It illuminates dark areas of the relationship between science and society, allowing the assessment of the role of authority in particular social contexts: who draws the line between the bogus and the authentic and how is the boundary maintained? More fundamentally, what is the nature of the powers that wield, and the influences that bind humans together in a social body?

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9780226902197

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Reviews

An exploration of Victorian culture that views mesmerism as a reflection of human interaction, gender differences, medical and scientific dilemmas, and relations of power and authority in Britain and colonial India. Conceived of by the 18th-century-physician Franz Anton Mesmer, the technique of one person's control over the mind and body of another reached England in the 1830s and remained, according to Winter (History/Calif. Institute of Technology), at the center of Victorian public attention for three decades. The initial propagators of mesmerism were traveling lecturers. They organized public demonstrations in which a subject (usually female) was put in a trance, induced when the mesmerist passed his hands along her body. The trance caused paranormal reactions, including clairvoyance, extraordinary sensitivity, and suspension of pain. Some mesmerists were skilled enough to diagnose and even treat a patient during a seance; a hospital was set up to sponsor experiments testing the healing properties of mesmerism. Perhaps the most fascinating proof of mesmerism's medical effectiveness was a series of public surgical operations held to remove tumors and limbs: throughout, patients felt no discomfort. The spread of mesmeric pain suppression techniques stimulated research into anaesthetic substances; mesmerism was eventually superseded by ether. Yet along with the medical establishment, the clergy vehemently opposed this psychic practice. (Some priests saw a threat in the potential explanation of Jesus' miracles as acts of mesmerism.) Even after mesmerism's demise in Britain, it was practiced in India (where it resembled indigenous healing methods). Mesmerism helped to change English medical practices and contributed to the rise of women as public figures - for many female patients (Harriet Martineau, Elizabeth Barrett) regarded their sickness and mesmeric treatment as a source of authority. A captivating inquiry into a bizarre and neglected mystical phenomenon. (Kirkus Reviews)

Winter, an American Associate Professor of History, gives an extremely erudite account of the Victorians' fascination with hypnotism, very relevant for today if you want to understand the current popularity of hypnotism as demonstrated by the massive popularity of TV stage hypnotists. By the 1840s most Victorians would have attended a mesmeric seance, either as part of a small group in a parlour, or amongst thousands n a crowded hall. The mesmerist would seat the subject before him - everyone would fall silent and watch. Mesmerist and subject would stare into each other's eyes as he made magnetic passes over her. These passes were long sweeping movements of the hands skimming the surface of the skin without actually touching it, so close that each felt the heat of the other's body. After a period the subject would sink into a state known as the mesmeric trance or coma. The subject appeared to sleep though her eyes might stay open for a short time. A strange communion would develop between the mesmerist and her; she would speak his thoughts, taste the food in his mouth, move her limbs in a physical echo of his. If mesmerism could transform a conscious individual into a living marionette, still more extraordinary were the active powers it gave to the mermeric subject once she slipped deeper into a mesmeric state. A new sense would open to her shut eyes. Subjects might claim to see events occurring in the future, inside the body, in distant lands and even in the heavens. The Victorians who attended these wonders of the age recorded fascinating, disturbing and sometimes even life-changing experiences. Many saw in them the fulfilment of the mind's greatest potential. But was the subject faking? To prove that the ordinary senses had been suspended, the mesmerist and members of the audience fired pistols near the subject's ears, pricked her skin with needles, poured acid on her skin, thrust knives under her fingernails, ran electric shocks through her arms and placed noxious tastes in her mouth. If the tortures produced a response skeptics dismissed the experiment, if there were none, the trance was all the more plausible. The complex psychology and sociology of the dance between the hysteric willing to play act on stage, the showman doctor and the gullible audience, is entertainingly and open-mindedly depicted by Winter's scholarly research, providing some useful insights into the modern day parallels of TV stage hypnotists. There is, however, an emphasis on seeking cultural explanations linked to Victorian preoccupations of why mesmerism so came to the fore in the 18th Century, and a neglect of the long-standing need of the public to be amazed and intrigued by the mind. Although the subject matter may appear obscure, anyone interested in history, particularly that of Victorian Britain, or bizarre behaviour, and especially the politics of the experts' understanding of mind in contrast to the public's, will find this an intriguing book. In particular the detail provided on the Victorian sensibility is exquisite, making this essential reading for anyone fascinated by Victorian times or literature. Review by RAJ PERSAUD Editor's note: Dr Raj Persaud is a Consultant Psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital in London. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Alison Winter (1965-2016) was a professor of history at the University of Chicago. She taught at Cambridge University and the California Institute of Technology before coming to Chicago in 2001. Her research encompassed the history of sciences of mind, the history of modern medicine, modern British history (especially the Victorian era), and historical issues of gender. She was the author of Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain and Memory: Fragments of a Modern History. The latter book won the Gordon J. Laing Prize in 2014.

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