Solomon's Secret Arts
Page 45
It was not wrong-headed, therefore, for the loyalist public to suspect practitioners of the occult. This chapter explores how that fear emerged: first, through the chequered history of magnetic healing; second, through hardening attitudes towards visionary prophets; third, through the theory that a conspiracy of occult Freemasons had set off the French Revolution. Two individuals who resisted contemporary trends towards loyalism are also considered: Mary Pratt and William Blake. The letters of Pratt, the last Behmenist of the eighteenth century, reveal a remarkable mind, steeped in a feminized version of occult thinking and hostile to every form of power. Blake, the mournful bard of the occult breakdown, left voluminous writings and graphic works in which he criticized occult thinking for being too conformist. He was not a lone visionary cursing at the governing systems of the day, since others experienced the same sense of impending defeat for spiritual forces at the hands of material authority. While Blake's genius may have been more expansive than theirs, other minds were thinking similarly gloomy thoughts amid the maelstrom of the French Revolution.
Magnetic Healing
“The rapid manner in which Magnetists have multiplied upon us, may seem to you [the public], incredible,” wrote John Martin, an entrenched critic of the phenomenon, in 1790.21 At that time, there were about a dozen major practitioners of medical cures by animal magnetism in London, and at least one in Bristol. John Bell, perhaps the most popular proponent of animal magnetism in England, lectured in London, Bristol, Gloucester, Worcester, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury, Chester, Liverpool and Manchester, as well as Dublin. Between them, the magnetists had many hundreds of students, who paid up to 50 guineas for extended instruction—in fact, lessons in the healing technique, not actual cures, were the main sources of income for most magnetists. Within a few years, however, animal magnetism was virtually defunct in England. Why was its rise so rapid and its fall so sudden?
The researches of Patricia Fara have cast considerable light on the English version of animal magnetism, but its significance remains shrouded in mystery.22 We should begin by noting that animal magnetism in England was different from its French, German and Italian counterparts. It had relatively little to do with Dr Anton Mesmer, the famous German promoter of a system of cures that depended on magnetism, baths, a form of hypnosis and a complex theory of “universal fluid,” sensible only to the magnetist. Mesmer's methods created a sensation at the courts of Vienna and Paris, and were widely imitated. While his fame definitely set off the phenomenon of animal magnetism in England, the latter did not follow Mesmer's teachings very closely.23 Only one prominent English magnetist, the former male midwife John Bonniot de Mainauduc, had studied magnetism in France. By the time Mainauduc arrived back in London in 1785, a committee of academicians appointed by the French king, including Benjamin Franklin, had issued a condemnation of Mesmer's treatments, arguing that their effects were imaginary. As a result, Mainauduc was compelled to concede that Mesmerism had been “laid aside by those who have gone further,” and was “fallacious.”24 Mesmer's name was thus seldom mentioned by English devotees of animal magnetism.
Instead, the English magnetists offered in their published writings a simplified version of Mesmerism that emphasized the power of the mind to effect physical changes at a distance. “The thought, or soul,” John Bell wrote, “goes to any distance; no obstacles can resist it. It arrives and unites itself, by a sympathetic power, to any object it wishes.”25 The equivalence of thought and soul is vital, because it indicates how heavily English magnetism was influenced by religion. Bell, a minister as well as a healer, claimed to be a member of the Philosophical Harmonic Society of Paris, which was dedicated to the preservation of Mesmer's principles, and he announced that his lectures “were entirely grounded on the Mesmerian Principles,” but as the title page of another pamphlet suggested, the “SECRETS and PRACTICE” were Bell's own. He emphasized religious justifications for animal magnetism. “Nothing proves more peremptorily the existence of a Supreme Being, who governs all things,” Bell exulted.26 Mesmer had famously argued that religious cures, like the exorcisms performed by the priest J.J. Gassner in Bavaria, were forms of magnetism; in England, conversely, magnetism was often turned into an aspect of religious healing.27 The anonymous author of Wonders and Mysteries of Animal Magnetism Displayed went so far as to maintain that animal magnetism was known to King Solomon and was a gift from God.28 Mary Pratt, who wrote a pamphlet praising the “Manuductions” or magnetic cures carried out by Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg and his wife, Lucy, described them as “made by the Almighty power of the Lord Jehovah.” She also compared them to the miraculous healings of the French Prophets.29
The English magnetists, however, were not simply faith healers. They employed a scientific language, borrowed in part from Mesmer, which set them apart from previous marketers of magnetic healing such as Gustavus Katterfelto. They imagined the whole body as a loadstone or magnet, with the nerves following a certain polarity. By means of an invisible attraction similar to gravity, the magnetist could penetrate the universal fluid that surrounded a patient's body and induce a reaction in the internal electric fluid, producing a “Crisis.”30 Satirists delighted in mocking the “Crisis” as sexual, especially as so many patients of the magnetists were female. Even among practitioners, the “Crisis” was highly controversial. John Holloway accused his rival John Cue of inducing a convulsive state that was “both hysterical and dangerous.”31 Both men were Dissenting ministers, and the charge is reminiscent of those made against French Prophets or Methodist preachers in earlier decades. In his published lectures, Mainauduc barely mentioned the term “Crisis,” which clearly embarrassed him. He alleged that Mesmer had derived the technique from Athanasius Kircher and Robert Fludd, and that it was often confused with “supernatural exaltations,” especially by “impostors” who would “disgrace the Science.”32 The particular features of a “Crisis” differed according to the individual. Bell admitted that a general hysteria could result from inducing a “Crisis” in one person. “This phenomenon is often seen in manufactories, schools, and other public places,” Bell observed, and he did not hesitate to compare it to the fits experienced by “the Trembleurs” or Shakers in the United States. He argued that patients could be treated without a “Crisis” and, drawing on the hypnotherapy of Mesmer's follower the marquis de Puységur, he recommended somnambulism as an alternative.33
The details of this scientific theory may have been of less importance to English magnetists than the basic concept of curing through the sympathy of mind and body. On this subject, English medicine had long depended on the writings of George Cheyne and David Hartley, which did not rule out the possibility of carrying out sympathetic cures. Cheyne had even theorized, like Mesmer, that the nervous system was a conduit for the movement of fluid spirits. In addition, the idea of controlling another body through mental action by a qualified guide was already deeply rooted in contemporary treatments of mental illness.34 What chiefly distinguished the magnetists was their willingness to extend that type of treatment to physical illness. They did not rely on blood-letting, pills, potions or any of the standard practices of contemporary doctoring. The patient was induced to cure herself (less frequently, himself). A remarkably optimistic view of human physiology underpinned animal magnetism—anyone was capable of physical self-restoration. To be sure, animal magnetism also depended on the almost total power of the (normally male) magnetist over another (usually female) human being, which could be unsettling. Betsy Sheridan reported that when her sister-in-law Elizabeth, wife of the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan, was magnetized by Mainauduc in 1788, she was “thrown into a state which She describes as very distressing. It was a kind of fainting without absolute insensibility. She could hear and feel but had no power to speak or move.”35 In earlier generations, her “state” might have been equated with demonic possession; by the late eighteenth century, it was emblematic of the power of the enlightened male over women and the ignorant.<
br />
The second distinguishing feature of English animal magnetism was its high degree of commercialization, which reflected the social diversity of its clients. This had not been the intention of Mainauduc. He proposed the formation of “an Hygiæn Society,” consisting of “Ladies,” meaning upper class women, who would take charge of the diffusion of magnetic teachings in London. His early cures were entirely aimed at the elite and court circles. The duchess of Devonshire, leading hostess of her day, accompanied Elizabeth Sheridan on her second visit to Mainauduc. This time, Mrs Sheridan “found herself attack'd as before but in a more violent degree, her limbs being now convuls'd.” The duchess herself “was thrown into Hysterics, Lady Salisbury put to sleep the same morning—And the Prince of Wales so near fainting that he turned quite pale and was forced to be supported.”36 Here was a truly blue-blooded roomful of convulsionaries! A list of Mainauduc's patients includes the duke of Gloucester, Lords Milford and Rivers, the Marchioness Townshend, the countess of Hopetown, Lady Archer, Lady Luttrell and two Ladies Beauclerk, General Rainsford, Richard Cosway and his wife, Maria. The sceptical George Winter, who attended Mainauduc's lectures in 1788, wrote that his fellow students included 3 male lay peers, 6 peeresses, a bishop, 5 Right Honourable gentlemen and ladies, two baronets, 7 Members of Parliament, a clergyman, two physicians, 7 surgeons and ninety-two other people “of respectability.” The 1798 subscription list to Mainauduc's published lectures comprised persons no less well-born: viscount Chetwynd, the marquess and marchioness of Hertford, Lady Clive, Lady Charlotte Campbell (future novelist and friend of “Monk” Lewis) and assorted colonels.37 This was the sort of high-society crowd that Mesmer himself had cultivated in Vienna and Paris; but it was not big enough to sustain more than one successful magnetist.
Mainauduc's chief rivals aimed at a less exalted clientele, attracting them with lower fees for instruction. They relied heavily on public advertising, in a variety of forms. John Bell introduced his lectures through an advertising pamphlet, while Loutherbourg, John Holloway, Benedict Chastanier and the mysterious Dr Yeldall advertised in newspapers. Chastanier and Holloway also issued broadsheets.38 Holloway offered lectures on animal magnetism six days a week, either at his house in Hoxton or at another site in Pall Mall. A course of three afternoon lectures normally cost £1.5s.0d. per person, although it could rise as high as 5 guineas, and Winter huffed that Holloway had realized £2,000 in fees. “A Gentleman and his Wife will be admitted as one person,” Holloway added, liberally. Those living at a distance from London could engage his services, provided they could gather a sufficient number of pupils. Holloway would travel anywhere in England or Scotland to speak to a class of thirty people, and claimed to have educated almost two hundred.39 Perhaps the most successful advertising technique of all, however, proved to be word of mouth. Loutherbourg and his wife offered free treatments to paupers at their house in Hammermith, and were soon overwhelmed by customers. Mary Pratt claimed that they cured two thousand people between Christmas 1788 and July 1789, adding that crowds of three thousand had lined up for tickets. These charitable efforts forced the exhausted Loutherbourgs to retire to the country.40
The burgeoning sphere of public discourse in London provided further advertising for the magnetists through debating clubs and the theatre. In September 1789, the Coach Makers’ Hall Society of Cheapside debated the question of whether it was “consistent with reason or religion to believe, that Mr. Loutherbourg has performed any cures by a divine power without any medical application?” The artist was defended by at least three gentlemen, and the debate was adjourned to the following week, when it was finally decided against him. In the same month, Dr Yeldall was called upon to defend his methods before an audience at the weekly forum known as the City Debates. Yeldall's oration upholding the validity of animal magnetism “impressed that Conviction on a numerous and brilliant Audience, which caused them almost unanimously to declare, that his Practice of Animal Magnetism was founded on the sound Principles of Philosophy.”41 The dramatist Elizabeth Inchbald added to the public debate through her farce Animal Magnetism; it debuted at Covent Garden in 1788 and remains very funny. The story revolves around a valet who pretends to be “Doctor Mystery, author, and first discoverer of that healing and sublime art, Animal Magnetism.”42 Although The Times wished the play to be as successful against magnetism as Ben Jonson's The Alchemist was against gold-making, it did not present a straightforward condemnation of the practice. One of the actresses was reportedly magnetized during rehearsals and thrown into convulsive fits of laughter!43
It is difficult to estimate the size of the audience stirred up by this publicity, but it was undoubtedly substantial, and must have extended into the middling and even lower ranks of society. Hoxton was not a fashionable destination for the upper classes (it was full of Nonconformists), so the customers at Holloway's house were probably of the middling sort. John Cue, who also lived in Hoxton, taught and practised healing free of charge, although Martin sneered that he accepted money from “suitable patients.”44 The Loutherbourgs’ clients included a teenage apprentice, the daughter of a chairman, a news-carrier and several women who seem to have been servants. As already suggested, women were always prominent among the magnetized, although practising female magnetists were rare.45 Lucy de Loutherbourg cured patients alongside her husband, and Mainauduc had at least one female assistant, Ann Prescott. A disgruntled student of John Holloway, “Maria,” published a short pamphlet entitled The Secret Revealed: or Animal Magnetism Displayed.46 George Winter asserted that Mary Pratt performed magnetic cures, although there is no other evidence for this.47
The third point to be made about animal magnetism in England is that it depended heavily on the occult. The same might be said of the phenomenon in Strasbourg, where it was dominated by Swedenborgians, or in Lyons, where it was practised by the occult Masons of the Élus-Coens.48 The impact of occult philosophy was noted with disapproval by the English opponents of magnetic healing. John Martin accused the magnetists of reading nothing but “arcana” or occult writings, such as Agrippa, Fludd, J.B. van Helmont, the seventeenth-century Scottish physician William Maxwell and Paracelsus—precisely the books recommended for study by the author of Wonders of Animal Magnetism Displayed, although he added Sir Kenelm Digby, a few astrologers (Culpeper, Lilly, Coley, Saunders), Henry More and others.49 John Bell referred to Paracelsus as one of the precursors of animal magnetism, suggesting that he, “as well as many other anatomists, have admitted poles in man.”50 Writers who were sympathetic to animal magnetism compared it to Sir Kenelm Digby's weapon salve and to the methods of the seventeenth-century Irish “Toucher” Valentine Greatrakes. Like the Royal Touch in earlier times, animal magnetism was advertised as an effective treatment for the King's Evil, or scrofula.51
The relationship of animal magnetism to occult science was explained by the astrologer Ebenezer Sibly, who included a long discussion of the practice in his Key to Physic, and the Occult Sciences (1795). He perceived it as proof of the traditional theory of sympathies and antipathies in nature. As he put it in his somewhat tortured prose, “the atmospherical particle to each individual receives from the general fluid the proper attraction and repulsion.” Sibly equated the universal fluid to a “vital force” that was subject to celestial as well as earthly forces.52 This was one of the most original readings of animal magnetism to be published in England, and it reached a large audience, as the work was reprinted in 1800, 1802, 1806 and 1814. It was accompanied by an engraving of “The Operator putting his Patient into the Crisis” that has since become a standard illustration of the technique. Sibly may have also had something to do with the republication in 1793 of a treatise that had first appeared fifty years before on “Magnetical Cures,” falsely attributed to the Dutch chemist Herman Boerhaave. It made the same argument as Sibly about sympathies and antipathies, but it recommended healing by “True Magick, grounded upon natural Causes,” and even endorsed figures, sigils and talismanic images, “becaus
e their Operation is natural, and perform'd by the wonderful Influence of the celestial Bodies agreeing with our Bodies.”53 Sibly did not market sigils or talismans, but the occult theory behind this work was very similar to his. Francis Barrett, who did endorse talismans, included chapters on magnetic healing in The Magus, where he presented a typically confusing pastiche of natural magic with what he called “the spirit of the blood.” Much of Barrett's discussion was derived from Sibly.54
Some were willing to extend the occult foundations of animal magnetism beyond Europe. According to a scandalized John Martin, the magnetist John Holloway announced in one of his lectures that animal magnetism “is exactly similar to the Heathen priestesses, when they gave out their answers in pagan Temples.” Holloway then recounted a story about two European ships voyaging to India that were separated near the coast. “To give them satisfaction, one of the Indians being worked upon [i.e. subjected to animal magnetism], became insensible, and had all the symptoms of a crisis.” After his recovery, “he assured the sailors, he had seen their companions, that they were safe, and would ere long arrive at the same place: which came to pass.” Holloway followed this up with another “extravagant” tale about an Indian “who possessed great powers of magnetism,” and was allowed to heal people, although he had to commit a murder once a year. Martin thought the anecdote revealed that magnetism was “from Satan and not from God.”55 Holloway's Indian analogies signify the beginnings of a cross-cultural interchange on the subject of visions that would influence British ideas of magnetic healing into the mid-nineteenth century.56
Occult Freemasons, alchemists and Swedenborgians were thrilled by animal magnetism. While serving as governor of Gibraltar, General Rainsford translated and wrote a preface to a French account of a young woman who experienced visions while under magnetic treatment. The testimony of “Mlle N–” suggested that “the Will of the Spirit & of the Soul shew themselves most sensibly in the Solar Plexus.” Rainsford also translated a letter on somnambulism addressed to the Swedenborgians at Strasbourg. Animal magnetism, the author concluded, was a kind of divine spiritual healing.57 The Loutherbourgs, who cured simply by touch, held the same opinion. “Anthony Pasquin” relates how Loutherbourg's successful career as a magnetist ended when a crowd of invalids broke into his house at Hammersmith and destroyed “his most valued medicaments,” which probably means his alchemical work. Loutherbourg's friend Richard Cosway attempted his own extravagant magnetic therapies. He believed he had the ability to look inside people's bodies, and once diagnosed a friend as suffering from “a hole in your liver.”58 In animal magnetism as in other occult matters, Cosway was an incorrigible dilettante.