Hypnosis?

[Mike Covell]

Sorry about the poor scan. This appeared in the Hull and North Lincolnshire Times on November 10th 1888.

[Big Jon]

Reckon there might have been a Victorian Derren Brown lurking about?

[Mike Covell]

I have never actually been put under but know people that have. When I was at college, a friend of mine went to a local public house where a stage hypnotist was playing, and he put my mate under. My mate, who was a no nonsense type of kid, was told he had lost his penis, and he spent the next 30 minutes looking for it, and asking other drinkers where it was. He was not drunk when he got put under, and afterwards couldn't remember a thing, but everybody at college did, and it made his life hell.

To this day, 10+ years later, we still cannot go for a walk without people asking him "Have you found it yet?"

[Paul Kearney A.K.A. NEMO]

Sleepwalking / hypnosis has been used as a defence in a number of modern murder trials (and other crimes)

Strangely, I was recently contemplating RDS as the mentor of a hypnotised Ripper while he was in hospital (I can hear you laughing Mike !)

We might be into MKUltra territory here which I always found fascinating

For those of you not familiar with the MKUltra project, it involved American research and practical trials with hypnotised / brainwashed assassins using techniques developed during and after the Korean War on prisoners undergoing "interrogation"

It's worth Googling - one of the key search words would be "Manchurian Candidate"

[Howard Brown]

Nemo:

Unless the individual who controlled the hypothetical stooge told him to find a specific person to cut,slash,mutilate,and all that ....he'd probably kill the first skirt he came upon or wander around like the Flying Dutchman of Whitechapel. Without a definite, nameable intended victim at that time of night, and him being in a trance state...well, just think about it buddy....and besides mesmerism wasn't what it was today. The Manchurian Candidate techniques were not in existence in 1888 either....which I know you know,old bean,

Hypnotized people can't "relate" to people a hypnotist suggests are present but in fact not there at all and only suggested to the hypnotized individual. That was how Kenneth Dickface Bianchi was nailed for feigning insanity by a Univ. of Pa. expert in hypnosis.

Sammy Davis Jr., could never have been a hypnotist...which is why he was a schmaltzy Vegas entertainer. The moment that moulinjon asked someone to look into his eyes, he's screwed the pooch, because he only had one eye.

[Howard Brown]

By the way,Nemo....do you or anyone else consider the possibility.. even remotely....that someone could commit premeditated murder while in a somnambulistic state?

Let me know if you do, guys....these bridges I have over here are taking up space and Nina is on my ass about finding new digs for the Cross Bronx, Verrazano and Walt Whitman.

[Mike Covell]

Strangely, I was recently contemplating RDS as the mentor of a hypnotised Ripper while he was in hospital (I can hear you laughing Mike !)

Dr Davies is still looking for his penis in Whitechapel!

If Stephenson was using someone else, what would be his aim, other than to blame someone else for the murder, as surely it would be the person under hypnosis that attains invisibility??

[Howard Brown]

Mike:

Not sure if our esteemed partner in mayhem,Nemo, meant D'Onston.

Again...D'Onston said he practiced mesmerism on kids when he was 14. Thats not proof of anything. If this guy practiced it then, why didn't he pursue it, because he never mentions it again during his adult life being replicated on anyone else ?

You've got to take a ton of salt to what Stephenson says he did in virtually everything that is of this nature. Not getting shot in the thigh, but this sort of hocus pocus stuff.

P.S. Mike...I'll toss in Doc Davies' dickie with the Dannhower Bridge in Norristown,Pa, if you know anyone interested.

[Mike Covell]

That statement made about Mesmerism is weird for a number of things, and I have looked at these in a chapter in my book, but I can't remember them off the top of my head.

I do remember that Stephenson mentions that he practiced them on his cousin, and that he did so at school.

The known facts, however, point to the fact that little Robert was home schooled, with no evidence to show he ever attended any of the schools in the sculcoates area.

Now forgive me if I am wrong, but I thought Mesmerism, was a term associated with magnatism, and more often magnatism involving fluids, such as the experiments carried out by Franz Mesmer.

Abbe Faria was the guy who made the phrase, mesmerism, popular with the hypnosis set, as he made it clear that magnetism worked only with the power of suggestion.

So the big question is, did Stephenson get mixed up, or did he toss his cousin in a vat of fluids and giant magnets?

[Howard Brown]

Allow me to add these tidbits about D'onston and "mesmerism" which you'll see was not what the practice he claims to have engaged in was even referred to at the time he claims he performed this bit of legerdermain.



　
　

I.-EARLY HISTORY.

I was always, as a boy, fond of everything pertaining to mysticism, astrology, witchcraft, and what is commonly known as " occult science " generally ; and I devoured with avidity every book or tale that I could get hold of having reference to these arts. I remember, at the early age of 14, practising mesmerism on several of my schoolfellows particularly on my cousin, a year younger than myself. But on this boy (now, by the way, a hardheaded north country solicitor) developing a decided talent for somnambulism,- D'Onston 1896...
*************************************

The following is in reference to the Scotsman who developed hypnotism, James Braid.
　
Braid therefore began using the term "neuro-hypnotism" as early as late November 1841.
In early 1842 — as a response to a direct attack upon himself and his work that had been made in a sermon delivered by a Manchester cleric, McNeile and had been immediately published in an unaltered form, despite Braid's attempts to rectify the misunderstandings he felt it contained — Braid privately published the contents of an (unanswered) letter that he had written to the cleric as a twelve page booklet entitled Satanic Agency and Mesmerism Reviewed (1842)[citation
　
Mesmerism
A tendency emerged amongst British magnetizers to call their clinical techniques mesmerism in order to distance themselves from the magnetic-fluid-centered theoretical orientation of animal magnetism.
However, many scientific practioners - such as French physician, anatomist, gynecologist, and pupil of Joseph Philippe François Deleuze (1753-1835), Théodore Léger (1799-1853), who had moved to Texas around 1836 -- found the label "mesmerism" to be "most improper".
Mesmerism and hypnosis (as the term is now understood) have nothing in common except their shared historical roots, and the experience of the mesmerized subject is significantly different from that of the hypnotized subject.
　
Mesmerism and Spiritual Healing Practices
Mesmerism shares with practices such as reiki and qi gong a concept of life force or energy. However, the practical and theoretical positions of such practices are on whole substantially different from those of mesmerism.

[Mike Covell]

　
　

I.-EARLY HISTORY.

I was always, as a boy, fond of everything pertaining to mysticism, astrology, witchcraft, and what is commonly known as " occult science " generally ; and I devoured with avidity every book or tale that I could get hold of having reference to these arts. I remember, at the early age of 14, practising mesmerism on several of my schoolfellows particularly on my cousin, a year younger than myself. But on this boy (now, by the way, a hardheaded north country solicitor) developing a decided talent for somnambulism,- D'Onston 1896...

The facts,

First of all Stephenson claims to have been a Schoolboy at 14, but the 1851 Census (HO107 P2361 F325 P10 R87633-87634) shows him as a Scholar at Home. In this very Census he is aged 9, so it is quite possible that he went to one of the many available schools when he was a little older.

Next up he claims to have carried out mesmerism on his cousin who was a year younger than himself. Stephenson did have a cousin who was a year younger than himself called Joseph Dawber.

Stephenson goes on to claim that his cousin became a hardheaded north county solicitor, whilst this is partially true, Joseph did become a solicitor, by the time Stephenson had this tome printed, Joseph was no longer a solicitor due to several acts of fraud during the early 1890's.

[Howard Brown]

Mike:

D'Onston taking a verifiable fact and then adding fiction to it isn't new....which of course everyone and his brother knows.

What strikes me the most about RDS here...and I have to thank Nemo for encouraging this thread before I forget...is that he called it "mesmerism" when mesmerism is not what he is describing. For an all knowing virtual encyclopedia of haute magic and all that crap, this is not the first time he's misrepresented one thing for the other in his writing.

[Mike Covell]

I was in no way stating that Stephenson was telling the truth, I was adding the facts from the period to the fictional story, in the hope that we can not only make sense of the stuff he wrote, and find out the truth.

The River Hull ran right alongside Sculcoates, what are the chances that Stephenson didn't have some huge magnets that he dropped off the bankside, before tossing his cousin into the depths!

[Howard Brown]

I hear you,Mike...and I knew how you meant what you said.

Its sort of like me saying to you or Nemo:

"You know...I just heard that latest song by The Ramones on 8-track".

Well...the Ramones are not only 75% deceased...but they don't make 8 tracks anymore and no music will ever be made on 8 track again.

Using the term mesmerism, when it was something else by that time is the key to me Mike that this is yet another false story. If he had said "hypnotism" this story might be acceptable since he did indeed have a cousin a year younger as you say.

The last email you sent didn't have anything attached. Maybe it got transported into space,buddy.

[Paul Kearney A.K.A. NEMO]

Hi Mike & Howard

I'm sure even in early mesmerism they were producing stage hypnotist type scenarios like the lost penis thingy

I think I've seen depictions of people feeding from a bowl like a dog etc

I don't think invisibility etc would have been the aim Mike

It would be more like collecting the "essential" artefacts to enable him to carrry out the ceremony to raise Lucifer

In his capacity as a would be Archmage, he could well have influenced a Neophyte type character a bit like a Netley...

The "stooge" need not have been a full trance like state etc but I'm sure RDS could be very influential toward the average uneducated East End wannabe - possibly someone of a much higher class who fully believed all the Satanic stuff at the time. He might have been fully aware of what he was doing and what it was all about - making corpse candles basically