Summary
For the past few years he had been watching with great interest Dr John Elliotson's experiments in mesmerism ("Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage and asked Incredulity to dinner," as the rather more doubtful Ambrose Bierce defined it) at University College Hospital in London. [...] here is Alexis, a young German somnambulist who can play cards and tell the time while blindfolded - though not without, noted the physician to the Queen's household, "repeatedly touching and shifting his bandages [and] pressing a knuckle into each eye".
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Extract
Is There Anybody There?
Is there anybody there? Christopher Bray Servants of the Supernatural: the Night Side of the Victorian Mind Antonio Melechi William Heinemann, 304pp. £20
"What do you think of my setting up in the magnetic line," Charles Dickens wr...See the full content of this document
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