DEAR JOHN
Facts in Mesmerism or Animal Magnetism – Chauncy Hare Townshend
Chauncy Hare Townshend (1798-1868) – poet, clergyman, magnetist, avid collector, and classic Victorian gentleman scientist – was a key figure in 19th Century mesmerism in Britain. He studied with Dr John Elliotson, who pioneered mesmerism in medicine; and he counted fellow amateur mesmerist Charles Dickens as a lifelong friend.
Facts in Mesmerism or Animal Magnetism: With Reasons For A Dispassionate Inquiry Into It was published in 1840. Elliotson’s experiments on female epileptic patients – which strayed from medical analgesia and anaesthesia into clairvoyance and circus – had been questioned and, as far as the medical establishment was concerned, discredited two years prior in 1838. And hence Townshend’s tome is a sort of 539-page ‘love letter’ to John Elliotson, and to the ‘science’ of mesmerism.
I expected this book to be a hard, boring slog – and it was. And I even have a weird soft spot for the bluster of Victorian gentleman scientists who should just be believed because of their good word, good reputation, and good taste in taxidermy and Claret! But Townshend heaps poetry and theology on top of his many amateur observations and beliefs about mesmerism, concluding – hmm, what..? – that the medical establishment should just accept the jolly good word of a jolly good gent with an extensive collection of teapots?!
Ultimately it feels like Townshend sat down to write a supportive letter to Elliotson following his fallout with the chaps at The Lancet, and it just all got a bit out of hand. He captures the despair surrounding mesmerism’s excision from medicine, and hope for Elliotson to prevail. But I doubt his dismissal of the French Royal Commission on Animal Magnetism of 1784 or endless musings on the workings of the body and mind persuaded anyone to mesmerism’s cause.
What we can be grateful for, though, is the highly detailed picture of Victorian amateur mesmerism Townshend provides in his many subjective anecdotes. I felt transported to the drawing room of some capacious country pile, watching Chauncy wow his hosts and fellow guests with telepathic wonders gleaned from some pliable young lady, or, later, after all that Claret, him curing a chum of a headache with a nice mesmeric nap. In an age where entertainment, utility, and cutting-edge scientific experiment are clearly delineated, it’s fun to hark back to a time where an evening with Chauncy blended all three.
As always, the experiments, and the insistence on their veracity, seem quaint and silly now. Closed eyes flicker; liquor being poured has distinct smells and sounds; blindfolds ‘leak’; people wittingly and unwittingly ‘cheat’; the rituals and rhythms, props, rings, nibbles, and hankies of Victorian society and socialising were limited and predictable.
Within these anecdotes, two things particularly struck me... Firstly, Townshend tells the story of a “scoffing”, “even boisterous” 23-year-old Belgian gentleman whom he mesmerises despite the scoffer’s disbelief in, and thwarting of, mesmerism. But, overcome by Townshend’s fluid, the Belgian lies down on the sofa – a serious breach of etiquette, what with there being ladies present, and which Chauncy sees as proof that the man is acting against his will. We can now appreciate, of course, that showing 19th Century ladies all your horizontal splendour is probably willed for; which begs the question – how much mesmerism was about breaching and breaking down etiquette and power structures? Probably a very great deal of it.
Secondly, Townshend was strongly disinclined towards commanding mesmirees to open their eyelids to ascertain that their eyeballs were rolled back, as was expected of a truly mesmerised subject. He feared blindness and just found it icky. So, like Puységur eschewing Mesmer’s crisis in favour of the somnambulistic response, I wondered how influential Townshend was (and he is known as second only to Elliotson in terms of British influence) in that fading from practice.
In summary, most of the relevance of this book has faded, too, much like the Peruvian bark fad, and loose yet lofty concepts about static electricity, ‘elastic’ bodies and minds, and something to do with mirrors as an explanation for why Chauncy is right about mesmerism.
