PLOT TWIST
Hypnotism, Hysteria and Epilepsy: An Historical Synthesis – E M Thornton
This is a peculiar book to reflect upon, in that it’s not ‘a book’ per se, but rather an academic synthesis – where a researcher compares a variety of sources, and analyses similarities, differences, and connections towards a particular argument or conclusion.
E M Thornton’s synthesis was published in 1976 and delves into the fascinating connections between hypnotism, hysteria, and epilepsy. The author ultimately seems to want to solve the riddle of hypnosis by ascribing its processes, phenomena, and the experiences of its cast of characters (subjects and, indirectly, operators) to epilepsy.
I finished the book unconvinced that epilepsy alone – and certainly as it was understood in the 70s – solves the riddle, for reasons I’ll explain. But the author, Elizabeth M Thornton, a medical historian, is to be thanked and admired for bringing this perspective; in particular, for focusing on ‘subjects’/‘cases’/‘victims’ rather than the heavily biased derring-do of the usual ‘stars’ of hypnotism past.
I was recently diagnosed as autistic, becoming one of thousands of women and minorities to be diagnosed or self-diagnosed later in life with what was/is stigmatised as a condition affecting only white males and severely impacted children. Similarly, three of my four closest female friends have been self-/diagnosed as ADHD, which suffers similar demographical stigma. Each of us, I think it’s fair to say, have experienced both grief and relief in learning how our brains work; found solace, and connections in the neurodiversity community and movement; and – importantly – rampaged about how “THIS EXPLAINS EVERYTHING!”.
I read somewhere that self-/diagnosing as autistic (or ADHD, etc) later in life is like rewatching a TV show with an epic season-finale plot-twist; all the clues and signs were there all along! My personal epiphanies, you won’t be surprised to read, included recasting my interest in hypnosis via the autism lens. I thus spent six months rampaging to Kev about how the riddle of hypnosis – especially in terms of the most compelling phenomena and anecdotes – can be attributed to autistic sensory issues, meltdowns, and shutdowns. I was TREMENDOUSLY EXCITED and planned to write my humbly entitled “Unifying Theory of Hypnosis and Mesmerism (You’re Welcome)” for this blog... as well as the global medical and media communities.
Whilst I don’t doubt this is partly correct, I’m grateful that this while-ago-purchased book rose to the top of my recent reading list. It reminded me that all sorts of brains and bodies – and knowns, unknowns, and unknown-unknowns – contribute to the social construct and cultural phenomenon (and, perhaps someday, elusively conclusive brain-scan) that is hypnosis.
That’s because Thornton’s book is packed with source-after-source of subject-focused accounts, stories, and anecdotes that leave you wondering whether, yes, they could be explained by epilepsy..? But, more often, whether there’s some other explanation (be it neurodiversity or other physical cause, or just a freak moment)... or, indeed, if the source can be trusted. Thornton doesn’t raise whether a source could be, say, caused by a panic attack or stroke (if it’s to be taken on face-value at all), leaning instead on hypnotism’s established murky relationship with epileptics since its supposed origins as the explanation for all. Ultimately, the theory just sort of peters out in the end, interesting as it is.
By far my favourite and most valued chapters were on mesmerism’s/hypnotism’s involvement in ‘the wandering womb’ and hysteria, and the birth of the professional hysteric. Thornton delivers on her promise to show us the true heroes of hypnosis, introducing us to women such as those fictionalised in Victoria Mas’s The Mad Women’s Ball caught in the webs of Salpêtrière, Charcot, and similar institutions, and masters. It’s all very misogynistic and tragic, and kicking Charcot et al hard in the balls is high on my time-machine to-do list.
If you have a penchant for what I summarised in my notes as “random weird shit”, then this synthesis is rammed with it. There are mesmerisers who dabbled in magic(k) and the occult, and an 1895 account of a “Malay” tribe (colonialists required no more specifics) whose few ultra-suggestible members would accept direct suggestions for shits-and-giggles, which the tribe considered a natural personal peculiarity and was identified by the adventurer-author as a hypnosis equivalent. And much, much more.
We even somewhat solve the mystery of ‘Donato’/‘Donatism’ that’s popped up a few times on this blog... Donato was a circa 1870s Belgian magnetiser who travelled Europe with his demos. During a tour of Italy, an artillery officer hypnotised by him “became almost insane”, and subsequently suffered spontaneous “hypnotism” at the sight of any shining object. He was particularly like a moth-to-a-flame to horse-drawn carriage lamps, and narrowly escaped death when a fellow officer saved him from being crushed by an approaching carriage that he’d gone towards. What became of Donato’s reputation and career after this scandal, who knows..?
