Chauncy Hare Townshend (1798 1868), poet and collector, was a well-connected friend of Robert Southey and Charles Dickens. He became fascinated with Mesmerism while in Germany and went on to popularise it in England. This book, first published in 1840, was his passionate defence of Mesmerism. Developed in the late eighteenth century by Franz Mesmer, Mesmerism was a kind of hypnosis based on the theory of animal magnetism. With its spiritual associations and uncanny effects, it was an extremely controversial topic in the nineteenth century and its practitioners were widely considered...
Chauncy Hare Townshend (1798 1868), poet and collector, was a well-connected friend of Robert Southey and Charles Dickens. He became fascinated with M...
