The Uncanny Rise of Medical Hypnotism, 1888–1914: Between Imagination and Suggestion (Mental Health in Historical Perspective)

This book explores the improbable rise of medical hypnotism in Victorian Britain and its subsequent assimilation and neglect. It follows the careers of the ‘New Hypnotists’: Charles Lloyd Tuckey, John Milne Bramwell, George Kingsbury and Robert Felkin. This loosely knit group all trained with the Suggestion School of Nancy and published books on hypnotism. They had to confront the many public and medical prejudices against the trance state which had persisted after the scandalous disgrace of John Elliotson and medical mesmerism, fifty years before. Hypnotism was a highly contested technology and in the 1890s the debates about safety and utility were fought in the national newspapers as well as the medical journals. The new hypnotists took on the might of the medical institutions personified by Ernest Hart, Editor of the British Medical Journal . However their timing was propitious, as the rise of faith-healing forced the medical profession to confront the non-physical therapeutic aspects of the doctor-patient relationship. The hypnotic discourse was shaped by these developments, but also by the fascination of the general public, novelists, occultists, psychic investigators, educationalists and spiritualists in the myriad possibilities of the trance state. Despite growing interest in the prehistory of British psychology and talking therapies, and the recent challenges to the primacy of Freudian histories, there are few accounts of the development of British ‘eclectic therapy’. This book uses the New Hypnotists as a lens to examine Victorian medicine and society, exploring their role in establishing the term ‘psychotherapy,’ and legitimising medical hypnotism, a precursor of psychological therapies. Preface Acknowledgements Contents About the Author Abbreviations List of Figures 1 Introduction Introduction The New Hypnotists References 2 The New Hypnotists Tuckey’s ‘Faith-Healing’ Bramwell’s Hypnotic Anaesthesia Charles Lloyd Tuckey (1854–1925) John Milne Bramwell (1852–1925) George Chadwick Kingsbury (1860–1938) Robert William Felkin (1853–1926) Bibliography 3 The Limits of the Imagination The Imagination: A Prehistory Testing the Imagination The Limits of the Imagination References 4 The Power of Suggestion Suggestion in Nancy Bibliography 5 A Very British History of Hypnotism The Rise and Fall and Rise of John Elliotson (1791–1868) (Fig. 5.1) The Historiography of Elliotson The Neglect and Recovery of James Braid (1795–1860) (Fig. 5.3) The Historiography of James Braid Bibliography 6 The Medical Contest for Hypnotism in the 1890s Hypnotism and the BMA Committee of Inquiry Medical Internationalism and the Growth of Medical Hypnotism The Battle for Legitimacy with Ernest Hart and the BMJ The Wimpole Street Sting Bibliography 7 Hypnotism in the Public Sphere A Scandal in Paris Educating the Public Hypnotism and Medicolegal Cases Eyraud-Bompard Case: Hypnotism and Criminal Responsibility The De Jong Murders: Hypnotism in Forced Confessions Hypnotic Fictions and Trilby Madness Bibliography 8 Social Networks and Hypnotic Influences The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn Personal Development and the Will The Theosophy Society and Hypnotism The Society for Psychical Research and Hypnotism The Hypnotism Committee The Sesame Club and Hypnosis in Education Bibliography 9 Imaginary Hypnotism Automatic Obedience and the English Will Hypnotism, Gender and Sexology Medical Professionalism ‘The Hypnotic Patient’ ‘The Red Bracelet’ Bibliography 10 The Triumph of Medical Hypnotism The Acceptance of Hypnotism and Suggestive Therapy The London Psycho-Therapeutic Society The Medical Society for the Study of Suggestive Therapy The Medical Mainstream The Spiritual Healing Commission Popular Psychology Bibliography 11 Post-Hypnotic Suggestion: WWI and Beyond Bibliography Index