Animal Magnetism: Now Available!

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This very short manuscript is slightly amusing as well as informative; it gives a good mid 19th century (and then-rational) look at mesmerism and hypnotism- applauding the latter, even in its rationalism, for abilities which are now seen as bunk just as much as the way the author here chastises Mesmer as having been a fraud (he was.)

It is true, though, that some of the abilities of hypnotism spoken of here are still held to be true- and it is irrefutable that hypnotizing a chicken is both possible and itself slightly funny.

24 pages.

The Remedial Uses of Hypnotism: Now Available!

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While extremely short this work needed to be released in a modern edition because it is perhaps one of the best examples of claims made by proponents of hypnotism in its era; its efficacy at treating certain disorders is now beyond question but claims here that it works almost invariably and can cure everything from tuberculosis to asthma of course are now rendered into the same family as bloodletting and electroshock.

The arguments made against the comic use of mesmerism as entertainment, and its words about the use of hypnotism in crimes are both quite a good read.

24 pages.

The Secrets of Animal Magnetism: Now Available!

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This work is quite interesting; and at this point it takes quite a bit to trip my interest since I read and edit similar works all day. Written at the dawn of the 20th century, it is partly about how to mesmerize (theory and action both) and partly about mind reading and similar topics, but it meanders into the realm of sociology and begins, about two thirds of the way through, to give advice on society and civics in a general sense, as works of the era sometimes did.

It should be noted that mesmerism is indeed real; however some of the claims then accepted about it were overblown; it remains medically accepted for a limited number of uses to this day.

61 pages.

Hypnotism: Magnetism, Mesmerism, Suggestive Therapeutics: Now Available!

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This work is one of the better things that LW DeLaurence wrote. Containing fewer self-advertizements and a lot more how-to content, it dispels some myths about mesmerism and hypnotism, and proposes about a dozen methods by which various suggestive states can be induced- including the famous trick of hypnotizing a chicken using a chalk line or a finger (it apparently does indeed work.)

While some of the methods are now known not to function (at the time this was written- and it alludes to it explicitly!- the French were experimenting with spinning wheels and lights to induce anesthesia- one of the earliest- maybe THE earliest literary reference to this trope!) others are accepted even today. Some of its content would later be adapted into the 20s and 30s era "how to hypnotize your friends" style pulp works.

112 pages.

A Slew of New Work

Coming soon: Johannes Trithemius' "The Art of Drawing Spirits Into Crystals"- a sort of short-ish grimoire and similar in infamy and length to De Septum Secundeis- these two works form the twin counterparts to the Steganographia and never obtained the level of fame of this much longer, Latinized work. I have already fully edited this manuscript and it will be released in two days.

In addition to this July release, I am looking forward to another double release; the Universal Fortune Teller, an 1860 work similar to the Oraculum, and a work on mesmerism and hypnotism of note from the 1930s which I scanned from my very own collection.

In addition to these two notable works of paranormal Americana, I want to begin the Nigromancia as soon as possible due to its fame, alongside beginning Sickness in Hell; it needs to take rough form before October, which is for obvious reasons the best month for editing works of darkness.