Poe and Mesmerism
Poe and Mesmerism
Poe and Mesmerism
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mla.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the
scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that
promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Modern Language Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to PMLA.
http://www.jstor.org
LXV
POE AND MESMERISM
N three of his stories, "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains," "Mesmeric
Revelation," and "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar," Edgar
Allan Poe reflected the interest of his day in what was by all odds the
most fascinating of the new "sciences." Mesmerism, first as a somewhat
frightening novelty in the hands of its "discoverer," Anton Mesmer, dur-
ing the closing decades of the eighteenth century, and then as the hand-
maiden of medicine in the first half of the nineteenth century, had
achieved enormous popularity throughout Europe and the United States.'
To compare such popularity with the spread of the psychoanalytic theo-
ries of Freud, Jung, and Adler in the twentieth century is to make but a
feeble analogy, considering the difference in time and the development of
science between the two ages. In addition, the interest manifested in
mesmerism contained far more sensationalism and mysticism, and there-
fore had a more direct and widespread appeal. The extent of interest be-
comes clear when it is realized that in 1815 a commission was appointed
in Russia to investigate animal magnetism, with a "magnetical" clinic
being subsequently established near Moscow; that by 1817 doctors in
Prussia and in Denmark were the only ones authorized to practice mes-
merism, and were compelled to submit their findings to royal commis-
sions; and that by 1835 a clinic had been established in Holland, and in
Sweden theses on the subject were accepted for the doctorate.2
In the United States and England interest in mesmerism became just
as intense.3 During June and July of 1841 a committee consisting of
prominent citizens, clergymen, and doctors was organized in Boston for
the purpose of witnessing a series of experiments performed by Dr.
Robert H. Collyer, a rabid supporter of animal magnetism.4 In London
there was established in April, 1843, The Zoist: A Journal of Cerebral
Physiology and Mesmerism, and in New York there appeared in June,
1842, the short-lived Magnet, which immoderately declared itself "De-
voted to the Investigation of Human Physiology, Embracing Vitality,
1 "Mesmerism" and "animal magnetism" were terms used
interchangeably in the
nineteenth century.
2 Charles Poyen, Report on the Magnetical Experiments (Boston, 1836), pp. lxvi-lxx.
3 The collection of works on the subject in the New York Public Library, admittedly
incomplete, shows nineteen books published in the United States from 1841 through 1845,
and eight published in England from 1843 through 1845.
4 The committee refused to commit itself, being content to state that no collusion existed
between the mesmerist and his subjects. Cf., Robert H. Collyer, Psychography (New York,
1843), p. 38.
1077
1078 Poe and Mesmerism
6 As typical may be instanced the following: an anti-mesmeric article in The Yale Literary
while in the trance; and "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" goes
yet further in applying mesmerism to keep alive a man who should, ac-
cording to the doctors attending him, have expired. It is my purpose to
analyze these three tales with reference to the extent of Poe's reliance
upon the theories of mesmerism prevalent in his day.
I
8
Thus,A.H. Quinn,in EdgarAllanPoe(NewYork,1941),describes it as "therealistic
treatmentof thesupernatural"
(p.401),andG. E. Woodberry,in TheLifeofEdgarAllan
Poe(2 vols.,NewYork,1909),callsit "apicturesque
storyof metempsychosis ascribedto
the influenceof Hoffmann... " (, 109). PalmerCobb,in TheInfluenceof E. T. A. off-
mannontheTalesofEdgarAllanPoe(ChapelHill, 1908),findsparallelsin theuseof the
doctrineof metempsychosis
by bothauthors(p. 50 f.). Cf.,KillisCampbell,
TheMindof
Poe (Cambridge,1933), p. 9 f., and MargaretAlterton,Originsof Poe's CriticalTheory
(IowaCity,1925),p. 16.Whatever thefactsofHoffmann's influenceuponPoe,metempsy-
chosisis an elementof minorimportance in Poe'stale.
9The mesmeric of the daycontainsnumerous
literature casesof variousailmentssuc-
cessfullytreatedby mesmerism. Cf., TheZoist,i-v (1843-47),passim.
1080 Poe and Mesmerism
10 The
CompleteWorksof EdgarAllan Poe, ed. JamesA. Harrison,17 vols. (New York,
1902),v, 176. This editionwill be referredto henceforthas Works.
11Works,v, 165.
Sidney E. Lind 1081
befall him on this particular day? The answer is obvious: it was on this
day that Templeton sat down to write of the incidents which had oc-
curred so long ago:
"You will perceiveby these manuscripts,"(herethe speakerproduceda note-
bookin whichseveralpagesappearedto have been freshlywritten)"that at the
very periodin which you fanciedthese things amid the hills, I was engagedin
detailingthem uponpaperhere at home."16
I, 210 (Works, xnI, 123). Newnham'sbook was reviewedin detail the same monthin
25
The Zoist (ni, 102-116).The precisionof this reviewreflectsonly too clearlyupon Poe's
superficialtreatmentof the book.
26xxix, 247 f. (Works,xvI, 113-115).
27 Rev. ChaunceyHare Townshend(1798-1868),poet, graduateof Eton Collegeand
TrinityHall, Cambridge;B.A., 1821;M.A., 1824;enteredthe clergy,but was kept from
active serviceby illness.
28 The revisionand
enlargementconsistedsolely of the additionof a "Notice to the
SecondEdition"of 22 pages,bringingthe bookup to date.
29 2 vols?
(New York, 1926),I, 688 n. Allen'sreferenceto Davis's bookswill be foundin
Sidney E. Lind 1087
I had been long in the habit of mesmerizing the person in question (Mr. Van
Kirk) and the usual acute susceptibility and exaltation of the mesmeric percep-
tion had supervened. For many months he had been laboring under confirmed
phthisis, the more distressing effects of which had been relieved by my manipu-
lations; and on the night of Wednesday, the fifteenth instant, I was summoned
to his bedside.38
Van Kirk tells the narrator that he has decided to have himself placed
in a mesmerized state during which he will answer the narrator's ques-
tions. Thus he will be able to determine the actuality of the soul's im-
mortality. The narrator agrees to the experiment and puts Van Kirk
asleep. The two then discuss God, materiality, and the nature of man's
soul. Suddenly, the narrator notices that Van Kirk's face has under-
gone a change of expression. He attempts to awaken him, but finds that
he is dead, and is left wondering whether Van Kirk, during the latter
part of their conversation, had been speaking "from out the region of the
shadow."
From the very inception of the tale, Poe relied upon Facts in Mesmer-
ism. It is difficult not to believe that the following words in Townshend's
book gave him the idea for the tale:
I must now pause to set before my reader my own state of mind respecting the
facts [of mesmeric experimentation] I had witnessed. I perceived that important
deductions might be drawn from them; and that they bore upon disputed ques-
tions of the highest interest to man, connected with the three great mysteries of
being-life, death, and immortality. On these grounds I was resolved to enter
upon a consistent course of inquiry concerning them .... 3
Poe Townshend
Whatever doubt may still envelop ... I am fully aware of the obstacles
the rationale of mesmerism, its star- which I have to encounter. The fatal
tling facts are now almost universally word Imposture has tainted the subject
admitted. Of these latter, those who of my enquiry; and Ridicule, which is
doubt, are your mere doubters by pro- not the test of truth, has been pressed
fession-an unprofitable and disrep- into the service of talent in order to
utable tribe. [p. 241] annihilate the supposed absurdity be-
fore the dread ordeal of a laugh. [p. 11
Beyond this, Poe was probably influenced, to some extent, in his lan-
guage by Townshend. For example, his use of the words exaltation of the
mesmericperception,and mesmericexaltation,seems to be derived from the
Supplement to Facts in Mesmerism,which consists entirely of testimonials.
One of these is from a doctor in Milan and concerns one M. Valdrighi, of
whom the doctor says:
M. Valdrighi,advocate,had his sense of hearingso exquisiteand exaltedthat
he could hear wordspronouncedat the distanceof two rooms.
The exaltationof life whichis observedin somepatientsattains such a height,
that one of them could see the most delicateand minuteobjects in the greatest
darkness.This is noticeablein nervousand very delicatepersons.[Italicsmine]4
It is probable that Poe may have derived the name of his character,
Van Kirk, from Facts in Mesmerism also. Among-the testimonials in the
Supplement are two from A. Vandevyver and M. van Owenhuysen. They
are, like all the others, listed in the table of contents. Poe may have made
an adaptation of these names to his own purpose.45
There is one observation which must be made at this point in connec-
tion with Poe's indebtedness to Townshend. Any of the editions of Facts
in Mesmerism, with the exception of the first American edition published
by Little, Brown in 1841, which contained the Boston Committee Re-
port in place of the Supplement,46could have been used by Poe. The
circumstances of his borrowing from the 1844 text for "The Facts in the
Case of M. Valdemar," however, lead me to believe that he probably
used the same edition for both stories.
III
In "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar," Poe again represents his
leading character in the last stages of phthisis.47M. Valdemar gives the
narrator permission to keep him alive through mesmeric means beyond
the point where agonal death should occur. This is done, and for a period
of seven months Valdemar is kept suspended in the state of life-in-death.
Finally, in response to his frantic appeal, the narrator attempts to
awaken him, with the result that the body of Valdemar immediately
decomposes.
Inspired by a prov6cative idea he had found in Facts in Mesmerism,
44Page 338.
46WouldPoe have been especiallyattractedto the latter case becausethe subject'sini-
tials were E-A-? 4 Cf. ante, p. 1077.
47 To
say that phthisiswas a favoriteillnessof romanticliteratureis to overlook,perhaps,
the morbidperversitywith whichPoe transferredhis ownwife'sfatal maladyto so manyof
his characters.
Sidney E. Lind 1091
is ingenious but inconclusive. All that can now be said is that Poe may have had a hand in
it; there is no evidence that he did. The problem at best is moot.
60 It will be noted that in the
Marginalia for March, 1848, Poe nowhere takes the stand
that his fiction was intended to hoax. His insistence upon the differentiation between "sleep-
waker" and "sleepwalker" (cf. ante, p. 1089) appears to be a deliberate attempt to beg the
issue, and his statements throughout avoid the larger problem. Against this may be set his
successive references to animal magnetism: Broadway Journal, II, 174, 255 (in "Words
with a Mummy"), 390 f.; Graham's Magazine, xxxII, 178 f.; John W. Robertson, Edgar
A. Poe (San Francisco, 1921), p. 316; T. O. Mabbott, "The Letters from George W.
Eveleth to Edgar Allan Poe," Bulletin of the New York Public Library, xxvi, 180; James
Southall Wilson, "The Letters of Edgar A. Poe to George W. Eveleth," Alumni Bulletin,
University of Virginia, xvii, no. 1, 47; Works, xvii, 268 f., 276, 284 f., 342; xvI, 71.
61 I am much indebted to Professor Nelson F. Adkins of New York University for his
valuable editorial suggestions.