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Social Networks and Hypnotic Influences

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The Uncanny Rise of Medical Hypnotism, 1888–1914

Part of the book series: Mental Health in Historical Perspective ((MHHP))

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Abstract

Like most Victorian physicians, the New Hypnotists were all highly socially active. This was partly out of scientific and professional curiosity and partly good business sense. These connections are particularly relevant because these clubs were sites of discussion, exploration and elaboration of hypnotic ideas. Some of their non-medical clubs might appear surprising at first sight. They joined societies for ceremonial magic, psychical research and educational reform. We know that Charles Lloyd Tuckey and John Milne Bramwell were council members of the elite Society for Psychical Research (SPR) and that Robert Felkin became involved in Theosophy and then occultism. Tuckey was a Freemason and joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn for a year. Later he joined the Sesame Club, a progressive mixed society with an interest in children’s education. With their social links the New Hypnotists did not just teach others about hypnotic possibilities, they learned about other potential hypnotic futures from others’ perspectives. Occultists, psychic researchers, theosophists and educationalists all rubbed shoulders and shared their own ideas about hypnotism and what they could achieve with it. Within the social networks, theories about hypnotic action and uses were freely discussed.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    He subsequently kept his involvement to a modest level. He did not achieve any position in the national organization, the United Grand Lodge of England. Sue Young, ‘Charles Tuckey’, in Work on the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. www.wrightanddavis.co.uk/GD/TUCKEYCHARLESL.htm [accessed 13 April 2023].

  2. 2.

    Sue Young, www.wrightanddavis.co.uk/GD/TUCKEYCHARLESL.htm [accessed 13 April 2023].

  3. 3.

    Dennis Denisoff, ‘The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, 1888–1901’, BRANCH: Britain, Representation and Nineteenth-Century History, ed. by Dino Franco Felluga. Extension of Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net [accessed 8 July 2019].

  4. 4.

    R. A. Gilbert, The Golden Dawn Companion: A Guide to the History, Structure and Workings of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (Wellingborough: Aquarian Books, 1986) (pp. 125–75). Gilbert’s book contains a membership list.

  5. 5.

    Alex Owen, The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern (Chicago: University Press of Chicago, 2004) (p. 61).

  6. 6.

    Charles Lloyd Tuckey to van Eeden correspondence (19 August 1894). Van Eeden Collection (Amsterdam: Allard Pierson, University of Amsterdam).

  7. 7.

    Gilbert, ‘Membership’ (p. 153).

  8. 8.

    Darcy Kuntz, The Golden Source Book. (Edmonds, WA: Holmes, 1996) (p. 216).

  9. 9.

    Owen, The Place of Enchantment (p. 224).

  10. 10.

    Arthur Conan Doyle, Memories and Adventures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989) (p. 151).

  11. 11.

    Gilbert, Dawn Companion (p. 45).

  12. 12.

    Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) (p. 82).

  13. 13.

    Letter to Lady Caithness 12 May 1884, in Anna Kingsford—Her Life, Letters, Diary and Works, ed. by Edward Maitland, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (London: George Redway, 1896), vol. 2 (p. 168).

  14. 14.

    Alan Pert, Red Cactus, The Life of Anna Kingsford (New South Wales: Books and Writers, 2007) (p. 2).

  15. 15.

    Maitland, Anna Kingsford (p. 291).

  16. 16.

    Dion Fortune, Psychic Self-Defence (London: Rider, 1930).

  17. 17.

    Dion Fortune, Psychic Self-Defence (London: Rider, 1930) (p. 3).

  18. 18.

    Charles Lloyd Tuckey, ‘Some Phases of Hypnotism’, Occult Review, 1 (1905) 51–57 (p. 51).

  19. 19.

    Francis Cruise, ‘Introductory Chapter’, in Charles Lloyd Tuckey, Psycho-Therapeutics, 5th ed. (London: Baillière, Tindall and Cox, 1907) (p. xx).

  20. 20.

    Helena Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, 2 vols. (New York: Bouton, 1877).

  21. 21.

    Charles Darwin, On the Origin of the Species (London: John Murray, 1859).

  22. 22.

    Alfred Sinnett, The Occult World (London: Trübner, 1881).

  23. 23.

    Helena Blavatsky, ‘Hypnotism and Its Relations to Other Forms of Fascination’, Lucifer, 7 (December 1890) (pp. 295–301).

  24. 24.

    William Judge, ‘Hypnotism’, Path, 8 (February, 1894) 335–9 (p. 337).

  25. 25.

    Helena Blavatsky, The Key to Theosophy (London: Theosophical Publishing Company, 1889) (p. 293).

  26. 26.

    Edmund Gurney, Frederic Myers, and Frank Podmore, Phantasms of the Living (London: Trübner, 1886) (p. xxxvii).

  27. 27.

    Anon. ‘Mr Hansen’s Hypnotic Demonstrations’, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 4 (June 1889) (p. 86).

  28. 28.

    Frederic W.H. Myers, ‘The Subliminal Consciousness: Chapter 1—General Characteristics of Subliminal Messages’, Proceedings for the SPR, 7 (1891) 298–327 (p. 301).

  29. 29.

    Andreas Sommer, ‘Psychical Research and the Origins of American Psychology’, History of the Human Sciences, 25 (2012) (pp. 23–44).

  30. 30.

    Inter alia Charles Lloyd Tuckey, ‘Reviews’, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 14 (1898) (pp. 139–43); Charles Lloyd Tuckey, ‘Reviews’, Proceedings of the SPR, 16 (1901) (pp. 103–4).

  31. 31.

    Trevor Hamilton, Immortal Longings: F.W.H. Myers and the Victorian Search for Life after Death (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2009) (p. 124).

  32. 32.

    Alan Gauld, A History of Hypnotism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) (pp. 302–6).

  33. 33.

    Ilse Bulhof, ‘From Psychotherapy to Psychoanalysis: Frederik van Eeden and Albert Willem van Renterghem’, Journal of the History of Behavioral Science, 17 (1981) (pp. 209–21).

  34. 34.

    Charles Lloyd Tuckey, ‘Report of the Hypnotic Committee’, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 11 (1895) 594–8 (pp. 594–5).

  35. 35.

    Tuckey, ‘Report’ (p. 597).

  36. 36.

    Charles Lloyd Tuckey, ‘The Hypnotic Committee’, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 13 (1897) (p. 32).

  37. 37.

    Charles Lloyd Tuckey to van Eeden correspondence (20 October 1899). Van Eeden Collection (Amsterdam: Allard Pierson, University of Amsterdam).

  38. 38.

    Anon, ‘Sesame Club Notes’, Child Life, 1, 1 (1899) (pp. 53–5).

  39. 39.

    Kevin Brehoney, ‘The Sesame House for Home Training’, in The Froebel Movement and State Schooling 1880–1914: A Study in Educational Ideology (PhD thesis, The Open University, 1987) (pp. 528–30).

  40. 40.

    Charles Lloyd Tuckey, Diseases of Children. Cited but no copies extant.

  41. 41.

    Charles Lloyd Tuckey, Psycho-Therapeutics: Treatment by Hypnotism and Suggestion, 3rd ed. (London: Baillière, Tindall and Cox, 1891).

  42. 42.

    Charles Lloyd Tuckey, ‘Some Thoughts on Marriage’, Contemporary Review, 105 (1914) (pp. 366–75).

  43. 43.

    Tuckey, ‘Some Thoughts’ (p. 370).

  44. 44.

    John Milne Bramwell, ‘Memory in Hypnosis’, in Hypnotism: Its history, Practice and Theory (London: Grant Richards, 1903) (pp. 100–11).

  45. 45.

    Rufus Osgood Mason, Hypnotism and Suggestion in Therapeutics, Education and Reform (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1901).

  46. 46.

    Tuckey, Psycho-Therapeutics, 5th ed. (1907) (p. 112).

  47. 47.

    Charles Lloyd Tuckey, Psycho-Therapeutics Treatment by Hypnotism and Suggestion, 4th ed. (London: Baillière, Tindall and Cox, 1900) (p. 64).

  48. 48.

    Max Nordau, Degeneration (London: Heinemann, 1895).

  49. 49.

    Charles Lloyd Tuckey, ‘Case of Mischievous Morbid Impulse in a Child, Treated by Hypnotism’, Edinburgh Medical Journal, 1 (1897) (pp. 635–6); Charles Lloyd Tuckey, ‘Case of Kleptomania Treated by Hypnotism’, 13, Provincial Medical Journal (December 1894).

  50. 50.

    Tuckey, Psycho-Therapeutics, 5th ed. (1907) (p. 116).

  51. 51.

    Bramwell, ‘Vicious and Degenerate Children’, in Hypnotism (pp. 232–8).

  52. 52.

    Bramwell, ‘Vicious and Degenerate Children’, in Hypnotism (p. 233).

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  1. School of Arts, Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK

    Gordon David Lyle Bates

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Bates, G.D.L. (2023). Social Networks and Hypnotic Influences. In: The Uncanny Rise of Medical Hypnotism, 1888–1914. Mental Health in Historical Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42725-1_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42725-1_8

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