#45 - RVille Letter for Spooky Season

 We’re back to Rensselaerville this week! This letter is also a great way to start off the Spooky Season now that we are officially in October; it involves animal magnetism and mind reading!

This letter is not from October, but rather July 2nd, 1846. In this one Addison Niles is writing to his older sister Cornelia. Remember her? She was the recipient in the previous letter post. At this time, Cornelia would be 19 years old and likely away from home teaching in another town. Addison would be 14 years old and still at home in Rensselaerville, and a budding skeptic.

Like before, below are images (its across two pages) of an excerpt from Addison’s letter to Cornelia, following that is my transcription which does include Addy’s misspellings and emphases. 

July 2nd, 1846

Dear Sister

...RensselaerVille has been in as great a state of excitement for about a week past as ever I knew it to be before for any similar cause. There has been four or five delivered here on the subject of animal magnetism and Clarvoyance; by three different Lecturers. The first evening there was together with a lecture on Mesmerism a lecture on Phrenolog; by a lady!! With some experiments on Mesmerism Our neighbor Herod had his head examined by the lady and by the description she gave of him one would think he was some great man. He was completely convinced of the truth of her doctrines. The next evening we had experiments in Clarvoyance. That is a lady was introduced who when in the mesmeric state could read the heading of newspapers tell the time by watches as well with her eyes bandaged as with them open. Which she performed to the satisfaction of a great part of the audience; however Dr. Wicks insisted afterwards upon putting on another bandage + she failed entirely on account (as the Professor said) of her energies being exhausted xc xc. The next day Dr. Gibson being blindfolded in the same manner that the girl was, read much easier and better than she did. The next in order was 2 persons pretending to cure diseases one putting the other to sleep + he while in that state examining patients prescribing for them xc. xc. The next night we had another lecture on mesmirism, Clarvoyance by a different lecturer but bringing with him the same girl who gave us experiments on seeing without eyes before. But being better blindfolded than before read but very little of what was presented to her + yet the majority of the audience thought the experiments “perfectly satisfactory”. It has been the town talk for a week although I presume all this is not interesting to you…

Addison

Mesmerism, Clairvoyance, and Phrenology were all the rage in the mid 19th century. You have to remember that this was the time of great leaps in scientific knowledge. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was published twenty years before Addison wrote to Cornelia, steam power was around as were trains. But then again, this was thirty years before electricity was in New York City. Photography was in its infancy. And this was the same decade in which the typewriter was invented. The 1840s was a time when humanity was attempting to understand their world from a modern scientific perspective. Unfortunately this was also the time when much of the understanding was processed through a very horrible framework - white men trying to figure out why they made it big as the preeminent class: the rich, the colonizers, the businessmen, the successful, etc. So, much of this ‘science’ was like phrenology. Phrenology is a pseudo science that attempts to explain mental traits by formations of the skull; practitioners believed that the shape of your skull would tell how intelligent or evolved you were. This is sort of where the idea of a heavy browed caveman enters the picture; the rationale that someone's looks predetermines their path in life. Addison clearly finds some faults with the displays shown in Rensselaerville with a hint of derision for his fellows in their belief in the pseudo-sciences. I find Addison’s exclamation about a lady phrenologist to be particularly interesting. As a boy with three living sisters, two of whom end up trekking around the country, he clearly had strong female role models at home. I wonder, then, if his excitement was in awe or incredulity at a female ‘scientist.’ 

Mesmerism was a sort of catch-all term for all sorts of ideas including animal magnetism, clairvoyance, hypnotism, and telepathy; it's also often caught up with Spiritualism, Seances, and other spooky things. Modern pop culture has been quite interested in these 19th century fads for the past few years. It's featured in many TV shows from Penny Dreadful to the Alienist and Midnight Mass, even movies like the Prestige and the Illusionist (I always mix those up) and other movies like Hereditary and tons of horror movies. But they were quite popular in the 19th century as well, think about Edgar Allen Poe and Houdini’s wife, they both attended mesmerist shows and/or seances and even the whole Egyptomania thing when everyone got excited about mummies. The whole gothic aesthetic pulls a lot from this time period of the mid to late 1800s, what with vampires and nevermores. And this is why I wanted to use this letter to introduce Spooky Season because I find this time in US history to be so fascinating, the balance between hard science and belief tangled up with a series of major inventions and discoveries. 

Happy Halloween Season, dear reader.