Servants of the Supernatural
Antonio Melechi’s Servants of the Supernatural is an eclectic selection of accounts describing the Victorians’ fascination with the supernatural, what he calls a “gallery of contrasting thumbnail portraits”. Perhaps the most intriguing portrait is that of Franz Anton Mesmer, an Austrian who took the continent by storm with his theory of animal magnetism, which he believed was capable of “curing directly all disorders of the nervous system, and indirectly all other maladies.” People were queuing up to be healed, and Mesmer built a makeshift infirmary in an oak tree, personally magnetised by him. Incredibly, it housed up to 100 patients, who were tied in by a rope. The popularity of this bizarre treatment enabled Mesmer to franchise animal magnetism throughout France. Franchisees would be instructed by Mesmer and then receive a diploma authorising them to practice. One can but wonder how he would have fared on Dragons’ Den. ...