From its inception in 2013, Forbidden Histories has been a labour of love – I currently receive no funding for my research and pay all expenses to run this website, produce Youtube videos, and promote FH out of my own pocket. (Sadly, ad revenue and Amazon and AbeBooks affiliate commissions do not even begin to cover the costs of running FH.)
While I haven’t given up hope of returning to academia at least for another fixed-term research post just yet, I am forced to explore alternative income options.
If you value my research and outreach activities, and if you would like to help keep Forbidden Histories going, please consider a pledge on Patreon. Starting at $2 a month, your patronage will come with various rewards for you and can be cancelled any time (pledges are actually taken monthly rather than up-front, and can be cancelled any time).
Some of the ongoing projects your pledge will support are, for example:
- my book (to be published by Stanford University Press), which reconstructs the formation of modern psychology in Europe and the US in response to research into spiritualism, altered states of consciousness and other controversial phenomena
- two book chapters I was invited to write for edited volumes, to be published by Oxford University Press and Routledge respectively;
- an extensively researched reconstruction of William James’ studies of the trance medium Leonora Piper (drawing on newly discovered archival material at Cambridge and various collections in the USA), to be completed and submitted in two parts to a leading history of science journal;
- the planned annotated research guide to important archival material on the history of science and magic at Cambridge University
All current and new patrons will enter a prize draw for a copy of Adam Crabtree’s still unsurpassed historical study of mesmerism, altered states of conscious and associated ostensible occult phenomena, From Mesmer to Freud: Magnetic Sleep and the Roots of Psychological Healing (Yale University Press, 1993). For a chance to win the book, simply make a pledge on Patreon by 31 May 2019 (10pm GMT).
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(Purchases made via these links might generate a small commission for Forbidden Histories, at no extra cost for you.)
Here is a book description:
Magnetic sleep – an artificially induced trance-like state – revealed a realm of mental activity that was not available to the conscious mind, but could affect conscious thought and action. This book tells the story of the discovery of magnetic sleep and its relationship to psychotherapy. Adam Crabtree describes how in the 1770s Franz Anton Mesmer developed a technique based on “animal magnetism,” which he felt could cure a wide variety of ailments when the healer directed “magnetic fluid” through the body of the sufferer.
In 1784 Mesmer’s pupil, the marquis de Puysegur, attempted to heal a patient with this method and discovered that animal magnetism could also be used to induce a trance in the subject that revealed a second consciousness quite distinct from the normal waking state. Puysegur’s discovery of an alternate consciousness was taken up and elaborated by practitioners and thinkers for the next hundred years.
Crabtree traces the history of the discovery of animal magnetism, shows how it was brought to bear on physical healing, and explains its relationship to alleged paranormal phenomena, hypnotism, psychological healing, and the diagnosis and investigation of dissociative phenomena such as multiple personality. He documents how the systematic investigation of alternate consciousness reached its height in the 1880s and 1890s, fell into neglect with the appearance of psychoanalysis, and has experienced renewed attention as a treatment for multiple personality disorders.
With best wishes and heartfelt thanks for your support,
Andreas Sommer, Ph.D.
