sign in sign up
<<
Home , Gothic fiction, Occult

Mecredy 1

“ Influence on Victorian Gothic Literature”

Emily Mecredy

Supervisor: Tara MacDonald

24 June 2015

Mecredy 2

Introduction

“The occult was everywhere in the nineteenth-century Britain, and it was far from being a marginal concern. No major Victorian thinker or writer, from the Brontes to the

Brownings, from Dickens to Darwin, was unconcerned about the occult” (Killeen 124).

Although Jarlath Killeen’s assertion about the prevalence of the occult in nineteenth- century is somewhat of an exaggeration, the occult certainly influenced society noticeably in the Victorian period. What constituted the occult varied widely in this period from the of Mesmerism to the old traditions of folk . Arthur

Versluis argues that occultism in the period can be categorized:

into the traditional cosmological on the one hand—, the various

–mancies, or forms of , herbal or alchemical medicine, as well as

evocational, invocational, or sympathetic magic, including folk traditions—and

what we may call “cosmelogical phenomena” like and Mesmerism

on the other. (3)

With this definition in mind the idea of what can be included into this categorization becomes somewhat broad. Gothic elements such as omens, visions, and events regularly demonstrate a connection to the occult. The occult furthermore takes on a number of forms such as Swedenborianism, Behmism, astrology and Spiritualism. This thesis will, however, not consider the whole of occultism but focus only on three developments: , mesmerism or early hypnotism, and . These three forms present a varied picture of occult as each takes on a very different form. This diverse occult milieu became a part of the literature of the time, specifically showing itself in Gothic where the unusual and supernatural fit neatly. I will trace Mecredy 3 the ways that each of the three occult movements influenced of the nineteenth century.

Rosicrucian orders are secret societies that believe in the attainment of hidden knowledge. This wisdom, which includes such things as the making of the philosopher’s stone, are obtained only for initiates and by means of practices like and magic.

Mesmerism on the other hand, was highly performative and public as it engaged with both the trend of stage phenomena and popular . Although mesmerism became what we know as modern hypnotism, which is fairly mundane, in the nineteenth century it took on a much more form as it often led to and healings.

Theosophy was public but still incorporated the pattern of initiates within an order. The

Theosophical Society was a somewhat more unified order than Rosicrucianism, and it combined elements of Western occultism with Eastern religious views. The result is a pattern of belief that balances methods such as with Eastern views of life along with contemporary Western science. While Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, and mesmerism present religious movements as a relatively diverse group they still maintain certain core elements that tie them to occultism.

These three movements are also similar in that they were deeply connected to the that produced them. Although all three trace their origins back to an ancient tradition, that lineage is most likely entirely fabricated. In any case, Rosicrucianism,

Mesmerism, and Theosophy all gained significant sway in society at the time of the

Occult Revival. Paul Monod notes that the drastic increase in popularity of the occult was likely due to changes in the economic standing of occultist ventures. For the first time, practitioners were able to make a living from the sale of publications of their occult Mecredy 4 documents and books (228). Monod also points to a “cultural trend towards the expression of sentiment” (237) of the late eighteenth century as a factor in bringing about the Occult Revival. Additionally, Jarlath Killeen argues that a “crisis of faith” was crucial to the Occult Revival as well. He explains, “It involved not a move away from religion per se, but a profound crisis of confidence, by both intellectual and public opinion, in the ability of orthodox to account for the universe” (124). Occultism, on the other hand, presented a reoriented religion that agreed with contemporary science but also provided confidence in humanity’s ability to explain the supernatural.

While the Enlightenment had brought skepticism toward magic, the negative views of the occult started to shift during the 1760s, which was the around the same time that the first Gothic literature was published. Monod describes the connection between the beginning of the two movements, explaining, “The Gothic owed its genesis in part to a strange incident of 1762, that of the so-called ‘Cock Lane ’” (238). In the case a young girl living in claimed that a was haunting her by rapping, not unlike the experience of the Fox sisters nearly a century later. In 1848, the Fox sisters sparked the Spiritualist movement in America when they claimed that they were hearing rapping and knocking in their home, which they believed to be the communication of a dead man’s spirit. The Fox sisters were put under heavy skepticism and many critics explained away the events as a non-mystical method the girls were using. Although much earlier, the Cock Lane incident seems to follow the same pattern: a girl hears knocking noises and claims that the source is supernatural. In the end, all supernatural elements were rejected as falsehood and the girl’s parents were sent to prison. The incident has two important points. First, as Monod notes, “The episode contained several of the main Mecredy 5 elements of later Gothic fiction, including a young female whose body became a testing ground for the supernatural as she suffered fits and participated in séances in her bedroom” (238). Secondly, the literary community of London got involved in the situation. The story of the haunted girl represents a greater cultural shift in the perspective on the supernatural. Rather than shunning the child for , the whole claim was thrown out as improbable and lacking in evidence of the supernatural.

Although this case was deemed as not supernatural, it shows a shift in perspective from and to a willingness to admit the existence of supernatural if explained in scientific terms. This pattern of response is an important characteristic of the Occult

Revival. Furthermore, this view of the goings on as explainable and fascinating rather than vile reflects a shift in thinking that made space for the Gothic. The Occult Revival made room for the gothic . The occult provided a new set of vocabulary for dealing with the supernatural as well as a perspective that involved a combination of terror and fascination rather than rejection.

In his book Gothic Fiction, Jerrold Hogle discusses how Gothic help the reader cast “anomalies in our modern conditions, even as these change, over onto antiquated or at least haunted spaces and highly anomalous creatures. This way our modern conditions can be confronted by, yet removed from us” (6). Occultism, which often provides the inspiration, , and language for such spaces and creatures, gives the connection to contemporary Victorian society that grounds this displacement of the outlier bits of culture. In some cases, occultism may even be the disruptive contemporary issue that is pushed into a somewhat estranged position by the Gothic. For example,

Dracula is a but he is also a mesmerist and as such he becomes a tool for the Mecredy 6 reader to inspect the uncertain topic of mesmerism without confronting mesmerism in reality. The of “otherizing” the occult only serves to foment occultism just as B.

Gibbon argues, “Occultism has survived, not in spite of its marginalization, but because of it” (137). The Gothic and the occult thus work together. Gibbon suggests that one role of the Gothic is to “offer an avenue of escape from the debilitating doubts of realism”

(135). As Gothic narratives present the strange and the frightening parts of reality as connected to a “other” such as a vampire, they allow the reader to consider real problems or doubts from a comfortable distance. Occult also gives the practitioner an opportunity to escape doubts about society with a different method but with the same goal. It provides a means and a vocabulary for explaining the strange and a place of confidence to combat the doubts.

The for occult practices and Gothic reading tended to overlap. Hogle notes that the majority of the readership for Gothic fiction was the middle class Anglo portion of the British and American populations (3). He goes on to assert that the Gothic is inherently tied to the middle class and its peculiar anxieties (9). In noting the same about the occult, Gibbon writes, “The occult philosophy, in fact, has been characteristic of the culture of the ‘middling-sort’ since the ” (135-6). This demographic connection is important because it means that the readers that are engaging with the idea of occultism in fiction are also the people most likely to be practicing occult or have friends practicing it.

My thesis focuses on the interconnectedness of the Occult Revival and the resurgence of the Gothic near the end of the nineteenth century. I will explore the way in which Gothic authors incorporated themes and ideas from the occult into their work. Mecredy 7

Their usage varies from using the occult as a source of inspiration and vocabulary for the strange to a concerted effort to comment on the of the occult. In the first chapter

I discuss Rosicrucianism and its influence by looking at ’s The Picture of

Dorian Gray (1890) and Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s A Strange Story (1862). The strong

Rosicrucian influence is easily traced out in A Strange Story, but for The Picture of

Dorian Gray the elements drawn from Rosicrucianism are subtler so I use the former to lay out a pattern for tracing the occult in the latter. The second chapter considers mesmerism and how it became a popular in Gothic fiction. I use the examples of

Bram Stoker’s (1897) and ’s The Beetle (1897) to lay out the incorporation of mesmeric ideas into narratives with both a monstrous and a human mesmerist. The final chapter considers the and its influence on

Marie Corelli’s The Sorrows of Satan (1895). I place the collection Nightmare

Tales (1892) of H.P. Blavatsky, the founder of Theosophy, alongside the novel to show a stark contrast in responses to occult as presented in literature. Although I separate out the three religious movements, just as the occult is strongly connected to the Gothic, so too each occult movement is tied to the others.

I will demonstrate just a few of the possible ways that Gothic fiction made use of the Occult. The author may use motifs and ideas of the Occult Revival as inspiration for the and the characters as is the case for Wilde and Bulwer-Lytton. Corelli and

Blavatsky take a more engaged stance by using the occult to either respond negatively or promote the ideas. Marsh and Stoker respond to the occult movements by considering them reflectively and associating the occult with their discussion of other social issues Mecredy 8 such as common . The Gothic genre provides a platform for authors to consider the movements of the Occult Revival within the context of a fictional literary work.

Chapter 1

The influence of the occult in the form of Rosicrucianism is particularly evident in Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel, A Strange Story. This occult presence is most apparent in the novel’s various philosophical discussions and the unusually straightforward description of the production of the elixir of life in one of the final scenes. Although less pronounced, Rosicrucianism makes an important appearance in the perhaps more novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Rather than giving a thorough description of the various Rosicrucian elements, which Marie Roberts has already done for a large portion of A Strange Story, this chapter will focus instead on a prominent character of each novel, examining Margrave and Dorian Gray as profane Rosicrucians or false practitioners. By comparing these elements for the two works with each other and with Rosicrucian ideas I will demonstrate the depth of the Rosicrucian influence in these Gothic .

Before engaging with the literary texts, I will offer an introduction to the relevant history of Rosicrucianism. In his book, The Rosicrucians, Christopher McIntosh explains that the basis for Rosicrucianism developed first in Germany from the introduction of a mixed tradition of , Qabalah, and Neoplatonism that combined with the

German (McIntosh Chapter 2). Although Rosicrucian orders trace their origins back to even to the ancient world, the religion did not have a visible presence in Germany or anywhere else until the early seventeenth century with the writing1 of the Fama

Fraturnitas, the Confessio Fraternitas, and the Chemical Wedding (Edighoffer 196).

1 The early circulation of the texts was in manuscript form. The texts were not published until years later (McIntosh Chapter 3). Mecredy 9

Johann Andreae wrote the Chemical Wedding and, with the help of a few others, the

Fama Fraternitas, both of which refer to the secret society of the Rosicrucians.2 These works, although somewhat different in and content became references for later

Rosicurcian practitioners. The Fama explains that the order of the Rosy Cross began with

Christian Rosenkreuz several hundred years before, who traveled the world gaining hidden knowledge (188). The story of Rosenkreuz’s life and burial became the

Rosicrucian origin (McIntosh Introduction). The Chemical Wedding is the story of Rosenkreuz’s life, and the Confessio is revelations or confessions from the Rose-Cross

(Edighoffer 188).

These texts are filled with symbolic language and imagery for which the meaning is considered part of the secret knowledge of the order. The motif of the rose and cross is one of the more prominent examples of . While McIntosh suggests that the motif originates from either Luther or Andreae’s code of arms, he explains that it has become a much more meaningful symbol (McIntosh Introduction). We can see the influence of this particular motif in the name of the religion, Rosicrucian, the name of the legendary founder, Rosenkreuz, and in the names of many of the various orders of

Rosicrucianism such as Rose-Cross and Rosy Cross. Buried within complex symbology these texts, especially the Fama, depict the various beliefs of the early orders. For example, the Fama mentions that the order has a secret magical written language.

McIntosh notes, “The Fama seems to indicate that the brethren were capable of making gold, but that they saw the higher, or spiritual, alchemy as more important (Chapter 3).

2 The author of the Confessio is contested and unknown. Mecredy 10

By presenting the beliefs of the early brotherhood, these texts serve as the manifestos for the Rosicrucian orders.

Christopher McIntosh points out that in seventeenth-century Germany “there was at this time a strong tendency to form secret or quasi-secret societies” (Chapter 3). The

Fama draws on these other German secret societies for many of its elements including the alchemical discussion and the legend of Rozenkreuz tomb. The order of Andreae and his associates claimed that the Rosicrucian order, which has special access to ancient knowledge, reasserted itself with the opening of Rozenkreuz burial vault, which is said to have occurred in 1604 under an auspicious new star. The expectation expressed in the writings is that “the brethren held the keys to secret knowledge which would miraculously transform society and bring about a new era” (McIntosh Chapter 3).

McIntosh describes the millenarian goal of this early group of members:

They saw the golden age as being ushered in initially on German soil and under

the banner of Protestantism, but a new reinvigorated Protestantism. They also

believed that the men who would prepare the would be men of learning,

illumined by the hidden light of Hermetic wisdom, but not deceived by false

alchemists and other tricksters. (Chapter 3)

After a brief period of persecution and a defense by Michael Maier, who is attributed with strongly promoting alchemy within the religion, the Rosicrucians became less vocal and very little was heard from them for a century (McIntosh Chapter 6). McIntosh asserts that the Rosicrucian order continued on through these quiet years through its connections to another German secret order (Chapter 6). In the eighteenth century, after the publication of The True and Complete Preparation of the Philosophers’ Stone of the Mecredy 11

Brotherhood, from the Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross3 the Rosicrucians reemerged with strong alchemical leanings (Chapter 6). Starting in the late eighteenth century,

Rosicrucian orders began to gain membership and popularity for a few reasons. One of these factors was that the Rosicrucians began to align themselves with conservative politics. Also, the orders sought out new members in the social elite and even royal households. Finally, they offered an alternative religion that attracted those who where frustrated by the new rationalism of the rising age of reason (Chapter 7).

By the time that Rosicrucianism had a significant membership in the nineteenth century, it was made of many orders that each had specific practices and sets of beliefs.

However, the Rosicrucians are held together as a group by a few important factors. First, all of the orders claim membership to the Rosicrucians even though they most often claim that their order is the right and true descendant of the ancient Rosicrucians. Interestingly, many of the prominent members were also involved in the Christian church. For example, Johann Andreae was a Lutheran pastor (McIntosh chapter 3). McIntosh describes the kind of meeting that Andreae might have attended as a Rosicrucian:

Imagine a group of intelligent, well-read, and idealistic men meeting in Tiibingen

around 1608. The young Andreae, 22 years old, listens solemnly and attentively

while his older mentor, Christiph Besold, holds forth, sketching his vision of a

Europe free of religious dissension and basking in the light of the true Christian

faith combined with science and learning. (Chapter 3)

3 Original German title: Die wahrhafte und volkommene Bereitung des philosophischen Steins der Briiderschafft aus dem Orden Gulden and Rosen Kreutzes. Mecredy 12

These men that McIntosh mentions would have been the secret society’s initiates sworn to keep the secrets of the order. This concept of secrecy and giving knowledge only to the initiated remained a crucial element of Rosicrucianism.

Mark Morrison notes that, “A major aspect of the occult revival during this period was an increasing interest in hermeticism, ritual magic, and other esoteric knowledge”

(2). With the increased popularity and social awareness that the Occult Revival brought to Rosicrucianism, its influence spread out to literature. Through the nineteenth century such prominent authors as W. B. Yeats were known to be writing under direct influence of Rosicrucian orders.

For this chapter I look first at Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel A Strange

Story. This novel has seen very little literary consideration over the years, but it has drawn the attention of religious scholars and Rosicrucian practitioners. Although his earlier work Zanoni is often considered the more important text in terms of Rosicrucian ideas and the occult, I have chosen A Strange Story for its likeness to Dracula and other gothic fiction. The plot is rather similar to Dracula but with the main villain as a soulless alchemist rather than a vampire. The , Dr. Fenwick, is a doctor and scientist of some note in a small town who learns from an elite alchemist, Lord Derval, that a certain newcomer to the town, Margrave, is an evil man who with the power of the elixir of life lost his soul but regained his youth. Derval is promptly murdered and after a great deal of skeptical consideration Fenwick gets involved in Margrave’s schemes. The victim of blackmail, Fenwick agrees to help Margrave recreate the elixir of life, an endeavor that fails terribly with Margrave’s death. The novel ends with Dr. Fenwick still rather skeptical of the possibility of magic but having explained most of the phenomena he Mecredy 13 witnessed with fringe science and finding God.

In discussing a number of gothic novels and their connections to the Rosicrucian

Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross, Marie Roberts establishes what she considers a separate genre of Rosicrucian fiction. All of the texts she considers, which includes classics such as Frankestein and , have a character we can consider a Gothic immortal and fall into her category of Rosicrucian fiction. Roberts explains that “the most important characteristic of the Rosicrucian novel is the pursuit and acquisition of such forbidden knowledge” (9), namely the elixir of life. She dedicates a portion of her book,

Gothic Immortals, to Bulwer-Lytton. One of the key differences between Bulwer-

Lytton’s Zanoni and A Strange Story for Roberts is that, “A Strange Story represents a traditional approach to Rosicrucian fiction by returning to the orthodoxies which

Bulwer had abandoned in Zanoni” (187). This approach is typified in the evil alchemist character of Margrave, who I will later discuss.

Although Bulwer-Lytton’s work is easily tied to Rosicrucianism, he was not known to have been attached to any order. Even when invited to be an honorary member of the Grand Patron society, Bulwer-Lytton refused. The strong presence of occult elements in his novels thus provides a suggestion of the prominence with which

Rosicrucian ideas influenced popular literature. Mark Morisson asserts that a large part of this influence came through the way that the occult began to interact in the public through periodicals. In fact, although many of Bulwer-Lytton’s works were published in book form, A Strange Story was first printed in Dickens’s magazine, All the Year .

The Picture of Dorian Gray was also serialized initially, but unlike A Strange

Story, it has seen a great deal of scholarly attention. Some popular avenues of analysis Mecredy 14 have included a focus on gender, aesthetics, and commentary on the mirror. Because the discussion of art is so prominent in the novel, the occult themes are somewhat masked.

Heather Seagroatt goes past the surface of aesthetics to investigate the less apparent but equally relevant consideration of science in the novel. By analyzing Wilde’s response to contemporary science Seagroatt arrives at the conclusion that Wilde’s ideas about scientific study and psychology relates to his treatment of art in The Picture of Dorian

Gray. She paraphrases Wilde’s argument: “art is both a crucial determinant in psychological development and a more appropriate means of representing the range and mutability of the human mind than any scientific discourse” (742). This view of art as performing the same role as science is crucial because it ties back to the ever present

Rosicrucian question of what role science can in understanding humanity and the universe. Connecting the aesthetic questions posed by the novel to Roscicrucianism is not the stretch that it might appear to be as several prominent members of the Rose Croix order were in fact very interested in aesthetics (Webb 170). By presenting art, specifically the portrait, as a reflection of reality and thus a means of knowing Dorian’s psychological status, Wilde seems to be using the art in the place of science and as a means of discussing the nature of ‘secret’ knowledge.

Through the painting of Dorian Gray the reader is privy to secret knowledge of the dubious main character, who acts as a negative example for how a proper gentleman or even a Rosicrucian should . Dorian and Margrave both act in the role of what

Roberts calls a false alchemist. The term signifies a person who is seeking riches or knowledge through the Rosicrucian path but attempting to gain their goal without God.

These false alchemists are not able to attain their goal or hold any rank in the Mecredy 15 brotherhood.

A Strange Story

Margrave is the perfect example of a false alchemist, and Bulwer-Lytton does not shy away from presenting him as such. The character is somewhat flat in the sense that he is purely animal and self-seeking underneath a pretty and sociable façade. Even somewhat unintelligent characters such as Mrs. Ashleigh notice that something is strangely frightening about Margrave in spite of his nice face and good manners. His identity as a false alchemist is most apparent in his final attempt to make the elixir of life.

Although he stole the elixir from a sage and prolonged his life, Margrave was bitten by an adder placed in a trap for him. As a result of the injury that should have killed him,

Margrave seeks out Fenwick’s help to complete the process. Margrave needs Fenwick’s help finding the last ingredient and performing certain duties in the ceremony. Fenwick must first help Margrave find the gold on his land, which would lead them to a particularly rare ingredient needed for the elixir. During the ceremony, then, Margrave instructs Fenwick in his first duty, “‘Your task is the lightest of all it is but to renew from this vessel the fluid that burns in the lamps, and on the ring. Observe, the contents of the vessel must be thriftily husbanded’” (Bulwer-Lytton ch 85). Although this task of keeping the lamps lit is difficult and important, it is not the only reason Fenwick was required to join the ceremony. Finally, as the ceremony is nearly finished Ayesha,

Margraves servant, calls Fenwick to action saying, “‘see, two of the lamps have died out!-- see the blank of the gap in the ring Guard that breach,-- there the will enter… Advance, then; thou has still the light of the soul, and the demons may recoil before a soul that is dauntless and guiltless’” (ch 87). When the demons begin to attack, Mecredy 16

Fenwick must stand at the breech of the circle of lamps to ward off the spirits with the power of his own soul because Margrave has no soul with which to ward off evil.

Before the scene begins, Bulwer-Lytton sets Margrave up as challenging the

Rosicrucian order with a conversation between Fenwick and the still unmasked

Margrave. Fenwick asks, “‘Have the Rosicrucians bequeathed to you a prescription for the elixir of life?’” and Margrave replies “‘If I had the prescription I should not ask your aid to discover its ingredients’” (Bulwer-Lytton Ch29). At this point in the novel neither the reader nor Fenwick know that Margrave has no soul and is hoping for immortality, but the author has laid out what Margrave’s plans are and how he has been rejected by the brotherhood.

Margrave and Fenwick have a long conversation when Margrave is near death and seeking Fenwick’s assistance in the ceremony. The dialogue begins with a summary from Fenwick, “I gathered rapidly and succinctly together all that I knew and all that I guessed of Margrave’s existence and arts” (Ch 76). These facts that he knows include most importantly that Margrave is actually the supposed late Louis Grayle renewed to youth and how Margrave caused all of the troubles to Lillian, Fenwick’s beloved, and to

Fenwick himself. Tracing through the plot of the narrative, Fenwick notes each of the acts Margrave committed:

I went on,-- Derval’s murder; the missing contents of the casket; the apparition

seen by the maniac assassin guiding him to the horrid deed; the luminous

haunting shadow; the positive charge in the murdered man’s memoir connecting

Margrave with Louis Grayle, and accusing him of the murder of Haroun; the night

in the moonlit pavilion at Derval Court; the baneful influence n Lillian; the Mecredy 17

struggle between me and himself in the house by the seashore,-- the strange All

that is told in this Strange Story. (Bulwer-Lytton Ch 76)

Fenwick rightfully blames each of these events such as the hauntings, the illness, the controlled trances, and clairvoyant knowledge all on Margrave and his use of magic or consorting with demons. In response Margrave gives a rather lengthy story dodging as many accusations as possible by appealing to Fenwick’s reason, as the deeds themselves defy reason due to their reliance on magic. He explains away each of the evil actions by trying to convince Fenwick that they were either not possible or misinterpreted by

Fenwick. His narrative turns to a sort of autobiography in which he exclaims, “All my earlier memories go back to Louis Grayle! All my powers, all that I have learned of the languages spoken in Europe, of the sciences taught in her schools, I owe to Louis Grayle.

But am I one and the same with him? No” (Ch 87). His description of himself fits with some of the accusations made against the Rosicrucians in the seventeenth century period of persecution. These accusations were that “the Rosicrucians agreed to perform various blasphemous acts for Satan in return for a number of powers such as invisibility, dematerialization, and the ability to speak all languages fluently” (Roberts 10). One of the powers that Margrave gained as Grayle was a way to project himself as a ghost, which acts on its own but looks like a glowing smoky version of the young Margrave.

This power of sending out a ghost of himself is similar to the dematerialization accusation made against the Rosicrucians. They were accused of making for themselves an immaterial self, which the accusers deemed heinous because it goes against God’s laws of nature. Because Rosicrucians do not claim this power, Margrave is a false

Rosicrucian enacting the methods for which the Rosicrucians were wrongly persecuted. Mecredy 18

Also, Margrave admits here to knowledge of the European languages but throughout the novel Fenwick hears Margrave sing songs in a much wider range of languages as well as read easily and Greek. After Margrave sings a particularly unusual song, he and Fenwick discuss the language since Fenwick cannot place it.

Margrave answers, “‘It is a Persian fire-worshipper’s hymn to the sun. The dialect is very different from modern Persian. Cyrus the Great might might have chanted it on his march upon Babylon’” (Ch 24). This example of Margrave’s knowledge of languages from around the world and through history up with the accusation of fluency in all languages. By practicing the knowledge magic that the Rosicrucians were wrongly accused of having, Margrave becomes the negative example of a Rosicrucian, the false alchemist that Roberts describes. The problem for Margrave is not that he has this knowledge or abilities so much that he got them through evil means, methods that are contrary to the Rosicrucian unselfish goals of perfecting society. Although these means are not explicitly stated, a few factors suggest that manner of Margrave’s practices. First, the sage refused to give him the elixir of life. Also, the apparently upright Derval, the model Rosicrucian, was hunting Margrave because he believed Margrave to be perverse.

Finally, Fenwick accuses Margrave of consorting with devils. By aligning Margrave with the accusations made against Rosicrucians, Bulwer-Lytton is able to both remove blame from true Rosicrucians and place culpability on false practitioners like Margrave who are explicitly rejected by the brotherhood.

The final ceremony in which Fenwick helps Margrave to produce the elixir of life is worth discussing in the context of Margrave as a false alchemist. The scene is full of alchemical allusions not least of which is the use the lamps which are not allowed to burn Mecredy 19 out. This particular symbol is a direct reference to the legend in which an ever-burning lamp is placed in the tomb vault. The process of making the elixir involves Margrave tossing materials into a cauldron and what the narrator describes as

“weird and wizard-like preparations” (Ch 84). As they come close to succeeding in their endeavor, Nature4 itself begins to attack them first with earthquakes then with lightning and finally a forest fire that causes a stampede. All of these threats are accompanied by

“Agencies of Nature”, which appear as eyes and the sound of marching soldiers. Bulwer-

Lytton reinforces Margrave’s depravity as he challenges an important Rosicrucian view of nature. Roberts explains this relationship: “the problem of reintegrating a stigmatized and alienated human race with nature was appropriated by the Rosicrucians, who believed that this could be achieved through the possession of esoteric knowledge” (166).

Rather than seeking to reconcile with Nature, Margrave responds to the offence by calling out:

Ye come, - not to conquer, vain rebels! – ye whose dark chief I struck down at my

feet in the tomb where my spell had raised up the ghost of your first human

master, the Chaldee! Earth and air have their armies still faithful to me, and still I

remember the war-song that summons them up to confront you! Ayesha! Ayesha!

Recall the wild troth that we pledged amongst roses; recall the dread bond by

which we united our sway over hosts that yet own thee as queen. (Ch 86)

Margrave’s angry reply does two things that characterize him as the false alchemist. First, it confirms that he, along with his servant Ayesha, have made a deal with the devil for power over Nature. Second, his attempts to fight nature with control rather than

4 Nature is viewed as a personified force in the text. Mecredy 20 reconciliation are a profanation of the efforts of true Rosicrucians. As a result, Margrave completes his portrait as a false alchemist or profane Rosicrucian in the last moments of his life before Nature kills him for trying to make the elixir. Bulwer-Lytton uses proper

Rosicrucianism as the standard against which he compares characters to show their good or bad nature. Margrave as the false alchemist or profane Rosicrucian is show to be evil by the ways that he contradicts true Rosicrucianism.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

The character of Dorian Gray becomes a profane Rosicrucian as well though in a less way than Margrave. Dorian Gray and Margrave are strikingly similar: both are supernaturally preserved in youth and beauty but at a moral cost. Both abuse the perceptions that others have of the young and lovely, but eventually go so far that society recognizes their inner darkness and shuns them. Finally, in death nature catches up to both characters as they end up unwittingly taking their own lives.

Dorian, like Margrave, is at odds with Nature, but for him nature is represented in the character of the lovely actress, Sibyl Vane. As long as he sees her acting out the famous characters and as long as she is in the of the play he is able to love her fully. Harry and Dorian discuss this young woman and her many roles:

‘When is she Sybil vane?’

‘Never’

‘I congratulate you.’

‘How horrid you are! She is all the great heroines of the world in one. She is more

than an individual. You laugh, but I tell you she has . I love her’ (Wilde

51). Mecredy 21

Dorian expresses extreme passion for the girl, wanting to observe her every play and gain some kind of knowledge or intimacy with the girl on stage. He is much like a Rosicrucian who seeks Nature fervently, at once keen to observe and become aware of the massive, elusive manner of the natural world. However, his views change quite drastically the day he sees her as herself on stage instead of a character. When she explains that her love is the reason for the change, Dorian lashes out with a cruel monologue, proclaiming that he hates her and wishes to never have known her. Dorian comes to the conclusion that, “I knew nothing but , and I thought them real” (82). Dorian at once makes a keen realization about his own ability to confront reality and references Plato’s of the cave. Because Neoplatonism was such and integral part of the development of

Rosicrucianism, the quote may act as a marker for the influence of the brotherhood on the work. More importantly, though, Dorian’s system of knowledge has failed him. Dorian suddenly finds that he has not been seeking truth as he thought he had been in watching the various roles of Sibyl on stage. This is the turning point not simply for his future evil behavior but also the moment in which he turns into a profane Rosicrucian.

The effect of his change of thought is immediately visible in his reaction to Sibyl and to his own cruelty. As soon as he finds the Sibyl will not act as she had now that she loves him, he abandons her and breaks their betrothal. He blames her for his realization of the truth, and he tells her so insensitively, “‘you have killed my love’” (82). After leaving her and returning home, Dorian thinks back to when the portrait was first painted recalling, “He had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain young, and the portrait grow old; that his own beauty might be untarnished” (86). The moment when the painting is connected to him in this mystic manner is not the turning point, but rather the Mecredy 22 moment when the image takes on his first sin and ceases to match Dorian’s face is when he becomes the false alchemist. In looking at the portrait Dorian notices in spite of his disbelief, “it was watching him, with its beautiful marred face and its cruel smile” (87).

The cruel smile on the painting but not in his countenance is the representation of how he is at odds with nature. Were he in line with nature his face would carry his sins and age rather than the portrait bearing it all. Like Margrave who was seemingly ageless once he stole the elixir, Dorian stops aging when he first places his sin on the painting. Their ever-youthful faces are a symptom of their perversity as false alchemists and discordance with nature but are not the real the problem.

As the novel begins to skim through the years of Dorian’s life the reader is presented with a list of his fleeting interests that increase his general thirst for corrupting his own soul. First, he suggests an interest in the Roman ; but by explaining, “It was rumoured of him once that he was about to join Roman Catholic communion” (127), the narrator admits that such a conversion never happened. Yet, the text goes on to discuss Dorian’s love for the trappings and rituals of church. By noting that he wanted a ritual practice but did not actually have faith, the narrator has primed

Dorian for Rosicrucianism, which presents itself as not requiring faith because of the basis in sciences like alchemy. Also, Rosicrucian orders by the nineteenth century had carefully laid out complex ritual practices. Dorian then becomes interested in Mysticism followed by the intellectual movements in Germany. Again, both of these interests point to Rosicrucianism and its origins because German Mysticism is an important root religion for the brotherhood. Furthermore, Dorian’s interest in the psychology of perfumes plays into his leanings toward the brotherhood’s areas of study. His use of mixed scents to cure Mecredy 23 problems such as melancholy acts in the same way as an alchemist’s healing cordials.

Lastly, Dorian studies jewels and gemology, which leads him to about the power of certain jewels. While magic crystals and gems are often associated with the occult,

Wilde makes a specific gesture toward Rosicrucianism, “According to the great alchemist, Pierre de Boniface, the diamond rendered a man invisible” (130). By giving the reader points of the information that Dorian is most interested to learn about the jewels, Wilde characterizes Dorian’s fascinations as particularly related to the occult. In the quote, Wilde seems to be referring to the same accusations of the seventeenth century

Rosicrucians that Bulwer-Lytton connected to the character of Margrave. Here the power to become invisible, which was one of the accusations, is specifically stated. In the same way that connecting Margrave to Satanist powers such as dematerialization supported the claim that he was a false alchemist, for Dorian his interest in the topic places him in the same category. Dorian’s search for such knowledge leads him toward Rosicrucianism but his evil intentions and discordance with nature turn his initial leanings toward

Rosicrucians to a profane version.

Just as Margrave became the false alchemist in his last moments of life, Dorian shows himself to be a false alchemist near the end of his life. Dorian’s lack of remorse condemns him: “Nor, indeed, was it the death of Basil Hallward that weighed most upon his mind. It was the living death of his own soul that troubled him” (213). Margrave’s choice to take the elixir of life causes the death or loss of his soul. The passage notes how

Dorian also killed his own soul, though more figuratively, by the very thing that gave him his eternal youth. However, Dorian’s tale stresses the importance of secret knowledge in a way that Margrave’s did not. In the last bit of Dorian’s life the narrator gives his Mecredy 24 thoughts: “When he had been away, he had been filled with terror lest other eyes should look upon the painting. It had brought melancholy across his passion… It had been like conscience to him” (215). Dorian’s secret, which he had guarded most of his life with paranoia, has become his very soul. The only way for Dorian to continue with his immortality would be at the cost of his soul, which must remain tarnished and within the painting. He makes the decision to destroy the painting because, “It would kill this monstrous soul-life, and without its hideous warnings, he would be at peace” (215). In the end, he chooses to cast of his own soul completely to escape the misery that it imparted on him in retaliation for his numerous evil actions. Similar to the way that

Margrave cannot practice Rosicrucianism without God, Dorian was unable to turn to good because his attempts were made without God and without real remorse.

While the Rosicrucian influence on The Picture of Dorian Gray is less direct than that of A Strange Story, the connections present point to the pervasiveness of popular knowledge of various occult movements, specifically Rosicrucianism, which characterized the Occult Revival and the time period shortly following. A Strange Story, which is forthright about its interest in Rosicrucianism helps to point out the same elements in the more mainstream and less overtly occult novel of The Picture of Dorian

Gray.

Chapter 2

Mesmerism provides a second example of how the influence of the occult permeated Victorian society. This movement is also more easily traced because, unlike

Rosecrucianism, mesmerism does not stress secret knowledge. Mesmerism swings to the other side of the scale, as it was often part of public performances and demonstrations Mecredy 25 much like Spiritualism.

The majority of mesmerism’s most noteworthy historical developments occurred in France. In finishing his doctoral studies in Vienna, Franz Anton Mesmer put forth his ideas about the influence of the planets and moon on treatment of illnesses in 1766 calling his theory ‘animal gravity’ (Gauld 2). Alan Gauld notes that initially his ideas did

“not seem to have been thought eccentric” by medical practitioners of the period (2).

However, the Viennese scholars were unsupportive of Mesmer’s ideas (3). Mesmer began practicing his methods a few years later by creating false gravitation of sorts with magnets placed on his patient and soon shifted to just using his hands passed in front of a patient to magnetize them (3). After publishing a second work on the theory, he moved to

Paris where he found that his ideas were already popular, and he had gained a reputation as a worker (4). Mesmer’s practice in Paris grew extremely popular rather quickly, to the point that he had to change methods so that he could treat groups of patients all at once (5). In Paris, his ideas became a popular topic in the news and sparked a pamphlet war between urban medical doctors and supporters of magnetism including healed patients, practitioners, and rural doctors (25-6). This controversy did not, however, slow the growth of interest in magnetism in France (163).

Although Mesmer’s main pupil was the French, Charles d’Eslon, the next most influential figure was the Marquis de Puysegur, a French . Puysegur was originally a patient but then he began practicing magnetism himself with great success

(39). He also began to change the theory of magnetism, creating his own version of the practice. Puysegur boasted a number of miraculous cures, and through the creation of the

Strasburg Society, he brought magnetism to Germany. Within two decades from the Mecredy 26 original publication of Mesmer’s work, his ideas had spread from France through

Germany and England through the moneymaking efforts of lecturers and demonstrators.

Although Germany sent magnetism to Belgium and other countries, France spread the movement to Britain and the United States (166). Just as Germany was particularly well suited for developing Rosicrucianism, France proved especially fertile ground for magnetism. Once mesmerism had spread, it began to fracture and develop a variety of new forms all still under the umbrella of mesmerism.

What was previously called “animal magnetism” gained the new name of mesmerism due to Mesmer’s celebrity. Mesmerism is often used to specifically refer to the use of the trance, but it is a more inclusive category of beliefs and practices though the trance is the core of these beliefs. For example, another Frenchman, J. D. Dupotet introduced a particularly mystical strain of mesmerism mid-century. His version of mesmerism involved magic practices such as creating a “mirror” by inscribing a circle on the floor, which would create the mesmeric phenomena (174). Gauld notes, “Dupotet… was generally regarded as one of the most powerful magnetic operators of his time”

(175). In addition to mysticism, mesmerism also changed to allow for the inclusion of mid-nineteenth century scientific ideas about the human brain such as phrenology.

Although animal magnetism and thus mesmerism were seen as a science of sorts, the connections to occultism existed even from the early years. Mesmer gained some of his ideas about magnets from Paracelsus, a major source of occult thought (Webb 24).

Although Mesmer denounced mystical applications of his ideas, Freemasons in France adopted his animal magnetism rather quickly. Gauld comments on this unexpected association, stating, “of course occultism has always mingled readily with ‘fringe’ Mecredy 27 medicine” (Gauld 4). Teaching sessions at Mesmer’s own “Lodge of Harmony,” a society where he taught his methods, “followed a Masonic model” (8). In a discussion of early mesmerism, Maria Tatar notes:

By furnishing a scientific explanation for his cures, Mesmer had hoped to liberate

medicine from the mystical and religious constraints imposed upon it during

previous centuries. Yet the flavor of the occult that permeated the tenets of animal

magnetism allowed mesmerists of later generations to dispense with the physical

fluids invoked by Mesmer and to embrace metaphysical and theological solutions

to the riddles posed by the magnetic trance. (6)

An association with the occult pervades mesmerism’s history. Notably, Rosicrucians,

Spiritualists, Christian Scientists, and Theosophists adopted the theories and practices of mesmerism. Spiritualism especially ties to mesmerism because its phenomena rely on a trance state, for which Spiritualists turned to mesmeric sleep (Webb 23). Mesmerism, therefore, is not so much a religion of its own as it is an essentially occult method of practice just like folk magic or astrology.

The Occult Revival, however, made space for this occult practice with scientific associations. However, after the middle of the century, mesmerism began to decline.

Gauld sites new use of chemical anesthetics, loss of periodicals advertising the phenomena, and loss of a few key supporters as important contributors to this decline

(214). Without the supporters and presence in the publishing houses popular interest turned away from mesmerism and toward the new movements of Spiritualism (214).

Mesmerism did, however, see resurgence in the last quarter of the century under the name of hypnotism. Gauld attributes the renewal to the development of psychotherapy and Mecredy 28 psychiatry (298). Important scientists and early psychologists such as Jean-Martin

Charcot and Sigmund Freud took up hypnotism with success. Support from these two popular figures brought back the interest in hypnotic trances (Tatar 33-35). Maria Tatar explains the distinction between “hypnotism” and earlier terms for the same practice:

“Physicians who continued to view the somnambulist trance as a powerful therapeutic weapon quite naturally desired to sever all ties with the more exotic aspects of the mesmerist movement, and they therefore greeted with warm enthusiasm the proposal of

James Braid for renaming the study of artificially induced trances” (31). In spite of the new name, the occult influences were not stripped away from the practice of hypnotism.

The methods employed by mesmerism and the results reported by practitioners may shed light on how the “science” is really more occult than anything else even considering the definition of science. Mesmer believed he was using a magnetic fluid to effect change on patients; his apparatus of healing was first a pool with iron rods projecting out and later became ordinary oak trees. Patients would apply the rod to their ailing body part and go through a ceremony with a mesmerist leading to fits and trances (Tatar 14-15). He was convinced of the existence of this fluid, but this idea later brought scientific criticism to mesmerism. Yet, some of the practices were maintained, especially the trance state. These mesmeric practices took on a few different patterns, some relating to cures and others more in the style of public performances.

Somnambulism for healing involved patients describing the causes of their ailments or clairvoyantly prescribing methods for curing their own illness. In other cases the trance itself was the healing procedure. “Passes,” which usually involved the mesmerist waving his hands or a rod over the patient, were also used as a medicinal practice. Gauld stresses Mecredy 29 the fact that these cures were for physical ailments and very rarely used for mental illnesses (247). Mesmerist performances used the phenomena of mesmeric sleep in a rather different way. These mesmerists were closely tied to Spiritualism with its spirit- rappings and séances, which were also highly performance oriented. As Tatar states, these performers were, “itinerant magnetizers who made the rounds of carnivals and festivals with their trance maidens in order to cash in on the latest fad sweeping the

Continent” (31). These mesmerists could use any number of means for putting their subject into mesmeric sleep including waving their hands or an object, using their eyes and a strong gaze, or even just suggesting to the subject that she would fall into a trance.

In discussing what he terms “Spiritual Science”, Richard Noakes notes that these performing mesmerists were imposing dominance over their particularly susceptible subjects. Once mesmerized, the magnetist would have the subject “speak or behave in ways that often defied reason” in order to amaze the audience (Noakes 33).

Ideas about mesmerism appear in the literature of the time period in a variety of genres, but I will focus on Gothic novels because the Gothic genre confronts mesmerism in terms of the supernatural rather than discrediting the occult nature of the practice. In her article on Gothic terror, Anna Maria Jones gives a list of Gothic texts that

“demonstrate, degenerate, demonic, and mesmerizing villains were by no means absent in the years between the and the 1890s. One thinks, for example, of James Hogg’s

Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824), ’s The

Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870), and ’s (1872)” (Jones 68).

As in the previous chapter, I have chosen two texts to focus on, one that should be familiar, ’s Dracula, and one that is less commonly discussed, Richard Mecredy 30

Marsh’s The Beetle. In a discussion of and terror in The Beetle, Jones, citing a conventional approach to gothic, asserts, “The Victorian Gothic, thus, may be read as an index of its culture’s anxieties, especially its repressed, displaced, disavowed fears and desires” (65-66). I will elaborate on this point to argue that in both The Beetle and

Dracula, mesmerism ties into the expression of such cultural anxieties.

Modeled after Dracula, The Beetle is set up as a series of first person limited accounts that piece together an overall narrative. Though not presented exactly in chronological order the story is that a young Paul Lessingham ended up in the den of some kind of beastly beetle . In escaping, he kills one of the decidedly evil beetle women unknowingly provoking the rage of her sister beetles. Now, years later, one of the sisters of the cult, bent on revenge, finds Lessingham in London and enacts a plot to destroy him. She hypnotizes the unfortunate Holt who then goes out under her control to steal secrets from Lessingham’s house for the beetle woman. Upon discovering

Lessingham’s love for Marjorie Lindon, the beetle sets out to use her to torture

Lessingham as part of her plot for vengeance. On this same night and in the days that follow Sydney Atherton, an acquaintance of both Lessingham and Lindon, observes some strange occurrences related to the beetle and begins to snoop around even confronting the beetle at his own home. Miss Lindon joins with Atherton in seeking out the beetle when she finds the poor Holt, nearly dead on her doorstep. Convinced of the beetle’s atrocious nature but underestimating her power, Atherton, Lindon, and Holt set out to thwart the beetle in her London abode. The effort goes sideways and the beetle captures both

Lindon and Holt in mesmerism. In response, Atherton and Lessingham, along with their friend, chase the beetle all around London and its suburbs. In the end, they save Lindon Mecredy 31 though the beetle woman escapes back to her den in Egypt, which is blown up by some unknown person.

In Marsh’s novel, the beetle woman mesmerizes Robert Holt, Marjorie Lindon, and Paul Lessingham but is unable to influence Sydney Atherton. Robert Holt, a starving homeless man in search of shelter, is the first to encounter the creature in a dilapidated home where she mesmerizes him and forces him to go around London doing her bidding.

After seeing Holt in the trance state out burgling, Paul Lessingham and Sydney Atherton get involved though not as a result of seeing Holt but rather because the creature confronts them. Atherton fends off the beetle and is uninfluenced by her attempts to mesmerize him. When he confronts the beetle he notes, “I was, also, conscious that he was taking advantage of the removal of my mask to try his5 strength on me,-- than which could not have found a tougher job. The sensitive something which is found in the hypnotic subject happens, in me, to be wholly absent” (Ch 12). This reason for his endurance is important because it places him as the strong masculine hero while showing the weakness of the other characters that do succumb to the beetle’s mesmerism. The reader eventually learns that Lessingham was mesmerized as a young man traveling in

Egypt by the beetle and her cohorts and is now being haunted by the creature. As these three men and their friend try to hunt down the creature Marjorie gets involved. Both she and Holt end up captured in trances by the beetle. Marsh is careful to place those who fall prey to mesmerism as mentally weaker.

In Dracula, the mesmerize a number of characters namely, Jonathan

Harker, Lucy Westenra, , and arguably , but Dr Van Helsing also

5 Atherton uses the masculine pronoun because the beetle woman is disguised as a man, and he does not learn that the beetle is female until after the encounter. Mecredy 32 hypnotizes Mina. Dracula has also a few cases of unnamed characters succumbing to ’s mesmeric control. Jonathan finds himself in Dracula on business but in his wanderings ends up in the clutches of three female vampires, mesmerized. While he is recovering mentally after escaping from the castle, Lucy falls prey to Dracula’s mesmerism. Night after night Dracula returns to drink her blood while holding her in mesmeric sleep. She eventually dies and returns as a vampire mesmerizing children on the Heath of London. While those close to Lucy work together to hunt Dracula, Mina

Harker, ironically left at home for her safety, is subject to Dracula’s mesmerism and feeding. Throughout the novel in a , Renfield worships Dracula and is most likely mesmerized by him to be a slave.

I will focus on the subjects of the mesmerism rather than the mesmerist for two reasons. First, excepting the instance of Van Helsing and Mina, the mesmerist is monstrous even though each has a human form. The inhuman descriptions of these characters, the beetle and Dracula, distance them from a conventional Victorian mesmerist. Their mesmeric powers are highlighted by and attributed to their supernatural nature. Holt provides the first description of the human beetle:

I could not at once decide if it was a man or a woman. Indeed at first I doubted if

it was anything human…there was a vitality in his eyes which was startling. It

might have been that he had been afflicted by some terrible disease, and it was

that which had made him so supernaturally ugly. There was not a hair upon his

face or head, but, to make up for it, the skin, which was a saffron yellow, was an

amazing mass of wrinkles. (Ch 3)

Holt continues on with a detailed description of an extremely unappealing person with Mecredy 33 analogies to animals. At this point in the novel Holt has just been hypnotized but is allowed consciousness enough to remember what he sees during the experience. The monstrous and overly supernatural nature of the “mesmerist” here overshadows the use of actual mesmeric ideas. As a result, comparing her with real mesmerists is particularly muddled and unhelpful

The second reason is simply that the reader is not typically privy to the moment of mesmerism. Instead the influence that the trance has on the subject takes the dominant place in the description. Susan Pozner observes the same unseen mesmerist in her analysis of A Woman’s Face. She concludes that by hiding the actual process of hypnotism, the author makes the mesmerist more of a threat and “highlights their daemonic nature” (428). Pozner qualifies this issue by explaining that without viewing the moment of mesmerism the reader is unable to judge the strength of either the female subject or the mesmerist. She asserts, “Thus, even novels that temporarily empower female refuse, apparently, to define and measure a woman’s power to control her property: her mind, her body, her material assets and her destiny” (429). The

“off-screen” scenes of mesmerism then avoid participating in hierarchy or mental strength that described mesmerism scenes are invested in. Pozner considers this avoidance as the author’s way of consciously staying silent on the issue of the New

Woman and women’s rights to property. However, such avoidance also provides the author with a way of ignoring the hierarchy of mental strength for characters that would cause a problem for the system, i.e. monstrous mesmerists.

Stoker’s novel has one exception to this general rule of a monstrous mesmerizing scene being absent, but these examples do not contradict Pozner’s argument. When Van Mecredy 34

Helsing hypnotizes Mina, Stoker describes the scene in detail: “Looking fixedly at her, he commenced to make passes in front of her, from over the top of her head downward, with each hand in turn. Mina gazed at him fixedly” (197). Even though Stoker presents the scene fully, the comparison of power is still muddled. Mina exclaims, “‘I want you to hypnotize me!’ she said. ‘Do it now before dawn, for I think then I can speak, and speak freely” (197). Because Mina is so eager to be mesmerized, she is actively being submissive to the mesmerist. Stoker has structured the scene such that we are still left without a clear picture of the woman’s control over the property of her body and mind because her desire to participate eliminates consideration of how powerful the mesmerist is. Rather than using the word “mesmerism” Stoker has chosen to put “hypnotism” in

Mina’s mouth. Tatar notes, “Although ‘mesmerism’ and ‘animal magnetism’ linger on in our language today, both terms are used in a strictly metaphorical sense. They have become near equivalents for hypnotism but have taken on … distinct erotic overtones which are absent from their synonymous relative” (3). By having Mina use the word

“hypnotism” and using the trustworthy and scientific professor as the mesmerist, Stoker distances this instance from the other examples of mesmerism in the novel.

Besides this one instance of a human mesmerist the other examples follow the pattern of a monstrous “other” mesmerizing and unwilling, victimized subject. Rather than examining the monstrous mesmerizer alone, I will explore the human subjects and what these scenes say about those unfortunate characters and about the presentation of mesmeric ideas. The mesmerism in the novels is better understood from the perspective of the subjects rather than from the mesmerizer. This does not mean that I will not discuss the monstrous mesmerizers but that the experience and actions of the subject is Mecredy 35 will be the foundation for my argument.

Dracula

I will now turn to the cases of mesmerism in which the mesmerist is vampiric and thus monstrous. For these examples from Dracula, Stoker lays out a pattern of portraying the fears that would have been familiar to his contemporary readers. The first episode of mesmerism within Dracula is the control of Jonathan Harker by the three female vampires. First, Jonathan thinks he has fallen asleep during which time he was actually put into a trance by the three vampiric women. This situation poses an odd problem for the question of gender as it reverses the normative situation of a woman hypnotized by a man. We may either write off the situation as no man is mentally strong enough to stand up to three mesmerizes no matter the kind. Still, we have to account for oddly sexualized nature of the mesmerism encounters. The best account for the unusual scene is that the reader is supposed to find it particularly terrifying as Harker is not only faced by a multiplicity of mesmerizers, a fright in itself, but he is also unfortunately faced with a sexualized but mental violation by these mesmerizers who are both female and vampiric.

The mesmeric sleep has really just one affect on him, which is that the women control

Jonathan’s desires. He notes in his diary, “I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips. It is not good to note this down, lest some day it should meet Mina’s eyes and cause her pain; but it is the truth” (25). By noting that he regrets the feeling, he assures the reader that this type of thought is against his will.

This scene taps into the fears of foreigners that troubled fin de siècle England.

Mesmerism’s strong connection to France made it a good candidate for presenting fears about the foreign, but the story takes this one step further through the vampires. Before Mecredy 36 discussing any of the things Harker sees the female vampires do, he gives a brief description of them, which includes the fact that they have aquiline noses. Besides the predisposition to being “other” that the women have as vampires, their appearance further places them as foreign compared to the English. Julian Wolfreys describes the fear of foreign groups as in part related to the “anxiety and fear of widespread transmission of sexually transmitted disease” (172). Wolfreys admits that this fear is pathological, but that it informed English perceptions of foreigners. Additionally, Wolfreys notes,

“mesmerism is clearly readable as an act analogous with sexual penetration” (172). Even if we don’t take Wolfreys’ argument at face value, mesmerism often garnered criticism due to anxieties over the indecorous relationship between mesmerist and subject. As a result the scene of Jonathan and the female vampires participates in a pattern of fear of both foreigners and the sexual nature of mesmerism.

Dracula’s mesmerism of the unfortunate Lucy and the events leading up to it express similar fears about the foreign. Lucy and Mina go to vacation on the coast of

England at Whitby, which Mina describes as “a lovely place” (41). After only a short time in Whitby, Mina notes of Lucy, “she has got a beautiful colour since she has been here” (42). The place brings both Mina and Lucy some peace though short-lived. A harsh storm hits the town, and the ship that Dracula was taking to England crashes on the

Whitby shore. Even before the ship is in danger one of the old men that Mina has befriended sees it out in the harbor. He comments on the ship, “‘she’s Russian by the look of her, but she’s knocking about in the queerest way. She doesn’t know her mind a bit; she seems to see the storm coming, but can’t decide whether to run up north in the open, or to put in her… We’ll here more of her before this time tomorrow’” (49). Mina Mecredy 37 explains later that the crew died, which accounts for the odd movements, but the old man first notes that the ship is Russian. So, even before the ship has crashed, the reader is warned of its danger and informed that the ship is foreign. Once it does run aground,

Mina’s journal reminds the reader that the ship is of Russian origin. This gesture towards making the ship clearly foreign is not simply to confirm that it is Dracula’s since the events on the boat and the mention of the dog that ran from the ship have already done so. Instead, we may see the shipwreck as an invasion of the foreign on English soil.

Shortly after the shipwreck Dracula visits Lucy in the night, and the peace for Mina and

Lucy is gone. Mina mentions such small events as, “Lucy was very restless all night, and

I, too, could not sleep” (56) and then later “Poor Lucy seemed much upset. She was restless and uneasy all the time” (57). Although Mina does not describe the mesmerism,

Lucy’s attempts to leave the house at night in her sleep leave no doubt about the cause of their disturbed peace. Stoker increases the fear associated with the vampire’s attacks by placing Dracula’s arrival as an invasion of England and of the peace of the characters by a clearly foreign source.

The mesmerism of Lucy by Dracula provides a view of late nineteenth century fears about the role of women in society just as Jonathan’s trance connects with fears of the foreign. Again, the initial instance of Dracula mesmerizing her is not described, but when she begins to sleepwalk, she has come under his power. Because she was a sleepwalker as a child, her close relations find her relapse to sleepwalking unusual but not alarming. However, her continued efforts to go outside point to the influence of the vampire as he may not enter the house uninvited. On the night that she does escape and ends up in the arms of Dracula she responds in the expected form of a hypnotized Mecredy 38 medical subject. She pulls her nightgown over her neck and holds her neck while moaning. Here she is diagnosing her real problem though Mina is ignorant of the situation. As she begins to sicken and lose blood to Dracula in the night, the signals of mesmerism become stronger. Lucy expresses great fear in the night of going to sleep and tries to stay awake with no success. In watching over her at night Dr Seward notes that she acts strangely. On the night of her death, “whenever she got into that lethargic state, with the stertorous breathing, she put the flowers from her; but that when she waked she clutched them close” (101). On some level she seems aware that the garlic flowers are her best protection but Dracula’s hold over her mind while in the mesmeric sleep overcomes any agency she would normally have over her own body. Also, in her own diary she describes an inability to move in the night in spite of her fears.

The account of Lucy’s mesmerism points to cultural anxieties about the role of women’s agency. Women were considered better subjects for mesmerism because they were supposedly weaker of mind. Descriptions of Lucy fit this stereotype perfectly. Mina writes, “I greatly fear that she is of too supersensitive a nature to go through the world without trouble” (57). In comparing Van Helsing to Lucy, Dr Seward remarks, “then he cried till he laughed again; and laughed and cried together, just as a woman does. I tried to be stern with him, as one is to a woman under the circumstances; but it had no effect.

Men and women are so different in manifestations of nervous strength or weakness”

(110-111). Seward’s ability to command another person based on gender ties directly to a mesmerist’s ability to subdue his subject based on gender. Lucy’s weak character plays into these anxieties about women’s abilities to control themselves, and her ordeal with mesmerism acts to highlight the issue. Mecredy 39

Although Mina presents a considerably stronger nature than Lucy, she too falls under Dracula’s spell. She is actively involved in the investigation of Dracula, and she has the practical skills of stenography and typewriting. However, as the group gets close to trapping Dracula, she becomes a victim of his mesmerism. Like Lucy, she expresses fear of going to sleep and loses blood, but she seems to show no other symptoms of the mesmeric sleep. Mina falls into the category that Pozner proposes of a female protagonist that temporarily gains power. With Mina, as Pozner suggests, no strong conclusion about her abilities of self-control and power to hold control property may be made. Even so, her case still references the anxiety about women getting new rights and their abilities that characterized late nineteenth century discussions of gender.

Jean Lorrah argues that Mina is a New Woman in the novel, in accordance with

Bram Stoker’s stance in support of (32). Lorrah notes that Carol Senf claims that Lucy is the New Woman while Mina is a simple heroine because she lacks the negative characteristics of the New Woman. Also, Fred Botting touches on the topic in discussing modernity: “Even Mina, by no means a ‘New Woman,’ acknowledges in her secretarial abilities shifts in the nature of work within and outside the family” (147). As

Lorrah has observed, critical attention seems to have pushed aside the Mina as a New

Woman. However, her experiences with mesmerism side with Lorrah’s argument that she is a New Woman. We must return to the scene of Van Helsing mesmerizing Mina discussed earlier in the chapter. Mina proves more in control of herself than the other characters of the novel when she asks to be mesmerized. While Jonathan Harker goes insane after his experience of hypnotism in the castle and Lucy becomes a helpless, frightened victim, Mina, on the other hand, takes control of the situation without fear and Mecredy 40 with rationality. Mina has the self-awareness to realize that she can turn her victimization from Dracula into a source of power. She calls Van Helsing to action saying, “‘Do it before the dawn, for I feel that then I can speak, and speak freely” (197). Mina claims agency over the mesmerization that, for the other characters was a sexualized violation.

First, she rejects the common conception that mesmerism created an inappropriate relationship with the mesmerizer by calling Van Helsing, a strong father figure, to mesmerize her in the presence of her husband and friends. Secondly, she reclaims her control over her own body that Dracula as a vampire and hypnotist stole from her by mesmerizing her against her and forcing her to drink blood. By actively using mesmerism to invade Dracula’s mind, Mina takes on a dominant and aggressive role. Even from within the trance the scene describes her as in control, “The answer came dreamily, but with intention; it was as though she were interpreting something” (197). When she awakes from the trance she responds with confidence that she was able to use mesmerism as she had planned: “‘Have I been talking in my sleep?’ was all she said. She seemed, however, to know the situation without telling” (198). Unlike the other mesmerized characters, Mina claims sexual autonomy by using the sexualized mesmerism how and when she chooses. She chooses the propriety of remaining faithful to her husband by desexualizing the mesmerizing situation with Van Helsing, and she declares dominance over her own body by seeking retribution against Dracula through invading his mind as he had invaded her room.

The Beetle

The Beetle relates to the same fears I have discussed with Dracula, and again, mesmerism draws out these anxieties. Like the vampires, the beetle is carefully described Mecredy 41 as foreign. Mentions of the beetle character either relate to the Egyptian roots of the beetle story or call the character some type of Asian. While I do not want to belabor the point as Wolfreys has already discussed it at length, I do want to highlight the fact that the mesmerist that the reader is led to fear is clearly aligned with the foreign.

The issue of gender roles is presented in a rather different way. Sydney Atherton plays the ideal masculine hero in the novel, and as such is able to prevent himself from being mesmerized. When the creature comes to his home, he stands firm against the mesmeric gaze: “as I continued to stare at this man, I was conscious that it was only by an effort of will that I was able to resist a baleful something which seemed to be passing from his eyes to mine” (ch 18). This strong will to resist mesmerism stands in contrast to

Robert Holt’s who proves to be a particularly weak male character mentally when he gets mesmerized the first time and then a second time by just entering the home of the beetle.

Although both are male, Holt is stripped of his masculinity and shamed in his first encounter with the creature. Upon entering the old home of the beetle he fumbles in the dark a bit and feels a large beetle crawl on him. After a moment the creature turns on the light, and by this point, Holt is already mesmerized. When the beetle tells him to stay still his response is, “I kept still. It was as though there was nothing else for me to do” (ch 3).

From this point on he does and says exactly what the creature commands. Interestingly, he is given moments of partial freedom to answer questions. The creature asks about

Holt’s background but insists that he must be a thief. When Holt denies being a thief, the beetle forces him to answer a series of interrogations. He describes the experience, “The words came from me as if he had dragged them one by one,-- which, in fact, he did”

(ch3). For clarification, Holt mistakenly thinks that the beetle is male. Unlike Dracula, Mecredy 42 the beetle is not subtle or cunning in her use of mesmerism but instead imposes the trance forcefully. The beetle then forces him to undress and put on only a cloak. Finally the beetle waves her hand through the air which forces Holt to fall flat on his back—the kind of mesmeric theatrics one could expect from a performance. In controlling Holt’s thoughts, words, and actions the beetle has removed all of his agency and self-control.

With the addition of the undressing, the beetle’s effort to strip him of his masculinity becomes both apparent and complete.

Paul Lessingham experienced a similar ordeal earlier in the novel’s timeline, which he describes as particularly traumatic. In the present, Lessingham is known throughout society as particularly stoic. In view of society he is the ideal masculine hero.

However, as the story unfolds the reader is privy to an increasingly weak and infirm

Lessingham. An early description of Lessingham shows him as the strong masculine politician: “It is generally understood that he owes his success in the political arena in no slight measure to the adroitness which is born of his invulnerable presence of mind” (Ch

7). However, once the beetle begins to haunt him the stress causes his stolid façade to crumble. Near the end of the narrative, Mr. Champnell expresses concern over

Lessingham’s increased unease:

I had no fear of Atherton’s succumbing, but I was afraid for Lessingham. What

was more almost than the expectation of his collapse was the fact that his looks

and manner, his whole bearing, so eloquent of the agony and agitation of his

mind, was beginning to tell upon my nerves. (Ch 46)

By this point in the pursuit of the beetle, Lessingham has become so anxious and unstable that he is really just delaying the search rather than helping the detective, Mr. Champnell. Mecredy 43

As Lessingham recounts his misadventures in Egypt, Champnell notes the source of his unsteadiness, “I could see that the mere recollection of the things which he told me moved his nature to its foundations” (Ch 33). Because he attributes any unsteadiness to his initial experience of mesmerism in his youth, the reader may easily conclude that the event stripped him of his masculinity from which he has only recovered superficially.

Lessingham tells his story to Mr. Champnell, the narrator of the fourth and longest section of the novel. Against good advice, young Lessingham ventured out into the dangerous streets of the city of Palmyra in Egypt at night and came across a room with singing women. Upon entering the room he stays for a long time listening to strange music and drinking some type of unknown liquor. Lessingham found that a long period of time had passed unnoticed, which we can consider the unseen moment of mesmerism.

He describes his initial feeling under the trance, “her touch had on me what I can only describe as magnetic influence. As her fingers closed upon my wrist, I felt as powerless in her grasp as if she held me with bands of steel” (Ch 33). At this point Lessingham realized that he was held immobile on a carpet undressed much the same as Holt.

Lessingham becomes the victim the same way that Holt was stripped of his masculinity by mesmerism.

The beetle woman acts in a way that emphasizes the fears that many Victorians held about the sexual nature of mesmerism. Lessingham reports, “I am altogether incapable of even hinting to you the nauseous nature of that woman’s kisses. I look back at them with a feeling of physical, mental, and moral horror, across an interval of twenty years” (Ch 33). While she is of course a beetle creature, at the moment he describes he only knew her as a beautiful woman. Therefore, the cause for his disturbance is the way Mecredy 44 that she forces her kisses on him while he is held captive in a trance.

Both men however seem to put up a better case against the mesmerism than

Marjorie. At the time of the first mesmerism Holt is tired, cold, wet, and dying of starvation. This weakened state makes him particularly susceptible to the mesmerism of the creature. Lessingham, though young and physically strong, seems to be foiled by his own stupidity of wandering at night into the home of overly inviting beautiful women and then also drunk on some unusual liquor. Although after the experience he is considerably susceptible to the terror of the beetle, upon the first encounter his mental strength was compromised. The narrative carefully lays out how these men were both weakened in some way at the time of the first hypnotic attack. However, Marjorie is not only healthy, but she is on her guard at the time that she falls prey to the beetle’s mesmerism. In waiting alone in the beetle’s house Marjorie notes, “I, a woman, single-handed, would do my best to show him that whoever played pranks with Paul Lessingham trifled with edged tools” (Ch 31). She indicates that she is eager to prove her grit and is hoping to come across the villain so she can have vengeance. Yet, even as she conquers her fears and searches the room and the bed she falls victim. She recounts the last moment:

The hand was followed by an arm; the arm by a shoulder; the shoulder by a

head,-- and the most aweful, hideous, wicked-looking face I had ever pictured

even in my most dreadful dreams. A pair of baleful eyes were glaring up at mine.

I understood the position in a flash of startled amazement. (Ch 31)

The moment that she meets the gaze of the beetle woman she becomes hypnotized. At her strongest moment in the novel, a moment when she is aggressive and courageous, she falls victim to the beetle. Even though the men were both stripped of their masculinity, Mecredy 45

Marsh has still made a way for them to be shown as stronger than the woman. While

Stoker presented the characters of Mina and Jonathan Harker as complications to the gender stereotypes associated with mesmerism, Marsh reaffirms the status quo of gender hierarchy.

The scenes of mesmerism and its influences in both novels highlight some of the fears that were very common in the late nineteenth century England. Such fears about the role of gender in society and self-control, the sexual impropriety of mesmerism, and the threat of the foreign all show up strongly in conjunction with the occult. Not only did occult thought influence society and spread throughout popular culture, but the two were consistently integrated. Mesmerism provides an example for the way that culture and the occult were mutually influential.

Chapter 3

In the late-Victorian period, Theosophy was born out of a desire to reconcile religion with science and theories of evolution, which seemed, for many, to undermine orthodox religion. Webb describes the result of the founder’s, , first book: “unsurprising is the popularity which Madame Blavatsky’s compendium of mystification afterward brought the author, who was offering her contemporaries the sort of spiritual porridge for which they craved” (82). The new religion had appeal to a

Western audience because it provided a mix of Eastern in a package of faux intellectual jargon and an anti-Christian bent (Webb 85). Furthermore, Theosophy holds to the idea that nothing supernatural exists, but rather that nothing is outside of the realm of science even though science may not yet be able to explain it (Key to Theosophy 290).

The Theosophical Society met the challenges that contemporary science had created for Mecredy 46 religion in the west. In commenting on how H.P. Blavatsky transformed Occult religion of her time, Mark Bevir notes that Blavatsky took Indian religions presented them as a resolution to the apparent of science and religion (748).

Theosophy spread very quickly through Europe and America due to its association with various social reform movements. Per Faxneld notes, “Theosophy fast became a successful semi-mass movement. By 1889 the Theosophical Society had 227 sections all over the world, and many of the era's most important intellectuals and artists were strongly influenced by it” (206). The Society also gained many opponents for H.P

Blavatsky. Many claimed that she and the religion as a whole were frauds. As a result the popularity of Theosophy was relatively short lived (Webb 89).

H.P. Blavatsky was born to the Hahn family of nobility in 1831. Although practicing Theosphical scholars such as C. J. Ryan claim that H.P. Blavatsky demonstrated clairvoyance from childhood, more skeptical scholars such as Rene Guenon note her trip to Asia Minor in 1848 as the beginning of her involvement in occult religion

(Guenon 5). 6 For the next few years she was involved in some way with Spiritualism and even worked as a medium at some points (8-9). The twenty years following her visit to

Asia Minor seem to be somewhat of a mystery and so a number of very different accounts of that time exist. Her own account is that she trained under Eastern Masters in

India who prepared her to “bring the Western initiative and energy to awaken the East from its spiritual lethargy and to share with the world some of the buried treasures of ” (Ryan 19). Although scholarly sources seem to differ on their account of these years, they agree that Blavatsky never went to India. This account of training

6 Perhaps it is worth noting that 1848 is the same year that the Fox sisters began what would become the Spiritualist movement in America. Mecredy 47 became important to her religious convictions concerning the Masters who supposedly live in there. In 1873, Blavatsky moved to America where she met Henry Olcott, a journalist who was involved in Spiritualism and Masonry (12). They developed a relationship based on practice of the occult: “Together she and the Colonel investigated

‘phenomena’ and struck up an alliance of two Seekers after Truth” (Webb 81). Then just two years later they joined with William Judge and others to form the Theosophical

Society in New York City.

When Theosophy gained public interest and new followers, it also drew the attention of the Christian churches. At the time, the question of whether Theosophy was in conflict with Christian beliefs brought increased awareness to the new religion. For example, an article entitled “Is Theosophy Anti-Christian” appeared in the Manchester

Guardian in 1904. In the article, the author summarizes a response from , a lead member of the Society, in which she mostly skirts the issue in favor of various defenses of Theosophy as a reasonable religion. Explanatory texts appear in the form of articles like the one mentioned and the lectures referred to but also books. In an explanatory book, , Blavatsky lays out the various aspects of the religion. She notes that she, Olcott, and Judge founded the Society with the aim of relieving human suffering, specifically moral suffering, though they were concerned with the physical as well (Key to Theosophy 24). The Society set forth three official objectives to achieve this aim:

(1.) To form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity without

distinction of race, colour, or creed. (2.) To promote the study of Aryan and other

Scriptures, of the World’s religion and sciences, and to vindicate the importance Mecredy 48

of old Asiatic literature, namely, of the Brahmanical, Buddhist, and Zoroastrian

philosophies. (3.) To investigate the hidden mysteries of Nature under every

aspect possible, and the and spiritual powers latent in especially.

(39)

These three objectives connect to a number of important elements of Theosophy. First, in mentioning the Universal Brotherhood the objective references the fact that the

Theosophical Society is the only significant group for the practice of Theosophy.

Blavatsky explains that while someone may practice Theosophy outside of the Society he or she will never attain as much knowledge as those initiated into the Society (20-21).

The phrase concerning equality in the first objective made the Society very attractive to people hoping to enact social change, and while such changes were not always directly promoted by the Society, members were often supporters of some kind of social activism.

The second objective emphasizes the use of Eastern religions and knowledge and the sense of bringing together Eastern and Western that is prevalent in Theosophy. The third statement brings in the concept of the divinity of man and his potential within the cosmology. Significantly, both the second and third objectives pertain directly to the acquisition of knowledge. The Society did not define itself as a religion but rather a

Divine Knowledge with the ultimate goal being attainment of truth (1-2); the

Theosophists used the term Wisdom-Religion to describe their belief system (13). With the attainment of knowledge as central to the Society’s beliefs, the manner in which such wisdom is gained becomes very important.

The methods for finding the sought after truth include the occult sciences of hypnotism, mediumship, and clairvoyant communication with the Masters. Hypnotism Mecredy 49 further acts as a means of attaining clairvoyance. The examples of mesmerism discussed in the previous chapter would be considered magic from a Theosophical perspective because such mesmerism abuses the control of the subject (293). Mediumship similar to the practice found in Spiritualism is acceptable but is interpreted differently by

Theosophists, who disapprove of Spiritualism. The biggest difference is in the belief about the transmission of information during the séance rather than the practices themselves. Spiritualists believe that they are communicating with the spirits of the dead, but this does not fit with the cosmology of the Society. Blavatsky explains that the spirits of the dead exist in a different of being and do not return to the material world as spirits. The spirits only return to the material plane when they are reincarnated. The communication with the Masters – living men who inhabit remote places in the East – occurs through the means of thought transference. Essentially, one person can send information such as impressions, inspiration, and even direct dictation straight to another person’s mind provided that he or she is properly trained (290). Blavatsky expressed confidence that this form of communication would be proved by science just as hypnotism had been explained (291).

Not surprisingly, ideas such as presented by the Theosophical

Society received criticism from Christian churches. An article appeared in the 1894

Washington Post entitled “Mr. Wright Talks Back”, which offered an account of Mr.

Wright’s public lecture that was a direct response to Dr. Ennis’ anti-Theosophy sermon.

The article contains responses to each of the points of the sermon: “As to the criticism of reincarnation doctrine, Mr. Wright said Mme. Blavatsky was the reincarnation of her aunt and Jesus had said John the Baptist was the reincarnation of the Elijah” (“Mr. Mecredy 50

Wright Talks Back”). The passage suggests some snide whit, but the argument demonstrates that the ideas of Theosophy were widely known. Also, Mr. Wright’s remark shows how Theosophy was not only drawing on Eastern religion but also encouraging knowledge of Christianity. With some of the Christian ideas likely mixing with the

Eastern religious elements, Theosophy seems to have combined a Western conception of a human as body and soul with an Eastern concept of reincarnation. The nature of humans is important to the attainment of knowledge because the Occult sciences, in the view of Theosophists, rely on the movements and awareness of the spiritual portion of the person. Blavatsky summarizes the complex conception of a human:

We find, first of all, two distinct beings in man; the spiritual and the physical, the

man who thinks, and the man who records as much of these thoughts as he is able

to assimilate. Therefore we divide him into two distinct natures; the upper or the

spiritual being, composed of three “principles’ or aspects; and the lower or the

physical quaternary, composed of four—in all seven. (Key to Theosophy 90)

The four parts of the body are the material body, the biological life, animal desires, and the astral body (91). Most notably the astral body is capable of leaving the rest behind and moving through the world. The three parts of the spiritual half are the spirit, the soul, and the mind (92). While the material body and its four parts are all mortal, the spiritual half of the person does not die but is reincarnated. Theosophy incorporates the concept of evolution into reincarnation as each rebirth marks the positive evolution or reversion of the person.

The spiritual half of the person, particularly the spirit, is connected to the

Absolute, which in some sense replaces God in the Theosophical cosmology. Mecredy 51

Theosophists reject the concept of God as a creator or personal God, but rather Blavatsky professes an Absolute that is infinite but inactive (61-62). She writes, “We believe in a

Universal Divine Principle, the root of ALL, from which all proceeds, and within which all shall be absorbed at the end of the great cycle of Being” (63). The Absolute or

Universal Divine is in some sense the pinnacle of existence.

The two texts that I have chosen for this chapter have opposing views of

Theosophy. Blavatsky’s stories, “A Bewitched Life” and “The Cave of Echoes” are in support of Theosophy, while ’s The Sorrows of Satan pushes against

Theosophical views in favor of Christianity. I have chosen only two of the five stories in a collection entitled Nightmare Tales published by the Aryan Theosophical Press.

Notably, the Society had a number of its own presses, which produced a lot of the written material including didactic texts as well as fiction. The ability to produce its own texts allowed the Society to spread awareness of Theosophical ideas rapidly. Theosophical presses contributed to the rise of Theosophical popularity to its height less than twenty years after its founding in 1875. The quick growth of the Theosophical Society presents a stark contrast to movements such as Rosicrucianism which took over two hundred years to become a significant cultural influence.

At the same time, the availability of texts from the Theosophical Society fomented opposition. Marie Corelli brings elements of Theosophy into her text but presents them as faulty and opposite to the truth, which she shows to be Christianity.

Simon James argues that Corelli self-consciously sets the reader up to interpret movements that disrupt the status quo as negative. In his discussion of The Sorrows of

Satan, James explains: Mecredy 52

The book self-consciously deploys, inhabits and pastiches familiar fin-de-siècle

topics – such as literary , moral relativism, literary taste, realism, post-

Ibsen drama, the sexual double standard, the marriage market, the New Woman,

motherhood, hysteria and female pathologies, degeneration anxiety, mesmerism

and, as the protagonist Geoffrey Tempest has it, ‘Blavatskyism, Besantism and

hypnotism’ – but then contains them in a sternly moral, anti-decadent and

Christian framework that seeks ultimately to limit the energies of these new

incarnations of modernity. (135)

With the rapidity with which Theosophy spread, the placement of “Blavatskyism” along side elements of modernity is not surprising.

Sorrows of Satan

Correlli’s protagonist, Geoffrey Tempest, begins his story as a novelist living in poverty. When he meets Lucio Rimanez, the disguised Satan, suddenly Tempest is wealthy and involved with high society. The shift leads him to a materialistic lifestyle and the loss of what literary prospects he had as a poor man. Rimanez guides Tempest through the path to social popularity and into the arms of a jaded wife. The unhappily wedded couple find themselves living at Willowsmere near a female novelist who is the for Tempest. Mavis Clare, a spiritually pure writer, is the example against which we may compare Tempest as he finds himself under the influence of Rimanez and his

Theosophical ideas. As the plot comes to a , Rimanez reveals his true self to

Tempest, who then turns toward the Christian God and ends his narrative on the righteous path.

Rimanez gradually introduces Tempest to the truth that God and Satan exist Mecredy 53 throughout the story, but Tempest is continually resistant to anything that disrupts his atheistic worldview. While Corelli postures some of the ideas as truths that Satan has begrudgingly accepted, she introduces others as the bad habits of Satan. One such item is a beetle that Rimanez claims was once a human princess. Rimanez introduces the glittering beetle: “This creature is a rare and curious production of death, but not I believe the only one of its kind. Others have been found under precisely similar circumstances”

(56). Referring to the creature as a production of death raises touches on the topic of the afterlife, and his mention of others suggests that he has observed a pattern in nature perhaps transmigration or reincarnation. Corelli does not leave her intended topic vague though. Rimanez relates how he investigated a of an Egyptian princess:

Underneath this gold plate, her body was swathed round and round in an unusual

number of scented wrappings; and when these were removed it was discovered

that the mummified flesh between her breasts had decayed away, and in the

hollow or nest thus formed by the process of decomposition, this insect I hold was

found alive, as brilliant in colour as it is now! (56)

The beetle has gotten life from the dead princess but the process is not simply described in biological terms. Instead, Rimanez associates the new life to transmigration, “To me, this unclassified insect is a valuable proof (if I needed one) of the indestructibility of the germs of conscious existence” (56). He then goes on to state, “I am much inclined to accept the idea of transmigration of souls, and so I please my humour sometimes by thinking that perhaps the princess of that Royal Egyptian house had a wicked, brilliant, vampire soul,-- and that… here it is” (57).

Although Corelli rather explicitly ties the genesis of the insect to the phenomena Mecredy 54 of transmigration, she demonstrates a muddled understanding of the concept. Whether she has the Theosophical understanding of the term right or wrong, however, does not have an impact on the clear effort to incorporate Theosophical ideas. Because the Society was openly mixing Eastern religion into the Western worldview, we can easily attribute this mention of transmigration to Theosophy. Yet, Corelli seems to be caught between common misconceptions and a rather detailed understanding of Theosophy.

A Theosophical Primer from 1909 explains a common misinterpretation of Theosophical doctrine, stating, “one of the most ordinary misconceptions in connection with

[reincarnation] is to confound it with the theory of transmigration of human souls into animal bodies. Suffice it to say that no such retrogression is within the limits of possibility” (101-2). Because Theosophy’s conception of reincarnation is connected to

Darwin’s evolution, the Society only accepts forward progressive rebirth. Just as animals may only evolve for better fitness, so do souls only reincarnate either on the same level or at a higher level.

However, Theosophists do accept some form of transmigration. The Theosophical didactic pamphlet from 1936, “What is Transmigration,” explains the term first by describing “life-atoms” which are the soul or active living part of a material atom (1).

These “life-atoms” are controlled by the person to whom the atoms belong and gather life from that person (2). The process of transmigration occurs as follows:

When a man dies his body disintegrates. The atoms and life-atoms which

compose it are freed, and go wherever they find attraction. They go to the place or

to the thing they like best or are most akin to. Some go to build soil, others help

build flowers, the trees; some help build the bodies of animals and other lower Mecredy 55

creatures. Some go to help build bodies of other human beings. (2).

When Rimanez mentions the germs of conscious existence his usage seems close to what the pamphlet calls “life-atoms.” The beetle has consumed and constructed itself from the physical matter of the dead princess and so it has absorbed some of the life or germs of conscious existence. This first statement by Rimanez that ties the beetle to transmigration accords with the Theosophical definition of transmigration. However, when Rimanez notes that he likes to think the soul of the wicked princess is in the beetle, Corelli strays from Theosophy toward common misconceptions of Theosophy that souls can reincarnate into anything.

Once she has set up the Theosophical example, Corelli immediately marks it as dark so that the reader will naturally be disturbed by the thought of the beetle having either the “life-atoms” or the soul of the Egyptian princess. Through the character of

Tempest, the reader is directed to oppose Rimanez and his story about the beetle.

Tempest describes his response:

I was conscious of a vague terror, but I attributed it to the gruesome nature of the

story, and, determining to combat my sensations, I examined the weird insect

more closely. As I did so, its bright beady eyes sparkled, I thought, vindictively,

and I stepped back, vexed with myself at the foolish fear of the thing which

overpowered me. (57)

By showing Tempest’s fear, Corelli makes the idea of the beetle repulsive on a subconscious level. Tempest is unable to really explain his fear and is even ashamed that he should be so illogically fearful given his disbelief in such things as souls and transmigration. As a result, his fear seems to be his soul shrinking away from evil beliefs, Mecredy 56 an action that the reader should share on some level.

Corelli not only uses some of the Theosophical doctrines in her text but also the manner of obtaining knowledge, which perhaps is more important to Theosophy than the beliefs themselves. One example of the methods of knowledge is the phantoms that

Tempest sees in the night. The three warn him with the word “misery,” and although the vision was intended to enlighten him concerning his relationship with

Rimanez, Tempest does not head them. A second example and the one that I will focus on is the scene when Rimanez hypnotizes Tempest. I have chosen the example of the hypnotism because I will demonstrate how the scene is not simply connected to mesmerism but is specifically engaging with Theosophy.

Rimanez and Tempest are sailing on the Nile when Rimanez tells him about an ancient Egyptian city that had maintained its faith in religion and was famous for a particularly noteworthy wife of the king. Tempest is quickly intrigued and Rimanez offers to show him the city by means of hypnotism. Upon Tempest’s request Rimanez hypnotizes him with an intense gaze. Tempest describes his initial impressions, “I tried to smile and say something indifferent. My efforts were useless,-- personal consciousness was slipping from me fast,-- the sky, the water and the moon whirled round each other in a giddy chase for precedence… then suddenly my vision cleared” (446). The hypnotism by a strong gaze is not an unusual description, and Tempest’s description of his experience is normal as well. The distinction for a Theosophical use of hypnotism is not in the method or the apparent results so much as the interpretation of the experience.

After the vision has dissolved Tempest turns frantically to Rimanez for answers about how he can find the woman. In response, Rimanez says, “‘What a ‘find’ you would Mecredy 57 be to a first-class ‘spiritual’ impostor playing his tricks in cultured and easily-gulled

London society’” (449). Although Rimanez’s comment is a snide remark about

Tempest’s weak mind and susceptibility to suggestion, it reveals the perspective of hypnotism we are to take. Corelli uses the phrase to discount the viability of any religious interpretation of hypnotism. However, she proceeds to connect his hypnotism to

Theosophy through the men’s conversation:

“Do you mean to tell me,” [Tempest] said earnestly “that what I saw just now was

the mere thought of your brain conveyed to mine?”

“Precisely!” he responded—“I know what the ‘City Beautiful’ was like, and I was

able to draw it for you on the canvas of my memory and present it as a complete

picture to your inward sight. For you have an inward sight,-- though like most

people, you live unconscious of that neglected faculty.” (449)

Unlike the Spiritualist use of hypnotism, which claims that the visions and communications are of and from the dead, Rimanez’s comment suggests that all of the vision came straight from him. The use of suggestion mirrors the manner in which the

Masters give knowledge to members of the Society. Also, Theosophists openly acknowledge the power of suggestion in the use of hypnotism unlike most Spiritualists.

Even mesmerists often overlooked or discounted the role of suggestion in hypnotism.

From the interpretation of the hypnotic trance phenomena Corelli singles out Theosophy.

By discrediting the validity of any spiritual interpretation and then pin pointing

Theosophy, Corelli directly criticizes the Society on one of its central doctrines, the attainment of knowledge through hypnotism and thought transference.

Nightmare Tales Mecredy 58

Unlike Marie Corelli, who presents the ideas of Theosophy in order to discredit it,

Blavatsky writes her stories in order to promote and to teach Theosophical ideas. Because

Nightmare Tales is a collection of short stories each with a focused plot, I will consider two stories in order to explore the topic of reincarnation and transmigration and that of the attainment of knowledge through hypnotism. In “A Bewitched Life” the narrator lives in Japan far away from his family in Europe so when he stops receiving letters, he grows anxious. In an effort to relieve the stress his friend, Bonze, calls a Yamabooshi, who is some type of religious expert, to determine the answer through spiritual means. Although the narrator had long protested involvement in any of Bonze’s religion, he finally relents due to his extreme distress over his family. Because the narrator is such a skeptic, the

Yamabooshi explains, “There was but one means; and that was to make the foreigner

(myself) see with his own eyes, and thus learn the truth for himself. Was the inquirer ready to be placed by a Yamabooshi, a stranger to him, in the required state” (22). The

Yamabooshi chooses to lead the narrator through hypnotism to send his astral body to see the cause of the silence from his family.

The vision, here, is somewhat different from the one in The Sorrows of Satan.

Blavatsky goes into great detail to describe and explain the manner in which the reader is to understand the process of the Yamabooshi leading the hypnotized subject. The narrator gives specific descriptions of his personal experience, “I seemed to quite lose consciousness of my surroundings”; he continues on, “Then came a strong sensation of an involuntary rush forward, of snapping off, so to say, from my place” (26). These vivid descriptions are only a couple of examples from what amounts to a few consecutive pages narrating the experience of movement and disjunction from the body. Rather than Mecredy 59 seeing the distant past of his own location, like Tempest, the narrator sees a contemporary scene in a distant location. Blavatsky does not leave the reader to interpret the experience.

The narrator explains, “the link between the animal and the divine presence is broken”

(31). The narrator is referring to the two-part nature of man but also describing what has happened to him during the trance. Blavatsky sets out the Theosophical belief in the as well:

As I was going, in thought, to pounce upon the vile charlatan, my corpse, the two

old men, the room itself, and every object in it, trembled and danced in a reddish

glowing light, and seemed to float rapidly away from "me." A few more

, distorted shadows before "my" sight; and, with a last feeling of terror

and a supreme effort to realize who then was I now, since I was not that corps.

(27)

The depiction of the spirit half of the self realizing that he has separated from his own body reaffirms the doctrine of the two part self but also emphasizes that the spiritual self is able to leave the body without harm and maintain consciousness and memory.

Blavatsky’s careful use of narration for the purpose of teaching Theosophical beliefs is evident in her repetition of both description of the experience and clearly stated interpretation.

After the hypnotism is over, the narrator experiences extreme side effects.

Because the Yamabooshi had used an evil spirit to guide the narrator’s spiritual self around the world, he falls prey to the will of the evil spirit, the Daij Dzin. Because the narrator was untrained and refused the sealing ceremony, scenes that the Daij Dzin chooses to show him continually haunt him. The narrator often sees scenes of trauma that Mecredy 60 are occurring elsewhere because he is unable to stop the Daij Dzin and break his association with the evil spirit. This experience fits within the Theosophical worldview because the Masters are not the only beings capable of guiding a person to a vision.

Perhaps this story is to act as a warning against seeking knowledge without training or without following the guidance of the Society who would only lead you to the Masters who are good. The narrator’s experience with the visions is similar to Tempest’s visions of the three specters that he encounters while he is under the influence of Rimanez.

Notably the specters haunt him much more consistently after he agrees to undergo the hypnotism in Egypt.

The second story deals with the topic of reincarnation, and like the previous short story, it is carefully constructed to be didactic. “The Cave of Echoes” begins with a wealthy family visited by a German music teacher, who is to act as a tutor for the children, and his daughter. During their visit the rich uncle falls in love with the German girl and they decide to wed. Nicolas, one of the nephews, however, secretly kills the uncle in a cave that is notable for its deep pools so that he can marry the girl and get all of his uncle’s money. Shortly after their marriage Nicolas and his wife then have a child, who is peculiar in that he acts like an old man and has the face of an old man in spite of his young age. One night a few years later the family hosts a party in the cave with the deep pools and the child sneaks in. A shaman attends the party and at the request of the guests demonstrates his skill by revealing who had killed the rich uncle. So, the shaman and his friend the mesmerist perform a ritual that culminates in the child revealing the murderer. Mecredy 61

In the first part of the scene the boy transforms in appearance as a result of the shaman’s ritual:

The child began to grow, as though the work of years was miraculously

accomplished in a few seconds. He became tall and large, and his senile features

grew older with the ageing of his body. A few more seconds, and the youthful

form had entirely disappeared. It was totally absorbed in another individuality,

and to the horror of those present who had been familiar with his appearance, this

individuality was that of old Mr. Izvertzoff, and on his temple was a large gaping

wound, from which trickled great drops of blood. (76)

The unusual child grows into a phantom of the rich uncle. Although not directly stated, the change of the boy into the old man indicates that the child has the rich uncle’s soul.

The uncle reincarnated into the child that was born to the nephew that murdered him.

Theosophists profess reincarnation as a normal process and that no person has a new soul. Blavatsky uses the description of the boy that looks like an old man to draw attention to the fact that the soul in the boy is a reincarnated one. In the cave when the boy becomes a phantom of the old uncle, Blavatsky solidifies the earlier suggestions of reincarnation.

Shortly after transforming, the boy indicates the culprit: “The specter's lips moved, but it was the echo which answered for them in lugubrious shouts: ‘Murdered I murdered I I mur-der-ed Ill’ ‘Where? How? By whom?’ asked the conjuror. The apparition pointed a finger at Nicolas” (76). Blavatsky brings in spirit memory to complete the picture of reincarnation that she presents in the child. The Society holds the belief that the part of the spiritual self that lives on in carries bits of Mecredy 62 information from the previous life. Normally this memory is described as very similar to but here Blavatsky has stretched the belief to better fit with a narrative style. This moment of revealing the murderer is central to the plot of the story, and so with this story

Blavatsky has combined the work of didactic writing with the narrative.

Corelli and Blavatsky take opposite approaches to their presentation of

Theosophical views. As the main founder of the Theosophical Society, Blavatsky’s didactic style of the short stories in Nightmare Tales is expectedly pronounced. These short stories are narrowly focused on conveying a particular idea from the Society. As a result the narratives themselves contribute to the portrayal of the Theosophical ideas, and the plot stands on the presentation of the doctrine. Corelli, on the other hand, takes a stance on a number of issues in her lengthy novel. As a result, the Theosophical elements are somewhat isolated from the line of the narrative. Her method of presenting the

Theosophical idea in a negative light reaffirms the support of Christianity that she demonstrates in the perfection of Mavis Clare and Satan’s confession about the existence

God.

Conclusion

Although the three chapters that I have presented separate categorically works of literature along with occult religious movements, this clean cut distinction is perhaps not representative of the entire situation. The relationship between the works of literature and the occult worldviews is more fluid. As one work of literature such as Dracula influences another work like The Beetle, some spillover of ideas is bound to occur. Literary authors are responding to each other as well as the occult, and so many works include gestures toward multiple occult movements. Likewise, as the authors engage with one element of Mecredy 63 the Occult Revival they are sure to encounter other parts. My point here about the mixing of ideas is best explained by returning to the example of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Steven

Stannish observes that Stoker was drawn to a variety of occult topics such as “, alchemy, mesmerism, among other late nineteenth-century diversions” (121).

While I have already demonstrated the uses of mesmerism within the novel, I would like to turn to other occult themes within the narrative.

Within Dracula, Stoker presents folk magic as particularly effective. In discussing the role of the Victorian doctor in literature, Tabitha Sparks observes, “the doctors in these texts embrace the occult sciences as viable extensions of their research. In Dracula,

Van Helsing accepts that ‘there are always mysteries in life’ (210) and this knowledge benefits him and his followers in the fight to subdue Dracula” (Sparks 113). She goes on to note that even Jonathan Seward must accept the supernatural. Sparks notes that the state of Victorian science allowed for folk magic and the occult to blend into Van

Helsing’s scientific inquiries. Both of these doctors must trust folk magic such as the power of garlic flowers in order to protect Lucy. In the scenes when Jonathan Harker travels through on the way to the castle we see the same use of folk magic.

Harker wonders, “How was it that all the people at Bistritz and on the coach had some terrible fear for me? What meant the giving of the crucifix, of the garlic, of the wild rose, of the mountain ash? Bless that good, good woman who hung the crucifix round my neck” (Stoker 19). Although Harker does not understand the purpose of the folk magic, he is able to recognize it as a source of protection.

Discussions of both Lucy and Dracula’s graves are suggestive of a connection to the Rosicrucian origin legend about Christian Rosenkreuz. Steven Stannish notes, “Bram Mecredy 64

Stoker himself may have belonged to a secret occult society—the Hermetic Order of the

Golden Dawn—and he was certainly interested in esoterica” (121). The legend of

Christian Rosenkreuz involves the brotherhood finding his tomb with his body inside still in perfect condition over a century later. Opening the tomb was a particularly important ritualized ceremony that rekindled the Rosicrucian order. Like Rosenkreuz, Lucy remains perfectly preserved after her death. A week after the burial Seward and Van Helsing return to the coffin to look inside. On the night they go down to open the tomb, “Van

Helsing went about his work systematically” (131). His efforts seem like a ritual of sorts as Seward describes, “There lay Lucy, seemingly just as we had seen her the night before her funeral. She was, if possible, more radiantly beautiful than ever; and I could not believe that she was dead” (134). Lucy’s body is completely preserved in death or rather un-death just as Rosenkreuz’s body had remained.

Stoker even seems to consider some of the thoughts of the Theosophical Society through Renfield. The character of Renfield is particularly striking for his beliefs in what

Seward calls a “zoophagous.” Seward describes Renfield’s beliefs in this way: “what he desires is to absorb as many lives as he can, and he has laid out to achieve it in a cumulative way” (49). Although not exactly the same concept as the Theosophical transmigration of “life-atoms,” Renfield’s thoughts on taking in the life are quite close to the “life-atoms” theory. Stoker uses Renfield as a platform for exploring ideas about life, both biological and spiritual. In doing so Stoker – like many other Victorian writers – engages with the very same questions about religion and science that the Theosophical

Society was trying to answer. Mecredy 65

Works Cited

Bevir, Mark. “The West Turns Eastward: Madame Blavatsky and the Transformation of

the Occult Tradition.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 62. 3

(Autumn 1994): 747-767. Web. 15 May 2015.

Blavatsky, Helena Petrova. The Key to Theosophy. Los Angeles: The United Lodge of

Theosophists, 1889.

Blavatsky, Helena Petrova. Nightmare Tales. Point Loma, CA: The Aryan Theosophical

Press, 1907.

Botting, Fred. Gothic. London: Routledge, 1996.

Bulwer-Lytton. Edward. A Strange Story. Np: Kindle Ebooks, 2012. ebook.

Corelli, Marie. The Sorrows of Satan: The Strange Experience of One Geoffrey Tempest,

Millionaire. London: Methuen & Co., 2013. ebook.

Edighoffer, Roland. “Rosicrucianism: From the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century.”

Modern Esoteric . Ed. Antoine Faivre and Jacob Needleman. New

York: SCM Press Ltd., 1992.

Gauld, Alan. A History of Hypnotism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Gibbons, B.J. Spirituality and the Occult: From Renaissance to the Modern Age. London:

Routledge, 2001.

Guenon, Rene. Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion. Trans. Alvin Moore et al.

Hillsdale, NY: Sophia Perennis, 2004.

“Is Theosophy Anti-Christian?” The Manchester Guardian 26 July 1903: p. 11. ProQuest

Historical Newspapers. Web. 16 May 2015. Mecredy 66

Hogle, Jerrold. “Introduction: The Gothic in Western Culture.” The Cambridge

Companion to Gothic Fiction. Ed. Jerrold Hogle. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2002.

James, Simon. “Marie Corelli and the Value of Literary Self-Consciousness.” Journal of

Victorian Culture 18.1 (2013): 134-151. Web. 15 May 2015.

Jones, Anna Maria. “Conservation of Energy, Individual Agency, and Gothic Terror in

Richard Marsh’s The Beetle.” and Culture 39 (2011): 65-85.

Web. 15 March 2015.

Killeen, Jarlath. History of the Gothic: Gothic Literature 1825-1914. Cardiff: University

of Wales Press, 2009.

Lorrah, Jean. “Dracula Meets the New Woman.” The Blood is the Life: Vampires in

Literature. Ed. Leonard Heldreth and Mary Pharr. Bowling Green: Popular Press,

1999.

Marsh, Richard. The Beetle. New York: Open Road Integrated Media, 2015. ebook.

McIntosh, Christopher. The Rosicrucians: The History, Mythology, and Rituals of an

Esoteric Order. : Red Wheel Weiser, 1997.

Monod, Paul. Solomon’s Secret Arts: The Occult in the . New

Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.

Morrisson, Mark. “The Periodical Culture of the Occult Revival.” Journal of Modern

Literature 31.2 (Winter 2008): 1-22. Web. 15 March 2015.

“Mr. Wright Talks Back.” The Washington Post 22 June 1894: p. 2. ProQuest Historical

Newspapers. Web. 16 May 2015. Mecredy 67

Noakes, Richard. “The Sciences of Spiritualism in Victorian Britain: Possibilities and

Problems.” The Ashgate Research Companion to Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism

and the Occult. Ed. Tatiana Kontou and Sarah Willburn. Surrey: Ashgate

Publishing Limited, 2012.

Pozner, Susan. “Whose Body? The ‘Willing’ or ‘Unwilling’ Mesmerized Woman in Late

Victorian Fiction.” Woman’s Writing 15.3 (2008): 412-435. Web. 25 April 2015.

A Primer of Theosophy. Chicago: The Rajput Press, 1909.

Roberts, Marie. Gothic Immortals: The Fiction of the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross.

London: Routledge, 1990

Ryan, C.J. H.P. Blavatsky and the Theosophical Movement. 2nd ed. Ed. Grace F. Knoche.

Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 1975.

Seagroatt, Heather. “Hard Science, Soft Psychology, and Amorphous Art in The Picture

of Dorian Gray.” Studies in 1500-1900 38.4 (1998): 746. 25

March 2015.

Sparks, Tabatha. The Doctor in the Victorian Novel: Family Practices. Surrey: Ashgate,

2009.

Stannish, Steven and Christine Doran. “Magic and Vampirism in Philostratus’s Life of

Apollonius of Tyanna and Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” : Critical and

Historical Studies on the Preternatural 2.2 (2013): 113-138. Web. 3 June 2015.

Stoker, Bram. Dracula. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2014. ebook.

Tatar, Maria. Spellbound: Studies on Mesmerism and Literature. Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1978. Mecredy 68

Versluis, Arthur. “The ‘Occult’ in Nineteenth-Century America.” The Occult in

Nineteenth-Century America. Ed. Cathy Gutierrez. Aurora, CO: The Davies

Groups Publishers, 2005.

Webb, James. The Occult Underground. Chicago: Open Court, 1974.

“What is Transmigration?” Theosophical Forum and the Theosophical Path and Lucifer

8.2 (1 Feb 1936): 120. American Periodicals. Web. 25 May 2015.

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Np: Kindle Ebooks, 2012. ebook. Wolfreys,

Julian. “The Hieroglyphic Other: The Beetle, London, and the Abyssal Subject.”

Writing London 3: Inventions of the City. Basingstroke: Palgrove MacMillan,

2007. Web. 15 April 2015.