A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture

As noted, American Mesmerism was composed simultaneously of those interested in the
pursuit of scientific mesmerism, such as the aforementioned Poyen and those who functioned
more as traveling entertainers. One of the latter was J. Stanley Grimes, who worked as a
traveling mesmerist and phrenologist. Phrenology, a science concerned with analyzing the
character and various faculties of a given individual through examining the shape of that
individual’s skull, had by this time combined with mesmerism in the form of
“phrenomagnetism.” In exhibitions of phrenomagnetism, the various faculties of a somnambule
were activated by touching the corresponding portion of their skull - thus dramatic displays of
affection might be elicited by the mesmerist touching the “amative” center on their subject’s
head. Grimes, with his 1843 visit to Poughkeepsie, was to bring one of the leading lights of
American Spiritualism, Andrew Jackson Davis, into the fold.
THE JOHN THE BAPTIST OF SPIRITUALISM
The following description of Andrew Jackson Davis nicely illustrates a commonplace of
Spiritualism - the correlation between mediumship and somatic delicacy (as well as social
marginality). “As a boy Davis was sickly and nervous, a sleepwalker and prey to irrational fears
of death and hellfire. He was nearsighted, narrow-breasted, and awkward in his movements. At
schools he was called ‘gumpy’ and ‘sleepyhead’ by his classmates, ‘blockhead’ by his teacher,
‘dummy’ by his sister Eliza.” 58
It was in the final year of the Shaker’s “New Era” (1847) that
Andrew Jackson Davis’ The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations and a Voice to
Mankind was first published. Davis, the so-called John the Baptist of Spiritualism, was to
become a key figure in American Spiritualism and his book a bible of sorts for the movement.
Following J. Stanley Grimes’ visit, during which Davis was first mesmerized, Poughkeepsie
citizens began their own local pursuit of the discipline. Among those who engaged in these
58 Brown, 85.
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