A Visionary Madness
A Visionary Madness

Author: Mike Jay

Publisher: North Atlantic Books

Published: 2014-01-07

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1583947175

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Confined in Bedlam in 1797 as an incurable lunatic, James Tilly Matthews is one of the most bizarre case studies in the annals of psychiatry. Often cited as the first thorough case study of what we would today call paranoid schizophrenia, Matthews drew intricate diagrams of the "influencing machine" that he believed to be reading and controlling his mind. But his case was even stranger than his doctors realized: many of the incredible conspiracies in which he claimed to be involved were entirely real. A Visionary Madness traces the story of antiwar advocate James Tilly Matthews through the political and social upheaval of the late eighteenth century, providing a vivid account of the unraveling of Matthews's mind, a snapshot of late eighteenth-century psychiatry, and its relevance to current narratives of madness, conspiracy theories, mind control, and political manipulation. Digging deep into historical records and primary sources, author Mike Jay carefully untangles truth from delusion, providing evidence that Matthews was a political prisoner as much as a madman: he had been working as a double agent in the French Revolution and was privy to political secrets the British government feared he might expose. In the process, Jay illuminates the murky revolutionary politics of the 1790s and situates Matthews' visionary madness within the wider cultural upheavals of a world on the brink of modernity. The details of Matthews' treatment in Bedlam reveals the birth-pangs of early psychiatry and its struggle to free its patients from the harsh regimes of the eighteenth-century madhouse. A fascinating and fast-paced narrative history, A Visionary Madness raises profound questions about the nature of madness and the birth of the modern world.

Rush
Rush

Author: Stephen Fried

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2018-09-04

Total Pages: 659

ISBN-13: 0804140073

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The monumental life of Benjamin Rush, medical pioneer and one of our most provocative and unsung Founding Fathers FINALIST FOR THE GEORGE WASHINGTON BOOK PRIZE • AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR By the time he was thirty, Dr. Benjamin Rush had signed the Declaration of Independence, edited Common Sense, toured Europe as Benjamin Franklin’s protégé, and become John Adams’s confidant, and was soon to be appointed Washington’s surgeon general. And as with the greatest Revolutionary minds, Rush was only just beginning his role in 1776 in the American experiment. As the new republic coalesced, he became a visionary writer and reformer; a medical pioneer whose insights and reforms revolutionized the treatment of mental illness; an opponent of slavery and prejudice by race, religion, or gender; an adviser to, and often the physician of, America’s first leaders; and “the American Hippocrates.” Rush reveals his singular life and towering legacy, installing him in the pantheon of our wisest and boldest Founding Fathers. Praise for Rush “Entertaining . . . Benjamin Rush has been undeservedly forgotten. In medicine . . . [and] as a political thinker, he was brilliant.”—The New Yorker “Superb . . . reminds us eloquently, abundantly, what a brilliant, original man Benjamin Rush was, and how his contributions to . . . the United States continue to bless us all.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer “Perceptive . . . [a] readable reassessment of Rush’s remarkable career.”—The Wall Street Journal “An amazing life and a fascinating book.”—CBS This Morning “Fried makes the case, in this comprehensive and fascinating biography, that renaissance man Benjamin Rush merits more attention. . . . Fried portrays Rush as a complex, flawed person and not just a list of accomplishments; . . . a testament to the authorial thoroughness and insight that will keep readers engaged until the last page.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “[An] extraordinary and underappreciated man is reinstated to his rightful place in the canon of civilizational advancement in Rush. . . . Had I read Fried’s Rush before the year’s end, it would have crowned my favorite books of 2018 . . . [a] superb biography.”—Brain Pickings

The Air Loom Gang
The Air Loom Gang

Author: Mike Jay

Publisher:

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13:

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"The Air Loom Gang" recounts the remarkable true story of Matthews: a peace activist caught up in the Napoleonic wars between England and France who becomes convinced of an elaborate conspiracy aimed at the very heart of power.

Illustrations of Madness (Psychology Revivals)
Illustrations of Madness (Psychology Revivals)

Author: John Haslam

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-01-27

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 1134665164

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John Haslam’s Illustrations of Madness, written in 1810, occupies a special place in psychiatric history, it was the first book-length account of one single psychiatric case written by a British psychiatrist. John Haslam, apothecary to London’s Bethlem Hospital, and a leading psychiatrist of the early-nineteenth century, details the case of James Tilly Matthews, who had been a patient in the hospital for some ten years. Matthews claimed he was sane, as did his friends and certain doctors. Haslam, on behalf of the Bethlem authorities, contended he was insane, and attempted to demonstrate this by presenting a detailed account of Matthew’s own delusional system, as far as possible in Matthew’s own words. Originally published in 1988 as part of the Tavistock Classics in the History of Psychiatry series, Roy Porter’s Introduction to this facsimile reprint of an historic book goes beyond Haslam’s text to reveal the extraordinary psychiatric politics surrounding Matthew’s confinement and the court case it produced, leading up to Haslam’s dismissal from his post. Still relevant today, Haslam’s account can be used as material upon which to base a modern diagnosis of Matthew’s disorder.

The Influencing Machine
The Influencing Machine

Author: Mike Jay

Publisher: Influencing Machine

Published: 2012-03

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781907222139

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London in the 1790s, Europe is in turmoil and war with France is looming. James Matthews, an Welsh tea merchant and anti war advocate who holds covert meeting with both the English and the French leaders. But Matthews believes that his mind is being controlled by revolutionary terrorists and a secret machine called the Air Loom. He is promptly declared mad and send to Bedlam. Here his delusions are celebrated as the most complex and bizarre ever recorded and strangely many of the incredible events he claims to have been involved in are entirely true.

Unholy Madness
Unholy Madness

Author: Seth Farber

Publisher: InterVarsity Press

Published: 1999-01-01

Total Pages: 172

ISBN-13: 9780830819393

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For nearly four decades social critics such as Philip Rieff and Christopher Lasch have bemoaned the "triumph of the therapeutic" in our "culture of narcissism." But whatever their level of uneasiness about the psychologizing of reality, most Christians have made some degree of peace with the reigning power of psychotherapy and psychotherapeutic outlooks. Seth Farber is not one of those Christians. In his estimation psychotherapy has become "a replacement for involvement in the spiritual life of the church," with pastors and other Christian leaders too quickly deferring to psychiatrists and other mental health professionals. Unholy Madness is prompted by Farber's passionate insistence that Christianity and psychiatry are nothing less than competing faiths. Farber's radical argument cuts to the root of the mental health system and challenges the church to consider how much it may have constricted its own vision and neglected its unique responsibilities in its accomodation to that system. Taking on giants from Augustine to Freud, wide-ranging and never boring, Unholy Madness is not likely to persuade all its readers. But none will be able to see these issues in the same way again. -- Publisher.

The Spiritual Gift of Madness
The Spiritual Gift of Madness

Author: Seth Farber

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-04-17

Total Pages: 439

ISBN-13: 1594777039

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A bold call for the “insane” to reclaim their rightful role as prophets of spiritual and cultural transformation • Explains how many of those diagnosed as schizophrenic, bipolar, and other forms of “madness” are not ill but experiencing a spiritual awakening • Explores the rise of Mad Pride and the mental patients’ liberation movement • Reveals how those seen as “mad” must embrace their spiritual gifts to help the coming global spiritual transition Many of the great prophets of the past experienced madness--a breakdown followed by a breakthrough, spiritual death followed by rebirth. With the advent of modern psychiatry, the budding prophets of today are captured and transformed into chronic mental patients before they can flower into the visionaries and mystics they were intended to become. As we approach the tipping point between extinction and global spiritual awakening, there is a deep need for these prophets to embrace their spiritual gifts. To make this happen, we must learn to respect the sanctity of madness. We need to cultivate Mad Pride. Exploring the rise of Mad Pride and the mental patients’ liberation movement as well as building upon psychiatrist R. D. Laing’s revolutionary theories, Seth Farber, Ph.D., explains that diagnosing people as mad has more to do with social control than therapy. Many of those labeled as schizophrenic, bipolar, and other kinds of “mad” are not ill but simply experiencing different forms of spiritual awakening: they are seeing and feeling what is wrong with society and what needs to be done to change it. Farber shares his interviews with former schizophrenics who now lead successful and inspiring lives. He shows that it is impossible for society to change as long as the mad are suppressed because they are our catalysts of social change. By reclaiming their rightful role as prophets of spiritual and cultural revitalization, the mad--by seeding new visions for our future--can help humanity overcome the spiritual crisis that endangers our survival and lead us to a higher and long-awaited stage of spiritual development.

Black Madness :
Black Madness :

Author: Therí Alyce Pickens

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2019-06-07

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 1478005505

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In Black Madness :: Mad Blackness Therí Alyce Pickens rethinks the relationship between Blackness and disability, unsettling the common theorization that they are mutually constitutive. Pickens shows how Black speculative and science fiction authors such as Octavia Butler, Nalo Hopkinson, and Tananarive Due craft new worlds that reimagine the intersection of Blackness and madness. These creative writer-theorists formulate new parameters for thinking through Blackness and madness. Pickens considers Butler's Fledgling as an archive of Black madness that demonstrates how race and ability shape subjectivity while constructing the building blocks for antiracist and anti-ableist futures. She examines how Hopkinson's Midnight Robber theorizes mad Blackness and how Due's African Immortals series contests dominant definitions of the human. The theorizations of race and disability that emerge from these works, Pickens demonstrates, challenge the paradigms of subjectivity that white supremacy and ableism enforce, thereby pointing to the potential for new forms of radical politics.

This Way Madness Lies
This Way Madness Lies

Author: Mike Jay

Publisher: Thames & Hudson

Published: 2016-09-15

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0500773629

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Is mental illness or madness at root an illness of the body, a disease of the mind, or a sickness of the soul? Should those who suffer from it be secluded from society or integrated more fully into it? This Way Madness Lies explores the meaning of mental illness through the successive incarnations of the institution that defined it: the madhouse, designed to segregate its inmates from society; the lunatic asylum, which intended to restore the reason of sufferers by humane treatment; and the mental hospital, which reduced their conditions to diseases of the brain. Moving and sometimes provocative illustrations and photographs, sourced from the Wellcome Collection's extensive archives and the archives of mental institutions in Europe and the U.S., illuminate and reinforce the compelling narrative, while extensive gallery sections present revealing and thought-provoking artworks by asylum patients and other artists from each era of the institution and beyond.