{"id":74445,"date":"2014-07-24T12:32:56","date_gmt":"2014-07-24T16:32:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=74445"},"modified":"2019-02-05T17:49:00","modified_gmt":"2019-02-05T22:49:00","slug":"lost-in-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Lost in Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Musical mind control from Mesmer to the Satanic panic.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"7760.dd.4<\/a>

A hysterical patient in a catatonic fit, supposedly caused by the huge tuning fork. D\u00e9sir\u00e9 Magloire Bourneville and Paul Regnard, Iconographie photographique de la Salp\u00eatri\u00e8re<\/i> (1876\u20131880).<\/p><\/div>\n

To lose oneself in music is generally regarded as a good thing\u2014an ecstatic experience, or at least an absent-minded pleasure. But despite the Eminems<\/a>, Daft Punks<\/a>, and Sister Sledges<\/a> of the world, Western culture has often had niggling fears about letting go in that way. What if the music can make you do <\/em>things? What if surrendering to it means surrendering the parts of yourself that hold you back from madness, adultery, and murder? What if heavy metal sends teens on killing sprees? What if rock and roll makes girls shed their sexual inhibitions, causing a rash of nymphomania and pregnancy and the collapse of social order\u2014or what if it can whip crowds into a malleable frenzy, leaving them the pitiful stooges of Communist or other sinister causes? What if it can be used with other forms of thought control to turn people into Manchurian Candidate\u2013<\/em>style automatons?<\/p>\n

The fear, however implausible, that music has mysterious powers\u2014that it can hypnotize or brainwash, making us the playthings of malign manipulators or our own dark instincts\u2014has crept into the public discourse surprisingly often over the past two hundred years. Concerns about the medical, sexual, social, and political consequences of musical hypnosis are an essentially modern business; until the eighteenth century, trance states were often seen in a positive light, even as a way of connecting to the divine. But against the background of the internalized self-control demanded by modern urban society, trance states have been increasingly regarded as pathological symptoms\u2014something to be explained by doctors, not priests. <\/p>\n

The ambiguous, picaresque career of Franz Anton Mesmer, the pioneer from the 1770s of Animal Magnetism and its associated hypnotic techniques, epitomized this trend, recasting trance in a semi-occult medical context.He and his followers often used music in their treatments, favoring in particular the ethereal and uncanny sound of the glass armonica, which uses friction to produce tones in a series of graduated glass bowls. Along with many other aspects of Mesmerism, this musical element often provoked a titillated fascination as well as skepticism and mockery. Many of the themes that dominate the debate on musical hypnotism have their origins in discussions and satirical depictions of Mesmerism, especially the sense that the entranced person\u2014often a woman\u2014was open to the sexual manipulation of the magn\u00e9tiseur<\/em> who put her there. In 1790, the English Quaker A. Fothergill suggested that the impact of the \u201cmagnetic professor\u201d on \u201cdelicate females of fine feelings and susceptible nerves\u201d was to stimulate \u201ctheir passions to the highest pitch \u2026 till the wished-for crisis comes,\u201d like a bridegroom.<\/p>\n

\"brainwash6\"<\/a>

The English Mesmerist and phrenologist John Elliotson manipulating a young woman, playing her head like a piano.<\/p><\/div>\n

The same kind of fears about sex and mind control recurred in the Paris of the 1870s, when the neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot conducted the most systematic work on sound and hypnosis in the nineteenth century. Charcot and his colleagues apparently created hypnotic and indeed catatonic fits among their female hysterical patients by using gongs, gigantic tuning forks, and even children\u2019s lullabies. Charcot regarded these trance states as expressions of a semi-epileptic neurological condition, akin to the reflex action that makes a patient kick when hit on the knee with a doctor\u2019s hammer. Although modern medicine does recognize \u201cmusicogenic epilepsy\u201d\u2014in which music, even specific songs (such as, according to one study, Mariah Carey\u2019s \u201cDream Lover\u201d) provokes epileptic fits\u2014it\u2019s likely that Charcot\u2019s striking and vividly photogenic results were the consequence of suggestion and straightforward simulation by the women concerned. There was a strong theatrical and implicitly voyeuristic character to these experiments, with the women involved becoming minor celebrities in Paris after they were shown off to the public. Beyond Paris, the reaction to these experiments often focused on the sexual dangers involved. A character in Tolstoy\u2019s strange 1889 novella, The Kreutzer Sonata<\/em>, calls for the state control of music to prevent magn\u00e9tiseurs<\/em> from hypnotizing women with immoral purposes in mind. The American psychologist Aldred Warthin had been told of cases of spontaneous orgasm among Wagner fans hypnotized by the music, but in an 1894 article he regretted to announce that his attempts to replicate these results had not been successful.<\/p>\n

\"brainwash4\"<\/a>

Another hysterical patient, supposedly experiencing an automatic reflex caused by the tuning fork, forcing out her tongue. Paul Richer, Nouvelle Iconographie de la Salp\u00eatri\u00e8re<\/i> (1889).<\/p><\/div>\n

In the early decades of the twentieth century, the concept of hypnotic music faded as hypnosis came to be seen as a matter of suggestion rather than a neurological reflex. But in the fifties, it made a rather sudden comeback amid the panic about brainwashing. Although the concept has roots in Chinese thought, its modern sense dates from the Korean War\u2014when Communists had apparent success in converting American POWs to their cause, the CIA alleged that the troops were the victims of a mind-control campaign. The agency began to invest serious money in the so-called MK-ULTRA program to see if they could achieve similar effects themselves. Much of their research drew on Ivan Pavlov\u2019s work with learned or conditioned reflexes\u2014work that also employed tuning forks, metronomes, and whistles. The English psychiatrist and Pavlovian William Sargant became a leading authority on the power of music to brainwash; he wrote that Beatlemania was a dangerous possession cult and suggested to Newsweek <\/em>that Patty Hearst had been turned from a kidnapping victim to an armed robber by having been forced to listen to rock music.<\/p>\n

The idea of musical brainwashing had considerable resonance in this period. Anthony Burgess\u2019s 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange <\/em>and Stanley Kubrick\u2019s 1971 film adaptation both depict the fictional \u201cLudovico Technique,\u201d a form of aversion therapy that involves \u201cvery like sinister\u201d music, reaching a climax in a scene in which images of Nazi atrocities are played against the music of Alex\u2019s favorite composer, Beethoven. (Alex himself expresses some skepticism about music\u2019s civilizing effect\u2014\u201cCivilized my syphilized yarbles,\u201d he exclaims. \u201cMusic always sort of sharpened me up.\u201d) American conservative evangelicals were quick to adopt the idea of musical brainwashing as an explanation for what was happening to the young people of their country. In books like 1966\u2019s Rhythm, Riots and Revolution<\/em>, David Noebel, long part of Billy James Hargis\u2019s segregationist Christian Crusade, argued that sixties rock \u2018n\u2019 roll was literally a Kremlin plot. \u201cIf the following scientific program is not exposed,\u201d he warned, \u201cdegenerated Americans will indeed raise the Communist flag over their own nation.\u201d He provided ingenious if paradoxical reasoning to explain why Communist states banned rock music, even though it was their own sinister invention\u2014it just showed that they knew how dangerous it really was!<\/p>\n

In the Reagan era, the anxiety about musical brainwashing shifted onto another supposed worldwide conspiracy\u2014Satanism. The eighties and nineties in America saw a full-scale moral panic that linked the \u201cscience\u201d of brainwashing to a supernatural satanic threat emanating from heavy metal music. A wide range of books with titles like The Devil\u2019s Disciples<\/em>, Rock\u2019s Hidden Persuader<\/em>, and (my personal favorite) Hit Rock\u2019s Bottom<\/em> spread the word that certain bands were brainwashing innocent teenagers with subliminal messages to lure them into the worship of the devil, sexual immorality, murder, and especially suicide. Such was the panic that the Parents\u2019 Music Resource Center sold a fifteen-dollar \u201cSatanism Research Packet.\u201d Much of the anxiety focused on the supposed ability of messages recorded backward (so-called backmasking) to influence listeners subliminally. \u201cExperts\u201d often disagreed about what the backward message actually was. A well-known preacher in Ohio publicly burned a recording of the theme song to Mister Ed<\/em> because he said it contained the lyric \u201cSomeone sing this song for Satan\u201d when played backward.<\/p>\n

\"brainwash2\"<\/a>

\u201cBeatle possession.\u201d William Sargant, The Mind Possessed<\/i> (1973).<\/p><\/div>\n

The backmasking scare really took off when it was used to link heavy metal to the rise in teen suicide, even though songs about suicide were by no means a new phenomenon. In 1985, Ozzy Osbourne faced a lawsuit based on the accusation that his song \u201cSuicide Solution\u201d had brainwashed a nineteen-year-old into attempting suicide. The case was thrown out on freedom of speech grounds, but the idea of \u201csubliminal\u201d backmasking appeared to offer a way around First Amendment protections. The parents of two teenagers who shot themselves in 1985 blamed Judas Priest, claiming that \u201csatanic incantations are revealed when the music is played backwards.\u201d Their expert witness (a marine biologist\u2014I\u2019m not making this up) said he could make out the words \u201cdo it\u201d when the song was played in reverse. The case was unsuccessful, but the idea of metal as a form of potentially lethal brainwashing entered the public imagination. After Richard Kuntz killed himself while listening to Marilyn Manson in 1996, his father testified before a U.S. Senate Committee, arguing that musical brainwashing was responsible; several media reports blamed Manson for the Columbine school massacre in 1999.<\/p>\n

Though it\u2019s proved very popular in these various contexts, it should go without saying that the whole idea of musical hypnosis or brainwashing is fundamentally bogus. Music can play a limited role in the creation of trance states, but it certainly doesn\u2019t work in the automatic way theorized\u2014or willed\u2014by those who have been most concerned about its dangers. In any case, there\u2019s little to suggest that we can be hypnotized against our will, let alone without our knowledge; people can be manipulated, of course, in all sorts of ways, but the evidence from the Korean War and elsewhere is that it old-fashioned fear and violence are most apt to change behavior. Likewise, the notion of subliminal messages subtly brainwashing impressionable youths is highly questionable. Weak stimulus in fact has a weak effect, and that backward messages have been shown to have no effect at all.<\/p>\n

\"brainwash3\"<\/a>

The sinister anti-Semitic caricature Svengali uses hypnotic tricks to make the innocent Aryan Trilby a great singer and to marry her. George du Maurier, Trilby<\/i> (1894).<\/p><\/div>\n

The debate surrounding musical brainwashing has never really been about music at all: it\u2019s about sex, self control, and social order. For a certain kind of social conservative, it\u2019s always tempting to construe other people as the marionettes of agitators or our basest, most primitive instincts. The directly physical effect of music, its ability to make listeners\u2019 bodies literally resonate, giving rein to their own impulses and potential group dynamics, can always put it at odds with ideals of discipline, making it an especially adept vehicle for some of society\u2019s deepest anxieties. Music certainly can change behavior. It can increase sales in a shopping mall, but it can\u2019t make you someone else\u2019s puppet.<\/p>\n

Dr. James Kennaway <\/a>is a Historian of Medicine at Newcastle University. He has previously worked at Oxford, Stanford and Vienna. His book<\/em> Bad Vibrations: The History of the Idea of Music as a Cause of Disease was published in 2012.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Musical mind control from Mesmer to the Satanic panic. To lose oneself in music is generally regarded as a good thing\u2014an ecstatic experience, or at least an absent-minded pleasure. But despite the Eminems, Daft Punks, and Sister Sledges of the world, Western culture has often had niggling fears about letting go in that way. What […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7555],"tags":[7529,14096,14723,14721,14725,14718,14719,14717,14720,5725,14724,46,6971,14722],"class_list":["post-74445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-history","tag-a-clockwork-orange","tag-animal-magnetism","tag-aversion-therapy","tag-epilepsy","tag-evangelical-christians","tag-franz-anton-mesmer","tag-hypnosis","tag-hypnotism","tag-jean-martin-charcot","tag-mesmerism","tag-mk-ultra","tag-music","tag-ronald-reagan","tag-satanism"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLost in Music<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Dr. James Kennaway on musical mind control from Mesmer to the Satanic panic.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lost in Music by James Kennaway\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"July 24, 2014 \u2013 Musical mind control from Mesmer to the Satanic panic. To lose oneself in music is generally regarded as a good thing\u2014an ecstatic experience, or at least\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-07-24T16:32:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-02-05T22:49:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/good-charcot-2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"748\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"696\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"James Kennaway\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"James Kennaway\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"James Kennaway\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a893eb1015cd9da5bf41c987784aeadc\"},\"headline\":\"Lost in Music\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-07-24T16:32:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-02-05T22:49:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/\"},\"wordCount\":1888,\"commentCount\":3,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/good-charcot-2.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"A Clockwork Orange\",\"Animal Magnetism\",\"aversion therapy\",\"epilepsy\",\"evangelical Christians\",\"Franz Anton Mesmer\",\"hypnosis\",\"hypnotism\",\"Jean-Martin Charcot\",\"mesmerism\",\"MK-ULTRA\",\"music\",\"Ronald Reagan\",\"satanism\"],\"articleSection\":[\"On History\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/\",\"name\":\"Lost in Music\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/good-charcot-2.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-07-24T16:32:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-02-05T22:49:00+00:00\",\"description\":\"Dr. James Kennaway on musical mind control from Mesmer to the Satanic panic.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/good-charcot-2.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/good-charcot-2.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Lost in Music\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a893eb1015cd9da5bf41c987784aeadc\",\"name\":\"James Kennaway\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8195c313ab440f6556d25f3d42e7abe7ac5b4937d31cc0fc95d56c8f6b8dde84?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8195c313ab440f6556d25f3d42e7abe7ac5b4937d31cc0fc95d56c8f6b8dde84?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"James Kennaway\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/jkennaway\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Lost in Music","description":"Dr. James Kennaway on musical mind control from Mesmer to the Satanic panic.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Lost in Music by James Kennaway","og_description":"July 24, 2014 \u2013 Musical mind control from Mesmer to the Satanic panic. To lose oneself in music is generally regarded as a good thing\u2014an ecstatic experience, or at least","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2014-07-24T16:32:56+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-02-05T22:49:00+00:00","og_image":[{"width":748,"height":696,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/good-charcot-2.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"James Kennaway","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"James Kennaway","Est. reading time":"9 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/"},"author":{"name":"James Kennaway","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a893eb1015cd9da5bf41c987784aeadc"},"headline":"Lost in Music","datePublished":"2014-07-24T16:32:56+00:00","dateModified":"2019-02-05T22:49:00+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/"},"wordCount":1888,"commentCount":3,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/good-charcot-2.jpg","keywords":["A Clockwork Orange","Animal Magnetism","aversion therapy","epilepsy","evangelical Christians","Franz Anton Mesmer","hypnosis","hypnotism","Jean-Martin Charcot","mesmerism","MK-ULTRA","music","Ronald Reagan","satanism"],"articleSection":["On History"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/","name":"Lost in Music","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/good-charcot-2.jpg","datePublished":"2014-07-24T16:32:56+00:00","dateModified":"2019-02-05T22:49:00+00:00","description":"Dr. James Kennaway on musical mind control from Mesmer to the Satanic panic.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/good-charcot-2.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/good-charcot-2.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/lost-in-music\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Lost in Music"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a893eb1015cd9da5bf41c987784aeadc","name":"James Kennaway","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8195c313ab440f6556d25f3d42e7abe7ac5b4937d31cc0fc95d56c8f6b8dde84?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8195c313ab440f6556d25f3d42e7abe7ac5b4937d31cc0fc95d56c8f6b8dde84?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"James Kennaway"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/jkennaway\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74445"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133417,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74445\/revisions\/133417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}