When I first discovered the book in college I thought, "Alchemy? Magnetism? Madness of Crowds? Cool!" I was disappointed to realize that Mackay was opposed to these things, the spoilsport.

My favorite story remains the one about the Marquis de Puysegur and his magnetized elm tree (starting in the fourth paragraph). Also the illustration, not reproduced online, called "Law in a Car Drawn by Cocks." It actually refers to John Law, but by title alone it might just as well refer to the "but what do they care?" thread.

Poor John Law! It would have taken the wiliness of a professional con artist to maintain control of that bubble. His tragedy was that he was nothing of the sort.

I wonder how many more volumes would have to be added to cover the subsequent 160-odd years?

I don't know. After a while you can see that it falls into patterns, so you just have to log the variations and novelties.

In fact animal magnetism is still going strong. A friend of mine just fell under its spell, or rather its scientifical healing forces, a couple of years ago, along with past-life dowsing (i.e., hypnotism) and I don't know what all.

"After a while you can see that it falls into patterns"

Same emotional tropes, new props.

The mid-19th-Century scams involving steam engines that ran without coal (the sinister coal interests were covering up the fact that water vapor could be created without heat!) are a lot like current-days scams involving zero-point energy, cold fusion, "gyromass" power and the like.

Thank you!

I've been considering picking this up for a while. It's lovely to have a place to check out the language and readability (and overlap with the rest of my library) of something this old before investing in the shelf space.