Air Loom: The Curious Case of James Tilly Matthews

Air Loom: The Curious Case of James Tilly Matthews

‘Mr. Matthews, are you acquainted with the art of talking with your brains?’. ‘It is effected by means of the magnet’

-'Chavanay', prison-mate of James Tilly Matthews

*Modern recreation of The Air Loom


In 1810, apothecary John Haslam published what would become the first study of a single psychiatric patient in the history of medicine, it was called, Illustrations of Madness (henceforth: IoM) or, by its full title, Illustrations of Madness: Exhibiting a Singular Case of Insanity, And a No Less Remarkable Difference in Medical Opinions: Developing the Nature of An Assailment, And the Manner of Working Events; with a Description of Tortures Experienced by Bomb-Bursting, Lobster-Cracking and Lengthening the Brain. Embellished with a Curious Plate, and it is now considered a classic in the field of medicine.

*John Haslam


Haslam's book, IoM, represented the longest focused study of its kind, at the time, and is considered to be the first documentation of the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. The book is not just a documentation of Haslam's work that tells a story, but in many cases a transmission of the very words and writings of Haslam's psychiatric patient, and the focus of his work, James Tilly Matthews, whom we shall get to shortly.

What this thread is really in regards to is the Curious Plate mentioned in the full title of Haslam's treatise. The 'plate' that is being referred to is a drawing in Haslam's book of what is called an Air Loom, and it is the very first representation ever made of a “Mind Control Machine”. The plate was created, in painstaking detail as you can see, by Haslam at the direction of James Tilly Matthews over more than twenty years.



The relationship between Haslam and Matthews was a very bitter one. James Tilly Matthews' family had tried desperately to free him from Bedlam. They had hired their own doctors to prove out that Matthews was sane, but Haslam the apothecary of Bedlam had a great deal of power. Haslam had become defiant over the possibility that anyone would question his expertise. In many ways, Haslam began to become the prototypical “Mad Doctor” running his asylum at Bedlam. He kept Matthews at Bedlam making his life's work out of Matthews' case; Illustrations of Madness became John Haslam's masterwork.

*Bedlam


It is said that James Matthews would sit across from Haslam, writing out furious notes, even as Haslam recorded his physician's notes regarding Matthews. James Matthews could have been no more than 28 at this point, he had been a political activist at the time of his ordeal, and an artist, and likely held the much older Haslam in considerable contempt. Matthews told Haslam of The Air Loom Gang, a group of secret underground Jacobin revolutionaries that he had learned about while imprisoned in France, and how they were using their terrible technologies to destabilize the world.

Matthews told of how The Air Loom Gang worked from secret installations all over Europe, to keep Britain and France at war by controlling the minds of all leading political figures by subjecting them to the mind-controlling force of the Air Loom.

Matthews explained that he was the 'talisman' of this entire operation, and he abstracted his own experience with the Air loom Gang that was assigned to him to all of the others that he furiously insisted to Haslam that were in operation all over London and Europe. He told Haslam that the Air Loom Gang assigned to him had located themselves just outside Bedlam Hospital, in a basement cellar near London Wall, so that they could continue to influence him during his hospitalization with the arcane 'magnetic fluids' and 'rays' produced by the Air Loom.

Here is how the Air Loom is supposed to have worked. I would like to let Mike Jay do the talking here, as I cannot possibly top this description, and without his article, this thread would not be possible...

Air Loom Victim. From IoM

The machine they had developed for this purpose, the Air Loom, combined recent developments in gas chemistry with the strange force of animal magnetism, or mesmerism. It incorporated keys, levers, barrels, batteries, sails, brass retorts and magnetic fluid, and worked by directing and modulating magnetically charged airs and gases, rather as the stops of an organ modulate its tones.

It ran on a mixture of foul substances including ‘spermatic-animal-seminal rays’, ‘effluvia of dogs’ and ‘putrid human breath’, and the discharges of fluid extracted from these substances were focused to deliver thoughts, feelings and sensations directly into Matthews’ brain. There were many of these modulations, or ‘event-workings’, all vividly christened: ‘fluid locking’, ‘stone making’, ‘thigh talking’, ‘lobster-cracking’, ‘bomb-bursting’, and the dreaded ‘brain-saying’, whereby thoughts were forced into his brain against his will.

To facilitate this process, the gang had implanted a magnet inside Matthews’ head. As a result of the Air Loom, he was tormented constantly by delusions, physical agonies, fits of laughter and being forced to parrot whatever nonsense they chose to feed into his head. His confinement in Bedlam represented the success of their strategy in making him appear mad

mikejay.net...

*Air Loom Console


Matthews went on, over many years, to describe all of the workings of this secret gang in great detail to Haslam. Matthews said that the leader of the operation was named ‘Bill the King' and that he and his second in command ‘Jack the Schoolmaster’ led a huge organization of many Air Loom Gangs. He claimed that the current prime Minister, William Pitt was fully controlled by an Air Loom Gang and that the agents of The Air Loom gangs, known as "pneumatic practitioners" canvassed the streets, tricking people in to inhaling 'magnetic vapors' so that they could be controlled in the future.

ATS, I really believe that this is a seminal tale which goes beyond medicine in its profundity. What we have here is the results of twenty years of two men battling it out to get their message across: Matthews with his dark, dystopian tale of mind-control technologies and secret, organized cabals, and Haslam with his struggle to define Madness, possibly going mad himself in the process.

We also seem, in a way, to have the beginnings of the modern conception of 'mind-control' programs such as Mk-ultra with its strange technologies and Operation Bluebird, especially with Matthews' cast of characters such as 'The Glove Woman', that is supposed to be the direct controller of the Air Loom.

I also see correlations to the social phenomenon of 'Chemtrails', and many other modes of conceptualizing the world and what takes place in it through the lens of conspiracy theory. There is a lot here, ATS, and I have more to add, including some of the history behind Matthews' imprisonment in revolutionary France. I hope that you have found the information intriguing so far.

Thanks for reading.



James Tilly Matthews and The Air Loom by Mike Jay, 2005.

Link to artist's recreation of the Air Loom: www.theairloom.org...

reply to post by Bybyots


Sweet. Mr. Matthews sounds like our kind of guy....

This might be the greatest thread that I have ever read on ATS! Ahhh, the struggles that this book represents, this is GOLD. This has GOT TO BE a movie.

This is just too

But the timing of their arrival was fraught: the trial of Louis XVI had begun, and France and Britain were edging towards war. Matthews, driven by a combination of ideological passion and political naivety, became a self-appointed peacemaker, undertaking secret diplomatic missions across the Channel to persuade both governments to abandon their sabre-rattling and forge an alliance.

Matthews may have been a novice at such cloak-and-dagger affairs, but he was persistent and ingenious. He drafted peace proposals and new constitutional arrangements, and presented them to the British Prime Minister William Pitt and the French Foreign Minister Jacques-Pierre Brissot. Even when the rush to war swept his initiatives aside, he refused to abandon his mission. He persisted with his peace proposals until he was arrested in Paris by the Committee of Public Safety in late 1793; he spent the next three years, throughout the height of the Terror, under house arrest and in prisons. Returning to Britain in 1796, he began a letter-writing campaign against the British government, attempting to hold them to account for abandoning him to the enemy and accusing them of increasingly far-fetched conspiracies. Receiving no reply, in December 1796 he interrupted a debate in the House of Commons to accuse the government minister Lord Liverpool of treason, as a result of which he was arrested and confined in Bedlam.

I'm sure this conversation has taken place a million times, but... lol.

He wasn't just crazy, he was trying to embellish upon his own version of the events that took place. He was trying to describe his power in an abstract way. He kept lying his way into insanity trying to get attention, and found himself crazy, getting all the attention he ever wanted.

I'd say he probably was sane when he was released. I bet the whole thing with Haslam acted as cognitive therapy and they traded sanity. Eventually everything that Haslam probed him with, as in questioning or even just his presence, tested both of their beliefs, essentially resulting in them trading sanity.

That might be a stretch, but maybe lol... what do you think?

I would like to post some more on the effects that James Tilly Matthews claimed to have experienced at the hands of The Air Loom Gang.

The torments induced by the rays included: "Lobster-cracking", during which the circulation of the blood was prevented by a magnetic field; "Stomach-skinning"; and "Apoplexy-working with the nutmeg grater" which involved the introduction of fluids into the skull. His persecutors bore such names as "The Middleman", "the Glove Woman" and "Sir Archy" (who acted as "repeaters" or "active worriers" to enhance Matthews' torment or record the machine's activities) and their leader, a man called "Bill, or the King".

Matthews' delusions had a definite political slant: he claimed that the purpose of this gang was espionage, and that there were many other such gangs armed with Air Looms all over London, using "pneumatic practitioners" to "premagnetize" potential victims with "volatile magnetic fluid". According to Matthews, their chief targets (apart from himself) were leading government figures. By means of their "rays" they could influence ministers' thoughts and read their minds. Matthews declared that William Pitt (Prime Minister) was "not half" susceptible to these attacks and held that these gangs were responsible for the British military disasters at Buenos Aires in 1807 and Walcheren in 1809 and also for the Nore Mutiny of 1797.

en.wikipedia.org...

And what's just amazing, is that you see an 18th century schizophrenic exhibit EXACTLY the same delusional beliefs you see today.

Implants, mind control, torture at a distance, gang stalking, you name it, he came up with it. And often described in very similar terms.

Originally posted by Bedlam
And what's just amazing, is that you see an 18th century schizophrenic exhibit EXACTLY the same delusional beliefs you see today.

Implants, mind control, torture at a distance, gang stalking, you name it, he came up with it. And often described in very similar terms.

That's exactly what caught my eye!

Cmon, magnetic implants and mind control! This guy was #$%$'ing the 18th century version of Gene Roddenberry! Seriously! lol

I also see strong parallels between what he describes as being the gang and what their objectives are, as being sort of 'Illuminati'ish' , ummm late 18th century as well! lol Joking aside, it just seems that everything he described, parallels his earlier experiences in life. This just might be the greatest story ever told.

reply to post by Bedlam

Implants, mind control, torture at a distance, gang stalking, you name it, he came up with it. And often described in very similar terms.

I noticed that, too, 'Bill the King' could be seen as the master strategist with 'Jack the Schoolmaster' as the main 'Handler' and maybe 'The Middlemen' as the street-level 'Handlers' and finally the "pneumatic practitioners" as the 'Perps', staging the 'Street Theater'. And then the Air Loom as the main means of mechanical mind-control, that would take the place of the modern conception of electronic mind-control.

It really is sort of like an early 19th century steampunk version of gang stalking.

Thanks for posting.

reply to post by Bybyots

...... its full title, Illustrations of Madness: Exhibiting a Singular Case of Insanity, And a No Less Remarkable Difference in Medical Opinions: Developing the Nature of An Assailment, And the Manner of Working Events; with a Description of Tortures Experienced by Bomb-Bursting, Lobster-Cracking and Lengthening the Brain. Embellished with a Curious Plate

Rolls off the tongue


Great thread Bybyots! Excellent read, I'm gonna start building one of those babies today.

Now where did I put my'‘spermatic-animal-seminal rays’,

S&F 4U

Originally posted by Bybyots
reply to post by Bedlam

 

...staging the 'Street Theater'. And then the Air Loom as the main means of mechanical mind-control, that would take the place of the modern conception of electronic mind-control.

IIRC, and it's been a while since I read the book, he thought he was being gang stalked by packs of roving dwarves, who had bar magnets. If he stayed in any one spot, the dwarves would sneak into adjoining rooms and wave the magnets around, torturing him through the magnet implants in his head.

Sort of like chips and microwaves.

reply to post by Bybyots


Wow! a simply fabulous read of high weirdness, i take my hat off to you sir!

Originally posted by HumansEh
reply to post by Bybyots

 

...... its full title, Illustrations of Madness: Exhibiting a Singular Case of Insanity, And a No Less Remarkable Difference in Medical Opinions: Developing the Nature of An Assailment, And the Manner of Working Events; with a Description of Tortures Experienced by Bomb-Bursting, Lobster-Cracking and Lengthening the Brain. Embellished with a Curious Plate

Rolls off the tongue

Great thread Bybyots! Excellent read, I'm gonna start building one of those babies today.

Now where did I put my'‘spermatic-animal-seminal rays’,

S&F 4U

Don't forget your "effluvia of dog" - you wont get anywhere unless you have a couple of barrels of that on standby.

Thank you for your gracious response to this thread, ATS. As I was becoming acquainted to the story of James Tilly Matthews, I was immediately struck by what other members have noticed about the case; Matthew's story could easily be lifted from 1800 and set in contemporary times and next to nothing would have to be changed to make it sound like the plot was hatched yesterday.

It is not easy to find much information on the history of the case. I have not been able to locate an actual image or reproduction of Haslam's Illustrations of Madness. It is locked down pretty tight on the web, which leads me to believe that, aside from writers protecting their horde, we may indeed see a movie in the near future.

When I was finally able to locate Mike Jay's article, I found myself repeatedly nodding my head in agreement with what he had taken away from writing about the story. If any of you have had the pleasure of reading his article, you will find much of what he thinks reflected in what I think as well.

I would like to add a sort of 'micro history' I have put together from the information that I have been able to gather on Haslam, Matthews and The Air Loom, and I am just about finished with it. In the meanwhile I would like to leave you with some of the first impression that I had about The Air Loom as food for thought.

Imagine with me, if you will, that you are a young 22 or 23 year old person, with a belly full of fire for changing the world, and you are living at the verge of what seems to be a great enlightenment for mankind in 1790. Joseph Preistly had just previously discovered oxygen, and pneumatic gas chemistry seemed about to bequeath man with nearly godlike powers of creation. The Mesmerism of Anton Mesmer held Europe in thrall with its seeming potential for understanding the minds of man. To Matthews and those like him, the world seemed on the edge of becoming a utopia; but things were very divided politically, as they are now, and these young people had a deep sense of who the 'good guys' were and who the 'bad guys' were.

Matthews was trying to insist to Haslam, and the world, that the 'bad guys' had won.

Back soon with more.

Thanks for reading.

reply to post by Bedlam


Quite the appropriate user name



OP-
Thanks you very much for this intriguing thread. Most interesting thread for me in a while. As mentioned above, it has the making of a great film (outside Hollywood influence of course). I'm reading from work and look forward to investigating further once I'm off the clock...

some of the substances described in the workings of the device are reminiscent of William S. Burroughs imaginative works...

An excellent and very well put-together thread. I've actually heard of Mr. Matthews before, I came across his name when I was researching "Influencing Machine Paranoid Schizophrenia", to be sure one of the most zany and elaborate types of Schizophrenia, and one whose typology Mr Matthews fits to a T. The reason I was studying the topic was thanks to another grand paranoid schizophrenic, one Francis E. Dec. Esquire. Mr. Dec is well-known in underground circles for writing out extremely detailed, but thoroughly disjointed and incomprehensible tracts of great length and verbosity, pertaining to his own particular 'Air Loom', or influencing machine, namely, "The Communist Gangster Computer God".

If you found this thread on Mr. Matthews and the Air Loom interesting, I'd definitely recommend you look into Francis E. Dec as well, although, strangely, the Wikipedia article on him has mysteriously been deleted recently, no doubt at the behest of the Communist Gangster Computer God! Bastards!

Anyway, I did a reading of one of Mr. Dec's tracts for my Youtube channel (In my very best 1940's radio voice!), you should check it out if you found this thread interesting, it's great for a laugh because of the level of sheer nonsensical insanity on display!



Again, thanks for a great and well-constructed thread!

Addendum

In 1792, an impressionable young tea broker from London by the name of James Tilly Matthews, accompanied his political hero, Welsh philosopher David Williams across the English Channel to try and broker peace between Britain and France. Although they gained the trust of the French, and effectively went to work as double-agents, shuttling messages back and forth between both countries, the two seem to have taken on the job of their own volition. Surely this was made possible by the fact that Williams had been made a French citizen in 1792.

Then, in 1793, some definitive estrangement occurred between the Girondists, who had been managing the revolution, and the Jacobins. As best as I can tell, Matthews ended up on the wrong side of the fence and was imprisoned, for being a double agent. This was during the year (1793-1794), when what was later to be called the *Reign of Terror raged across France. Tens of thousands were put to death, including French genius of gas chemistry, Antoine Lavoisier ; and it seems we will never know what twist of justice allowed David Williams to walk free in Paris, to continue to draft inciting diatribes against war, and apparently still functioning as a 'double-agent'.



As for James T. Matthews, he would spend the next four years in various prisons in France as the revolution ironed itself out, and it is no wonder that he was a very pissed off young man. He must have felt that he had worked so hard for his country and his mentor, only to be abandoned to prison. He was 23 years old when he was incarcerated, and he was 27 when he was finally released and he returned to London.

During that time, Matthews had seen horrors, “with 16,594 executed by guillotine (2,639 in Paris), and another 25,000 in summary executions across France*”; many of the dead had been scientists and politicians, that had seemed to Matthews and many others to be on the verge of ushering mankind in to a new age of enlightenment, it must have been obvious, in Matthews' mind, that they had lost. It was in 1795 that Matthews was asked the question which forms the quote at the beginning of the OP, I will let Mike Jay fill us in here...

In Pleissis prison outside Paris in 1795, a fellow inmate named Chavanay had asked him, ‘Mr. Matthews, are you acquainted with the art of talking with your brains?’. When Matthews replied that he was not, Chavanay expanded mysteriously: ‘It is effected by means of the magnet’. Matthews is silent as to whether Chavanay proceeded to mesmerise him, but it may be that the Air Loom was seeded by such an experience.

For someone grappling with the confusing, overlaid identities within which Matthews was becoming lost, to find thoughts and feelings conjured up in his head by another, with no apparent input from his conscious mind, might have explained much. If it was possible for some people to control the minds of others, might that not account for the succession of disasters that had overtaken the world?

mikejay.net...

continued...

...

After returning home Matthews embarked on a letter writing campaign; accusing various members in British government of treason. Finally in 1797, he stood up in the public gallery in the House of Commons and began shouting and accusing British Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool of treason. He was then hauled off to Bethlem Royal Psychiatric Hospital, known as Bedlam, where he came under the care of apothecary and physician, John Haslam

And that's all I've got, ATS, now you know as much as I do.

I can't help but think that James Tilly Matthews certainly did not go down in history for the reasons that he thought he might have. For those that are wondering, J.T. Matthews was finally extracted from the cloying grasp of apothecary Haslam in 1814, and lived out his days doing some book keeping and gardening; he passed less than a year later in 1815.

What does it mean, ATS, that these symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia came fully fledged in to the world simultaneous with the central, formative years of the Industrial Revolution?

James Tilly Matthews truly was the world's first Targeted Individual, complete with mechanical harassment from afar. What else could it mean that J.T.M. saw himself as the 'talisman' that the Air Loom Gang needed in order to bring their plan to fruition; I can't help but wonder how the word 'talisman' might relate to the homophones, 'Air Loom' and 'Heirloom'.

We may also have the proto-typical Alex Jones here, as well, ATS.

What are your thoughts? I am dying to know.

I found Illustrations of Madness online somewhere last year. Will check to see if i kept a link.

Brilliant and very original thread, Bybyots! Yes it does seem to be a seminal case in so many ways. On one hand it does have excellent explanatory power as regards paranoia. On the other hand, there's something about it that's tugging and teasing at my brain. I can't elucidate it just yet, but if it congeals I'll share.

Nice to see ATS still has "it" when I run across an excellent thread like this.

Ok, here's part of it, it loads sort of slow. Still looking for a better copy.

reply to post by Bybyots


I think a previous poster summed your thread up quite adequately with 'Sweet', I feel no need to embellish upon that, I merely concur. Nice job!

You've found a gem here, so many facets, it leaves a conspiracy theorist spoiled for choice and temporarily speechless

Yes.