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Chapnick discovered Alcott’s other stories as part of his research into spiritualism and mesmerism.

Richter then turned to the master of musical mesmerism for the movie’s soundtrack, to be performed live by a 14-player chamber ensemble of strings, winds and pairs of vibraphones and pianos.

Barnum, the vogue for mesmerism, theories of the universe, the birth of the Smithsonian Institution and, not least, the careers of the important early American scientists Joseph Henry and Alexander Dallas Bache.

Reflecting on that ideal mental state, I thought of mesmerism, the precursor to hypnosis, conceived in the 1770s by the German physician Franz Anton Mesmer.

He even includes a story by Robert W. Chambers — about mesmerism and ancient hieroglyphs — that isn’t taken from that author’s notorious 1895 volume, “The King in Yellow.”