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 jonna br enni nkm ei jer
neur ot ec h nol o g i e s of t h e s el f
MIND, BRAIN AND SUBJECTIVIT Y
Neurotechnologies of the Self
 Jonna Brenninkmeijer

Neurotechnologies
of the Self
Mind, Brain and Subjectivity
Jonna Brenninkmeijer
University of Groningen
Groningen, The Netherlands

ISBN 978-1-137-53385-2 ISBN 978-1-137-53386-9 (eBook)

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-53386-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016941103

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and trans-
mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made.

Cover illustration: Cover image © Marc Woldering

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd. London
 Preface and Acknowledgments

This book explores how the use of neurotechnologies to understand or

improve the self influences people’s subjectivity. The figure on the cover
of this book aims to illustrate this effect. When you take a close look at
the picture, you will see that the person is made of brainwaves and neu-
rons. When you take a closer look, you will see brain maps (qEEGs: the
round heads), and also computer chips. And when you look very closely,
you can see family trees and mandalas. This assemblage of brain enti-
ties, technical elements, environmental influences, and spiritual accents
nicely illustrates the main argument of this book: working on the self by
working on the brain does not reduce the self to the brain, but extends
the self. Especially in the case of neurofeedback, a brainwave therapy, the
self is extended with a brain, and with various physiological, psychologi-
cal, material, and sometimes spiritual entities that all start working upon
the person’s feelings, problems, and lives. This ‘new self ’ is not static or
fixed, and therefore the figure on the cover has no clear borders. I would
like to thank my partner Marc Woldering for designing this cover as well
as for all his other forms of support during the periods that I worked on
this book.
I conducted the research for this book while working for the ‘Theory
and History’ research group at the University of Groningen. I am very
thankful for all ideas, support, and critical comments of my supervi-
sors Maarten Derksen and Trudy Dehue, as well as for all comments
v
vi Preface and Acknowledgments

and suggestions from my other colleagues: Douwe Draaisma, Stephan

Schleim, Jess Cadwallader, Sarah de Rijcke, Adeena Mey, Berend Verhoeff,
Felix Schirmann, and Hilde Tjeerdema. I have always appreciated the
flexible and inspiring atmosphere of ‘TG’ and I am glad that – after two
research positions elsewhere – I am now part of this group again.
For this book, I studied ‘brain work’ in many facets. I went to several
neurofeedback clinics, interviewed neurofeedback clients and practitio-
ners, was an observer during experiment, and was invited to attend a
neurofeedback course, therapy, and some meetings. Without the help
of all clients and practitioners, it would have been impossible to write
this book. I would especially like to thank Roland Verment who received
me several times in his neurofeedback clinic—sometimes with groups
of students—and answered many of my questions by e-mail. I would
also like to thank the European Neuroscience and Society Network that
together with the University of Groningen financed a short-term visit to
London to conduct interviews, observations, and archival research.
Parts of this book have already been published in academic journals:
an early version of Chap. 4 (Taking Care of One’s Brain) was published
in History of the Human Sciences (Brenninkmeijer, 2010); a great part of
Chap. 6 (Neurofeedback as a Dance of Agency) was published in BioSocieties
(Brenninkmeijer, 2013); and part of Chap. 3 (Glancing Behind the
Scenes, earlier published as Brainwaves and psyches) was also published
in History of the Human Sciences (Brenninkmeijer, 2015). In all these
‘peer review’ processes, I received relevant comments, and I am grateful
to the anonymous reviewers and editors of these journals. Moreover, I am
also very grateful to the anonymous reviewers and the editors of Palgrave
Macmillan who helped me to rewrite my manuscript and to turn it into
a book.
 Preface and Acknowledgments vii

References
Brenninkmeijer, J. (2010). Taking care of one’s brain: How manipulating the
brain changes people’s selves. History of the Human Sciences, 23(1), 107–126.
doi: 10.1177/0952695109352824.
Brenninkmeijer, J. (2013). Neurofeedback as a dance of agency. BioSocieties,
8(2), 144–163. doi: 10.1057/biosoc.2013.2.
Brenninkmeijer, J. (2015). Brainwaves and psyches: A genealogy of an extended
self. History of the Human Sciences, 28(3), 115–133. doi:10.1177/0952695
114566644.
 Contents

1 Introduction 1
Brains and Selves 4
Multi-sited Ethnography 5
References 9

2 Brain Devices and the Marvel 11

Demonstration 17
Experimenting on the Self with Light and Sound 21
Electric and Magnetic Demonstrations 26
Neurofeedback as a Spiritual Science 33
Brain Devices and the Marvel 39
References 41

3 Glancing Behind the Scenes 45

The Ungraspable Psyche 47
Brain and Soul 51
Brain Brothers 54
Technopolis 58
Desirable Alpha 61
Brain Control 63

ix
x Contents

The Mind–Body Web 67

Conclusion 71
References 72

4 Taking Care of One’s Brain 77

Technologies of the Self 81
Restore the Self by Restoring the Brain 85
The Process: Enacting the Mind–Body Problem 87
Mono, Dual, Triad 91
Other Entities Moving Around 93
Cyborgs and Spirits 97
A New Ontology of the Self 98
The Brain We Do 100
References 104

5 Intermezzo: From Self to Others to Agents 109

Governing Oneself and Others 110
From Others to Agents: When the Brains Talk Back 112

6 Neurofeedback as a Dance of Agency 117

Dance of Agency 118
Searching for Feedback 120
Creating the Client 122
Motivating the Mind, Body, Brain 126
Choreography of the Dance 128
Collecting the Results 133
The Self as a Dance of Agency 136
Conclusion 137
References 138

7 Reflection and Conclusion 141

Does It Work? 143
Neurofeedback Tribe 145
 Contents xi

Emergence of the Extended Self 146

Whose Self, What Self 148
Slowing Down the Activity 150
Conclusion 152
References 154

Summary 157
References 162

Appendix: Users 163

Practitioners 163
Clients 164

Index 165
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Neurofeedback racing game 15

Fig. 2.2 Neurofeedback practitioner’s screen 16
Fig. 2.3 Advertisement for an electropathic belt 29
Fig. 2.4 Advertisement for an electropathic belt 30
Fig. 3.1 Human brainwaves (a raw EEG)
recorded in a neurofeedback clinic 47
Fig. 4.1 One page of my qEEG 78
Fig. 6.1 Part of a qEEG report as presented to the client 130

xiii
 1
Introduction

‘People, come on, start influencing your brain.’ That idea is very
marketable; it sells very well. In our culture and society it is a
digestible concept. When people have a problem, they desperately
want to recover and are prepared to try anything. And on the
Internet you are bombarded with options (12).

This citation is a self-critical and reflexive phrase from a person (12)

who tried multiple brain enhancers to solve his problems, especially
concentration problems. He started with brainwave meditation, used
several pharmaceuticals, tried various (brain) therapies, and bought some
technical devices and computer games in order to manipulate his brain.
Some of these devices had some effects, in the sense that they temporar-
ily ‘cleared his mind’, and others had no result at all. Hence, this person
is quite skeptical about certain brain devices and therapies, but this does
not restrain him from trying other brain therapies. He is critical about
some brain-enhancing practitioners and manufacturers, but he is also
convinced of the need and possibility to change his brain.
One might wonder where this idea to change the brain comes from,
and for what reason people keep on trying the recipe—even if they do not
notice any immediate effect. The explanation of user 12 is clear: on the

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 1

J. Brenninkmeijer, Neurotechnologies of the Self,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-53386-9_1
2 Neurotechnologies of the Self

Internet you are ‘bombarded’ with options. The message to take care of
your brain is indeed widespread on the Internet and in other media. ‘You
think what you eat’ warns a newspaper headline. ‘Fool your brain’ reads
the heading of a news item about dieting. ‘Reclaim your brain’ orders an
advertisement for brain games. ‘Are your neurotransmitters out of bal-
ance?’ asks a website for mood and energy management for women. ‘Do
you think this guy can be his real self with such a brain?’ inquires the
medical director of a brain clinic while he points at an awful-looking
brain picture (SPECT) in an Internet commercial.1 The same doctor con-
tributes a more creative phrase: ‘A lot of people think that mood prob-
lems are all in their head, that these are psychological problems. But they
are not: they are brain problems.’
Spreading the message that people should work on their brains is
not only a commercial trend, but also a serious quest of neuroscientific
associations that, for example, organize ‘brain awareness weeks’ to make
people more alert on their brains’ capacities and how these can be to
improved.2 Such brain awareness campaigns followed a scientific devel-
opment in which many problems that were formerly called ‘mental’ or
‘social’, such as depression, anxiety, hyperactivity, or learning disabili-
ties, were reconceptualized as brain disorders (Conrad & Potter, 2000;
Lane, 2006; Rose, 2007). The causes and solutions of these problems
altered with the concepts: from life events to brain disturbance and from
psychotherapy to brain interference (Clarke, Mamo, Fishman, Shim, &
Fosket, 2003; Rose, 2007). These scientific developments, combined
with a political drive to increase health and happiness in the population,
contributed to increasing attention being paid to the brain.3

1
SPECT stands for single-photon emission computerized tomography. These brightly colored
brain images can be quite shocking since they present an image of the brain as having multiple
holes and gaps if not in top condition. In another video the medical director phrases it like this: ‘Do
you think this guy can be his real self when the functioning in his brain looks like Swiss cheese?’
(Amen Clinics Part 2 of 3). See also Johnson (2008) who discusses the work of this clinic, and uses
the word ‘moth-eaten’ to describe the appearance of the images.
2
The Society for Neuroscience and the DANA Alliance for Brain Initiatives, for example, organized
brain awareness weeks, see www.sfn.org/index.aspx?pagename=baw_home and www.dana.org/
brainweek/.
3
The increasing attention devoted to the brain in scientific articles is easily demonstrated by typing
the term ‘brain’ in Web of Knowledge (wokinfo.com), and performing a result analysis by year of
publication. Besides the rise in publications over time, it is also striking that an almost threefold
increase of publications can be observed from 1990 (6864 publications) to 1991 (19,445 publica-
 1 Introduction 3

These transformations were preceded by a shift in thought style regard-

ing the brain. A few decades ago, the idea emerged that the brain was
plastic and malleable, instead of stable and immutable as most neurolo-
gists thought before (Rubin, 2009). This change in perspective brought
the promise of brain intervention as therapeutic intervention rapidly
into action, since the brain was no longer seen as an organ that deter-
mined behavior, but also as an organ that could be trained or enhanced
to change this behavior (Rubin, 2009). Moreover, the idea of a plastic
brain transformed several academic disciplines because many researchers
started to focus on the flexible neuro part of their work and formed new
subdisciplines, such as neuropsychology, neuropedagogy, neuropolitics,
or neuroeconomy, often subsumed under the name of ‘neuroscience’. In
other words, the shift in thought style in neurology from a brain that was
static to a brain that was plastic gave rise to contemporary neuroscience
(Abi-Rached & Rose, 2010; Pitts-Taylor, 2010).
As a consequence of these neuroscientific developments, people are
increasingly taught that not only the cause of their behavior but also the
solution for their problems is located in their brains, and hence they are
more and more inclined to work on their brains to become better, hap-
pier, more peaceful, or smarter. Although user 12 might be more fanatic
or experimental than others in his quest to improve his brain, he is not an
exception. Many people nowadays try to manipulate their brains by using
techniques varying from pharmaceuticals, to special diets or nutrition,
games, or technical devices (e.g. Pitts-Taylor, 2010; Thornton, 2011). On
the Internet, or in special ‘brain clinics’, several devices are obtainable that
promise to improve people’s brains and make them happier, healthier, or
more successful. Light and sound machines, for instance, promise to switch
someone’s brain state into meditation, hallucination, or concentration
(e.g. Heller, 1991). Neurofeedback is promoted to cure people from dis-
orders like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or to improve
their performance in music or sports (e.g. S. Johnson, 2004; Mattin, 2006;
Roberts, 2006). And devices that produce electric or magnetic current are

tions). The year 1990 was the start of ‘the decade of the brain’, as designated by former US presi-
dent George H. W. Bush as the period in which the public awareness for brain research should be
enhanced. This shows that the increased attention to the brain is not only a scientific and com-
mercial development, but also a political trend.
4 Neurotechnologies of the Self

said to aid people in recovering from their depressions, anxieties, physical

pain, or sleeping problems (e.g. Harvey, 2004; Naish, 2007).4

Brains and Selves

Working on the brain to improve oneself brings an ontological difficulty.
As the presented media quotes demonstrated, the brain seems to be turned
into an entity that can be changed and fooled, whereas it can also be out
of balance, disorder your mood, and keep you away from being your real
self. That is, the brain has a passive and an active function. This raises the
question of who or what responds to these actions of the brain. Listening
to media quotes, neuroscientists, or brain device users immediately gives
the answer: you, or the self, is the respondent of the brain. People work
on their brains because they want to improve themselves. This, however,
requires a distinction between the self and the brain, because the self tries
to regulate the brain. While the self is reduced to the brain, it simultane-
ously is the operator of this brain. To state this more clearly: you have to
take care of your brain, while your brain takes care of you.
I argue that this ontological distinction between one’s self and one’s
brain should not be considered as a Cartesian distinction between some-
thing material (the brain) and something ‘non-material’ (the mind). But
the monistic view, generally stated as ‘the mind is what the brain does’ (c.f.
Churchland, 1986; Rose, 2007, pp. 192, 198), does not suit either because
it veils the ambiguity between the brain and the self. In this book, I exam-
ine how people handle this ambiguity. I analyze how working on the brain
operates on the self by studying people who seem to be convinced that
their selves are (or are in) their brains, since they have decided to change
themselves by manipulating their brains. As mentioned, people can swal-
low pills, take specific nutrition, do special brain games or trainings, or
directly intervene into the working processes of their brains with technical
devices. I am especially intrigued by those people who use technical brain

4
To show that these claims reach a broad public, I referred to newspaper articles. However, there
are also many Internet sites and scientific articles that make comparable claims (see, e.g., Arns,
Ridder, Strehl, Breteler, & Coenen, 2009; Brunoni et al., 2012; Gruzelier, Egner, & Vernon, 2006;
Nitsche & Paulus, 2011; O’Reardon et al., 2007; Ossebaard, 2000).
 1 Introduction 5

devices to improve themselves, since these techniques suggest direct inter-

vention—without any bodily detours—in the working processes of the
brain. As a consequence, using a brain device to improve oneself appears
to create a very close connection between the brain and the self.
To examine how improving oneself by using a brain device operates on
people’s sense of self, I study therapeutic brain devices as contemporary
examples of what Michel Foucault called ‘technologies of the self ’: tech-
niques people use to strive for their own health and happiness (Foucault,
1988). In his History of Sexuality (Foucault, 1990a, 1990b, 1992) Foucault
described how since antiquity people had used techniques such as reading
manuscripts, listening to teachers, doing confessions, or saying prayers to
act on their selves and control their own thoughts and behaviors. Different
techniques, Foucault argued, are based on different kinds of knowledge
and ideas of self, and as a consequence, they also constitute different ways
of being oneself (Foucault, 1988). To give an example, depending on the
techniques people use—taking antidepressants, seeing a psychoanalyst, or
confessing one’s sins—they will see themselves as persons with chemical
unbalances, repressed sexual desires, or struggles with the devil, which
are three completely different ways of being oneself. Following Foucault,
I wonder what kind of self is constituted by using a brain device.

Multi-sited Ethnography
To find out how users of brain devices think about, act on, and constitute
themselves, I relied upon multiple sources and used multiple methods.
That is, I made use of a multi-method qualitative study in which I did
not study a subject, or a thing, but a subjectivity. As such, my methods
can probably best be described as a ‘multi-sited ethnography’ (Hine,
2007, see also Marcus, 1995). This kind of ethnography differs from
traditional ethnography because it combines several methods to study a
social phenomenon, a subject, or a thing, which is not situated at one site
(e.g. a tribe, a laboratory). The term is adopted by several scholars who
not only describe, but sometimes also intervene in their research project,
for example, by organizing workshops on the topic. Multi-sited ethnog-
raphy is not meant as a method for ‘objectively’ or ‘distantly’ describing
a phenomenon, but it shows the complexity of phenomena, including
6 Neurotechnologies of the Self

the influence the researcher can have on his or her studied phenomenon
(Hine, 2007). Since the possibility to influence your research topic is
quite an important issue when studying something as reflexive as the self,
I reflect on this issue in the last chapter of this book.
This introduction will be followed by a chapter about brain devices that
people can use to change themselves, namely, light and sound machines,
non-invasive electric and magnetic stimulation, and neurofeedback.
I give an overview of the uses, background, and scientific status of these tech-
nologies by studying how their effects were and are demonstrated. Hence, I
give some insights in the problems expert practitioners have to attain scien-
tific credibility and medical approval for their therapeutic claims. This chap-
ter is mainly based on literature and Internet studies, and attempts to provide
an overview and background of several ‘neurotechnologies of the self’.
In the rest of the book, I focus on one of these devices, namely, neuro-
feedback—a computer system that makes people aware (with beeps and
graphs) of their real-time brainwave activity so that they can try to change
this activity.5 To understand how this idea of working on oneself by work-
ing on one’s brainwaves emerged, Chap. 3 explores the philosophies of
four central figures in the history of neurofeedback. I studied the work and
biographies of two principal scientists in the history of clinical electroen-
cephalography (EEG)6: Hans Berger (1873–1941) who first visualized a
human EEG, and William Grey Walter (1910–1977) who elaborated on
Berger’s work and showed that human brainwaves could be manipulated.
Furthermore, I explored the experiments and media appearances of two
psychologists who are seen as the ‘founding fathers of neurofeedback’, Joe
Kamiya (1925–) and Barry Sterman (1935–). Next, I compared the ideas
of these ‘pioneers’ of neurofeedback with the explanations of contempo-
rary neurofeedback experts. This chapter is based on both ethnographic
material and literature research. To find more information on the ideas

5
The International Society for Neurofeedback and Research defines the therapy as ‘NFT [neuro-
feedback training] uses monitoring devices to provide moment-to-moment information to an indi-
vidual on the state of their physiological functioning. The characteristic that distinguishes NFT
from other biofeedback is a focus on the central nervous system and the brain.’ See http://www.
isnr.net/neurofeedback-info/learn-more-about-neurofeedback.cfm (accessed on 16-7-2015) for
the complete definition.
6
Electroencephalography is the recording of the electroencephalogram, which is a visualization of
fluctuations in electric brain activity. This electric brain activity is assumed to be evoked by neural
activity.
 1 Introduction 7

of Walter than is available in Dutch libraries, I went to the archive of

the Burden Neurological Institute (BNI) located in the Science Museum
and to the Wellcome Trust Library, both in London. To understand the
philosophies of Berger I collected his relevant publications and most (or
all) of his published diary notes, and to understand the ideas and impact
of Kamiya and Sterman, I read the relevant academic publications and
searched the Internet and the database of LexisNexis to find information
in newspapers and popular articles.
For Chap. 4, I mainly relied on user reports. By ‘user’ I refer to the per-
son who is doing neurofeedback, who could be not only a neurofeedback
client, but also a practitioner describing his or her own experiences with
the therapy. I interviewed clients and practitioners in the Netherlands
and the UK, and created an online questionnaire with open questions.7
I questioned users about their introduction to neurofeedback, their reasons
for doing or giving neurofeedback, and their ideas about how neurofeed-
back would solve their own or their clients’ problems, and I asked them
to describe their actions in the neurofeedback sessions. The interviews
were taken at various places: at people’s homes, at their neurofeedback
clinics, by telephone, at the university, or at other places where the inter-
viewees worked. Some interviewees not only talked about their personal
experiences but also showed me how they tried to change their brain,
and what had stimulated them: I saw neurofeedback games and privately
taken EEG measurements; people explained their problems by showing
me their brain maps, I saw books and articles that inspired people, and
one user sent me computer files in which he kept notes and illustrations
about changes in his feelings and brainwave activity, in different circum-
stances. To broaden my findings, I read hundreds of Dutch and English
newspaper and magazine articles in which neurofeedback subjects were
quoted, and I frequently checked websites of clinics and forums to collect
reports and discussions of neurofeedback users.
To find out how practitioners work on the self of their clients, for
example, by promoting and explaining their techniques to (potential)
clients, I furthermore undertook several activities in the Netherlands
and the UK. I visited open houses of neurofeedback clinics, initiated

7
To protect the privacy of the users, I numbered all people cited and use these numbers as a refer-
ence after the quotation. See Appendix 1 for more information about the background of the users.
8 Neurotechnologies of the Self

meetings in which practitioners explained their practices to students,

attended a neurofeedback course for novice practitioners and other meet-
ings for practitioners, observed a neurofeedback experiment performed
to enhance the creativity of British school children, and underwent some
neurofeedback sessions myself.8
The result of this multi-sited material is a book that presents a his-
torical, ethnographic, and theoretical exploration of the mode of sub-
jectivity that is constituted when people use neurofeedback to change
themselves. To demonstrate that neurofeedback is not simply an alter-
native technique for eccentrics, but part of a society in which people
increasingly start using techniques to manipulate their brains, I give a
broader scope of brain devices in the forthcoming chapter. In Chap. 3,
I explore how brainwaves and psyches (started to) interact in the work
of early brainwave scientists and contemporary neurofeedback practitio-
ners. I show how these people struggled with the connection between
the self and the brain, introduced a machine-like version of the self, and
combined materialistic philosophies with spiritual ideas. In Chap. 4,
I focus on the ideas and acts of neurofeedback users to find out how work-
ing on the self with a brain device changes people’s subjectivity. I argue
that doing neurofeedback constitutes a new mode of being oneself, since
the self is extended with a brain, and with various physiological, psycho-
logical, material, and sometimes spiritual entities that all start working
upon the person’s feelings, problems, and lives. Chap. 6 puts the consti-
tution of this self in a broader context by focusing on the practitioners
and by describing neurofeedback as a performance between human and
non-human actors. In the final part, I reflect on my findings and draw

8
To be precise about my (ethnographic) material: I attended two days of a four -day course for
novice practitioners, in which seven participants and two supervisors were present (UK), I visited
three open houses of neurofeedback clinics, one meeting for psychologists using neurofeedback,
and five demonstrations of neurofeedback to students and other persons interested (Netherlands),
and I underwent five neurofeedback therapy sessions myself (Netherlands). Furthermore, I made
observations (one day) during a neurofeedback experiment that was performed on five schoolchil-
dren (UK). I extensively interviewed one researcher, six practitioners (who were sometimes also
researchers), and four clients, which altogether resulted in about 150 pages of transcriptions. More
user reports were collected with an online open questionnaire which was answered by 13 clients.
Most of the researchers/practitioners were also users, in the sense that they used neurofeedback to
treat themselves (mainly for attention deficit disorder [ADD]) or in specific situations like before
playing the guitar, taking an exam, or performing self-hypnosis. See also Appendix 1.
 1 Introduction 9

some conclusions. Overall, this book argues that working on the brain to
improve the self does not reduce the self to the brain, but extends the self.

References
Abi-Rached, J. M., & Rose, N. (2010). The birth of the neuromolecular gaze.
History of the Human Sciences, 23(1), 11–36. doi:10.1177/0952695109352407.
Arns, M., de Ridder, S., Strehl, U., Breteler, M., & Coenen, A. (2009). Efficacy
of neurofeedback treatment in ADHD: The effects on inattention, impulsiv-
ity and hyperactivity: A meta-analysis. Clinical EEG and Neuroscience, 40(3),
180–189. doi:10.1177/155005940904000311.
Brunoni, A. R., Nitsche, M. A., Bolognini, N., Bikson, M., Wagner, T., Merabet,
L., et al. (2012). Clinical research with transcranial direct current stimulation
(tDCS): Challenges and future directions. Brain Stimulation, 5(3), 175–195.
doi:10.1016/j.brs.2011.03.002.
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 2
Brain Devices and the Marvel

Lord Lindsay got an enormous electro-magnet made, so large that the

head of any person, wishing to try the experiment, could get well between
the poles, in a region of excessively powerful magnetic force. What was
the result of the experiment? If I were to say nothing! I would do it scant
justice. The result was marvellous, and the marvel is that nothing was
perceived. Your head, in a space through which a piece of copper falls as
if through mud, perceives nothing. (Thomson, 1889, p. 261)

In the 19th century Sir W. Thomson—widely known as ‘Lord Kelvin’

and famous for his definition of the absolute zero temperature—called
it a marvel that a subject whose brain was stimulated with an enormous
electro-magnet perceived nothing. Today, however, such a result is one
of the main frustrations of brain-stimulating scientists and practitioners.
Although non-invasive brain devices are increasingly used in and outside
of academic settings, expert practitioners have problems attaining scien-
tific credibility for the therapeutic claims about their devices, and hence
in getting them approved by medical agencies like the American Food
and Drug Administration or the European Medicines Agency. In spite
of the problems with scientific credibility and approval, these devices are
easily accessible on the Internet or in brain clinics.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 11

J. Brenninkmeijer, Neurotechnologies of the Self,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-53386-9_2
12 Neurotechnologies of the Self

People have many options to stimulate their brains with a device,

without undergoing any surgery, and without seeing a doctor. They can,
for example, try to change their brain frequencies with light and sound
machines. They can also buy devices that work with electric or magnetic
stimulation, or try to change their brainwaves by getting feedback on
the working processes of their brain they are normally not aware of,
with a neurofeedback device. These brain devices come in various sizes
and prices, operate differently, and have diverse histories, but are more
or less promoted for the same purposes. According to advertisements,
websites, practitioners, and media articles, these devices help people
to overcome psychiatric problems varying from depression, ADHD,
burnout to anxiety, and they can enhance cognitive, artistic, or sports
performances. Some of them come with spiritual promises, like evok-
ing extrasensory perceptions or enhancing meditation skills, and they
are sometimes also promoted as causing hallucinating or other ‘mind-
altering’ effects. They are all presented as being completely safe to use,
and almost without any side effects. The only side effect that is regularly
mentioned is the possibility of evoking epileptic seizure in those who
are vulnerable.
Light and sound machines are easily obtained on the Internet. They
are also called mind or brain machines, or audiovisual entrainment, and
consist of a pair of glasses with shifting LED lights and headphones
with beeps that operate at a specific frequency intended to ‘entrain’ the
brain’s frequencies. People can buy or hire these machines, but sometimes
they can also try them out at music and art events. Another option is to
search on the Internet for instructions on how to build your own brain
machine, for example, under headlines like ‘hack your brain’. Because of
their alleged stress-reducing and attention-increasing utilizations, light
and sound machines are marketed for business trainings and excursions,
but they are predominantly promoted for spiritual purposes (hypnosis,
meditation), mental health problems, and cognitive enhancement.
Sometimes, brainwave machines are extended with low electric cur-
rents that you can put on your earlobes.1 The idea behind this so-called

1
See, for example, the ‘DAVID PAL36 with CES’ www.mindalive.com/2_1_8.htm (accessed on
13-11-2012).
 2 Brain Devices and the Marvel 13

cranial electrotherapy stimulation (CES) is that it sends electric current

which is supposed to entrain the brainwave frequency on its way from
one ear to the other. Instead of on the earlobes, you can also put the elec-
trodes directly on the scalp, and use them as a transcranial direct current
stimulation (tDCS) device, a technique that releases a low electric current
on the cranium which is supposed to modify neuronal excitability and
activity. tDCS is much more studied and tested than CES, but both tech-
niques are promoted for psychiatric complaints like depression or anxi-
ety, as well as for relaxation and cognitive enhancement. One can buy
these brain technologies on the Internet or take the therapy in a clinic
for the brain. However, the simplicity of the construction of these appa-
ratuses did not escape the attention of its intended market. On forums,
blogs, and videos on the Internet people discussed the best way to build
a tDCS device for which you basically need only a sponge, a headband,
a resistor, and a 9-volt battery.2
Some people also tried to build their own transcranial magnetic stimu-
lation (TMS) devices.3 These devices, which are mostly used in hospitals
and academic labs, send electromagnetic pulses through the skull which
are expected to create a flow of current that blocks or facilitates corti-
cal processes. The American Food and Drug Administration approved
one variant of this device—an apparatus that can give repetitive pulses
(repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation [rTMS])—as a therapy for
‘adult patients with major depression who have previously tried medi-
cation and not improved satisfactorily’ (Neuronetics, 2008). Because
rTMS devices are quite expensive and are about the size of a dentist’s
chair only a few private clinics offer this therapy.4 Nevertheless, some
practitioners purchased the device and currently offer rTMS therapies
to relieve people from their depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.5
Furthermore, there are cheaper and more portable magnetic devices on
the market, or in the making, like God (or Shiva) helmets that promise to

2
See, for example, www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7nehK63Uk4 (accessed on 13-11-2012).
3
See www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUW7dQ92yDU&feature=channel_video_title and www.you-
tube.com/watch?v=B_olmdAQx5s&feature=youtube_gdata_player (accessed on 13-11-2012).
4
According to one practitioner prices vary from 20,000 to 70,000 euros.
5
See for clinics in Canada and the Netherlands: www.mindcarecentres.com and www.brainclinics.
com (accessed on 13-11-2012).
14 Neurotechnologies of the Self

evoke religious experiences, migraine zappers that are supposed to relieve

headaches, and thinking caps that are supposed to enhance cognitive per-
formances.6 Since tDCS appears to have the same effects as rTMS, some
researchers are convinced that tDCS will become the smaller and cheaper
variant of rTMS (Nitsche & Paulus, 2011).
Electric and magnetic brain stimulations are nowadays mostly used
institutionally, and although the promise of self-help is tempting and
people can buy or try to build these devices themselves, the majority of
people who want to stimulate their brains prefer to do this without using
electricity or magnetic current. For this group, neurofeedback can be a
solution. Neurofeedback is a brainwave therapy in which the therapist
(or the computer—see Chap. 6) ‘reads’ the brainwave activity of a cli-
ent with an EEG (electroencephalograph), decides what brain parts7 and
frequencies to train, and adjusts the computer program in such a way
that the client receives real-time positive or negative feedback on his or
her brain activity with images or sounds. To give an example, a therapist
might define that a client (e.g. diagnosed with ADHD) has too much low
activity in (or in a certain part of ) the brain, and asks the client to play
a computer game (e.g. a racing game) that stops working whenever the
brain (part) produces these ‘wrong’ slow frequency waves (Figs. 2.1 and 2.2).
In this way, the brain is rewarded when it produces the right frequencies,
and when it produces the wrong patterns, this reward stops. Instead of
playing computer games, clients might also watch movies or listen to music
(that stop(s) when the brain produces the wrong rhythm), watch graphics
that, for example, turn from red (wrong) to green (good), or emoticons that
can change from sad into happy. The therapy is currently offered predomi-
nantly by psychologists and is usually recommended for use by children
with ADHD, but it is promoted for all ages and all kinds of psychiatric and
medical disorders, as well as for cognitive enhancement and music or sport
performances (e.g. Arns, Ridder, Strehl, Breteler, & Coenen, 2009; Coben,
Linden, & Myers, 2010; Gruzelier, Egner, & Vernon, 2006).

6
See, for example, www.shaktitechnology.com, www.healthcentral.com/migraine/treatment-
256320-5.html (accessed on 13-11-2012) and (Macrae, 2008).
7
That is, some therapists train the brain as a whole, other therapists work with (and try to balance)
the left and right side of the brain, and again others work with brain areas.
 2 Brain Devices and the Marvel 15

All these brain devices—light and sound machines, cranial electric

stimulation, tDCS, rTMS, and neurofeedback—have different histories
and applications, but there are also some similarities. They are all pro-
claimed to be safe and easy to use and as able to solve psychiatric prob-
lems and suitable for self-enhancement. They inspire, and have inspired,
many people to use them as a form of self-help. Moreover, they inspire
people to not only help themselves, but also experiment on their selves,
or their brains. Another characteristic, linked to this ‘do it yourself ’
connotation, is that most brain devices are also used for spiritual and
mind-altering purposes, such as improving meditation skills, or evok-
ing hallucinations. Probably related to these spiritual, self-help, and self-
experimenting practices is the circumstance that none of these therapies
are completely accepted in the scientific or therapeutic world. In contrast
to other treatments that are much debated concerning their efficacy, like
psychotherapy or antidepressants (Greenwood, 1996; Ioannidis, 2008;

Fig. 2.1 Neurofeedback racing game. The client is connected to an EEG device
that monitors the brainwave frequencies. If the ‘right’ frequencies are pro-
duced, the neurofeedback system makes the car speed up. If not, the car does
not move, or is passed by another car (Used with permission of Roland Verment)
Another random document with
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the Riva. On we go, abreast of the crowd, past the landing-wharf of
the little steamers, past the rear porches of the queer caffès, past the
man-of-war, and a moment later are off the wine-shop and my
bridge. I part the curtains, and from my cushions can see the
Duchess standing in the doorway, her arms akimbo, with all the
awnings rolled back tight for the night. The bridge itself is smothered
in a swarm of human flies, most of them bareheaded. As we sheer
closer, one more ragged than the rest springs up and waves his hat.
Then comes the refrain of that loveliest of all the Venetian boat
songs:—
“Jammo, jammo neoppa, jammo ja.”
It is Luigi, bidding me good-night.
THE PIAZZA OF SAN MARCO
HERE is but one piazza in the world. There may be other
splendid courts and squares, magnificent breathing spaces
for the people, enriched by mosque and palace, bordered
by wide-spreading trees, and adorned by noble statues.
You know, of course, every slant of sunlight over the plaza of the
Hippodrome, in Constantinople, with its slender twin needles of
stone; you know the Puerta del Sol of Madrid, cooled by the splash
of sunny fountains and alive with the rush of Spanish life; and you
know, too, the royal Place de la Concorde, brilliant with the never-
ending whirl of pleasure-loving Paris. Yes, you know and may love
them all, and yet there is but one grand piazza the world over; and
that lies to-day in front of the Church of San Marco.
It is difficult to account for this fascination. Sometimes you think it
lurks in the exquisite taper of the Campanile. Sometimes you think
the secret of its charm is hidden in masterly carvings, delicacy of
arch, or refinement of color. Sometimes the Piazza appeals to you
only as the great open-air bricabrac shop of the universe, with its
twin columns of stone stolen from the islands of the Archipelago; its
bronze horses, church doors, and altar front wrested from
Constantinople and the East; and its clusters of pillars torn from
almost every heathen temple within reach of a Venetian galley.
When your eye becomes accustomed to the dazzling splendor of the
surroundings, and you begin to analyze each separate feature of this
Court of the Doges, you are even more enchanted and bewildered.
San Marco itself no longer impresses you as a mere temple, with
open portals and swinging doors; but as an exquisite jewel-case of
agate and ivory, resplendent in gems and precious stones. The clock
tower, with its dial of blue and gold and its figures of bronze, is not,
as of old, one of a row of buildings, but a priceless ornament that
might adorn the palace of some King of the Giants; while the Loggia
of Sansovino could serve as a mantel for his banquet hall, and any
one of the three bronze sockets of the flag-staffs, masterpieces of
Leopardo, hold huge candles to light him to bed.
And behind all this beauty of form and charm of handicraft, how lurid
the background of tradition, cruelty, and crime! Poor Doge Francesco
Foscari, condemning his own innocent son Jacopo to exile and
death, in that very room overlooking the square; the traitor Marino
Faliero, beheaded on the Giant Stairs of the palace, his head
bounding to the pavement below; the perfidies of the Council of Ten;
the state murders, tortures, and banishments; the horrors of the
prisons of the Piombi; the silent death-stroke of the unsigned
denunciations dropped into the Bocca del Leone—that fatal letter-
box with its narrow mouth agape in the wall of stone, nightly filled
with the secrets of the living, daily emptied of the secrets of the
dead. All are here before you. The very stones their victims trod lie
beneath your feet, their water-soaked cells but a step away.
As you pass between the twin columns of stone,—the pillars of Saint
Theodore and of the Lion,—you shudder when you recall the fate of
the brave Piedmontese, Carmagnola, a fate unfolding a chapter of
cunning, ingratitude, and cruelty almost unparalleled in the history of
Venice. You remember that for years this great hireling captain had
led the armies of Venice and the Florentines against his former
master, Philip of Milan; and that for years Venice had idolized the
victorious warrior.
You recall the disastrous expedition against Cremona, a stronghold
of Philip, and the subsequent anxiety of the Senate lest the sword of
the great captain should be turned against Venice herself. You
remember that one morning, as the story runs, a deputation entered
the tent of the great captain and presented the confidence of the
Senate and an invitation to return at once to Venice and receive the
plaudits of the people. Attended by his lieutenant, Gonzaga,
Carmagnola set out to obey. All through the plains of Lombardy,
brilliant in their gardens of olive and vine, he was received with honor
and welcome. At Mestre he was met by an escort of eight gentlemen
in gorgeous apparel, special envoys dispatched by the Senate, who
conducted him across the wide lagoon and down the Grand Canal,
to this very spot on the Molo.
On landing from his sumptuous barge, the banks ringing with the
shouts of the populace, he was led by his escort direct to the palace,
and instantly thrust into an underground dungeon. Thirty days later,
after a trial such as only the Senate of the period would tolerate, and
gagged lest his indignant outcry might rebound in mutinous echoes,
his head fell between the columns of San Marco.
There are other pages to which one could turn in this book of the
past, pages rubricated in blood and black-lettered in crime. The book
is opened here because this tragedy of Carmagnola recalls so
clearly and vividly the methods and impulses of the times, and
because, too, it occurred where all Venice could see, and where to-
day you can conjure up for yourself the minutest details of the
terrible outrage. Almost nothing of the scenery is changed. From
where you stand between these fatal shafts, the same now as in the
days of Carmagnola (even then two centuries old), there still hangs a
balcony whence you could have caught the glance of that strong,
mute warrior. Along the water’s edge of this same Molo, where now
the gondoliers ply their calling, and the lasagnoni lounge and gossip,
stood the soldiers of the state drawn up in solid phalanx. Across the
canal, by the margin of this same island of San Giorgio—before the
present church was built—the people waited in masses, silently
watching the group between those two stone posts that marked for
them, and for all Venice, the doorway of hell. Above towered this
same Campanile, all but its very top complete.
But you hurry away, crossing the square with a lingering look at this
fatal spot, and enter where all these and a hundred other tragedies
were initiated, the Palace of the Doges. It is useless to attempt a
description of its wonderful details. If I should elaborate, it would not
help to give you a clearer idea of this marvel of the fifteenth century.
To those who know Venice, it will convey no new impression; to
those who do not it might add only confusion and error.
Give yourself up instead to the garrulous old guide who assails you
as you enter, and who, for a few lire, makes a thousand years as one
day. It is he who will tell you of the beautiful gate, the Porta della
Carta of Bartolommeo Bon, with its statues weather-stained and
worn; of the famous Scala dei Giganti, built by Rizzo in 1485; of the
two exquisitely moulded and chased bronze well-heads of the court;
of the golden stairs of Sansovino; of the ante-chamber of the Council
of Ten; of the great Sala di Collegio, in which the foreign
ambassadors were received by the Doge; of the superb senate
chamber, the Sala del Senato; of the costly marbles and marvelous
carvings; of the ceilings of Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese; of the
secret passages, dungeons, and torture chambers.
But the greatest of all these marvels of the Piazza still awaits you,
the Church of San Marco. Dismiss the old guide outside the beautiful
gate and enter its doors alone; here he would fail you.
If you come only to measure the mosaics, to value the swinging
lamps, or to speculate over the uneven, half-worn pavement of the
interior, enter its doors at any time, early morning or bright noonday,
or whenever your practical, materialistic, nineteenth-century body
would escape from the blaze of the sun outside. Or you can stay
away altogether; neither you nor the world will be the loser. But if you
are the kind of man who loves all beautiful things,—it may be the
sparkle of early dew upon the grass, the silence and rest of cool
green woods, the gloom of the fading twilight,—or if your heart
warms to the sombre tones of old tapestries, armor, and glass, and
you touch with loving tenderness the vellum backs of old books, then
enter when the glory of the setting sun sifts in and falls in shattered
shafts of light on altar, roof, and wall. Go with noiseless step and
uncovered head, and, finding some deep-shadowed seat or
sheltered nook, open your heart and mind and soul to the story of its
past, made doubly precious by the splendor of its present. As you sit
there in the shadow, the spell of its exquisite color will enchant you—
color mellowing into harmonies you knew not of; harmonies of old
gold and porphyry reds; the dull silver of dingy swinging lamps, with
the soft light of candles and the dreamy haze of dying incense;
harmonies of rich brown carvings and dark bronzes rubbed bright by
a thousand reverent hands.
The feeling which will steal over you will not be one of religious
humility, like that which took possession of you in the Saint Sophia of
Constantinople. It will be more like the blind idolatry of the pagan, for
of all the temples of the earth, this shrine of San Marco is the most
worthy of your devotion. Every turn of the head will bring new
marvels into relief; marvels of mosaic, glinting like beaten gold;
marvels of statue, crucifix, and lamp; marvels of altars, resplendent
in burnished silver and flickering tapers; of alabaster columns
merging into the vistas; of sculptured saint and ceiling of sheeted
gold; of shadowy aisle and high uplifted cross.
Never have you seen any such interior. Hung with the priceless
fabrics and relics of the earth, it is to you one moment a great
mosque, studded with jewels and rich with the wealth of the East;
then, as its color deepens, a vast tomb, hollowed from out a huge,
dark opal, in which lies buried some heroic soul, who in his day
controlled the destinies of nations and of men. And now again, when
the mystery of its light shimmers through windows covered with the
dust of ages, there comes to this wondrous shrine of San Marco,
small as it is, something of the breadth and beauty, the solitude and
repose, of a summer night.
When the first hush and awe and sense of sublimity have passed
away, you wander, like the other pilgrims, into the baptistery; or you
move softly behind the altar, marveling over each carving of wood
and stone and bronze; or you descend to the crypt and stand by the
stone sarcophagus that once held the bones of the good saint
himself.
As you walk about these shadowy aisles, and into the dim recesses,
some new devotee swings back a door, and a blaze of light streams
in, and you awake to the life of to-day.
Yes, there is a present as well as a past. There is another Venice
outside; a Venice of life and joyousness and stir. The sun going
down; the caffès under the arcades of the King’s Palace and of the
Procuratie Vecchie are filling up. There is hardly an empty table at
Florian’s. The pigeons, too, are coming home to roost, and are
nestling under the eaves of the great buildings and settling on the
carvings of San Marco. The flower girls, in gay costumes, are
making shops of the marble benches next the Campanile, assorting
roses and pinks, and arranging their boutonnières for the night’s
sale. The awnings which have hung all day between the columns of
the arcades are drawn back, exposing the great line of shops
fringing three sides of the square. Lights begin to flash; first in the
clusters of lamps illuminating the arcades, and then in the windows
filled with exquisite bubble-blown Venetian glass, wood carvings,
inlaid cabinets, cheap jewelry, gay-colored photographs and prints.
As the darkness falls, half a dozen men drag to the centre of the
Piazza the segments of a great circular platform. This they surround
with music-rests and a stand for the leader. Now the pavement of the
Piazza itself begins filling up. Out from the Merceria, from under the
clock tower, pours a steady stream of people merging in the crowds
about the band-stand. Another current flows in through the west
entrance, under the Bocca di Piazza, and still another from under the
Riva, rounding the Doges’ Palace. At the Molo, just where poor
Carmagnola stepped ashore, a group of officers—they are
everywhere in Venice—land from a government barge. These are in
full regalia, even to their white kid gloves, their swords dangling and
ringing as they walk. They, too, make their way to the square and fill
the seats around one of the tables at Florian’s, bowing magnificently
to the old Countess who sits just inside the door of the caffè itself,
resplendent, as usual, in dyed wig and rose-colored veil. She is
taking off her long, black, fingerless silk gloves, and ordering her
customary spoonful of cognac and lump of sugar. Gustavo, the head
waiter, listens as demurely as if he expected a bottle of Chablis at
least, with the customary commission for Gustavo—but then
Gustavo is the soul of politeness. Some evil-minded people say the
Countess came in with the Austrians; others, more ungallant, date
her advent about the days of the early doges.
By this time you notice that the old French professor is in his
customary place; it is outside the caffè, in the corridor, on a leather-
covered, cushioned seat against one of the high pillars. You never
come to the Piazza without meeting him. He is as much a part of its
history as the pigeons, and, like them, dines here at least once a
day. He is a perfectly straight, pale, punctilious, and exquisitely
deferential relic of a by-gone time, whose only capital is his charming
manner and his thorough knowledge of Venetian life. This
combination rarely fails where so many strangers come and go; and
then, too, no one knows so well the intricacies of an Italian kitchen
as Professor Croisac.
Sometimes on summer evenings he will move back a chair at your
own table and insist upon dressing the salad. Long before his
greeting, you catch sight of him gently edging his way through the
throng, the seedy, straight-brimmed silk hat in his hand brushed with
the greatest precision; his almost threadbare frock-coat buttoned
snug around his waist, the collar and tails flowing loose, his one
glove hanging limp. He is so erect, so gentle, so soft-voiced, so
sincere, and so genuine, and for the hour so supremely happy, that
you cannot divest yourself of the idea that he really is an old
marquis, temporarily exiled from some faraway court, and to be
treated with the greatest deference. When, with a little start of
sudden surprise, he espies some dark-eyed matron in the group
about him, rises to his feet and salutes her as if she were the Queen
of Sheba, you are altogether sure of his noble rank. Then the old
fellow regains his seat, poises his gold eyeglasses—a relic of better
days—between his thumb and forefinger, holds them two inches
from his nose, and consults the menu with the air of a connoisseur.
Before your coffee is served the whole Piazza is ablaze and literally
packed with people. The tables around you stand quite out to the
farthest edge permitted. (These caffès have, so to speak, riparian
rights—so much piazza seating frontage, facing the high-water mark
of the caffè itself.) The waiters can now hardly wedge their way
through the crowd. The chairs are so densely occupied that you
barely move your elbows. Next you is an Italian mother—full-blown
even to her delicate mustache—surrounded by a bevy of daughters,
all in pretty hats and white or gay-colored dresses, chatting with a
circle of still other officers. All over the square, where earlier in the
day only a few stray pilgrims braved the heat, or a hungry pigeon
wandered in search of a grain of corn, the personnel of this table is
repeated—mothers and officers and daughters, and daughters and
officers and mothers again.
Outside this mass, representing a clientèle possessing at least half a
lira each—one cannot, of course, occupy a chair and spend less,
and it is equally difficult to spend very much more—there moves in a
solid mass the rest of the world: bareheaded girls, who have been all
day stringing beads in some hot courtyard; old crones in rags from
below the shipyards; fishermen in from Chioggia; sailors, stevedores,
and soldiers in their linen suits, besides sight-seers and wayfarers
from the four corners of the earth.
If there were nothing else in Venice but the night life of this grand
Piazza, it would be worth a pilgrimage half across the world to see.
Empty every café in the Boulevards; add all the habitués of the Volks
Gardens of Vienna, and all those you remember at Berlin, Buda-
Pesth, and Florence; pack them in one mass, and you would not half
fill the Piazza. Even if you did, you could never bring together the
same kinds of people. Venice is not only the magnet that draws the
idler and the sight-seer, but those who love her just because she is
Venice—painters, students, architects, historians, musicians, every
soul who values the past and who finds here, as nowhere else, the
highest achievement of chisel, brush, and trowel.
The painters come, of course—all kinds of painters, for all kinds of
subjects. Every morning, all over the canals and quays, you find a
new growth of white umbrellas, like mushrooms, sprung up in the
night. Since the days of Canaletto these men have painted and
repainted these same stretches of water, palace, and sky. Once
under the spell of her presence, they are never again free from the
fascinations of this Mistress of the Adriatic. Many of the older men
are long since dead and forgotten, but the work of those of to-day
you know: Ziem first, nearly all his life a worshiper of the wall of the
Public Garden; and Rico and Ruskin and Whistler. Their names are
legion. They have all had a corner at Florian’s. No matter what their
nationality or specialty, they speak the common language of the
brush. Old Professor Croisac knows them all. He has just risen again
to salute Marks, a painter of sunrises, who has never yet recovered
from his first thrill of delight when early one morning his gondolier
rowed him down the lagoon and made fast to a cluster of spiles off
the Public Garden. When the sun rose behind the sycamores and
threw a flood of gold across the sleeping city, and flashed upon the
sails of the fishing-boats drifting up from the Lido, Marks lost his
heart. He is still tied up every summer to that same cluster of spiles,
painting the glory of the morning sky and the drifting boats. He will
never want to paint anything else. He will not listen to you when you
tell him of the sunsets up the Giudecca, or the soft pearly light of the
dawn silvering the Salute, or the picturesque life of the fisher-folk of
Malamocco.
“My dear boy,” he breaks out, “get up to-morrow morning at five and
come down to the Garden, and just see one sunrise—only one. We
had a lemon-yellow and pale emerald sky this morning, with dabs of
rose-leaves, that would have paralyzed you.”
Do not laugh at the painter’s enthusiasm. This white goddess of the
sea has a thousand lovers, and, like all other lovers the world over,
each one believes that he alone holds the key to her heart.
IN AN OLD GARDEN
OU think, perhaps, there are no gardens in Venice; that it is
all a sweep of palace front and shimmering sea; that save
for the oleanders bursting into bloom near the Iron Bridge,
and the great trees of the Public Garden shading the
flower-bordered walks, there are no half-neglected tangles where
rose and vine run riot; where the plash of the fountain is heard in the
stillness of the night, and tall cedars cast their black shadows at
noonday.
Really, if you but knew it, almost every palace hides a garden
nestling beneath its balconies, and every high wall hems in a wealth
of green, studded with broken statues, quaint arbors festooned with
purple grapes, and white walks bordered by ancient box; while every
roof that falls beneath a window is made a hanging garden of potted
plants and swinging vines.
 BEYOND SAN ROSARIO
Step from your gondola into some open archway. A door beyond
leads you to a court paved with marble flags and centred by a well
with carved marble curb, yellow stained with age. Cross this wide
court, pass a swinging iron gate, and you stand under rose-covered
bowers, where in the olden time gay gallants touched their lutes and
fair ladies listened to oft-told tales of love.
And not only behind the palaces facing the Grand Canal, but along
the Zattere beyond San Rosario, away down the Giudecca, and by
the borders of the lagoon, will you find gay oleanders flaunting red
blossoms, and ivy and myrtle hanging in black-green bunches over
crumbling walls.
In one of these hidden nooks, these abandoned cloisters of shaded
walk and over-bending blossom, I once spent an autumn afternoon
with my old friend, the Professor,—“Professor of Modern Languages
and Ancient Legends,” as some of the more flippant of the habitués
of Florian’s were wont to style him. The old Frenchman had justly
earned this title. He had not only made every tradition and fable of
Venice his own, often puzzling and charming the Venetians
themselves with his intimate knowledge of the many romances of
their past, but he could tell most wonderful tales of the gorgeous
fêtes of the seventeenth century, the social life of the nobility, their
escapades, intrigues, and scandals.
If some fair Venetian had loved not wisely but too well, and, clinging
to brave Lorenzo’s neck, had slipped down a rope ladder into a
closely curtained, muffled-oared gondola, and so over the lagoon to
Mestre, the old Frenchman could not only point out to you the very
balcony, provided it were a palace balcony and not a fisherman’s
window,—he despised the bourgeoisie,—but he could give you every
feature of the escapade, from the moment the terror-stricken duenna
missed her charge to that of the benediction of the priest in the
shadowed isle. So, when upon the evening preceding this particular
day, I accepted the Professor’s invitation to breakfast, I had before
me not only his hospitality, frugal as it might be, but the possibility of
drawing upon his still more delightful fund of anecdote and
reminiscence.
Neither the day nor the hour had been definitely set. The invitation, I
afterwards discovered, was but one of the many he was constantly
giving to his numerous friends and haphazard acquaintances,
evincing by its perfect genuineness his own innate kindness and his
hearty appreciation of the many similar courtesies he was daily
receiving at their hands. Indeed, to a man so delicately adjusted as
the Professor and so entirely poor, it was the only way he could
balance, in his own mind, many long-running accounts of, coffee for
two at the Calcina, with a fish and a fruit salad, the last a specialty of
the Professor’s—the oil, melons, and cucumbers being always
provided by his host—or a dish of risotto, with kidneys and the like,
at the Bauer-Grünwald.
Nobody ever accepted these invitations seriously, that is, no one
who knew the Professor at all well. In fact, there was a general
impression existing among the many frequenters of Florian’s and the
Quadri that the Professor’s hour and place of breakfasting were very
like the birds’—whenever the unlucky worm was found, and
wherever the accident happened to occur. When I asked Marks for
the old fellow’s address—which rather necessary item I remembered
later had also been omitted by the Professor—he replied, “Oh,
somewhere down the Riva,” and dropped the subject as too
unimportant for further mental effort.
All these various eccentricities of my prospective host, however,
were at the time unknown to me. He had cordially invited me to
breakfast—“to-morrow, or any day you are near my apartments, I
would be so charmed,” etc. I had as graciously accepted, and it
would have been unpardonable indifference, I felt sure, not to have
continued the inquiries until my hand touched his latch-string.
The clue was a slight one. I had met him once, leaning over the side
of the bridge below Danieli’s, the Ponte del Sepolcro, looking
wistfully out to sea, and was greeted with the remark that he had that
moment left his apartments, and only lingered on the bridge to watch
the play of silvery light on the lagoon, the September skies were so
enchanting. So on this particular morning I began inspecting the bell-
pulls of all the doorways, making inquiry at the several caffès and
shops. Then I remembered the apothecary, down one step from the
sidewalk, in the Via Garibaldi—a rather shabby continuation of the
Riva—and nearly a mile below the more prosperous quarter where
the Professor had waved his hand, the morning I met him on the
bridge.
“The Signor Croisac—the old Frenchman?” “Upstairs, next door.”
He was as delightful as ever in his greetings; started a little when I
reminded him of his invitation, but begged me to come in and sit
down, and with great courtesy pointed out the view of the garden
below, and the sweep and glory of the lagoon. Then he excused
himself, adjusted his hat, picked up a basket, and gently closed the
door.
The room, upon closer inspection, was neither dreary nor uninviting.
It had a sort of annex, or enlarged closet, with a drawn curtain partly
concealing a bed, a row of books lining one wall, a table littered with
papers, a smaller one containing a copper coffee-pot and a scant
assortment of china, some old chairs, and a disemboweled lounge
that had doubtless lost heart in middle life and committed hari-kari.
There were also a few prints and photographs, a corner of the
Parthenon, a mezzo of Napoleon in his cocked hat, and an etching
or two, besides a miniature reduction of the Dying Gladiator, which
he used as a paper-weight. All the windows of this modest apartment
were filled with plants, growing in all kinds of pots and boxes, broken
pitchers, cracked dishes—even half of a Chianti flask. These, like
their guardian, ignored their surroundings and furnishings, and
flamed away as joyously in the summer sun as if they had been
nurtured in the choicest of majolica.
He was back before I had completed my inventory, thanking me
again and again for my extreme kindness in coming, all the while
unwrapping the Gorgonzola, and flecking off with a fork the shreds of
paper that still clung to its edges. The morsel was then laid upon a
broad leaf gathered at the window, and finally upon a plate covered
by a napkin so that the flies should not taste it first. This, with a
simple salad, a pot of coffee and some rolls, a siphon of seltzer and
a little raspberry juice in a glass,—“so much fresher than wine these
hot mornings,” he said,—constituted the entire repast.
But there was no apology offered with the serving. Poor as he was,
he had that exquisite tact which avoided burdening his guest even
with his economies. He had offered me all his slender purse could
afford. Indeed, the cheese had quite overstrained it.
When he had drawn a cigarette from my case,—it was delightful to
see him do this, and always reminded me of a young girl picking
bonbons from a box, it was so daintily done,—the talk drifted into a
discussion of the glories of the old days and of the welfare of Italy
under the present government. I made a point of expressing my
deep admiration for the good King Humbert and his gracious queen.
The Professor merely waved his hand, adding:—
“Yes, a good man and a noble lady, worthy successors of the old
régime!” Then, with a certain air, “I have known, professionally, very
many of these great families. A most charming, delightful society!
The women so exquisite, with such wealth of hair and eyes, and so
gentilles: always of the Beau Monde! And their traditions and
legends, so full of romance and mystery! The palaces too! Think of
the grand staircase of the Foscari, the entrance to the Barbaro, and
the superb ceilings of the Albrezzi! Then their great gardens and vine
orchards! There is nothing like them. Do you happen to know the old
garden on the Giudecca, where lived the beautiful Contessa
Alberoni? No? And you never heard the romantic story of her life, her
disappearance, and its dramatic ending?”
I shook my head. The Professor, to my delight, was now fairly in the
saddle; the best part of the breakfast was to come.
“My dear friend! One of the most curious of all the stories of Venice! I
know intimately many of her descendants, and I know, too, the old
gardener who still cares for what is left of the garden. It has long
since passed out of the hands of the family.
“Let me light another cigarette before I tell you,” said the Professor,
crossing the room, “and just another drop of seltzer,” filling my glass.
“Is it to be a true story?” I asked.
“Mon cher ami! absolutely so. Would you care to see the garden
itself, where it all occurred, or will you take my word for it? No, not
until you sit under the arbors and lean over the very balcony where
the lovers sat. Come, is your gondola here? Under the window?”
pushing aside the flowers. “Which is your gondolier? The one in blue
with the white tenda over his boat? Yes, sound asleep like all the rest
of them!”
Here the old gentleman picked up his silk hat, passed his hand once
or twice around its well-brushed surface, discarded it for a white
straw with a narrow black band, adjusted his cravat in a broken
mirror that hung near the door, gave an extra twist to his gray
mustache, and preceded me downstairs and out into the blinding
light of a summer day.
Several members of the Open-Air Club were hanging over the bridge
as we passed—Luigi flat on his face and sound asleep in the
shadow of the side-wall, and Vittorio sprawled out on the polished
rail above. Those who were awake touched their hats respectfully to
the old fellow as he crossed the bridge, he returning their salutations
quite as a distinguished earl would those of his tenants. Vittorio,
when he caught my eye, sprang down and ran ahead to rouse
Espero, and then back for Luigi, who awoke with a dazed look on his
face, only regaining consciousness in time to wave his hat to me
when we were clear of the quay, the others standing in a row
enjoying his discomfiture.
“This garden,” continued the Professor, settling himself on the
cushions and drawing the curtains so that he could keep the view
toward San Giorgio and still shut out the dazzling light, “is now, of
course, only a ghost of its former self. The château is half in ruins,
and one part is inhabited by fishermen, who dry their nets in the
grape arbors and stow their fish-baskets in the porticoes. Many of
the fruit-trees, however, still exist, as do many of the vines, and so
my old friend Angelo, the gardener, makes a scanty living for himself
and his pretty daughter, by supplying the fruit-stands in the autumn
and raising lettuce and melons in the spring and summer. The
ground itself, like most of the land along the east side of the islands
of the Giudecca, is valueless, and everything is falling into ruin.”
We were rounding the Dogana, Espero bending lustily to his oar as
we shot past the wood-boats anchored in the stream. The Professor
talked on, pointing out the palace where Pierre, the French
adventurer, lived during the Spanish conspiracy, and the very side
door in the old building, once a convent, from which an Englishman
in the old days stole a nun who loved him, and spirited her off to
another quaint nook in this same Giudecca, returning her to her cell
every morning before daybreak.
“Ah, those were the times to live in. Then a soldo was as large as a
lira. Then a woman loved you for yourself, not for what you gave her.
Then your gondolier kept your secrets, and the keel of your boat left
no trace behind. Then your family crest meant something more than
the name-plate on your door, upon which to nail a tax-levy.”
The old man had evidently forgotten his history, but I did not check
him. It was his buoyant enthusiasm that always charmed me most.
As Espero passed under Ponte Lungo, the wooden bridge leading to
the Fondamenta della Pallada, the Professor waved his hand to the
right, and we floated out into the lagoon and stopped at an old water-
gate, its doors weather-stained and broken, over which hung a mass
of tangled vines.
“The garden of the Contessa,” said the Professor, his face aglow
with the expectancy of my pleasure.
It was like a dozen other water-gates I had seen, except that no
gratings were open and the surrounding wall was unusually high.
Once inside, however, with the gate swung-to on its rusty hinges,
you felt instantly that the world had been shut away forever. Here
were long arbors bordered by ancient box, with arching roofs of
purple grapes. Against the high walls stood fragments of statues,
some headless, some with broken arms or battered faces. Near the
centre of the great quadrangle was a sunken basin, covered with
mould, and green with the scum of stagnant water. In the once well-
regulated garden beds the roses bloomed gayly, climbing over
pedestal and statue, while the trumpet-flower and scarlet-creeper
flaunted their colors high upon the crumbling walls overlooking the
lagoon. At one end of this tangled waste rose the remains of a once
noble château or summer home, built of stone in the classic style of
architecture, the pediment of the porch supported by a row of white
marble columns. Leaning against these columns stood old fish-
baskets, used for the storing of live fish, while over the ruined arbors
hung in great festoons the nets of a neighboring fisherman, who
reserved this larger space for drying and mending his seines.
It was a ruin, and yet not a hopeless one. You could see that each
year the flowers struggled into life again; that the old black
cypresses, once trimmed into quaint designs, had still determined to
live on, even without the care of their arboreal barber; that really only
the pruning-knife and spade were needed to bring back the garden
to its former beauty. And the solitude was there too, the sense of
utter isolation, as if the outside world were across the sea, whither
nor eye nor voice could follow.
Old Angelo and his pretty daughter—a pure type of the Venetian girl
of to-day, as she stood expectantly with folded arms—met us at the
gate, and led the way to a sort of summer-house, so thickly covered
with matted vines that the sun only filtered through and fell in drops
of gold, spattering the ground below. Here, encrusted with green
mould, was a marble table of exquisite design, its circular top
supported by a tripod with lions’ feet.
Angelo evidently knew my companion and his ways, for in a few
moments the girl returned, bringing a basket of grapes, some figs,
and a flask of wine. The Professor thanked her, and then, dismissing
her with one of his gentle hand-waves and brushing the fallen leaves
from the stone bench with his handkerchief, sat down.
“And now, right here,” said the old fellow, placing his straw hat on the
seat beside him, his gray hair glistening in the soft light, “right here,
where she loved and died, I will tell you the story of the Contessa
Alberoni.
“This most divine of women once lived in a grand old palace above
the Rialto. She belonged to a noble family of Florence, whose
ancestors fought with Philip, before the Campanile was finished. All
over Italy she was known as the most beautiful woman of her day,
and that, let me tell you, at a time when to be counted as beautiful in
Venice was to be beautiful the world over. She was a woman,”—here
the Professor rested his head on the marble seat and half closed his
eyes, as if he were recalling the vision of loveliness from out his own
past,—“well, one of those ideal women, with fathomless eyes and
rounded white arms and throat; a Catherine Cornaro type, of superb
carriage and presence. Titian would have lost his heart over the
torrent of gold that fell in masses about her shapely head, and
Canova might have exhausted all his skill upon the outlines of her
form.
“In the beginning of her womanhood, when yet barely sixteen, she
had married, at her father’s bidding, a decrepit Italian count nearly
thrice her age, who, in profound consideration of her sacrifice, died
in a becoming manner within a few years of their marriage, leaving
her his titles and estates. For ten years of her wedded life and after,
she lived away off in the secluded villa of Valdagna, a small town
nestling among the foothills of the Alps. Then, suddenly awakening
to the power of her wonderful beauty, she took possession of the
great palace on the Grand Canal above the Rialto. You can see it
any day; and save that some of the spindles in the exquisite rose-
marble balconies are broken and the façade blackened and weather-
stained, the exterior is quite as it appeared in her time. The interior,
however, owing to the obliteration of this noble family and the
consequent decay of its vast estates, is almost a ruin. Every piece of
furniture and all the gorgeous hangings are gone; together with the
mantels, and the superb well-curb in the court below. Tell Espero to
take you there some day. You will not only find the grand entrance
blocked with wine casks, but my lady’s boudoir plastered over with
cheap green paper and rented as cheaper lodgings to still cheaper
tenants. Bah!”
Then the Professor, dropping easily and gracefully into a style of
delivery as stilted as if he were remembering the very words of some
old chronicle, told me how she had lived in this grand palace during
the years of her splendor, the pride and delight of all who came