In October of 2022, while researching the history of the treatment of mental health, I came across a book written by a young man living in an asylum in Poughkeepsie, New York. The book was an autobiography, and it had a very curious name: The Piling of Tophet and the Trespass-Offering. It was written by John T. Fowler, and published in New York in 1879. 

I read the book, and felt very moved by John Fowler’s life story. I thought his book was beautifully written, introspective, and highly analytical. 

I had trouble understanding certain parts of it, however. I later realized, that in these parts, he was writing about his experience of auditory hallucinations, in which the people around him — fellow patients, doctors and attendants — appeared to be talking about his own private thoughts.

John Fowler was not sure that others were actually reading his mind, but he pondered much on how such a thing could be possible, and what its underlying mechanism might be. 

I tried to learn more about John Fowler’s life, using census data, journals, newspapers and maps. What I found was consistent with his account in The Piling of Tophet. 

I decided to republish John Fowler’s book, with an historical introduction and some notes. That was the beginning of Lucetia Press. 

I believe The Piling of Tophet is a something of a landmark in the history of psychology and the philosophy of perception. Early works on hallucinations and delusions were written overwhelmingly by professionals. The Piling of Tophet is an early example of an analytical work written by one who experienced these things himself.

John Fowler also described in his book many well-known psychological concepts, known today as paranoia, thought broadcasting, thought perseveration, face pareidolia, auditory pareidolia, and apophenia.

Very few copies of the original Piling of Tophet from 1879 have survived. I hope its republication will spark some interest in John Fowler’s life, and increase the chance that his work will be preserved for future generations.  

The quotes below are from John Fowler’s 1879 autobiography, The Piling of Tophet, except for the final one, which is from his short work The Lying Deceitfulness of Anti-Lunacy, also published in 1879.

Distress in Hempstead:

“When my state of hopeless entanglement and writhing, agonized perplexity was at its height I heard the voice of Mrs. Pettit, “Oh! the poor thing can’t see that he’s mad!” the comment falling upon the scene of gloom in a way that increased my confusion rather than consoled. All my feelings and thoughts appeared to be thus overlooked by those near and maliciously taken advantage of. It seems to me that this is a species of torment that the poets of the classical age never chanced upon in their delineations of Tartarus.”

Flight from Hempstead:

“I heard of the Poughkeepsie Asylum for the first time when I was told that I was to be sent there. I had some anticipation that after I reached the asylum I might succeed in getting the medical authorities to give serious attention to my representations — possibly convince them that I was not deluded, and get things put on their true foundation…On Friday afternoon I got so excessively irritated that I was certain I could not stand it four days longer without losing command of myself, and just at dusk I suddenly resolved to escape from my besetting troubles by flight. I started off on the instant, declaring that I shook off the dust of my feet against the place, and in a few minutes I was making my way across the plains, with the village low down upon the horizon behind me.”

Traveling to the hospital in Poughkeepsie:

“In passing through New York City in a street-car it appeared to me that every one I heard talking shifted the subject as soon as I fixed my attention on him to “He set that whole village against him by his constant monotonous whistling.” The whistling of every street-boy, and the shrill whistles which I heard blown at every turn, struck upon my lacerated nerves most painfully. Perhaps midway of the trip, or later, a plainly-dressed woman of middle age entered the car. Room was made for her on my side of the car, but she refused to take the seat, saying “I am afraid it might incommode that young gentleman there,” pointing to me. She stood and seemed to regard me benevolently. Whatever the magnetism of her manner may have been, from that moment I took no more notice of the things that had harrowed my soul before.

A delusion of being the subject of a medical experiment:

“Sometimes when I breathed a tune to myself or read in a whisper, I would hear the manager, seemingly in a state of desperate exasperation, shouting that one of his most beautiful experiments had been entirely ruined by the disturbance my whisper had produced.”

“One word more of the English doctor. He was said to have declared that if he had assisted at my birth he would not have suffered me to remain alive, as the monstrous character of my organization could have been seen at a glance.”

On Hearing Voices:

“It was wonderful what effects were produced. At one time I heard the voice of a person in the far distance, speaking constantly in a loud oratorical voice, interpreting every thought and conception that arose in my mind with a fluency and copiousness of wording that was astounding, and which I never could have aspired to by my own exertions. If I suffered my eyes to rest on the distant landscape, the objects seen were successively described in flowing periods, and the whole delivered in a finished and effective style of elocution.”

“Much of this troubling by the intrusion upon my inner consciousness of uninvited spirits has been of so marvelously telephonic a character that I am undecided whether to attribute to it a foundation of reality or not.”

Exercising the Will:

“Whatever we have learned we can affect by our conscious acts becomes a field for the exercise of our wills. The only way we can use our wills is by our memory of things we have done…It is so with every course we fall into, good or bad. It was so with me when I fell into the habits of hostility in sentiment which I have touched on in these pages. It was by the same process that I was led to the writing of this book. I learned to know a desirable effect from the diffusion of light in this way and have clung to the purpose as my only hope of escaping endless war. May the little rill sent out with Dr. Kellogg’s cooperation become a torrent that will sweep away the entire dam.”

The Wall of Separation:

“Am I deceived? I have sometimes thought that I got near enough to the wall of separation to see over it — to perceive with my sane sense coincidently with the reception of impressions on my crazed sense.”

I am pleased to announce the publication of The Piling of Tophet, the autobiography of John T. Fowler.

John Fowler was born on Long Island, New York in 1843, and spent his youth as a farmer. When he was in his late twenties, he developed auditory hallucinations and delusions, and was committed to the Hudson River State Hospital in Poughkeepsie.

He wrote his autobiography, The Piling of Tophet, while living at the hospital, and his book was published in 1879.

The neurologist Dr. Frederick Peterson reviewed The Piling of Tophet in 1889, writing, “It is remarkable for its excellent literary style, and for its keen reasoning and psychological analysis…It is as fascinating as a novel.”

Woven into John Fowler’s life story are five additional chapters — covering his life philosophy, his views on religion, his experience of hearing voices, and a record of his dreams —providing rich context for understanding his life and thought.

Now in print after 145 years, this new and unabridged edition of The Piling of Tophet comes with an historical introduction, notes, and photographs.

The Piling of Tophet is available for purchase at Amazon, Apple Books, and Barnes & Noble.

To read how The Piling of Tophet came to be republished in 2023, please read The Rediscovery of the Piling of Tophet.

To read excerpts from the writing of John T. Fowler, please click Quotes by John T. Fowler