The Air Loom, if Matthews revealed its existence under questioning, would now be recognised immediately as a classic paranoid delusion. But in 1797 it was something that had never been encountered before, and would emerge as the baffling leitmotif of a case that was unprecedented in almost every imaginable way.
Mike Jay, A Visionary Madness: The Case of James Tilly Matthews and the Influencing Machine
biography, history, psychology