Kindle Book 46. The Influencing Machine by Mike Jay.
I bumped into this via William Gibson's twitter stream. Not sure how I'd have found it otherwise. And it is a magnificent book so I'm very grateful. It is, I suppose, a history, the history of a Bedlam inmate who claimed to see elaborate conspiracies everywhere, caused by a hideous technological invention, the Air Loom. The interesting twist is that, it would seem, he had actually seen elaborate conspiracies everywhere. It's a brilliant read. Read it.
I'm not sure my highlights are useful, they're just fragments, but here they are, they might give you a flavour.
"influencing machine’: a hallucinatory device that sends messages and controls minds. For everyone who has since had messages beamed at them through their fillings, or their TV sets, or via high-tech surveillance, MI5, Masonic lodges or UFOs, James Tilly Matthews is Patient Zero"
"He always carried a sponge, with which he would erase any chalked public signs he found incorrect either grammatically or morally"
"‘delusions of reference’"
"‘cacodemonomania’, or demonic possession"
"The Omni Imperious Palace"