The Air Loom Gang

James Tilly Matthews was a London tea merchant with republican sympathies who became embroiled in a self-styled peace mission between France and England in 1793. He became ignored, then jailed, by the French. He returned to England to warn the Prime Minister that teams of "magnetic spies" had infiltrated England and were preparing to use 'air looms' (a type of mind control machine that used "animal magnetism" and mesmerism) to overthrow the government.Matthews also believed he was subject to control by the air loom, which he believed was operated by the sinister 'air loom gang' consisting of seven members led by a man called "Bill, or the King". He was convinced that the gang were trying to destroy him by using "torture-at-a-distance" which included torments such as "foot-curving, lethargy-making, spark-exploding, knee-nailing, burning out, eye-screwing" and other fantastical effects.

According to Wikipedia

Although it is impossible to make a unequivocal diagnosis of a long-dead person, Matthews' description of his torment by the "Air Loom Gang" reads as a classic example of paranoid delusions brought on as part of a psychotic episode. From this, it can be concluded that his disorder was most likely schizophrenia, although other explanations are possible.

Nowadays people who say the government or criminal gangs are controlling their brains and attacking them with various radio or microwave devices are commonplace, but James Tilley Matthews came up with this back in the 1790s. The Sporadic Chronicle.