Cursed or Crazy?

            In visiting a patient named “Lisa” at Geauga hospital, one is immediately struck by her level of sedation. She is on suicide watch after an attempt to take her own life in a road side motel room. The sedatives are meant to keep her convulsions at bay. The assumption, upon speaking with hospital staff, is that the bulk of her reckless behavior takes place amidst her manic phases of euphoria. No music is permitted to be played around her as it arouses her and causes the convulsions to return. While mental illness          today is viewed as physiological: stemming from chemical imbalances in the brain, Lisa rocks back and forth on her bed crying and confesses to feeling cursed.

            Over the span of recorded time, many different mechanisms are devised to cope with the mentally ill. Some African and Native American tribes elevate those who experience visual and auditory hallucinations as well as convulsive fits to the rank of Shaman. This is not the case in early modern Europe, where mental illness and epilepsy are often thought to be caused by demonic possession. It is solely in England that the etiology and care of the mentally ill stem from medical means as early as the thirteenth century.

            The image of the strega/putana as it exists in Italian culture today, is a carryover of the early modern image of the village witch. In Federico Fellini's blatantly misogynist Amarcord, the strega/putana character is reduced to nothing more than the village whore. She hyperventilates and trembles, as if only satiated by boughts of sex. These convulsive states of mania are indicative of many etiologies. In Medieval and early modern Europe, convulsive fits are commonly attributed to demonic possession, even when symptoms would seem to the modern eye to point more directly to such modern diagnoses as epilepsy, bi-polar disorder, autism and schizophrenia.

            Symptoms relating to demonic possession in which victims feel themselves stolen away by forces outside of themselves include strong convulsive gyrations, wild facial expressions, feats of extraordinary strength and swelling of the throat as well as abdominal distention. Periods of fasting and self-mutilation are also reported. Midelfort points out that: “culturally specific psychosis are kinds of madness that one finds only in specific societies” (4). This corresponds to the modern contention that many behavioral disorders are socially constructed. Hence a diagnoses of demon possession, while a common occurrence in France and the Germanic states, is less likely to occur in Spain or Italy where Catholic magical curatives are still sanctioned. A diagnoses of demonic possession is even more seldom an occurrence in a country like England where mental health is viewed as being biological in origin and care is under the jurisdiction of the crown.

            These same symptoms of suffocation, wild gyrations and acting out are seen as Moth frenzy among the Navaho. Young women are often thought to be the target of witches and this disease is thought to be the result of a moth bite. In kind, young people afflicted with Saint Vitus's dance and girls who succumb to the bite of the tarantula and subsequently dance the Tarantella, are responding in part, potentially to a spider bite, a beta-hemolytic streptococcal infection, or hysteria. The diagnoses is a matter of where the symptomatic person lives. In France and Italy the pizzica tarantata (little spider bite) is thought to be the cause of a wild spastic, uncontrollable fit of dancing. The dancing is supposed to help the afflicted person sweat out the spider venom. But the etiology as defined by Allessandra Belloni is: “'the bite of love' that occurs when one's subconscious mind is filled with repressed desires. This bite of love often begins during puberty and is caused by a repression of erotic desire or an experience of unrequited love, abuse or depression” (Belloni). These fits correspond to a portion of the symptoms of hysteria, which is commonly attributed to pubescent girls and elderly women who are recently widowed and thus are suddenly deprived of sex.

            Many of these symptoms correspond to Dionysian behavioral rites. Through the repudiation of ordinary protocols of existence, the afflicted seeks momentary respite from imposed societal boundaries. This is true both in Navajo culture as well as in lands that recognize the Tarantella and St. Vitus's dance. In North Africa, Spain, Greece and Italy, the dancing convulsions are thought to be cured solely by music and dance. Tambourines and drums are beaten until the afflicted attains an ecstatic pinnacle that is considered to be a rite of purification. Today, Ms. Belloni, the resurrector of this ancient ritual volunteers at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York where she teaches the dance to mental patients. Along with medication, the dance of the ancient spider is a tool in the healing process of those suffering from bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, dissociative identity disorder and epilepsy. The point of the exercise is to: “break through into another order of experience. The desire of the Dionysian, in personal experience or in ritual, is to press through it toward a certain psychological state, to achieve excess” (Levy 10). Once reached, as in the shudders of orgasm, the symptomatic behavior subsides.

            Many who complain of feeling cursed are also thought to be the victims of melancholy. Melancholy is characterized as a form of depression that deprives the patient of enthusiasm and eagerness. When diagnosed within the context of bodily humours, melancholy is thought to be caused by burnt or black bile. Melancholy is unquestionable the primary inspiration of most of the art of the middle ages, as is evidenced by the fact that, among its sufferers are Eustache Deschamps, George Chastellain and Jean Meschinot. The primary treatment of melancholy is music and dance; the antithesis of acceptable behavior in the eyes of Protestants. Indeed, divine music is thought to drive out the very Devil himself.

            The Greeks consider those afflicted with visions and a flatness of countenance to be possessed by the gods. But all those affected filter occurrences in their world, “through the linguistic lenses of their time and place, and of their ethnicity, class, age, and gender” (Midelfort 10). It is not surprising, therefore, that those afflicted might be considered to be possessed in the early modern era, as even today, ninety percent of disorders experienced worldwide are not to be found among modern diagnostic journals.

                        'Madness' is so general, so vague a term that we find ourselves forced to ask what it                                     meant in any given time or place, and so it well serves the purposes of an empirical                          historian who aims as I do, to convey some of the flavor and strangeness of a forgotten                                culture. (Midelfort 11)

            Midelfort goes on to see a correlation between the flatness of melancholy in the manic level of rationalism and introspection that so often accompany the myriad symptoms of demonic possession.

            Other symptomatic behavior includes disassociation and a refusal to eat or drink. People who refuse food or water are thought to be possessed by demons and are kept alive solely by the hand of God. The conflict in diagnoses arises when one who believe this melancholy is the result of black bile must confer with those who believes these symptoms speak to the presence of the devil. This conflict of diagnostic opinion is one that become more and more common in the days following the Protestant Reformation. Very often rifts in diagnoses stem from one who believes the alienated individual is merely suffering from a humoural imbalance in their juices coming up against a more conventionally minded person who sees the victim as overcome by sin and turning a blind eye to God. Demonologists would infer that, “rather than being concerned solely with the well-being of the individual … exorcism was a proving ground for faith, legitimizing the authority of the individual who performed it” (Ferber 3). Thus the well-being of the sufferer is less important than the saving of Christianity's face with regard to those who suffer from an acute case of disenchantment with the presiding culture.

            A case that highlights this disenchantment is that of Flemish painter, Hugo van der Goes. The artist suffers a breakdown which he chooses to contend with by becoming a spiritual recluse in a cloister.  In the midst of his spiritual downturn, he still paints and receives visitors, among whom is Emperor Maximilian I. His depression is documented by Gasper Ofhuys:

                        When he saw and heard all that had happened, he suspected that he [Brother Hugo] was                             afflicted with the same disease [morbo] as had befallen King Saul, and recalling that                                    Saul had been helped by David's playing the harp [1 Sam. 16: 14-23], he ordered lots of                              music to be made [probably to be sung] and other theatrical performances [spectacula                                  recreativa] for Brother Hugo, by which he hoped to drive off his mental phantasies.                                    Despite these efforts, Brother Hugo did not get better; talking madly [aliena loquens], he                 called himself a son of perdition, and thus indisposed he came home [to the Roode                           Clooster]. (Midelfort 26)

            Hugo van der Goes remains convinced that his spiritual state of alienation is a curse set upon him by God for the sin of pride in his accomplishment as a painter. Therefore he punishes himself by retreating from the world lest his smite God with his talent. As he lives in an era in which Godliness is all that matters, the only means of coping he ascertains for himself is seclusion from the world which would herald his achievements. This is a mental state also visible later in the lives of both William Blake and Allen Ginsburgh. William Blake is often beaten by his mother when he tries to explain to her that God speaks directly through him. It is only through the eyes of history that one sees the communication of that voice in Blake's poetry and paintings. Likewise, in GO by John Clellon Holmes, the character Holmes bases on Ginsburgh, Stofsky, is seen sleeplessly speaking to the ghost of William Blake in search of some personal direction, in search for divine inspiration as it were:

                        To find the Western path

                        Right through the Gates of Wrath

                        I urge my way … (Blake 85)

            Here Ginsburgh's character seeks spiritual guidance through his own mental illness in one whom has suffered before him before God and man. These afflicted souls are trying desperately to reconcile themselves with a spiritual dogma that would stifle the human character in the name of what is culturally deemed to be 'right'. The melancholy suffered herein, thus, is a mechanism by which the afflicted tries to reconcile the spiritual world in which they must live, with the illness that dwells within them. Thus anomie becomes the more accurate diagnoses of those the late Medieval period and the early modern era would perceive as demonically possessed.

            Faucaultian theory contends that power, be it political, economic, or sexual, is derived through knowledge, hence the presiding construct of knowledge is that which yields the most power in a given society. Thus people who present as having knowledge in a marginalized form, such as that derived through sexually driven dancing mania, or that stemming from morose introspection, cannot be permitted power within a Christian social paradigm. Therefore a diagnoses of witchcraft or demonic possession must ensue. Demoniacs are seen as defying the presiding conventions that are the socially constructed ideal of morality of the day. In their trauma, they foresee the future, speak in tongues, and disclose the secrets of the universe.  These symptoms operate in discord with Christian ideals, the predominant knowledge and thus the predominant power.  Judicial records only record the names of demoniacs and witches when they are accused of disrupting societal norms of behavior and thereby calling the social construct of power into question.

            As sixteenth century Europeans concern themselves greatly with the concept of sin and with the existence of the Devil, scandalous, marginal behavior falls under the umbrella of only one possible etiology: that of demonic possession caused by witches. No mind-body connection is understood as being anything other than of this construct. During the Reformation, more Protestants than Catholics commit suicide. Lutherans expect and even anticipate these suicides, given that Luther himself is reported to wrestle with the Devil. Further consensus of this belief that the human soul must live in constant battle with the forces of darkness is the biblical account of Jesus in the wilderness working to cast out demons within his own psyche. This myth serves to validate a phenomenon of exorcism in the early modern era. However, exorcisms are often orchestrated to win over converts, “to either Catholicism or a particular Protestant denomination, making the veracity of all such accounts of possession fundamentally suspect” (Levack 4). This is evidenced in the fact that many of these stories are utilized in sermons meant to win converts and also in the fact that these testimonies are often the words of the scribes and not the words of the victims of possession. These instances serve to validate Emile Durkeim's theory of anomie: that state of rootlessness and normlessness found in a social construct that has been so quickly and so profoundly changed as to leave its people with no tangible paradigm of reality in which they can comfortably find and define themselves. Much of the conflict defined as demonic possession therefore can be defined as the alienation of those souls who, for whatever reason, fall into a state of conflict with the presiding social norms of their day, norms that leave no room for the normalcy of emotions such as despondency, despair, sexual anxiety or ecstasy: “efforts to unmask demonic possessions as schizophrenia, melancholy as depression, or all psychiatric categories as the ultimate tools of repression … are ubiquities. Only the subjective notion of despair remains fairly common to most societies” (Lederer 145). One other means of healing these anomalies left to the people of the early modern era albeit one that is becoming less common, is the healing act of pilgrimage.

            The average pilgrim comes from the socio-economic class of commoners. Both men and women resort to this means of healing their ills when faced with feelings of being cursed. Many records of such accounts are kept at these shrines and record the number of afflicted who seek out treatment. However these books have been edited to favor the results ascribed to these individual saints. The numbers however, are staggering and are recorded to dissuade the average skeptic. Unedited versions of these records still do provide a uniform picture. Even shrines not directly affiliated with the treatment of the mentally ill confirm that an even number of men and women sought wellness in the name of various saints and the blessed virgin: “The earliest printed miracle books kept at any shrine in Bavaria are those of our Lady of Altotting from 1495 to 1497 … confirm that at least forty-three pilgrims were treated for their spiritual afflictions, both major and minor” (Lederer 150). Marian shrines also carry records that state pilgrimages are made by relatives in the name of over 350 cases of madness and suicide. More than 1500 cases of spiritual afflictions are also recorded elsewhere. These records are all coherent, deliberate and consistent. The ill include criminals as well as law abiding family members. All records delineate symptoms via means of, “Galenic humoral pathology, Aristotelian faculty psychology, moral causality and magical explanations” (Lederer 150).  There is no record of whether these treatments worked either completely or at all.

            The elimination of etiologies such as hysteria and St. Vitus's dance from the vocabulary of maladies require a change in epistemology. For this to occur, the mind and the body have to be viewed as separate from the soul. Nowhere are the cultural and social forces necessary to cause this change, a place where behavioral discrepancies are evaluated at face value during the late Medieval and early modern era more prevalent, than in England.

            Throughout Europe people have enough wherewithal to differentiate between congenital mental illness and supernatural afflictions. There are even hospitals that house the insane although these facilities are rather Dickensian in their outlook and treatment of such patients. While treatment is still inhumane by modern standards, men like Juan Vives and Cornelius Agrippa are espousing treatment plans based on scientific theories of the day. As early as the thirteenth century theorists such as Bartholomaeus attribute mental illness to nature rather that demons: “much evidence exists to suggest that the Inquisition's interest in witchcraft – and its inevitable corollary insanity was belated and secondary” (Neugebauer 478). Much of the mentally ill, like those who suffer from diseases of questionable origins, are cared for by the community as well as their families. Demonology only receives importance as an etiology after the fifteenth century when relics, salt, and holy water are no longer curative options. 

            Patients in England fall into two categories, idiots: those who are incompetent from birth, and lunatics: those who fall ill due to an accident, trauma or prolonged illness. Idiots are protected by the crown, whereas lunatics are the responsibility of their family. These agreements are a matter of English law, but it is an understood aspect of culture that community care is to be provided. In the paperwork for some patients however, diagnoses is occasionally worded so that the onset of illness is said to be caused by the, “snares of evil spirits” (Roffe 1708). One patient's information accounts her as being not   mentally sound and not having the intelligence to care for herself. These intelligence tests entail her being asked to correctly account for money and knowing what day of the week it is. This confusing of intelligence with sanity is worth noting. Still, according to Chancery, her family is allotted due sums of income from her estate sufficient to cover the cost of her care.

            The diagnostic tool of humoural imbalance is still the norm. While most treatment plans in hospital entail herbal, dietary and surgical procedures, spells are still occasionally used to remedy symptomatic behavior. However madness brought about by trauma is recognized and is treated with no regard for any possible demonological root cause. Once the crown sorts out who is to be paid to care for the mentally unsound person in question until they either became well, or until an heir is old enough to inherit, both the family and the community resume care for said person.

            The decision to put a person under the care of their family comes about through a process of inquisition by jury. These men are asked questions so as to ascertain their ability to judge the situation fairly. They then break down a plan for the care of the incompetent person that includes, family, community and royal involvement. The law that puts this form of guardianship into practice is known as the Praerogativa regis. This dates back to the time of King Edward I. The most enlightening fact of this legislation is that it does not grant the right to a lord to interfere with the financial affairs of his tenants and workers, making this the earliest known proof that England's healthcare system is among the most compassionate in the world. That said, complaints are still put forward often regarding caretakers not providing sufficiently for their wards. This system of care, “was rooted in the need to manage land, the primary nexus of medieval society” (Roffe 1710). The English, here, manage to find a way to make making money and caring for their public coincide.

            The question of whether a person is cursed or crazy is one affected by many variables during the late Medieval and early modern era. Convulsive fits and anxiety are often attributed to demonic possession. These diagnoses are not pervasive, but rather occur where Protestantism has more of a stronghold on cultural norms. Diseases like the Tarantata and St. Vitus's dance, once explained as demonic possession, more accurately can be defined as responses to the religious oppression of natural human responses to sexual and ecstatic desire. Indeed, the cure for melancholy, dating all the way back to the time of King Saul is music and dance. It is only in the face of the misinterpretation of Christ's message that the well-being of the spiritually afflicted is considered less important than the saving of Christian face. Artists throughout history leave us with the evidence of this spiritual turmoil in the paintings, poems and plays. This creative evidence points to the power of the church to mandate the definition of knowledge. Worth noting is the higher number of suicides among Protestants versus Catholics: this denoting the efficacy of magical healing arts such as salt and holy water to assuage symptomatic behavior. Other tools such as pilgrimage to holy shrines serve to heal the anomic tumult felt by so many people during the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is only in England that mental illness begins to be viewed as a natural phenomenon.

            Upon leaving the patient “Lisa” in Geauga hospital, her visitor tries to remind Lisa that she is a child of God. The visitor recites the following prayer to her in hopes that it may make Lisa feel better:

                        May the road rise up to meet you.

                        May the wind always be at your back.

                        May the sun shine warm upon your face,

                        and rains fall soft upon your fields.

                        And until we meet again,

                        May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

            Lisa responds with a smile. It is the sincerest hope of her visitor that she might understand that this morsel of spirituality is meant to buoy her in her time of pain. In this era of medicalization of what was once considered to be a spiritual conflict, pain still exists. The social construct of how that pain is addressed is all that time has amended.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Belloni, Alessandra. “Liner Notes.” Tarantata: Dance of the Ancient Spider. Alessandra Belloni. Sounds True, 2003. CD.

Ferber, Sarah. Demonic Possession And Exorcism In Early Modern France. London: Routledge, 2004. Print.

Blake, William. “Daybreak” in GO. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1952. Print.

Lederer, David. Madness, Religion And The State In Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Print.

Levack, Brain P. The Devil Within: Possession & Exorcism In The Christian West. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013. Print.

Levy, Jerrold E. et al. Hand Trembling, Frenzy Witchcraft, And Moth Madness: A Story Of Navaho Seizure Disorders. Tucson: The University Of Arizona Press, 1987. Print.

Midelfort, Erik H.C. A History Of Madness In Sixteenth-Century Germany. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. Print.

Midelfort, Erik H.C. Witchcraft, Madness, Society, And Religion In Early Modern Germany: A Ship Of Fools. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2013. Print.

Neugebauer, Richard. “Medieval And Early Modern Theories Of Mental Illness.” Archives Of General Psychiatry 36. 4. (1979): 477-483. Print.

Roffe, David., and Roffe, Christine. “Madness And Care In The Community: A Medieval Perspective.” BMJ: British Medical Journal 311. 7021. (1995): 1708-1712. Print.

Public 5. “Irish Blessings & Prayers” Island Ireland. Irish Folk Culture. Web. 26 April 2014.