The Warfare of Science With Theology
From Diabolism To Hysteria
by Andrew Dickson White
- Survival of the belief in diabolic activity as the cause of such epidemics
- Epidemics of hysteria in classical times
- In the Middle Ages
- The dancing mania
- Inability of science during the fifteenth century to cope with such diseases
- Cases of possession brought within the scope of medical research during the sixteenth century
- Dying-out of this form of mental disease in northern Europe
- In Italy
- Epidemics of hysteria in the convents
- The case of Martha Brossier
- Revival in France of belief in diabolic influence
- The Ursulines of Loudun and Urbain Grandier
- Possession among the Huguenots
- In New England.--The Salem witch persecution
- At Paris.--Alleged miracles at the grave of Archdeacon Paris
- In Germany.--Case of Maria Renata Sanger
- More recent outbreaks
- Outbreaks of hysteria in factories and hospitals
- In places of religious excitement
- The case at Morzine
- Similar cases among Protestants and in Africa
- Successful dealings of medical science with mental diseases
- Attempts to give a scientific turn to the theory of diabolic agency in disease
- Last great demonstration of the old belief in England
- Final triumph of science in the latter half of the present century
- Last echoes of the old belief
IN the foregoing chapter I have sketched the triumph of science in destroying the idea that individual lunatics are "possessed by devils," in establishing the truth that insanity is physical disease, and in substituting for superstitious cruelties toward the insane a treatment mild, kindly, and based upon ascertained facts.
The Satan who had so long troubled individual men and women thus became extinct; henceforth his fossil remains only were preserved: they may still be found in the sculptures and storied windows of medieval churches, in sundry liturgies, and in popular forms of speech.
But another Satan still lived--a Satan who wrought on a larger scale--who took possession of multitudes. For, after this triumph of the scientific method, there still remained a class of mental disorders which could not be treated in asylums, which were not yet fully explained by science, and which therefore gave arguments of much apparent strength to the supporters of the old theological view: these were the epidemics of "diabolic possession" which for so many centuries afflicted various parts of the world.
When obliged, then, to retreat from their old position in regard to individual cases of insanity, the more conservative theologians promptly referred to these epidemics as beyond the domain of science--as clear evidences of the power of Satan; and, as the basis of this view, they cited from the Old Testament frequent references to witchcraft, and, from the New Testament, St. Paul's question as to the possible bewitching of the Galatians, and the bewitching of the people of Samaria by Simon the Magician.
Naturally, such leaders had very many adherents in that class, so large in all times, who find that
"To follow foolish precedents and wink With both our eyes, is easier than to think."[]It must be owned that their case seemed strong. Though in all human history, so far as it is closely known, these phenomena had appeared, and though every classical scholar could recall the wild orgies of the priests, priestesses, and devotees of Dionysus and Cybele, and the epidemic of wild rage which took its name from some of these, the great fathers and doctors of the Church had left a complete answer to any scepticism based on these facts; they simply pointed to St. Paul's declaration that the gods of the heathen were devils: these examples, then, could be transformed into a powerful argument for diabolic possession.[136b]
But it was more especially the epidemics of diabolism in medieval and modern times which gave strength to the theological view, and from these I shall present a chain of typical examples.
As early as the eleventh century we find clear accounts of diabolical possession taking the form of epidemics of raving, jumping, dancin