Sign or symptom? : exceptional corporeal phenomena in religion and medicine in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries / edited byTine Van Osselaer, Henk de Smaele, Kaat Wils.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Edward Potts Cheyney Memorial Fund.

Van Osselaer, Tine, editor.

Smaele, Henk de, editor.

Wils, Kaat, editor.

Series:

KADOC studies on religion, culture, and society ; 19.

KADOC Studies on Religion, Culture & Society ; 19

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Religion and Medicine.

Religion and Science.

Religion and Psychology.

Illusions.

History, 19th Century.

History, 20th Century.

Medicine--Religious aspects.

Medicine.

Religion and science--History--19th century.

Religion and science.

Religion and science--History--20th century.

Parapsychology and medicine.

Parapsychology and science.

History.

Medical Subjects:

Religion and Medicine.

Religion and Science.

Religion and Psychology.

Illusions.

History, 19th Century.

History, 20th Century.

Physical Description:

204 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Leuven, Belgium : Leuven University Press, [2017]

Summary:

Religion and science on paranormal events. Described as 'the hand of God', as 'pathological' or even as 'a clever trick', exceptional corporeal phenomena such as miraculous cures, stigmata, and incorrupt corpses have triggered heated debates in the past. Depending on their definition as either 'supernatural', 'psycho-somatic' or 'fraudulent', different authorities have sought to explain these enigmatic occurrences by stimulating inquiries and claiming jurisdiction over them. As a consequence, separate ecclesiastic and medical forms of expertise emerged on these issues in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This incommensurability has since echoed in historical analyses of paranormal events. In this book the emphasis is not placed solely on the debates within one or the other epistemological system (science or religion), but also on the crossovers and collaborations between them. Religion and science developed through a process of interaction. A changing religious climate and new religious currents provided new cases for study. Religious phenomena inspired new medical approaches such as the healing power of faith. New medical findings could be adopted to oppose new messiahs and medical imagery came to inspire the campaigns of opponents of aberrant of religious currents. 'Sign or Symptom?' explores how the evolutions within religion and science influenced each other, a productive interaction that has been hidden from view until now.

Contents:

Introduction / Tine van Osselaer

The devil in the madhouse: on the treatment of religious pathologies in early psychiatry, Tyrol, 1830-1850 / Maria Heidegger

Gustave Boissarie, Jean-Martin Charcot and Sigmund Freud: three doctors' responses to some unusual bodily phenomena : convergences and divergences (in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) / Nicole Edelman

Prophecies of pilgrimage: the rise and fall of Marie Bergadieu, the ecstatic of Fontet / Sofie Lachapelle

Medical and mystical opinion in British catholicism: the contentious case of Teresa Higginson / Mary Heimann

Disenchanted America: accounting for the lack of extraordinary mystical phenomena in catholic America / Paula Kane

The mad saint as healer:"the Islamic majnun in al-Kattani's Salwat al-anfas and in French colonial medicine and sociology / Ellen J. Amster

Experiencing religion and medicine: Marian apparition and victim souls in Portugal, 1910-1950 / Tiago Pires Marques

A question of competence and authority: lay views on the medical examinations of the Marian apparition series in 1930s Belgium / Tine van Osselaer.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and (pages [187]-198) index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Edward Potts Cheyney Memorial Fund.

ISBN:

9789462701076

9462701075

OCLC:

975028922

Publisher Number:

99976912924