
Sign or Symptom?
Exceptional Corporeal Phenomena in Religion and Medicine in the 19th and 20th Centuries
Leuven University Press
1st Edition
Published on 12. June 2017
Book
Paperback/Softback
208 pages
978-94-6270-107-6 (ISBN)
Description
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. Contributors Ellen Amster (McMaster University), Nicole Edelman (Universite de Paris-Ouest-Nanterre), Maria Heidegger (Universitat Innsbruck), Mary Heimann (Cardiff University), Paula Kane (University of Pittsburgh), Sofie Lachapelle (University of Guelph), Tiago Pires Marques (Universidade de Coimbra), Tine Van Osselaer (Universiteit Antwerpen)
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. Contributors Ellen Amster (McMaster University), Nicole Edelman (Universite de Paris-Ouest-Nanterre), Maria Heidegger (Universitat Innsbruck), Mary Heimann (Cardiff University), Paula Kane (University of Pittsburgh), Sofie Lachapelle (University of Guelph), Tiago Pires Marques (Universidade de Coimbra), Tine Van Osselaer (Universiteit Antwerpen)
Reviews / Votes
Skillnaden mellan vetenskapligt och religioest grundade epistemologier under 1800- och 1900-talen har diskuterats i vetenskapshistoriska framstaellningar och da inte saellan oeverbetonats. Boken Sign or Symptom? visar att denna tendens till tudelning av de tva epistemologiska systemen aer oeverdriven. Det tycks snarast som att de kompletterade varandra aen utgjorde varandras motpoler. De exceptionella kroppsliga fenomen som star i centrum i antologin utgoer ett utomordentligt vael laempat - och spaennande - undersoekningsomrade foer att fa syn pa detta. Antologins huvudtitel aer saledes retorisk. Under den epok som bokens bidrag behandlar roerde det sig inte om en motsaettning mellan religion och medicin - om tecken eller symtom - utan om att en religioes neuros kunde uppfattas som bade och, det vill saega bade som ett tecken pa en religioes erfarenhet och som ettsymtom pa en medicinskt foerklarlig akomma.Alexander Maurits, Kyrkohistorisk arsskrift 2020 This interesting collection of essays arose from a workshop held at Leiden in 2013. It is a welcome contribution to the growing number of studies connecting religion to medicine in the modern era. [...] the stories are truly engaging and the editorial work is superb, with convenient, concise footnotes that relate to a common bibliography and an index of proper names (but not ideas). As a whole, Sign or Symptom? stands as an engaging invitation to contemplate the power of microhistory in understanding the interplay of science and faith.Jacalyn Duffin, Isis, volume 109, number 2, june 2018 'This is an invaluable collection of essays on a topic that digs deeply into issues of great human importance, asking what "exceptional corporeal phenomena" might mean and how we might understand and possibly make use of them. It provides the historical perspective we need to dig down on the mind-body problem and the actual possibility of "miracles." 'Michael Grosso, Reading Religion, 7 August 2018 Aqui radica, esencialmente, el gran logro -entendido como contribucion colectiva- de este fascinante libro, cuya lectura es muy pertinente para historiadores de la ciencia y de la medicina, investigadores de los fenomenos religiosos, profesionales de la salud y cientificos sociales.Angel Martinez Hernaez, Dynamis 2018; 38 (1): 255-279 Academici blikken in 'Sign or Symptom?' terug op twee eeuwen onderzoek naar onder meer stigmata en wonderbaarlijke genezingen. Zowel kerkelijke instanties als wetenschappers hebben in die vermeende tekenen van God vaak symptomen van psychische stoornissen gezien.
Jan Brouwers, Tertio 935, 10 januari 2018 Een panel van internationale academici buigt zich in deze studie over de banden tussen religie en psychiatrie in diverse contexten: hoe werden religieuze pathologieen benaderd in instellingen, mystiek versus geneeskunde in Engeland, mariale verschijningen in Portugal enzovoort. Een merkwaardige studie over een merkwaardig onderwerp dat ook vele banden heeft met Belgie, te beginnen met Pierre De Rudder in Oostakker.
ChristusRex.be, 23/7/2017
More details
Series
Edition
01
Language
English
Place of publication
Leuven
Belgium
Target group
College/higher education
Interest Age: From 18 years
Illustrations
20 b&w
Dimensions
Height: 238 mm
Width: 170 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
410 gr
ISBN-13
978-94-6270-107-6 (9789462701076)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Tine Van Osselaer | Henk de Smaele | Kaat Wils
Sign or Symptom?
Exceptional Corporeal Phenomena in Religion and Medicine in the 19th and 20th Centuries
E-Book
03/2017
1st Edition
Leuven University Press
€47.99
Available for download
Persons
Tine Van Osselaer is research professor at Universiteit Antwerpen (Ruusbroec Institute). Henk de Smaele is associate professor of history and member of the research unit Power in History: Centre for Political History at Universiteit Antwerpen. Kaat Wils is professor in European cultural history and head of the research groupCultural History since 1750 at KU Leuven.
Content
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
Bibliography
Index
Contributors
Colophon
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
Bibliography
Index
Contributors
Colophon