the Oriental Church in the following passage: “The fakirs of India and
the monks of the Oriental Church were alike persuaded that in total
abstraction of the faculties of the mind and body the purer spirit may
ascend to the enjoyment and vision of the Deity. The opinions and
practices of the monasteries of Mount Athos will be best represented
in the words of an abbot who flourished in the eleventh century. ‘When
thou art alone in thy cell,’ says the ascetic teacher, ‘shut thy door
and seat thyself in a corner; raise thy mind above all things vain and
transitory; recline thy beard and thy chin on thy breast; turn thine
eyes and thy thoughts toward the middle of thy belly, the region of
the navel; {340} and search the place of the heart, the seat of the
soul. At first all will be dark and comfortless; but if you persevere
day and night you will feel an ineffable joy; and no sooner has the
soul discovered the place of the heart than it is involved in a mystic
and ethereal light.’ This light, the production of a distempered
fancy, the creature of an empty stomach and an empty brain, was adored
by the Quietists as the pure and perfect essence of God himself; and
as long as the folly was confined to Mount Athos the simple solitaries
were not inquisitive how the divine essence could be a material
substance, or how an immaterial substance could be perceived by the
eyes of the body. But in the reign of the younger Andronicus the
monasteries were visited by Barlaam, a Calabrian monk, who was equally
skilled in philosophy and theology, who possessed the languages of the
Greeks and Latins, and whose versatile genius could maintain their
opposite creeds according to the interest of the moment. The
indiscretion of an ascetic revealed to the curious traveller the
secrets of mental prayer, and Barlaam embraced the opportunity of
ridiculing the Quietists, who placed the soul in the navel—of accusing
the monks of Mount Athos of heresy and blasphemy.”
[Footnote 1: _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, by Edward Gibbon,
Esq., in 8 vols., vol. viii. p. 64, London, 1838.]
Some of Swedenborg's supernatural visions were, so far as can be
judged, simply accounts of attacks of ecstasy; and of like character
were the visions of John Engelbrecht as related by Arnold.[2]
[Footnote 2: _Observations_, etc., London, 1806.]
In a very curious American book[3] published in 1815 a history is
given of the wonderful performances of a woman named Rachel Baker, who
was undoubtedly in the habit of passing into conditions of religious
ecstasy, during which were present many of the phenomena which occur
in ecstatics, Catholic or Protestant, religious or otherwise. When
seventeen years old she witnessed the baptism of a young lady, which
impressed her strongly and caused her to become much dejected and
affected about her religious state. She began to have evening reveries
or night talks which soon attracted attention. She united with the
Presbyterian Church. These reveries after a while expanded into
evening exercises which began with prayer, after which she exhorted
and made a closing prayer. She removed from Marcellus to Scipio, New
York, in 1813, and shortly afterward, in the same year, she went to
New York City for medical advice. While there she gave many
opportunities to witness her powers when in what her editors quaintly
call her somnial paroxysms. Her discourses were good illustrations of
what is sometimes termed trance-preaching.
[Footnote 3: _Devotional Somnium; or, A Collection of Prayers and
Exhortations Uttered by Miss Rachel Baker_, by Several Medical
Gentlemen, New York, 1815.]
One of the most interesting parts of this curious book is a
dissertation by Samuel L. Mitchill, M.D., on the function of somnium.
He says there are three states of animal existence—wakefulness, sleep,
and vision or dream. The definition of somnium, which he quotes from
Cicero, is a very fair one to be applied to some of the conditions
which we now speak of under such heads as lethargy, trance, ecstasy,
etc. “By somnium,” he says, “may be understood the performance of
certain mental and bodily actions, which are usually voluntary,
without the direction or government of the will or without the
recollection afterward that such volition existed.” He divides somnium
into symptomatic and {341} idiopathic. The symptomatic somnium occurs
from indigestion, the nightmare, from affusions of water into the
chest, from a feverish state of the body, from debility with fasting,
from fresh and vivid occurrences, etc. The idiopathic somnium is
divided into somnium from abstraction, somnium with partial or
universal lunacy, with walking, with talking, with invention, with
mistaken impressions of sight and of hearing, with singing, with
ability to pray and preach or to address the Supreme Being and human
auditors in an instructive and eloquent manner, without any
recollection of having been so employed, and with utter incompetency
to perform such exercises of devotion and instruction when awake. To
the last of these affections he refers the case of Rachel Baker, whose
devotional somnium he describes.
A number of other curious cases are recorded in this book: that of Job
Cooper, a weaver who flourished in Pennsylvania about the year 1774;
that of the Rev. Dr. Tennent, who came near having a funeral in one of
his states of trance, who has related his own views, apprehensions,
and observations while in a state of suspended animation. He saw hosts
of happy beings; he heard songs and hallelujahs; he felt joy
unutterable and full of glory: he was, in short, in a state of
ecstatic trance. Goldsmith's history of Cyrillo Padovando, a noted
sleep-walker, who was a very moral man while awake, but when
sleep-walking a first-class thief, robber, and plunderer of the dead,
is also given.
One of the most remarkable instances of ecstasy is that of the girl
Bernadette Soubirons, whose wonderful visions led to the establishment
of the now famous shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in the south of
France. It is related of this young girl by her historian Lasserre[4]
that when about to cross the Gave, a mountain-stream of the Pyrenees,
she suddenly saw in a niche of a rock a female figure of incomparable
splendor, which she described as a real woman with an aureola about
her head and her whole body of surprising brightness. The child
afterward described in detail the vision she had seen. Later, on a
number of occasions at the same spot, she saw the same vision,
described as appearing transfigured. The child believed that she saw
the Immaculate Virgin. The Virgin told her that she wished a church to
be built on the spot. The place has since become a shrine for
Catholics of all nations.
[Footnote 4: _Our Lady of Lourdes_, by Henri Lasserre, translated from
the French, 7th ed., New York, 1875.]
Meredith Clymer[5] has written an elaborate communication on ecstasy.
Ambrose Paré, quoted by Clymer, defines ecstasy as a reverie with
rapture of the mind, as if the soul was parted from the body. Briquet
describes it as a state of cerebral exaltation carried to such a
degree that the attention, concentrated on a single object, produces
the temporary abolishment of the other senses and of voluntary
movements.
[Footnote 5: “Notes on Ecstasy and other Dramatic Disorders of the
Nervous System,” _Journal of Psychological Medicine_, vol. iv., No. 4,
October 1870.]
ETIOLOGY.—Under the predisposing causes of ecstasy may be comprised
almost all of those described under hysteria. The predisposition to
the development of ecstasy will be governed in great measure by
peculiarities of religious education and of domestic and social
environment.
Extreme religious feeling is undoubtedly among the most frequent of
{342} the exciting causes of ecstasy. The accidents and incidents of
love have also had a place. Sexual excitement is sometimes associated
with the production of ecstasy. “In pre-Christian times,” says
Chambers, “when, in default of revelation, men worshipped their
incarnate passions, we have from the pen of Sappho a description of a
purely erotic ecstasy which can never be produced again.” Fear or
fright has been known to throw a predisposed individual into an attack
of ecstasy. Severe threats have occasionally had the same influence.
SYMPTOMATOLOGY.—In considering the symptomatology of ecstasy it will
only be necessary to call attention to the ecstatic attack. The
accompanying phenomena are those of hysteria, hystero-epilepsy, etc.,
already fully described. I cannot do better than quote from Lasserre
the account of one of the ecstatic seizures of Bernadette Soubirons.
Although given in turgid language and from the religious point of
view, the description is a good one of the objective phenomena of
ecstasy:
“A few moments afterward you might have seen her brow light up and
become radiant. The blood, however, did not mantle her visage; on the
contrary, she grew slightly pale, as if Nature somewhat succumbed in
the presence of the apparition which manifested itself to her. All her
features assumed a lofty and still more lofty expression, and entered,
as it were, a superior region, a country of glory, significant of
sentiments and things which are not found below. Her mouth, half open,
was gasping with admiration and seemed to aspire to heaven. Her eyes,
fixed and blissful, contemplated an invisible beauty, which no one
else perceived, but whose presence was felt by all, seen by all, so to
say, by reverberation on the countenance of the child. This poor
little peasant-girl, so ordinary in her habitual state, seemed to have
ceased to belong to this earth.
“It was the Angel of Innocence, leaving the world for a moment behind
and falling in adoration at the moment the eternal gates are opened
and the first view of paradise flashes on the sight.
“All those who have seen Bernadette in this state of ecstasy speak of
the sight as of something entirely unparalleled on earth. The
impression made upon them is as strong now, after the lapse of ten
years, as on the first day.
“What is also remarkable, although her attention was entirely absorbed
by the contemplation of the Virgin full of grace, she was, to a
certain degree, conscious of what was passing around her.
“At a certain moment her taper went out; she stretched out her hand
that the person nearest to her might relight it.
“Some one having wished to touch the wild rose with a stick, she
eagerly made him a sign to desist, and an expression of fear passed
over her countenance. ‘I was afraid,’ she said afterward with
simplicity, ‘that he might have touched the Lady and done her harm.’”
Side by side with this description by the devout Lasserre of the
appearance presented by Bernadette when in a state of ecstasy, I will
quote the often-recorded account which Saint Theresa has given in her
_Memoirs_ of her subjective condition while in a similar state:
“There is a sort of sleep of the faculties of the soul, understanding,
memory, and will, during which one is, as it were, unconscious of
their working. A sort of voluptuousness is experienced, akin to what
might {343} be felt by a dying person happy to expire on the bosom of
God. The mind takes no heed of what is doing; it knows not whether one
is speaking or is silent or weeping; it is a sweet delusion, a
celestial frenzy, in which one is taught true wisdom in a way which
fills us with inconceivable joy. We feel as about to faint or as just
fallen into a swoon; we can hardly breathe; and bodily strength is so
feeble that it requires a great effort to raise even the hands. The
eyes are shut, or if they remain open they see nothing; we could not
read if we would, for, though we know that they are letters, we can
neither tell them apart nor put them together, for the mind does not
act. If any one in this state is spoken to, he does not hear; he tries
in vain to speak, but he is unable to form or utter a single word.
Though all external forces abandon you, those of the soul increase, so
as to enable you the better to possess the glory you are enjoying.”
Occasionally striking illustrations of ecstasy are to be found among
hysterical and hystero-epileptic patients in whom religious faith has
no place. In these cases usually other special phases of grave
hysteria are present. In some of the descriptions given by Charcot and
Richer of hystero-epileptics in the stage of emotional attitudes or
statuesque positions the patients are, for a time at least, in an
ecstatic condition in which the hallucinations may be connected with
sentiments of religion, love, fear, or other emotions. One shows an
attitude of menace or an expression of fear; in another the expression
is of beatitude or saintly happiness: to this expression perhaps
succeeds one of intense joy; to this, one of passion and lubricity.
Throughout all the changing phases of attitude and expression the
patient has the other concomitants of the true ecstatic state, such as
want of volition and insensibility.
DIAGNOSIS.—A cataleptic may also be an ecstatic or the reverse; but
not a few cases are on record in the history of which, on the one
hand, an individual has been subject over a long period to cataleptic
seizures without the recurrence of ecstasy, or, on the other hand, to
fits of ecstasy without a single attack of true catalepsy. Cataleptic
attacks usually occur with more suddenness than ecstasy; the
cataleptic may suddenly become rigid and statuesque—the ecstatic
gradually, although it may be somewhat rapidly, passes step by step
into a visionary state. In catalepsy and ecstasy the expression of the
patient differs. One of the striking features of ecstasy is not simply
the absorbed and abstracted, but also the radiant, expression of
countenance. In catalepsy the expression is more likely to be vacant
or at least negative. In ecstasy waxen flexibility is not present. The
muscles can act in obedience to the will, and the trunk and limbs do
not maintain the positions in which they are placed for any unusual
time. In genuine catalepsy the consciousness is so suspended or
altered that the period of the seizure afterward remains a blank in
the memory of the patient. In ecstasy, however, the visions and
fancies present during the fit can afterward be recalled, and are
frequently recounted by the individual.
DURATION, COURSE, PROGNOSIS.—Nothing need be said as to duration,
course, prognosis, etc. of ecstasy. The remarks made in considering
hysteria, hystero-epilepsy, etc. fully cover these matters.
TREATMENT.—With reference to the treatment of ecstasy little need be
said. It must, in part at least, be directed to rousing and changing
{344} the dormant or dreamy condition of the individual. As it is the
mind or the volitional nature which is chiefly affected, the use of
agents which either directly or reflexly exert a powerful impression
on the cerebral centres is indicated. Thus, in all ages harsh measures
have received more or less applause in the treatment of ecstasy. The
cold douche or shower-bath, the plunge-bath, the hot iron, painful
electric currents, scourging, and beating have all had their
advocates. Flint[6] gives details of a case in which burning with a
heated hammer was employed for three weeks, the patient eventually
recovering, either because of, or in spite of, the treatment. Chambers
believes in the forcible repression of ecstatic and emotional
exhibitions. “In Unst, the most northerly of the Shetland Islands,” he
says, “an epidemic of convulsive fits occurring in sermon-time began
to prevail in several parish churches. At one of these, Northmaven,
the disease was cut short by a rough fellow of a Turk who carried out
a troublesome patient and tossed her into a wet ditch. Nobody else
caught it. From what scandalous scenes Europe might have been saved
had the first dancer on St. John's Eve been tossed into a wet ditch!”
[Footnote 6: _Loc. cit._]
Trance, Lethargy, and Morbid Somnolence.
Trance may be defined as a derangement of the nervous system
characterized by general muscular immobility, complete mental inertia,
and insensibility to surroundings. The condition of a patient in a
state of trance has been frequently, and not inaptly, compared to that
of a hibernating animal. Trance may last for minutes, hours, days,
weeks, or even months. Astonishing stories, some true, others—and
these the greater number—false, frequently find their way into
newspapers. A recent story is that of a hystero-cataleptic young woman
of Nebraska who is reported to have been for seventy days in a state
of trance, during which she was to all appearance lifeless with the
exception of respiration and pulsation. She said that she was
unconscious during the whole time of her protracted trance, but,
although she exerted her utmost power to evince her consciousness, she
could not move a muscle. Such cases like the Welsh fasting girl either
live or seem to live for a long time on little or no food; doubtless
food is often taken secretly.
In an interesting case which, so far as I know, has never been put
upon record in any medical publication, attacks of catalepsy or of
trance, or of both, occurred three times at long intervals during the
life of this individual. The first time was while held in the arms of
his mother preparatory to receiving the baptismal rite: the clergyman
and others observed that the infant changed appearance and suddenly
became rigid. It was feared that he was dying; the ceremonies were
stopped, but in response to efforts after a time he came back to a
normal state. When about sixteen years of age, while at school, he was
accidentally wounded; it was necessary to probe for the ball, and
while this was being done he again passed into a trance-like
condition. Many years later, while in good health, a prosperous and
well-known citizen, he suddenly again fell into an unconscious
condition, and was believed to be dead. So marked were the appearances
of death {345} that after numerous efforts to resuscitate him
preparations were made for his funeral. The knowledge of his previous
attacks, however, induced his friends and relatives to defer his
interment and continue their efforts. He finally revived just as they
were about to give up in despair.
Aëtius, according to Laycock,[7] mentions hysteric death as being very
common in his day, and asserts that real death may supervene without
any of the ordinary symptoms. The eyes preserve their brightness and
the color of the skin remains vivid. Good cites the case of a woman
whose funeral was postponed to ascertain the cause of her death, and
whom the first touch of the scalpel brought to her senses. Authors and
travellers have described wonderful cases of trance which have been
observed in Persia and in India. A Persian youth is recorded to have
possessed the power to restrain his breath for two days; and fakirs in
India are said sometimes to have allowed themselves to be buried alive
for weeks. Doubtless, a little Caucasian light let in upon some of
these stories might dissolve them, as the esoteric Buddhism of Madame
Blavatzsky has been dissipated into thin air by a hard-headed English
investigator. According to Diogenes,[8] Empedocles, a celebrated
disciple of Pythagoras, obtained great fame by curing a female
supposed to be dead, but whom he discovered to be suffering from
hysteria. He termed the affection under which she labored apnoë, and
maintained that a female might live in an apparently lifeless state
for thirty days.
[Footnote 7: _Op. cit._]
[Footnote 8: Quoted by Laycock.]
Landouzy has reported an interesting instance of lethargy produced by
the application of a magnet to a patient suffering from hysteria
major. The attacks of hysterical sleep are often preceded by
convulsive phenomena, and, according to Briquet, are often ushered in
by epileptoid signs, such as whistling inspiration, movements of
deglutition, frothing, and transient rigidity of the limbs. Richer
reports a remarkable case of Plendlers of Vienna, in which a young
girl, after a series of violent hysterical attacks, fell apparently
dead. Preparations were made to bury her, when she was found to be
living, having been in a state of lethargy. Among cases observed in
Salpêtrière the duration of lethargy has been from two to eight days.
Sometimes, in cases of grave hysteria, attacks of lethargy complicated
with general or partial contractures and epileptoid phenomena have
been observed. The presence of neuro-muscular hyperexcitability is of
diagnostic value in determining the nature of such cases; if present,
we have probably to deal with phenomena of hysterical lethargy. This
symptom may, of course, pass unperceived. A woman came under
observation a short time since, being then far gone in pregnancy.
About a month before delivery she had a very marked hysterical
outbreak, in which she so simulated apoplexy as to make it almost
impossible to decide what was the matter with her. She had apparently
lost sensation, her breathing was stertorous, her pulse labored, and
she had divergent strabismus. In the course of half an hour the
symptoms passed off.
In trance, as in ecstasy, the patient may remain motionless and
apparently unconscious of all surroundings; but in the former the
visionary state, the radiant expression, and the statuesque positions
are not necessarily present. In trance, as stated by Wilks, the
patients may lie {346} like an animal hibernating for days together,
without eating or drinking, and apparently insensible to all objects
around them. In ecstasy the mind, under certain limitations, is
active; it is concentrated upon some object of interest, admiration,
or adoration. Conditions of trance, as a rule, last longer than those
of ecstasy.
Beard's[9] theory of trance is that it is “a functional disease of the
nervous system in which the cerebral activity is concentrated in some
limited region of the brain, with suspension of the activity of the
rest of the brain, and consequent loss of volition. Like other
functional nervous diseases, it may be induced either physically or
psychically—that is, by all the influences that act on the nervous
system or on the mind; more frequently the latter, sometimes both
combined.”
[Footnote 9: Quoted by Crothers in _Quarterly Journal of Inebriety_,
January, 1880.]
T. D. Crothers[10] has contributed some papers upon the subject of the
trance state in inebriety. He gives the clinical history of some cases
of inebriety which presented the phenomena of cerebral automatism or
trance. He concludes that loss of memory and consciousness may come on
in inebriety and the patient give little or no evidence of his actual
condition. His conclusions are, that when the trance state is
established beyond doubt the individual is irresponsible for his acts
during this period. The study of the trance state in affections of
such definite origin and positive pathology as inebriety helps to
throw light upon its occurrence and explanation in cases of hysteria.
[Footnote 10: “Cerebral Trance; or, Loss of Consciousness and Memory
in Inebriety,” _Quarterly Journal of Inebriety_, January, 1880; and
_The Trance State in Inebriety: its Medico-Legal Relations; with an
Introduction on the Nature and Character of the Trance State_, by
George M. Beard, M.D., a paper read before the New York Medico-Legal
Society, November 2, 1881, Hartford, Conn., 1882.]
Dana[11] reports about fifty cases of prolonged morbid somnolence.
Nearly all those reported previous to 1878 are cases of what has been
termed trance-like sleep or lethargy. In 1878, Gelineau called
attention to a disease which he termed narcolepsy. Dana has seen five
cases, and reports two others from notes furnished by Putzel of New
York. Some of the cases collected are both interesting and remarkable.
Dana calls attention to the distinction made by Briquet between
prolonged hysteria and lethargy. In lethargy the condition of
unconsciousness is generally more profound, the reflexes are
abolished, and the patient cannot be aroused. A patient may even have
periods of sleep within the lethargy.
[Footnote 11: “Morbid Drowsiness and Somnolence,” _Journ. of Nervous
and Mental Disease_, vol. xi., No. 2, April 18, 1884.]
Dana excludes from his cases of prolonged somnolence those cases of
drowsiness due to ordinary causes, as old age, diseased blood-vessels,
cerebral malnutrition, or inflammation; various toxæmiæ, as malaria,
uræmia, colæmia, and syphilis; dyspepsia, diabetes, obesity,
insolation, cerebral anæmia and hyperæmia, cerebral tumors and cranial
injuries, exhausting diseases, and the sleeping sickness of Africa.
He found that the prolonged somnolence shows itself in very different
ways. Sometimes the patient suffers from simply a great prolongation
of natural sleep; sometimes from a constant, persistent drowsiness,
which he is often obliged to yield to; sometimes from frequent brief
attacks of somnolence, not being drowsy in the intermission; sometimes
from single or repeated prolonged lethargic attacks; finally,
sometimes from {347} periodical attacks of profound somnolence or
lethargy which last for days, weeks, or months.