IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB896453910

Mental Disorder and Mysticism in the Late Medieval World (2019)

Kemp, Simon (Author)

History of Psychology
Volume: 22
Issue: 2
Pages: 149-162
Publication date: 2019
Language: English

URI: http://search.proquest.com/docview/2176962017/abstract/8EC1666D0C504219PQ/3

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

During the later Middle Ages, a number of religiously oriented people behaved in ways that we would consider unusual, yet it was unusual for them to be regarded as mentally disordered. This article reviews late medieval thinking and practice with regard to mental disorder and also with regard to the discernment of spirits, that is, how it could be decided whether an experience or impulse to do something was the consequence of God or a good spirit, an evil spirit, or some purely human cause. Many of the criteria for discerning a good spirit were behavioral, for example, consistently showing humility and discretion, and were clearly distinct from those displayed in mental disorder. A comparison of the criteria for mental disorder with those used to discern spirits shows how the distinction between mental disorder and religious experience could have been made and why confusion of the two seems to have been rare. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)

...More

Citation URI

data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB896453910

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Matei Iagher; (2020)
From Ecstasy to Divine Somnambulism: Henri Delacroix’s Studies in the History and Psychology of Mysticism (/p/isis/citation/CBB662850179/)

Article Dixon, Joy; (2013)
“Dark Ecstasies”: Sex, Mysticism and Psychology in Early Twentieth-Century England (/p/isis/citation/CBB001201191/)

Book Kripal, Jeffrey J.; Shuck, Glenn W.; (2005)
On the Edge of the Future: Esalen and the Evolution of American Culture. (/p/isis/citation/CBB000850701/)

Chapter Hedstrom, Matthew S.; (2008)
Psychology and Mysticism in 1940's Religion: Reading the Readers of Fosdick, Liebman, and Merton (/p/isis/citation/CBB000800115/)

Book Katelynn Robinson; (2019)
The Sense of Smell in the Middle Ages: A Source of Certainty (/p/isis/citation/CBB133743847/)

Article Knight, Christopher C.; (2013)
Science and the Eastern Orthodox Church: Historical and Current Perspectives (/p/isis/citation/CBB001200886/)

Book Koetsier, Teun; Bergmans, Luc; (2005)
Mathematics and the Divine: A Historical Study (/p/isis/citation/CBB000500288/)

Thesis Zarowny, Paul Ernest; (2000)
The Heart of Christ at Helfta: The Influence of Aristotelian Cardiology on the Visions of Saint Gertrude the Great and Saint Mechthilde of Hackeborn (/p/isis/citation/CBB001562711/)

Article Alm, Torbjørn; Elvevåg, Brita; (2013)
Ergotism in Norway. Part 2: The Symptoms and Their Interpretation from the Eighteenth Century Onwards (/p/isis/citation/CBB001320326/)

Article Ossa-Richardson, Anthony; (2013)
Possession or Insanity? Two Views from the Victorian Lunatic Asylum (/p/isis/citation/CBB001201306/)

Book Stacey, Michelle; (2002)
Fasting Girl: A True Victorian Medical Mystery (/p/isis/citation/CBB000201972/)

Book Katajala-Peltomaa, Sari; (2014)
Mental (Dis)Order in Later Medieval Europe (/p/isis/citation/CBB001552955/)

Article Espí Forcén, Carlos; Espí Forcén, Fernando; (2014)
Demonic Possessions and Mental Illness: Discussion of Selected Cases in Late Medieval Hagiographical Literature (/p/isis/citation/CBB001420431/)

Article Vesa Hirvonen; (2018)
Mental disorders in commentaries by the late medieval theologians Richard of Middleton, John Duns Scotus, William Ockham and Gabriel Biel on Peter Lombard’s Sentences (/p/isis/citation/CBB778237146/)

Article Jacopo Bizzotto; (2018)
The Hypothesis on the Presence of Entheogens in the Eleusinian Mysteries (/p/isis/citation/CBB481469209/)

Chapter Asif Siddiqi; (2016)
Tsiolkovskii and the Invention of ‘Russian Cosmism’: Science, Mysticism, and the Conquest of Nature at the Birth of Soviet Space Exploration (/p/isis/citation/CBB405548252/)

Article Sleigh, Charlotte; (2012)
Jan Swammerdam's Frogs (/p/isis/citation/CBB001251458/)

Article Albrile, Ezio; (2002)
Il segreto della Madre Lucente: Estasi e teurgia nel sincretismo gnostico (/p/isis/citation/CBB000640316/)

Book Sluhovsky, Moshe; (2007)
Believe Not Every Spirit: Possession, Mysticism, and Discernment in Early Modern Catholicism (/p/isis/citation/CBB001032543/)

Article Schulman, Martin A.; (2013)
Not Only Forgotten but Never Known: The Life and Contributions of Jiří Langer (/p/isis/citation/CBB001212824/)