Troubled by Faith: Insanity and the Supernatural in the Age of the Asylum

by Owen Davies

Overview

The nineteenth century was a time of extraordinary scientific innovation, but with the rise of psychiatry, faiths and popular beliefs were often seen as signs of a diseased mind. By exploring the beliefs of asylum patients, we see the nineteenth century in a new light, with science, faith, and the supernatural deeply entangled in a fast-changing world.

The birth of psychiatry in the early nineteenth-century fundamentally changed how madness was categorised and understood. A century on, their conceptions of mental illness continue to influence our views today. Beliefs and behaviour were divided up into the pathological and the healthy. The influence of religion and the supernatural became significant measures of insanity in individuals, countries, and cultures. Psychiatrists not only thought they could transform society in the industrial age but also explain the many strange beliefs expressed in the distant past. Troubled by Faith explores these ideas about the supernatural across society through the prism of medical history. It is a story of how people continued to make sense of the world in supernatural terms, and how belief came to be a medical issue. This cannot be done without exploring the lives of those who found themselves in asylums because of their belief in ghosts, witches, angels, devils, and fairies, or because they though themselves in divine communication, or were haunted by modern technology. The beliefs expressed by asylum patients were not just an expression of their individual mental health, but also provide a unique reflection of society at the time - a world still steeped in the ideas and imagery of folklore and faith in a fast-changing world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198873006
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	12/28/2023
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	9.31(w) x 6.42(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Owen Davies, Professor of Social History, University of Hertfordshire

Owen Davies is Professor of Social History at the University of Hertfordshire. He has written extensively on the history of magic, witchcraft, ghosts, religion, and popular medicine.

Table of Contents

PrefacePart one: A world of insanityIntroduction1. Explaining away the witch trials2. Pathologizing the supernatural present3. Madness in popular medicine4. The mad, the bad, and the supernatural in courtPart two: Inner livesIntroduction5. Between Heaven and Hell6. Encounters with witches, spirits, and fairies7. Making sense of science and technologyEpilogue

Editorial Reviews

"Hugely impressive and absorbing" — Anna Maria Barry, BBC History Magazine

"Davies's achievement is to have written a sort of counter-history to the kinds of early 19th-century histories of witchcraft with which his narrative opens. He eschews the retrospective diagnoses of the early psychiatrists and instead places individual experiences in the broader context of social and cultural change...He has assembled an extraordinary trove of snapshots of individual lives, and he treats them with sympathy and sensitivity." — George Morris, Literary Review

"Thanks to works as insightful as this one, we can better appreciate the early efforts to understand the mind." — Simon Ings, New Scientist

"An important addition to the history of psychiatry, but also to histories of folklore and religion in the 19th century." — Jennifer Wallis, Fortean Times

"Fascinating" — A Bad Witch's Blog

"This innovative "mental archaeology" sets new agendas for historians of madness and the supernatural, showing the surprising cross-fertilization between faith and psychiatry in the nineteenth century. From the theorists of "demonomania" to the unfortunate souls whose fears blended witchcraft with electricity, the book brings to life the remarkable stories of people grappling with irrationality in modernity." — Dr William G. Pooley, University of Bristol

"Troubled by Faith offers a rich and memorable examination of the supernatural in nineteenth-century culture. Physicians pathologized magical thinking, but the so-called delusions of asylum patients were rooted in broader societal currents. Combining meticulous research with incisive analysis, Owen Davies compels us to reflect on the madness inherent in modernity." — Dr Martha McGill, University of Warwick

"A fascinating read" — Elizabeth Wood

"Davies makes a convincing case for the significance of asylums to debates about religion and the supernatural." — Michael Ledger-Lomas, London Review of Books

"The book's great strength lies here, in the details, the vignettes, the stories of lives upended by tragedy and illness, and the ways in which physicians sought to alleviate suffering and gain a better understanding of what it was that led people to injure themselves or others, what caused melancholia or mania, and how religious belief played a part in this...It would have been helpful to find clearer definitions of slippery terms like 'religious belief' and 'insanity' from the outset...But the book as a whole provides a fascinating insight into the significance of religious belief and practice within the Victorian asylum and, perhaps, those unanswered questions serve to remind the reader that the borders between religious belief and insanity are more blurred than many of us would like to suppose." — Georgia Byrne, The Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society

"Troubled by Faith offers a nuanced perspective on the enduring power of supernatural beliefs in the face of scientific advancement, providing a compelling examination of how individuals and institutions grappled with rapid changes in the age of the asylum." — Kelly Bratkowski, Reading Religion

"In Troubled by Faith: Insanity and the Supernaturalin the Age of the Asylum, Owen Davies has conscientiouslyexcavated a seam of medical history to investigatethe relationship between religion, faith, and insanity in nineteenth-and early twentieth-century Britain (and Europe)." — Ruth Harris, American Historical Review

From the Publisher