Sign or Symptom?

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.

This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).

Contributors: Ellen Amster (McMaster University), Nicole Edelman (Université de Paris-Ouest-Nanterre), Maria Heidegger (Universität 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)

"Sign or Symptom?" was edited by Tine Van Osselaer, Henk De Smaele and Kaat Wils.

Tine Van Osselaer is research professor at Universiteit Antwerpen (Ruusbroec Institute).

Henk de Smaele is professor of history at the University of Antwerp.

Kaat Wils is gewoon hoogleraar aan de onderzoeksgroep Cultuurgeschiedenis vanaf 1750 en voorzitter van de Onderzoekseenheid Geschiedenis van de KU Leuven.

Kaat Wils is professor of European cultural history since 1750 at KU Leuven.

Yes, "Sign or Symptom?" is part of the "KADOC-Studies on Religion, Culture and Society" series. It's book 19 in the series.

Elena Arigita Maza (Universidad de Granada)
Florian Bock (Ruhr Universität Bochum)
Timothy Brittain‐Catlin (University of Cambridge)
James Chappel (Duke University)
Kim Christiaens (KADOC-KU Leuven)
Kathleen James-Chakraborty (University College Dublin)
​​​​James Kennedy (Utrecht University)
​​​Franziska Metzger (PH Luzern)
Patrick Pasture (MoSa‐KU Leuven) - chairman
Isabelle Saint‐Martin (EPHE Paris)
Thijl Sunier (VU Amsterdam)
Árpád von Klimó (Catholic University of America)
Veerle De Laet (Leuven University Press)
Peter Heyrman (KADOC-KU Leuven) - secretary

Proposals

Proposals and enquiries can be sent to Peter Heyrman. The series welcomes monographs and edited volumes. Book proposals may relate to, for example, the political impact of religion, the dynamics between religion and welfare, and missionary history. All proposals and manuscripts are subject to double blind peer review involving at least one external reviewer (proposals) or at least two (manuscripts). The editors strive towards completing the review of proposals within two months and of complete manuscripts within five months after submission.

Please make use of the submission form to present your manuscript or proposal to our board.
Authors interested in Open Access can consult the available funding options.

Links & Resources

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

The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for "Sign or Symptom?" is 10.11116/9789461662231.