ARTICLE X.

OBSERVATIONS ON RELIGIOUS FANATICISM; illustrated by a Comparison of the Belief and Conduct of noted Religious Enthusiasts with those of Patients in the Montrose Lunatic Asylum. By W. A. F. BROWNE, Esq., Medical Superintendent of that Institution, (Continued from p. 302.)

Predominating Organs.-Secretiveness, Destructiveness, Self-Esteem,

Veneration, and Benevolence.

ALTHOUGH reported to have been insane only for two years, the malady of J. G. must have been of much longer duration than is supposed; for she affirms, that, while a girl at school, she had constant intercourse with spirits at the burnside; that she was subsequently acquainted with her glorious elevation, and predicted many things which have since taken place, among others, the restoration of a sister to health, while labouring under what was deemed to be a fatal disease; and that she performed many miracles, which it is now inexpedient to continue. Her Veneration and Self-esteem are very large; and, in obedience to the law which it is one of our designs to illustrate, all her hallucinations emanate from these sources. They are the diseased suggestions of fanaticism and pride. She not merely entertains notions altogether erroneous and preposterous, but identifies herself with these errors. She is the heroine of her own story; proclaims her greatness, power, and wisdom; and cherishes a sort of balanced feeling between respect for, and jealousy of, all persons endowed with authority, civil or ecclesiastical. Thus, in announcing that she is the. Saviour,—that she bruised the head of the serpent, died on the cross, triumphed over death and the grave, she becomes highly incensed if any doubt is expressed as to her pretensions, and challenges all men, but especially the clergymen (for whom she at the same time ma

She

nifests great reverence), to disprove the truth of her assertions. From the same combination, in her most impassioned moments of spiritual exaltation, she can be subdued and quieted by the exercise of authority. This maniacal pride and religious zeal have prompted her to make proselytes; nay, she appears to have convinced one woman of her sanctity and divine origin. takes many of her companions under her protection; promising them the highest, second, or third place in the kingdom of heaven, as the case may be: she attempts to bribe me by similar offers to comply with her desires; and, while she receives the chaplain with a condescending and patronising air, she listens to him with profound attention, and applauds him when he has concluded, claiming him as one of her own priests and pioneers. To strangers there appears a striking and melancholy contrast between the almighty power which she boasts of possessing, and the strict confinement in which she is placed and the glaring marks of misery by which she is surrounded. This contrast seems frequently to impress and annoy her own mind; but she endeavours to escape from the dilemma, by affirming that she is there for a purpose, and by quoting such passages from Scripture as relate to the Messiah's poverty and persecutions. It was prophesied, she says, that she would not have where to lay her head. She gets rid of the difficulty of the demand upon her for some miraculous evidence of her power, by asserting that "she refrains from exerting it." But when pressed upon this subject, she recounts an interview with Satan. His object was to induce her to worship him; and the bribes offered were precisely similar to those mentioned in the Gospel. She alleges that at the time of her fast and temptation, she was Jesus Christ, but that now she is an incarnation of the Father. Upon all occasions her delusions are in keeping; they correspond and harmonise with each other, and with the premises which she has assumed.

She has a very well developed Language, and is endowed with an astonishing volubility of speech, which, when she is excited, amounts to eloquence, interspersed as it is with copious misapplications of the Revelations and of Isaiah. A large Secretiveness and deficient Conscientiousness render her mendacious to such an extent, that her word cannot be trusted respecting the most trivial occurrence. Her paroxysms of excitement are not periodical, but generally originate in some contradiction she has received in the exposure of a falsehood, or the discovery of her intrigues-and these are numerous-among her fellow lunatics. Under such circumstances, or when strangers who, attracted by the rapidity of her utterance and the animation of her manner, after listening to her harangues attempt to refute her allegations, her exasperated Self-Esteem and Destructiveness burst forth in denunciations of wo and destruction

upon her persecutors, and in curses both loud and deep. Did she possess temporal power in addition to that which she arrogates to herself, her authority would without doubt be vindicated, and her creed propagated, at the point of the sword. Her intellect appears to be unimpaired upon all other topics: she is, in fact, shrewd, sensible, and observant; understands all household duties and employments well, and performs them admirably. She is remarkably kind to the other patients; but the very Benevolence which constitutes her a fostering friend to all around, renders her liberation impossible; since, claiming the whole world as her own, decreeing an end to every artificial distinction of society, and anxious to dispense her benefits and favours to all, she would squander the most ample fortune in a few months. An example of her inclinations in this respect was afforded by the delight with which she distributed her husband's goods and chattels to every one who paid or pretended to pay reverence to her sacred character.*

This relation cannot fail to suggest to those familiar with church history the events which preceded and produced the memorable siege of Munster, a siege maintained by a garrison of maniacs against the armies of the empire.† Heated but not purified by the ordeal of the Reformation, the peasantry of Westphalia, in concert with such of the inhabitants as favoured their projects, seized upon the public works of Munster, expelled the adverse party, and proclaimed the commencement of the kingdom of Christ, by careering franticly through the streets with drawn swords, and howling, "Repent and be baptized.' These insurgents against reason and their liege-lord, were associated by holding certain tenets in common, such as belief in the prophetic or divine nature of their instigators, and in their own immortality; and were animated by a wild and frenzied fanaticism, remarkable for intensity, permanency, and its pervading thousands of men previously sedate and rational. They were led to conquest, and governed during the brief ascendency which followed, by a baker and a tailor, whom they first regarded and reverenced as prophets, next elected as sovereigns, and ultimately acknowledged as incarnations of Divinity. These worthies regulated their empire by exhortations, revelations, warnings, and calls. A community of property existed, but

⚫ Hume states in his Appendix, No. IV., that, in the comparatively tolerant reign of James I., bigotry, with the indiscriminating fury of the element by which its vengeance used to be inflicted, not satisfied with condemning several Arians to the flames as heretics, destroyed a miserable madman who imagined himself the Holy Ghost. What might have been the fate of J. G. in such orthodox times it is not difficult to conjecture.

+ See Mosheim, and Robertson's Hist. of Charles V. vol. iii. p. 73–86.

with it gradations of rank-measured, however, by the degrees of religious regeneration. Associated with this pious enthu siasm were the grossest immorality and debauchery. These formed parts of the system. No madhouse ever presented scenes so wild and revolting as this independent state. The nights were spent in vigils and wrestling with spirits; the days in prayers and prelections which would have been blasphemous among rational beings, and in recounting dreams and portents and experiences. The home of every subject became a shrine at once of licentiousness and of the most extravagant devotion; the streets resounded with shrieks and impure songs, mingled with hallelujahs; and the priests or devotees of this new revelation paraded naked through the town, flourishing their arms, and in this fashion worshipping God. Withal, great prudence and judgment are said to have mingled with these extravagancies. In whatever light their creed and its effects may be viewed, every praise is due to the care and wisdom displayed by these self-styled " occupants of the throne of David," in fortifying the city, in supplying it with provisions, in obtaining reinforcements, and in defending it against troops of high discipline and courage. Insane upon every point connected with their moral destiny,-with Wonder, Veneration, Hope, and the lower propensities, in a state of violent excitement,-their ordinary judgment, intellect directed to self-preservation and the common concerns of life, did not desert them; on the contrary, it stood them in such good stead, that their defeat and destruction are to be traced rather to treachery than to incompetency in military affairs. Trusting to their celestial nature and invulnerability, numbers perished during the siege, while displaying the most striking heroism, in the conviction that the strength of a single arm would put armies to flight, and miraculously vindicate the cause of religion. Their malady proved to be incurable; for such as escaped the carnage remained stedfast in the hallucinations which they had so long cherished.

There is to be found, in the history of our own country, an instance of an individual who exercised a gigantic moral force over the minds of thousands; whose influence is still felt in the most civilized countries of the world; and who, in many respects, closely resembled my patient. I speak of George Fox, the founder of the Quakers. This celebrated man, at the period of what is technically called his regeneration, was, by the shewing of some of his most distinguished disciples, in every way worthy of a strait jacket. A dose of calomel is a wonderful enemy to inspiration; and had that been timeously administered, a good cobbler would not have been spoiled, and the Society of

⚫ See William Howitt, in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, October 1834

Friends would never have been heard of. For that Society as at present constituted, as recognising justice and mercy as their cardinal virtues, I entertain perfect respect: these animadversions are directed solely to what may be styled the hot stage of the religious fever in which their founder passed the early part of his career.

Prepared by living in an age of great fanaticism, by solitary musings, and above all, perhaps, by a highly excitable and excited temperament, Fox became so infatuated, that, conceiving himself endowed with supernatural powers, he commanded a withered arm to become as it once had been; he declared that all knowledge and power were conceded to him, in fact, that he was a proxy of Almighty greatness, but that he" refrained from exercising it." And although he confessed that it was inexpedient for him to exercise these gifts, he felt it incumbent to denounce the city of Lichfield, and was much puzzled when no great calamity followed. With what this justly celebrated innovator became when this morbid fervour subsided, we have nothing further to do than to remark that he recovered, which my patient has not.

By advancing one step further in the investigation of the religious diseases commemorated by history, but not acknowledged to be such, we light upon the exact features of the case under discussion. About a century ago there appeared in Germany* a fanatic, who proclaimed himself the Messiah, endowed with a plenitude of power to save or to condemn. He denounced all priests as impostors and traitors engaged in a conspiracy against his divine authority. Of this league he declared the King of Prussia, an emissary of Satan or Satan himself, to be the head. To destroy this and all other machinations, to purify from sin, to diffuse peace and happiness, and to establish a harmony of faith, were the objects of his mission. As the best evidence of his own immortality, he asserted that his adherents never died. This man obtained great numbers of respectable individuals as converts. From these he demanded a seraglio, and seven fathers offered up their daughters on the shrine of their idolatry. The non-fulfilment of his promises,-his misfortunes,-his imprisonment, during which an occasional whipping was admistered, to remind him of his mortality, and, after twenty-nine years, his death,-all failed to undeceive these faithful adhe

rents.

We now pass to fanaticism under a new aspect, and of a less remote date.

The papal armoury was even in the last century emptied of

See Memoirs of the Margravine of Anspach.