hysteria

88:1.9Hunch­backed and crip­pled chil­dren were re­garded as fe­tishes; lu­natics were be­lieved to be moon-struck. Prim­i­tive man could not dis­tin­guish be­tween ge­nius and in­san­ity; id­iots were ei­ther beaten to death or revered as fe­tish per­son­al­i­ties. Hys­te­ria in­creas­ingly con­firmed the pop­u­lar be­lief in witch­craft; epilep­tics of­ten were priests and med­i­cine men. Drunk­en­ness was looked upon as a form of spirit pos­ses­sion; when a sav­age went on a spree, he put a leaf in his hair for the pur­pose of dis­avow­ing re­spon­si­bil­ity for his acts. Poi­sons and in­tox­i­cants be­came fe­tishes; they were deemed to be pos­sessed.

77:7.6It is no mere fig­ure of speech when the rec­ord states: “And they brought to Him all sorts of sick peo­ple, those who were pos­sessed by dev­ils and those who were lu­natics.” Je­sus knew and rec­og­nized the dif­fer­ence be­tween in­san­ity and de­mo­ni­a­cal pos­ses­sion, al­though these states were greatly con­fused in the minds of those who lived in his day and gen­er­a­tion.

77:7.7Even prior to Pen­te­cost no rebel spirit could dom­i­nate a nor­mal hu­man mind, and since that day even the weak minds of in­fe­rior mor­tals are free from such pos­si­bil­i­ties. The sup­posed cast­ing out of dev­ils since the ar­rival of the Spirit of Truth has been a mat­ter of con­found­ing a be­lief in de­mo­ni­a­cal pos­ses­sion with hys­te­ria, in­san­ity, and fee­ble-mind­ed­ness. But just be­cause Mi­chael’s be­stowal has for­ever lib­er­ated all hu­man minds on Uran­tia from the pos­si­bil­ity of de­mo­ni­a­cal pos­ses­sion, do not imag­ine that such was not a re­al­ity in for­mer ages.

90:1.2Since in olden times any­thing ab­nor­mal was as­cribed to spirit pos­ses­sion, any strik­ing men­tal or phys­i­cal ab­nor­mal­ity con­sti­tuted qual­i­fi­ca­tion for be­ing a med­i­cine man. Many of these men were epilep­tic, many of the women hys­teric, and these two types ac­counted for a good deal of an­cient in­spi­ra­tion as well as spirit and devil pos­ses­sion. Quite a few of these ear­li­est of priests were of a class which has since been de­nom­i­nated para­noiac.