Witchcraft or Mental Illness?

June 21, 2010 | Schizoaffective, Histrionic Personality Disorder, Addiction

By Beatriz Quintanilla, MD, PhD
Linked Articles
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I don’t believe in witches or ghosts or things that go bump in the night. I’ve always thought that the Salem witch trials were a
result of mass hysteria (on the part of the persecutors) rather than a phenomenon of dark forces at work. And seeing Arthur
Miller’s The Crucible a few years ago, only confirmed my suspicions. So I was gratified to see Dr Quintanilla’s poster at this
year’s meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. As a physician and researcher, she factually explains the fallacy of
witchcraft. Looking at historical documents dating back to the 15th century, Dr Quintanilla was able to match the symptoms of
people condemned as witches with associated neurological and psychiatric disorders, such as epilepsy and hysteria. [Editor’s
Note: Natalie Timoshin]
Mental illness has been known throughout human history, and the symptoms have always been recognized as something
different—an abnormal behavior. In ancient times, madness was considered a punishment of the gods but also as the distinctive
characteristics of the chosen ones; the manifestation of the symptoms was seen as a sign of a divine message.

Mental illness was considered by the Greeks to be an organic problem. 1 However, this naturalistic point of view changed in the
Middle Ages after the Black Plague epidemic that wiped out about 30 million people—half the population of Europe. After that
devastation, disease was no longer seen as the result of natural causes but of supernatural forces or malignant spirits that
physicians were not able to deal with. At the end of the Middle Ages, but more precisely, during the Renaissance, the blame fell
on witches and diabolical possession. All the tragedies and calamities of humanity were the fault of witches because no one was
capable of doing such things if not under the power of the devil. Therefore, these perpertrators should be severely punished.

Women were condemned as witches more frequently than men. The witch craze took place primarily in northern Europe. 1,2 This
mentality extended to the New World and witches were burned in Salem in the 17th century (1692-1693).3 Hysteria and epilepsy
were the 2 llnesses that were most frequently confused with witchcraft or demonic possession, especially if they were
accompanied by tremors, convulsions or of loss of consciousness.

Different treatises were written in order to instruct the people, especially doctors and priests, on how to recognize a witch or a
possessed one. The Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches) written by Kramer and Sprenger in 1487, was by far the
most famous and its influence lasted for more than 200 years. Women were more prone to diabolical possession because they
were weaker and imperfect in nature than men: “woman is an imperfect animal, inferior to men”, and a woman’s reproductive
system was the proof of this, the uterus being the source of evil.4-6 Women were full of venom during menstruation, so that they
were contaminated and capable of contaminate others.1,7,8 The uterus was also an unstable organ which could move from one
place to another in the body, it could also press the diaphragm in order to impede respiration. Women, because of their uterus,
were unstable human beings.1,9

Another form of witchcraft was through imagination, a faculty that was believed to be able to produce physical changes in the
body. Paracelsus (17th centruy) thought that women’s illnesses were essentially imagined, but were not unreal. It was believed
that the uterus received pathological images that even if they had started as immaterial images, would become real because
indomitable imagination could not be submitted to will. He thought that the process had its origin in the spleen. Because there
were 2 organs that were capable of producing pathogenic images, the uterus and the spleen, women had 2 sources of evil. That
was why women were more powerful witches; however, men could also practice witchcraft through the evil of the spleen. The
uterus could also make other organs ill by vicinity, sympathy, or vapors. 10
 Many women who suffered from hysteria or epilepsy were judged and condemned to die at the stake. The witch craze finally
came to an end at the end of the 18th century.11 Little by little, epilepsy and hysteria became better known and understood, and
the rationalistic point of view prevailed once again.

References
1. Porter R. The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity. New York: Norton; 1998.
2. Lpez Piero, JM. La Medicina en la Historia. Madrid: La Esfera de los Libros; 2002.
3. Woolf A. Witchcraft or mycotoxin? The Salem witch trials. J Toxicol Clin Toxicol. 2000;34:457-460.
4. Chodoff P. Hysteria and women. Am J Psychiatry. 1982;139:545-551.
5. Risse GB. Hysteria at the Edinburgh infirmary: the construction and treatment of a disease, 1770-1899. Med Histy. 1988;32:1-
22.
6. Werner A, Isaksen LW, Malterud K. “I am not the kind of woman who complains of everything”: illness stories on self and
shame in women with chronic pain. Soc Sci Med. 2004;59:1035-1045.
7. Laqueur TW. Sex in the flesh. Isis. 2003;92:300-306.
8. Schiebinger L. Skelettestreit. Isis. 2003;94:307-313.
9. Veith I. Hysteria, the History of a Disease. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1965.
10. Fischer-Homberger E. On the medical history of the doctrine of imagination. Psychol Med. 1979;9:619-628.
11. Bartholomew RE, Wessely S. Protean nature of mass sociogenic illness: from possessed nuns to clinical and biological
terrorism fears. Br J Psychiatry. 2002;180:300-306.

Oldest First
Newest First
Salem witches were put to death by hanging and one by pressing with stones. If this doctor had actually seen a production of or
the movie "The Crucible,"she would have known that. As a practicing witch, and a retired mental health therapist, I think I'd have
known if I were mentally ill - or one of my colleagues would have told me so. If Dr. Quintanila doesn't believe in the Craft of the
Wise, I dare her to send me a piece of her hair or her fingernail clippings. I have yet to find an "unbeliever" who will hand them
over.

 reply
Rainbow Moonstone @ Tue, 2010-06-22 03:02
As a historian, I find this to be very shoddy research. First of all, the idea that hysteria on the part of the accused was the driving
force behind the trials is absurd. This lays the blame for the tragedy that occured on the accused and not the accusers. Looking at
the testimonies of the accused, there is a distinct pattern of coercion and "leading the witness", coupled with torture. Had Dr.
Quintillina's research been more objective, she would have found that more often than not, accusations were preceeded by some
type of misfortune, such as a hail storm or a storm at sea, not by unexplanable physical phenomena. Those symptoms were
generally described only later in the court testimony to bolster the claims of the persecutors. The "bizzare" claims of the accused
witches were drawn out by torture, not by mental illness. In some areas, 80 - 90% of the accused were women. Was this due to a
mysterious, widespread epilepsy pandemic among women? Hardly. In fact, the Malleus Maleficarum mentions epilepsy at least 4
times, and in each instance that I found, they refered to witches causing epilepsy, not having it. The idea that mass hysteria -
particularly on the part of women - as the primary cause of the witch trials has been refuted repeatedly by historians of the witch
trials. By attributing the cause of the trials to hysteria, Dr. Quintanilla completely negates the socio-political, economic, religious,
and cultural influences that contributed to the hunts. A society in flux, a distinct religious culture that promoted the idea that
witches were real and were a danger to society, the influence of witch hunters (who, by the way, were paid twice as much for
each witch that was executed than they were for those who were set free), the relationships between women that contributed to
the accusation patterns, the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation and the attendant Wars of Religion - all of this is
meaningless to Dr. Quintanilla. The work of scholars like Brian Levack, Robin Briggs, Erik Middelfort, Norm Cohn, Joseph
Klaits, Lizanne Henderson, etc. is meaningless because Dr. Quintanilla decided on an outcome for her research and then went
looking for just the information that would support it. Not good research.
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