The Body of the Possessed Dr Claudia Stein

Early modern ideas of nature rely on classical authors: Some of his writings: On sleep and sleeplessness On animals On the soul Virtues and vices Meteorology Metaphysics On Longlivity and Shortness of Life Poetics Generation and Corruption And, On the Heavens ….. Aristotle, 384 BC – 322 BC

The Idea of the Cosmos according to Aristotle All these ideas become ‘christianised’ over the centuries

Micro-Macrocosm – Man as the Mirror of the God-Created Cosmos The body always has a physical and spiritual dimension

Galen of Pergamon, 130 AD – 200 AD Hippocrates of Cos, c. 460 – c. 370 BC Avicenna (Latinate form of Ibn-Sīnā), c. 980 AD – 1037 AD Rhazes, 854 AD – 925 AD

How to explain the physical dimension of the body? Everybody is born with an individual complexion (mix of the four humors); these are in connected to the four elements Everybody had to control the ‘six-non naturals’: air, food and drink, sleeping and waking, motion and rest, excretions and retentions, and the passions of the soul (we would call them emotions); they could bring complexion out of balance and disease could set in

The Spiritual System of the Body (first discussed by Galen) Pneuma: air or breath to be found in the veins Three forms of spirit: 1. natural spirit: resided in the liver, the center of nutrition and metabolism 2. vital spirit was located in the heart, the center of blood flow regulation and body temperature 3. animal spirit or animal spirit was created in the brain, the centre of sensory perceptions and movement But Galen relied on Aristotles and his thinking on the soul……lets go back The spiritual system was first discussed by Galen

Aristotle and the Soul Aristotelian ‘psychology’: the study of the ‘soul’ or ‘psyche’ (in his text, De Anima); the study of the nature of the soul (or psyche), which he considered the basis of all life. The soul, according to Aristotle, is the essence of all living things that makes them behave in the ways distinctive of living things. note: today the term ‘psychology’ refers only to the study of the mind; Aristotle understood it in a much broader sense Central question for Aristotle was: How does the soul relate to the physical body? Answer: He regards the body as the matter (parts and material that make up the body) and the soul as the form of a living thing. The two are correlative to one another. What humans do involves always the soul and the body together!  

Aristotle subdivides ‘the soul’ into three kinds: vegetative/nutritive soul: was the lowest soul which included the functions basic to all living things: nutrition, growth and reproduction.   sensitive soul: second highest of the three souls which included all of the powers of the vegetative soul as well as the powers of movement and emotion as well as the ten internal and external senses. intellective/rational soul: included not only the vegetative and sensitive powers — the organic faculties of the other two souls - but also the three rational powers of intellect, intellective memory (memory of concepts, as opposed to mere sense images) and will.

Hierarchy of souls according to Aristotle: Lowest level: Plants – only possess the ‘vegetative’ or ‘nutritive’ soul Middle level: ‘Imperfect’ animals (including sponges, worms and bivalves) –partial ‘sensitive’ soul ‘Perfect’ animals (including insects, birds and mammals) – a complete ‘sensitive’ soul (But they also possess the vegetative/nutritive soul) Highest level: Humans beings – only living beings have I intellective or rational soul only humans possess all three souls!  

Aristotle does not imagine the souls to be material but is nevertheless related to specific organs in human body: 1. Vegetative powers of ‘vegetative’/’nutritive soul’: located in liver, served by the veins and auxiliary members such as the bladder or genitals   2. Emotive powers of ‘sensitive soul’: located in the heart, served by the arteries 3. Power of cognition and voluntary motion of ‘intellective’/’rational soul’: located in the brain, served by the nerves, the sense organs, and the muscles

Visualisation of’ vital spirit’ inside the body, believed to be fused in the arteries

From the 12 century the spirit/soul took on theological meanings Appropriation of natural function and organs related to the spiritual and soul systems of Galen and Aristotle and the linking of these physiological ideas to Christian ideas, expressed in the Bible and writings of Church fathers One of the reasons: increasing reports and claims of holy possessions…… Devil snatches the spirit leaving the body of dying man through the mouth (Danish mural, 12th century)

A famous example of holy possession: S. Clare of Montefalco receiving the cross with Christ literally implanting his cross into her heart. (church of Santa Chiara, Italy)

St Care of Montefalco ‘cannonisation’ only in 1881 (‘beatification’ in 1737) Hagiography: is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader.

Relic: usually consists of the physical remains of a saint or the personal effects of the saint or venerated person preserved for purposes of veneration as a tangible memorial. Miracles and marvels are attributed to such relics until today (e.g. Lourdes) Detail from reliquary cross containing the crucifix, scourge and the three gallstones in Clare’s corpse in 1308, Montefalco held at the Church of Santa Chiara

Def. exorcism: the practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person believed to be possessed.

‘Let us no one have any doubt that demons are in the body, not the soul. Only God, not a created thing, can enter into the human soul through the inhabitation of grace.’ (Thomas of Cantimpre, in Caciola, p. 283) Demons can disrupt human senses and sense communication

Def. species: object’s forms/images radiated out by a thing Mechanics of Vision Def. species: object’s forms/images radiated out by a thing mid- 14th century illustration, showing the five internal senses located in the three cells of the brain and connected to each other. Five internal sense: common sense, imagination, estimation, and cognition, located in the two anterior cerebrial ventricles, or stored in the hinder ventricle of memory or further use. Demons can alter the process of cognition, particularly the faculty of imagination (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München (Clm., 527, fol. 64v)

Claim: Becoming a witch is always performative act in which bodily signs and other testimonies are publicly discussed, and on the basis of these a verdict is reached. Bodily signs are not meaningful in themselves at the time; they need to interpreted and can take on different meanings in different examinations.