FS Religious Sources

Thomas DeQuincey

Confessions of an English Opium-eater, 1832

Where was DeQuincey published?

London

Title of first section

The Pleasures of Opium

When did DeQuincey first take opium?

1804 (a long time ago)

Why did DeQuincey first take opium

To releave toothache after putting his head in cold water didn't work

Who recommended opium to DeQuincey

A college acquaintance he met by accident

Opium! Dread agent of unimaginable...

Pleasure and pain (lots in this para on sadness and happiness of the experience together)

Where does DeQuincey get his opium from

A druggist on Oxford street (London). Until he vanishes!

The reader may choose to think of him as, possibly, no more than a sublunary druggist: it may be so: but my faith is better: I believe him to have

evanesced, or evaporated (evanesced is a strong word, usually used for royals not druggists!)

How does DeQuincey describe opium? (religion-y)

The celestial drug

Here was the secret to

Happiness (happiness which might now be bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoat pocket)

But, if I talk in this way, the reader will think I am laughing: and I can assure him, that nobody

will laugh long who deals much with opium: (its pleasures even are of a grave and solemn complexion)

Nevertheless, I have a very reprehensible way of

jesting at times in the midst of my own misery

Who has the info on opium previously been written by?

Travellers in Turkey

What does DeQuincey say about the current info on opium

Lies! Lies! Lies!

What are the only truths have been recorded about opium?

That it is brown, inexpensive, and dangerous if you have to much

Who does DeQuincey ask to stand aside to he can lecture on the matter of opium?

Doctors

What is the first myth about opium DeQuincey dispels?

That opium intoxicates ('no quantity of opium ever did, or could intoxicate', but laudanum can)

What does wine do compared to opium?

Disorders the mental faculties, opium, on the contrary (if taken in a proper manner), introduces amongst them the most exquisite order, legislation, and harmony

It is most absurdly said, in popular language, of any man, that he is disguised in liquor: for on the contrary,

Most men are disguised by sobriety

The opium-eater (I speak of him who is not suffering from any disease, or other remote effects of opium) feels that the...

Diviner part of his nature is paramount

What does DeQuincey claim about the other people writing about opium?

That they are unscientific because they have no experimental knowledge of its action

the elevation of spirits produced by opium is necessarily followed by a

Disproportionate depression

How long did DeQuincey take opium for?

17 years of use, 8 years of abuse

What was DeQuincey's aim of writing? (quote)

To display the marvelous agency of opium, whether for pleasure or for pain

What was the crisis in DeQuincey's life?

I saw that I must die if I continued the opium

Why did he end up not knowing how much opium he consumed a year?

It was purchased for him by a friend who refused to let him pay him

How did DeQuincey quit?

Gradually decreasing the dose to just twelve grains

What continued after he stopped taking opium?

His sufferings (Think of me as one, even when four months had passed, still agitated, writhing, throbbing, palpitating, shattered)

(DeQuincey) Who is the narrative addressed to?

The opium-eater

What does DeQuincey think is hard to do?

For most men to stop using opium (doesn't deny its possible, but it is hard)

DeQUincey- One memorial of my former condition still remains...

My dreams are not yet perfectly calm

Sum up DeQuincey's source

A cautionary tale and a lover letter to opium, and how it connected to his spiritual experience

William A F Browne (religious source)

Observations on Religious Fanaticism, 1837

What asylums did Browne use for his comparison case studies?

Montrose Lunatic Asylum

Where was Browne's work published?

The Phrenological Journal

Sum up the argument and purpose of Browne's work?

Using comparative case studies to show how those labelled as mad religious fanatics today are alike to those we credit with sainthood from past societies

What is Browne speaking about?

(Not the aggregate sentiment of religion, but) one of its ingrients, of veneration or mere devotional piety

Enthusiasm is the tropical sun of the religious feelings, and fanaticism may be called a

fever heat to which the moral temperature will rise

At which times does Browne claim there were epidemics of mania of the religious feelings?

The crusades, the reign of Charles V, and that of Cromwell (also reformation)

What does Browne see as Veneration acting as the mainspring in?

The grand machine of humane affairs

Key Browne quote - human wisdom during one century which is...

Stigmatised as insanity in the succeeding

What does Browne include at the start of each of his case studies?

Phrenology notes (Dimensions of the head)

What will his case studies show? (hint: related to the body)

That insanity generally takes the direction of the predominant organs

What did case study J. R do to receive the diagnosis of religious madness?

Repeated religious phrases continually, and his devotion was shown in his body too (e.g. eyes fixed to the skies)

Why did case study J. R have religious fanaticism according to Browne?

He'd caughta fever on his way to the West Indes and derangement was a result

Which religious figure does Browne compare J R to?

Simeon Stylites, a Syrian anchoret

How long had WC been insane for?

30 years

Who did Browne compare WC to and why?

St Anthony, Here is the same ceremonial piety, and similar satanic conflicts, attended with similar triumphs

If belief in, or apprehension of, the power of witchcraft, be a proof of madness, we must hold lunacy to have been...

Epidemic in former times (including men like Luther and Calvin)

That does J.G. affirm happened when she was a girl at school?

She had constant intercourse with spirits at the burnside... and predicted many things which have since taken place... And she performed miracles

What does Browne say J.G.'s hallucinations stem from?

Her Veneration and Self-Esteen are very large...

What does JG claim?

that at the time of her fast and temptation, she was Jesus Christ, but that now she is an incarnation of the Father

Who does Browne compare JG with?

George Fox (founder of the Quakers)

What was George Fox worth of in every way according to Browne? Why?

A strait-jacket, Fox was convinced he had supernatural powers

Superstitious credulity is perhaps the most favourable condition upon which

Quackery can achieve its wonders

What events does Browne compare which both involved bodily experiences or shrieking and visions? (one labelled madness, and the other religious miracles)

Dance mania and St Medard's grave

What did case study AD (a woman) have the daring to do

Attempt suicide

Raymond Crawfurd (title, no date)

The Blessing of the Cramp-rings; a chapter in the history of the treatment of epilepsy'

Which monarch does the cramp ring tradition go back to?

Edward the confessor

What sources does Crawfurd use?

Contemporary records

In what sources in the tale of the cramp ring told? (or the king (Edward) giving a ring to a poor man who was actually John the Evangelist, who then gave the ring back to Ed)

Caxton's Golden Legend

earliest use of cramp rings for epilepsy cure we have records for comes from?

Reign of Edward II

When does cramp ring ceremony take place? (in tudor times)

Good Friday

What metals used to make cramp rings?

Silver and gold

How did cramp rings get passed around?

In wills, as gifts

What were Talismanic rings?

Rings inscribed with the names of the three Magi, Caspar, Melchior, Balthazar used as preservatives from epilepsy in Plantagenet times

Who lended his patronage to the royal cramp rings in 1518?

The President of the College of Physicians

What was used as a charm against epilepsy among Indians, Norweigans, and Central Africans?

The foot of an elk

George Trosse

The Life of the Reverend Mr Geo Trosse, of Exeter, 1832

What did Trosse say was manifest in the 6 years of his life spent at home in ease and leisure?

His hatred of religion

Trosse's drinking incident

Fell off a horse - saved by God from death

The sabbath was usually spent in the total neglect of divine worship, and in the practice of

His vices

How does Trosse write about himself?

In third person

What did Trosse delight in?

The devils cursed work

What caused Trosse to go into a state of confusion and delirium?

This mortification, together with the effects of the liquor and his fall on the preceding day (after his ride to Feniton)

Where did Trosse's friends send him?

And establishment at Glastonbury

What did Trosse do at Glastonbury?

directed his attention to the scriptures and religious works

What comes up a lot in trosse's story

Relapses

What did Trosse return to after Glastonbury?

The pleasure of sin

What was Trosse's malady like?

Visions, delusions, blasphemy

What did Trosse do to try and attempt suicide?

Threw him off his horse, trying to break his neck. Saved by God (again)

What is Trosse's story testament to the fact of?

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners," even the chief of sinners

Edward Stopford

The Work and the and the Counterwork, or, the Religious Revival in Belfast, with an explanation of the Physical Phenomena, (1859)

Where was Stopford's work published? (different to what the text is about)

Dublin

What does story does Stopford start with?

God sowing his seed, and enemies tampering with it

Who did Stopford converse with in Belfast?

clergy, laity, persons of all classes in society , and holding all varieties of views in respect of the physical phenomena

Who did Stopford listen to which he described as the best sermon which I heard in Belfast)? How many people at this sermon?

A street preacher (during the hour of the working men), 150

What does he claim the counter work takes advantage of?

a bodily illness which has come to be co-existent with this revival movement, though not co-extensive with it

What were there some conversions without?

The convulsions/ bodily phenomena

Sum up Stopford's argument

He is disagreeing with the people of Belfast that the mass religious conversion is caused by mass bodily afflictions

Of the bodily affection, Stopford found...

Nothing but what I have been previously familiar with

What does Stopford's friend he takes to Belfast with him confirm about the convulsions?

that such a sound he never heard before, and never hereafter can fail to recognise

But where had Stopford hear the 'unique' cry before?

Nearly thirty years ago, in Mr Irving's chapel in London, I heard Miss \---- speak in an unknown tongue

What does stopford label the cry?

the unmistakable cry of Irving's prophetess

All the "cases" I saw in Belfast were

Clearly and unmistably hysterical

Key Stopford footnote!

I have heard some cases that that were considered epileptic. I believe it is not uncommon for epilepsy to exist in complication with hysteria. But I have never seen a case of this king, and have no knowledge of epilepsy

What does Stopford aim to show?

That the bodily afflictions were only accidently connected with revival of religion

The remarkable characteristic of this disease to...

Copy and imitate other cases

What did a case study of a girl in Belfast think the hysteria/affliction came from?

The burden of sin