12 Brit. Med. Journ., Dec. 12, 1885.
Self-concentration in those of robust minds differs rather in degree than in essence from ecstasy or trance and allied conditions in the weak and hysterical. “Archimedes,” says Clymer, “engrossed with a problem in geometry, feels no hunger and is deaf to the tumult of the soldiers in a captured town; Socrates, occupied with his own thoughts, stands twenty-four hours immovable in one spot exposed to the burning rays of the sun.” Goethe, Blake, and others are on record as having the power to call up images at will. Francis Galton13 in a recent work advocates the cultivation of this power of the reproduction at will of mental imagery. Clarke14 records many wonderful instances of pseudopia. In what does the ecstatic differ from these except in that the mental status of the individual is different, and that the object of mental concentration is of a special character, consonant with the person's ideas, training, and surroundings?
13 Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development, Francis Galton, F. R. S., New York, 1883.
14 Vision, a Study of False Sight, by Edward H. Clarke, M.D., Boston, 1878.
In brown study or reverie, according to Laycock, the eye is fixed by a muscular action analogous to that of the cataleptic; and not the eye only, for a limb or the whole body will remain in the same position for many minutes, the senses themselves being in deep abstraction from surrounding objects.
Stigmatization.
Stigmatization (from the Greek στιγμα, a small puncture) is a symptom or appearance which usually presents itself in the form of bloody or blood-like markings on the palms of the hands, the backs of the feet, and the left side, the positions in which Christ was lacerated by the nails and the spear at the crucifixion. In some cases the stigmata are found in scattered points on various parts of the body, sometimes upon the forehead at the position of the lacerations produced by the crown of thorns. In various ages it has been claimed by Catholics that cases of genuine stigmatization have occurred. It is not, however, a matter of Catholic faith, the claim being simply that it is a genuine experience which has some supernatural significance. Hammond15 has an interesting chapter on the subject of stigmatization, of which I have made use, and Clymer's16 article, already referred to, gives the details of several of the most interesting historical cases. Space will not permit more than a glance at this subject. A case of stigmatization is not necessarily one of hysteria, but the phenomena of simulated, and possibly of genuine, stigmatization usually occur among the hysterical.
15 On Certain Conditions of Nervous Derangement, New York, 1881.
16 Op. cit.
According to Garres, the first to exhibit stigmatization was Saint Francis of Assisium, who was born in 1186 and died in 1236. In 1224 he was marked, and in memory of the event the 17th of September was set apart as the Feast of the Holy Stigmata by Pope Benedict XI. The story of this occurrence is of a highly emotional and sensational character. Christine de Stumbele, born in 1242, a few miles from Cologne, is another of the famous hystero-cataleptics and ecstatics who were the victims of numerous stigmata. These were irregular as to position and to times of appearance. On one occasion, for instance, she had wounds on each foot from which the blood flowed freely; a little later, on the same occasion, she was wounded on the knee, and to the wondering priest who was ministering to her at this time she showed hot nails of hideous shapes. She was not only a case of ecstasy and stigmatization, but a filthy creature withal, who covered herself and others with excrement, which they had the foolishness to believe came from the hand of the devil. Veronica Giuliani, another ecstatic, who conversed with Christ and the Virgin Mary, received the stigmata during one of her prayers, and was canonized in 1839. Imbert-Gourbeyre gives a list of 145 persons who have received stigmata, besides 8 now living known to him. He details one American case, that of a young French Canadian.