Owen Davies’ Troubled by Faith: Insanity and the Supernatural in the Age of the Asylum explores the complex interactions between psychiatry and supernatural beliefs in the 19th and early 20th centuries in Europe and the United States. This compelling study challenges the notion of post-Enlightenment disenchantment, demonstrating how early psychiatry's attempt to pathologize "irrational" beliefs ultimately failed to confine them.
Davies presents his work as “a social history of ideas about the supernatural across society through the prism of medical history and its archives” (9). This approach diverges from narratives inspired by Michel Foucault’s work, which often depict the asylum movement as primarily driven by a political desire for social control. Instead, Davies explicitly states that his book is not a critique of psychiatry. He argues that while condescension and contradiction were certainly present, many early psychiatrists and asylum workers were genuinely motivated by a desire to understand humanity as well as improve society and the lives of individual patients.
By viewing the asylum as “an extraordinary cultural space,” Davies illuminates broader societal anxieties and the ways people used supernatural frameworks to cope with rapid technological and social changes (182). His balanced perspective counters overly critical and sensationalized depictions of the asylum movement, offering a nuanced understanding of this pivotal period in psychiatric and cultural history.
Troubled by Faith is structured in two main parts, each offering distinct perspectives on the intersection between psychiatry, supernatural beliefs, and societal changes from the early 19th to early 20th centuries. Part 1 explores the emergence of psychiatry and its efforts to understand and categorize human experiences, focusing particularly on those involving supernatural beliefs. Davies begins by demonstrating how early psychiatrists retrospectively analyzed historical events like witch trials using new diagnostic categories. They did this to establish a lineage for conditions such as mania and hysteria, thereby legitimizing their existence. The section then shifts to psychiatric discourse regarding the “supernatural present,” revealing how early psychiatrists across Europe and the US grappled with persistent supernatural beliefs.
According to Davies, early psychiatrists often pathologized forms of religiosity deemed superstitious or fanatical, attempting to confine irrationality to society’s margins and maintain a triumphant narrative of Enlightenment progress. However, this effort proved challenging, as exemplified by the case of Spiritualism. Unlike religious movements typically associated with lower-class eccentricity, Spiritualism garnered substantial support from upper-class intellectuals. The movement’s social status complicated attempts to pathologize its beliefs and practices, exposing the biases and contradictions in psychiatry's attempt to draw clear boundaries between sanity and insanity, rationality and irrationality (172).
Part 2 narrows its geographical focus to British and Scottish asylums, offering a description of what Davies terms "insanity from below" (8). Drawing from thousands of asylum records, this section provides insights into patients' inner lives and their struggles to comprehend rapid societal and technological changes. Davies explores various religious themes present in case files, including fears of religious conspiracies, claims of messianic divinity, and visions of heavenly beings. The records also reveal the persistence of "superstitious beliefs" that folklorists had assumed were retreating to rural areas. Instead, beliefs in witches, ghosts, spirits, and fairies interfering with the human world were shown to be persistent and widespread.
Davies also analyzes the theme of technology and the supernatural, showing how new technologies quickly appeared in patients' case notes, often within months of their societal introduction. This "technology anxiety" crossed all demographics and cultures, revealing widespread difficulties in adapting to new forms of technology with invisible power sources and unprecedented modes of communication. Importantly, Davies demonstrates that supernatural paradigms served as an effective and convenient cognitive framework for making sense of these rapid technological transformations. Patients frequently interpreted new technologies through supernatural lenses, allowing them to process and conceptualize these novel and often unsettling innovations using familiar concepts of the extraordinary.
In the epilogue, Davies concludes that the asylum movement failed to contain irrational beliefs. He suggests that, instead, there has been a depathologization of supernatural beliefs through 20th- and 21st-century mass media. Examples include the flourishing of conspiracy theories on social media and the widespread cultural fascination with ghosts and UFOs, which Davies sees as evidence of the "mass normalization of the supernatural and the heterodox" in contemporary society (278-279). Davies’ claim that “the supernatural is now widely accepted in reality” could be further contextualized by scholars like Jeffrey J. Kripal, whose work on paranormal trends in American culture would complement Troubled by Faith well (279).
Davies' work is commendable for its extensive use of diverse sources, ranging from French court trials to American medical journals to British and Scottish asylum records. This broad approach provides a rich tapestry of evidence supporting his arguments. However, the thematic organization of part 1, while effective in presenting overarching trends, sometimes obscures geographical nuances. The frequent shifts between different countries and cultures can blend Western experiences into a seemingly cohesive narrative, potentially overshadowing important regional distinctions and international debates that Davies initially emphasizes.
Despite these limitations, Troubled by Faith makes significant contributions to our understanding of the complex interplay between psychiatry, supernatural beliefs, and societal changes in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Davies effectively challenges the notion of post-Enlightenment disenchantment by demonstrating the persistence of supernatural beliefs even as psychiatry attempted to pathologize them. His exploration of "technology anxiety" is particularly insightful, revealing how people used supernatural frameworks to navigate modernity's challenges.
The book’s interdisciplinary approach will appeal to scholars across various fields, including historians of medicine, religion, and culture, as well as researchers in psychiatry, sociology, and anthropology. Within this broad framework, Davies skillfully illustrates how 19th-century psychiatry aimed to construct a more ordered and progressive society by pathologizing pre-Enlightenment “irrationality.” Ultimately, Troubled by Faith offers a nuanced perspective on the enduring power of supernatural beliefs in the face of scientific advancement, providing a compelling examination of how individuals and institutions grappled with rapid changes in the age of the asylum.
Kelly Bratkowski is a PhD candidate in the Department of Theological Studies at Saint Louis University.
Kelly Bratkowski
Date Of Review:
December 13, 2024
