Religion, Social Change, and Psychological Healing in England, 1600–1800

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Abstract
Robert Burton was being as trite as Polonius when he advised his readers that the general causes of melancholy ‘are either supernatural or natural’. Apart from a small and notorious band of sceptics, all of Burton’s contemporaries agreed that mental diseases might be caused by natural accidents or supernatural forces. They attributed misery and madness to a myriad of particular misfortunes and afflictions. Sudden frights and insupportable griefs drove men mad; physical illnesses polluted their bodies and crazed their minds; horrible sins fed festering guilt and exposed them to God’s wrathful judgements; evil spirits and witches tormented them with awful temptations, suicidal desperation, stark insanity, and demonic possession. The defences against the material and immaterial enemies of human happiness were as varied as the sources of misery themselves. Mentally disturbed people were treated with drugs and therapeutic regimens to restore the balance of their humours, with religious counsel and prayer to ease their spiritual afflictions, and with amulets, charms, and exorcisms to protect them against the malignancy of demons and witches.

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