The Suffocation of the Mother

In the Renaissance, madness is not just a disease. It has a divine purpose. God allows madness not merely to punish, but to create an opportunity for redemption. This chapter explores this dual teleology of madness by considering the tension between witch-skeptic and physician Edward Jorden and the exorcists. For Jorden, most cases of alleged demon possession were actually due to an organic dysfunction, hysteria or “suffocation of the mother.” Jorden saw his confrontation with the exorcists as a self-conscious repetition of Hippocrates’ confrontation with the magicians and purifiers. We can see Jorden as attempting to replace a teleological conception of madness (madness-as-strategy) with his dysteleological conception (madness-as-dysfunction). An irony in Jorden’s text is that Jorden never actually banishes the use of amulets, charms, spells, and incantations. He retains them because of their psychological value for treating hysteria.