Nor can the physiologist be harshly blamed for scepticism in this direction, for history teems with the records of epidemics of religious enthusiasm, in which fanaticism had led its victims to claim repeated ecstatic visions of God, and to be the recipients of supernatural revelations. The descriptions transmitted to us of the Pietists and Illuminati in Germany, of the French and English Shakers, the Welsh Jumpers, and many others of the sects to which the Reformation gave birth, abound in instances of these ecstatic outbreaks. The visions of Swedenborg, as related in his _Arcana Cœlestia_, and in the numerous biographies[46] of this extraordinary person, are well known; and among similar claimants to supernatural experience, Arnold’s description of John Engelbrecht[47] is one of the most curious and interesting. In Hecker’s _Epidemics of the Middle Ages_ is given a full account of the “Convulsionnaires of St. Médard,” so-called from the cemetery of St. Médard in Paris, where a noted Jansenist deacon was buried in 1727. The fanatical excitement of his followers first showed itself in pilgrimages and reported miraculous cures at his grave, to which they gradually flocked in great numbers, many becoming convulsed with terrible contortions, jumping, shouting, rolling on the ground, spinning around with incredible velocity, running their heads against walls, while others preached fanatical harangues or pretended to be gifted with _clairvoyance_. For more than fifty years these scandalous exhibitions continued, Convulsionism growing into a distinct sect in spite of the efforts of the government to suppress it, until swept out of existence by the greater excitement of the French Revolution. In many of these cases, the supposition of intentional fraud was doubtless well founded; in others, the ecstatics were themselves the unconscious dupes of their own fanaticism. To appreciate the cautious scrutiny with which the church, however, sifts pretensions of this nature in any of her children, the reader need only consult the lives 172 of such saints as have been thus favored.[48] The psychological condition or state which is somewhat vaguely termed ecstasy has always possessed peculiar interest both for the theologian and the physician; and, although numerous definitions of it have been attempted, it is extremely difficult to convey to the general reader a clear idea of its distinctive nature. The word itself usually signifies a condition in which the mind and soul is transferred, or placed out of its usual state.