Nothing is more common in all times of religious excitement than strange personal hallucinations, involving the belief, by the insane patient, that he is a divine person.

In the most striking representation of insanity that has ever been made, Kaulbach shows, at the centre of his wonderful group, a patient drawing attention to himself as the Saviour of the world.
Sometimes, when this form of disease took a milder hysterical character, the subject of it was treated with reverence, and even elevated to sainthood: such examples as St.Francis of Assisi and St.Catherine of Siena in Italy, St.Bridget in Sweden, St.Theresa in Spain, St.Mary Alacoque in France, and Louise Lateau in Belgium, are typical.

But more frequently such cases shocked public feeling, and were treated with especial rigour: typical of this is the case of Simon Marin, who in his insanity believed himself to be the Son of God, and was on that account burned alive at Paris and his ashes scattered to the winds.( 370) (370) As to the frequency among the insane of this form of belief, see Calmeil, vol.ii, p.

257; also Maudsley, Pathology of Mind, pp.

201, 202, and 418-424; also Rambaud, Histoire de la Civilisation en France, vol.ii, p.110.For the peculiar abberations of the saints above named and other ecstatics, see Maudsley, as above, pp.