Providentia

The Statue Whisperer

When stories about the Fox sisters of New York state and the mysterious "rappings" that allowed them to communicate with spirits first came out in the late 1840s, it sparked a spiritualism craze around the world.  Never mind that the Fox women would eventually confess that the rappings were a hoax, scientists, clergymen, aristocrats, and housewives would all weigh in with their own spooky experiences and spirit mediums, seances, and ghostly messages would continue to be in vogue for decades to come.   

And so it was in Paris when the first spiritualist circle was formed in 1850 under the leadership of Baron Ludwig de Guldenstubbe.   An Estonian by birth, de Guldenstubbe had a long fascination with the occult and animal magnetism and had already made a reputation for himself as a "ghost hunter."  He wrote extensively about his ghostly findings including one previous experience on the Estonian island of Saare Maa where he reportedly witnessed coffins being thrown around a family vault by a mysterious force.  After holding the first meeting of his new spiritualist circle in his spacious Paris home, he quickly found mediums who could were reportedly every bit as talented as the Fox sisters themselves.   Not only did these seances produce the same mysterious rappings the sisters described but also featured table turning and other forms of "poltergeist" activity, all witnessed by many of Paris's literary and social luminaries.   

But de Guldenstubbe wasn't satisfied with seances.  Not only did he want  final proof of life after death, but he also wanted to discover a way to communicate with spirits without the intervention of a medium.   Whether he suspected some mediums of outright fraud or whether he simply wanted the chance to make his own firsthand contact with the Other Side, he decided to try something different.  Drawing on Biblical accounts of supernatural writing (such as the mysterious apparition that wrote on the walls of King Belshazzar's dining room), he designed a series of experiments to see if spirits could write messages.   

In one 1856 experiment, he locked a pad of blank paper and a pencil into a sealed box to see if any ghostly messages would appear.  After numerous disappointments, he finally opened the box to discover some mysterious marks on the paper.   Other messages soon appeared, one of them in the Baron's native Estonian.   According to his later account, he eventually saw the letters forming on the paper without the aid of the pencil at all.   The messages didn't really say anything important, mind you but, in much the same way that Marshall McLuhan would eventually report, it was the medium that was the message.    

While other spiritualists would copy de Guldenstubbe's experiment and report their own success with spirit writing, it was the good Baron who did it first.   Enthused by his success. he publicly announced that "The hour is about to come when materialism and the skeptical rationalism of our so-called modern savants will be utterly routed."   Again though, de Guldenstubbe wanted more. Since the messages were completely anonymous, there seemed no way of directing questions at specific figures from the past.  

Until, that is, he hit on a rather intriguing method that will forever be associated with his name.  One of the advantages of living in Paris was the abundance of statues of famous people that could be found in churches, cemeteries, and museums throughout the city.   What if he left sheets of paper and visiting cards at the foot of these statues as a way of inviting the noble spirits to send messages?   And so, assisted by assorted friends and fellow spiritualists, de Guldenstubbe conducted a series of experiments at places such as the Hall of Antiquities in the Louvre, the Basilica of St. Denis, Pere Lachaise cemetery, etc where he left behind writing paper and returned after a fixed period of time.

Though not all of the statues cooperative, de Guldenstubbe was delighted to find messages at many of the statue sites, all of them written in the native language of the famous person in question.   At the statues of Queen Mary Stuart, for example, notes were written in English while Plato, Socrates, Cicero, Virgil, etc. wrote notes in either Greek or Latin.   Though the notes weren't particularly revealing, de Guldenstubbe eventually compiled over five hundred of these messages, all of which he published in his book, Positive and Experimental Pneumatology: the Reality of Spirits and the Marvellous Phenomenon of Their Direct Handwriting which is available online. 

Public reception to the book was, well, mixed.   Though de Guldenstubbe and his fellow academics were eminent enough that nobody was willing to accuse them of outright fraud, many critics concluded that they were the gullible victims of some unknown prankster.  While a few adventurous historians raised the possibility of using this kind of spirit writing to answer some of history's most vexing questions, nothing really came of it.  In any event, de Guldenstubbe's book was quickly forgotten and spiritualists moved on to more promising ways of communicating with the dead.

As for de Guldenstubbe himself, he gave up on his statues and returned to conducting seances.  By the late 1860s, he had relocated to London and had created a new spiritualist circle that regularly held seances in his home.   These seances were regularly attended by many of London's most famous writers, aristocrats, and scientists, including biologist Alfred Russel Wallace.  It was Wallace who introduced his new discovery, medium Agnus Guppy (later Agnes Guppy-Volckman).   Though eventually exposed as a fraud, Agnes Nichol became one of London's most famous physical mediums thanks to the spectacular effects she accomplished during de Guldenstubbe's seances,, including objects that seemingly "appeared" out of nowhere.  

By the time he died in 1873, de Guldenstubbe's reputation as a spiritualist had already been overshadowed by more prominent names such as Wallace, William Crookes, and Madame Blavatsky.  If he is remembered at all, it is as the man who tried to talk to statues, an achievement nobody ever really allowed him to live down.  Even today, there is not way to tell whether he faked his results completely or was simply the victim of someone hoping to cash in on the spiritualist movement.  

As for de Guldenstubbe himself, he (so far) seems disinclined to tell his side of the story.  

 

 

 

 

Why Do Highly Engaged Workers Have Better Family Lives?

Past research on the effects of work engagement on the family has demonstrated contrasting effects, with some suggesting that work engagement is beneficial for family life whereas others suggesting that it may be detrimental. In a new study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, researchers used a sample of 125 employees who responded to daily surveys both at work and at home for 2 consecutive weeks, the authors present a multilevel examination of the relationships of work engagement to family outcomes aimed at elucidating such work–family effects. Their findings revealed that employees’ daily work engagement experiences related positively, within individuals, to work–family interpersonal capitalization, which in turn, related positively to daily family satisfaction and to daily work–family balance. The findings also indicate that both the relationship between daily work engagement and work–family interpersonal capitalization and the indirect effects of daily work engagement on the family outcomes were stronger for employees with higher intrinsic motivation than for those with lower intrinsic motivation. The authors discuss theoretical and practical implications of the findings and offer directions for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)

For the abstract

Being a Cellphone Parent

How many times do you check your smartphone in the course of an average day?  

While being able to talk, share pictures, or text with virtually anybody in the world has transformed modern life in ways we are just beginning to appreciate, there is definitely a dark side to all this new technology.   Glancing at your phone or tablet screen or answering a phone call often means interrupting whatever task you happen to be doing at the time.   Even though most smartphone users feel confident that they can multi-task effectively, most laboratory studies show the overwhelming majority of people using mobile technology show marked attention problems that can reduce their overall effectiveness.   As one example, it's hardly surprising in fact that most jurisdictions ban mobile technology use when driving given the accident risks that can come from splitting attention between a smartphone screen and keeping one's eyes on the road.   

Smartphones and other digital devices can also disrupt most social activities as well, especially social activities involving face-to-face interactions.   While these interruptions can be relatively trivial for adults, what about when parents or caretakers are interacting with children?   For toddlers learning language skills, the social dyads they form with parents depends on prompt and meaningful communicating.   Along with learning new words, children learn to respond to eye gaze and other forms of non-verbal communication.    Which raises a rather important question: can the kind of disruption that can come from smartphone use interfere with the word learning?

To read more, check out my new Psychology Today blog post.

 

"Dementia Village" Project Underway in Alberta

With more than 50 million  sufferers worldwide, a number that is expected to double in the next twenty years, dementia has already become a major health problem and is expected to grow far worse in time.  While Alzheimer's Disease remains the most well known of these neurological conditions,  there are numerous other dementias and the risk rises significantly with age.  As baby boomers grow older, new dementia cases will likely strain health care systems to the breaking point by 2050.  

As part of an innovative new strategy for helping people with dementia, "dementia villages" have been established in the Netherlands.  Designed as functioning communities where patients with severe dementia can live full-time, patients can interact with "villagers" (who are actually trained geriatric care staff) and allows them to function as close to their normal life as possible.   Inspired by the success of the Hogewey community in the Netherlands, similar villages have been established in the United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia.  

Here in Canada, two new pilot projects are now underway in the province of Alberta, one in the Calgary foothills and the other in the town of Okotoks.   Funded by the Alberta government, both projects involve training staff at recreation centres, grocery stores, and other businesses how to deal with people with dementia.   "Dementia is everybody's business," said program coordinator Emma Richardson in an interview with CBC News.  "Everybody will know somebody that has dementia, even in the wider community. So it's making sure that there's inclusion for everybody."

With more than 40,000 Albertans who have been diagnosed with dementia, many businesses have volunteered to participate in the project to provide better service for customers in need.   As part of the training they receive, staff members are taught to  recognize people with dementia and to use the following steps to put them at ease:

• Make eye contact, smile warmly.
• Use a gentle touch to get attention.
• Keep information short and to the point.
• Use gestures or pictures, if helpful.
• Say important things twice to help the person stay focused.
• Be patient, give the person extra time to answer.
• Give the person choices, like "Do you want a sandwich or soup," instead of asking open-ended questions like "What do you want for lunch?"

By providing clear guidance to customers who are confused due to dementia, Emma Richardson hopes that problems with miscommunication can be avoided.  "If they go to the bank, or if they go to the dentist, they go to any of these services, if the person that's helping them doesn't understand why they're behaving in a certain way, they can treat them with not so much respect and not give them the time that is needed. So having an education really creates that awareness."

Though the dementia villages projects have only just started, early signs suggest that people dealing with dementia, along with their families, are already experiencing the benefits.   As the number of new  cases continues to increase, they will need all the help they can get.

 

Sterilizing The Heiress

From the day she was born, Ann Cooper Hewitt's life consisted of one legal battle after another.  Born in 1914 from an extramarital affair between millionaire inventor Peter Cooper Hewitt and Maryon Bruguiere (later Maryon Bruguiere Hewitt D'Erlanger McCarter), it took a divorce from Peter's first wife and a belated marriage to Ann's mother to legitimize her.   Even then, Peter had to formally adopt his natural daughter given the laws against illegitimacy that were in force at the time.   This would lead to a long and vicious inheritance battle after Peter's death in 1921 as his siblings disputed Ann's right to her father's money.  Still, after years of legal wrangling, Ann's legitimacy was upheld and her father's estate would remain under the control of her much-married mother.   By the time she turned twenty-one, Ann seemed assured of receiving her inheritance and taking full control of her life.

And then her mother had her sterilized...

In an incredible lawsuit filed in a San Francisco court in January, 1935, Ann Cooper Hewitt, sued her mother. two San Francisco doctors, and a State Health Department psychiatrist of being part of a scheme to seize control of her estate by having her declared mentally incompetent.   The suit, which called for $500,000 in damages, accused Maryon (then known as Mrs. McCarter) of years of riotous living, all funded by money embezzled from Ann's estate.   Along with gambling trips and numerous affairs, Maryon had been notorious for years with her frequent trips flitting between Europe, New York, and San Francisco.

Since the rise of the eugenics movement at the dawn of the 20th century, sterilization of people  deemed to prove "genetically unfit" had been perfectly legal across numerous countries in North America and most European countries.  For anyone suffering from mental illness, criminal behaviour, low intelligence, or virtually any other quality that might be deemed inferior, compulsory sterilization remained a popular option supported by numerous lawmakers and social reformers.  In the United States, the legality of compulsory sterilization had been upheld by the landmark Buck vs Bell Supreme Court decision of 1924 as well as numerous laws such as the 1924 Sterilization Act passed in Virginia.  Though countless patients would be sterilized, often without their knowledge, critics charging that people could be sterilized for even trivial reasons tended to be dismissed.

For Ann Cooper Hewitt, however, things were very different.   In the lawsuit filed by her attorneys, she maintained that her sterilization had taken place at a San Francisco hospital on August 18, 1934.   The surgeons who had carried out the operation, Tilton E. Tilman and Samuel G. Boyd, were two of San Francisco's most prominent doctors and had apparently received permission to carry out Ann's sterilization following an assessment by social worker Mary S. Scally.   According to Ann, she had no idea that she was being sterilized and that it had taken place while she was undergoing an emergency appendectomy.  As the lawsuit pointed out, the terms of Ann's trust fund were quite clear that Maryon would only inherit her late husband's estate if Ann died childless.  And so, the sterilization took place just months before her daughter turned twenty-one.

In responding to the allegations raised by the lawsuit,  both of the surgeons named admitted to the sterilization but insisted that they had examined Ann first and found her to be "feebleminded with the mental age of a child of 11 years."    This finding was apparently based on a battery of intelligence tests that Ann had undergone in 1934, apparently at her mother's urging, though Ann  had no idea of why she was being tested.   As for Ann's mother, her lawyer insisted that the operation had been carried out "for society's sake" and further hinted that Ann had been sterilized due to her "erotic tendencies," evidence of which would be brought out in the courtroom if the case came to trial.  Almost immediately, Ann's lawyers responded with an affidavit from a New Jersey psychiatrist who had been close to Ann her entire life and who verified that she was "correctly oriented in all spheres."    Not only was Ann fluent in three languages, but she was well-read and articulate.    

In what was gearing up to be the trial of the decade, San Francisco's district attorney announced that Ann's mother and the two doctors would be charged with "mayhem", a crime that would legal to lengthy legal sentences for all three.    Though Ann was reluctant to press charges, both doctors were ordered held for trial.   As for Maryon McMaster, she apparently panicked due to her new notoriety.   Fleeing to New York, she registered at the Plaza Hotel under an assumed name and, after a week in hiding, was found in a New Jersey hospital following an apparent suicide attempt. 

When questioned about her reasons for Ann's sterilization, Maryon defended her decision by saying that Ann had already been expelled from numerous schools for "scandalous behavior" due to her "erotic tendencies."   She also insisted that Ann was "easily infatuated by men in uniform, regardless of their station."   Two years earlier, Ann had become intimately involved with a chauffeur and Maryon had been forced to step in to break up the relationship.  She also had to buy back letters reportedly written by her daughter which contained "references to things that should not be written about."   This, along with the intelligence test results, was enough for Maryon to agree with the doctors that Ann was "feeble-minded."

As for the doctors, their defense focused on California legislation authorizing sterilization for anyone committed to a home for the feeble-minded.   While this didn't apply to Ann, Tilton E. Tilman maintained that this didn't apply in her case.  Speaking as a member of the San Francisco Lunacy Commission, he stated that "where the family has sufficient means, the feeble-minded person is taken care of at home, but the situation is the same."   He also insisted that there was nothing unusual about being paid $8000 by Maryon to form his diagnosis, something he justified by the need to hire special nurses and the many hours he spent assessing her.  As for Samuel Boyd, who actually performed the surgery, he justified not telling anyone about the real nature of the operation, including Ann, because "it might cause harm to the girl's future."    How Ann was able to learn the truth about what was done to her is still a mystery.

After long legal haggling and behind-the-scenes negotiating, the case was settled out of court.  The two doctors were found not guilty due to lack of evidence and all charges were dropped against Ann's mother.  It's hard to say what kind of relationship Ann had with her mother afterwards but Maryon died just a few years later at the age of 55.    As for Ann herself, she married a garage foreman just a year after the case was dropped (her mother may have had a point about Ann's fondness for men in uniform).  This marriage ended quickly on the grounds of "mental cruelty" and Ann, who would be known as the "sterilized heiress" for the rest of her life, would go on to marry five more times.  She died in 1956 at the age of 42 and left her entire estate to her sixth husband.   They had no children.

Despite the brief flurry of publicity over Ann's case, compulsory sterilization would continue to be practiced for decades after her case was settled.  While the eugenics arguments that were originally used to justify sterilization were discredited due to the gruesome revelations of Nazi war crimes, thousands of people would continue to be sterilized well into the 1960s and beyond, many of them with no idea of what had been done to them.  Few of them ever received the kind of publicity that followed Ann Cooper Hewitt, but their stories were likely just as important.  

Even if they have never been told.

 For more information

What is Pibloktoq?

Robert Peary's Arctic explorations at the turn of the 20th century are still legendary.  Although his claim to have reached the geographical North Pole is disputed, Peary's reports of his Arctic expedition provided a fascinating glimpse of the inhabitants who lived their lives in the frozen north.  In a 1910 account of the "Eskimos" (Inuit is preferred these days)  Peary wrote:

Aside from rheumatism and bronchial troubles, the Eskimos are fairly healthy; but the adults are subject to a peculiar affliction which they call pibloktoq, a form of hysteria. The patient, usually a woman, begins to scream and tear off and destroy her clothing. If on the ship, she will walk up and down the deck, screaming and gesticulating, and generally in a state of nudity, though the temperature may be in the minus forties. As the intensity of the attack increases, she will sometimes leap over the rail upon the ice, running perhaps half a mile. The attack may last a few minutes, an hour, or even more; and some sufferers become so wild that they would continue running about on the ice perfectly naked until they froze to death if they were not forcibly brought back.

Though classified as a culture-specific psychiatric disorder, pibloktoq (also spelled piblokto) is an acute dissociative reaction that is not actually unique to the Inuit and has been occasionally observed in other cultures as well.  In one of the first clinical papers to be written on the subject,  A.A. Brill described pibloktoq as a "primitive hysteria" precipitated by sexual or emotional trauma.  Virtually all cases are said to occur in females, last no longer than two hours, and end after the victim collapses into a crying spell and/or sleep.   Following the pibloktoq episode, the victim usually recovers completely.

Since pibloktoq is most common during long Arctic nights, Inuit tradition holds that it is caused by evil spirits possessing the living.  Shamanism and animism are dominant themes in Inuit traditional beliefs with the angakkuk (healer) acting as a mediator with the various supernatural forces.  Considering angakkuit used trance states to communicate with spirits and carry out faith healing, there is a longstanding view among Inuit that individuals entering trance states be treated with respect given the possibility of a new "revelation" emerging as a result.  For that reason,  treatment with pibloktoq cases usually involved simply allowing the episode to run its course without interference.  While pibloktoq can often be confused with other conditions (including epilepsy) in which failure to intervene can lead to the victim coming to harm, most cases tend to be more typical. 

Although pibloktoq is typically viewed as a benign state, two vivid examples of more pathological cases are described in the clinical literature.  Brill's paper described one unusual episode of pibloktoq in which the victim foamed at the mouth, became violent, and had bloodshot eyes although the symptoms were more suggestive of epilepsy. In another account published in 1965,  Peter Freuchen described a first-hand description of a male suicide which was apparently linked to an episode of pibloktoq.  According to Freuchen:

Miuk suddenly got the feeling the pibloktoq was to come over him.  He began to chant louder and louder, and nobody dared to come near him [since] it would be dangerous to touch Miuk.  For the spirits who want revenge do not consider whom they punish.  But in a short time, he became quite violent and began to should.  Then he struck [a] knife into his wrist so that the blood sprayed out.  But Miuk laughed and carried the knife up along his arm, ripping up the skin up to the shoulder and across the chest.  Soon he got back his thoughts [and] said that he didn't know what moved him to use the knife.  When he had said this, his voice left him and in another moment he was dead. 

Although Brill classified pibloktoq as a hysteria (since women were the most common victims), later authors have argued that it is a form of primitive dissociation or, perhaps, an acute psychotic reaction with multiple possible causes that can include epilepsy or depression.  A more recent author has suggested that pibloktoq may be linked to an overdose of vitamin A considering that humans and animals suffering from hypervitaminosis A can show many of the same symptoms as a pibloktoq episode. 

Pibloktoq is not the only unusual condition seen in circum-Arctic societies.  In addition to windigo psychosis (which remains extremely rare), many of the native peoples of Siberia have reported experiencing latah.   Most typically known as a condition linked to the startle reflex, latah sufferers can react to unexpected stressors by lapsing into a trance in which they can engage in automaton-like  movements or verbalizations.  In addition to Siberian natives, latah cases have also been been reported in Japan (especially among Ainus), Lapland, the Phillipines, Malaysia, and Indonesia.   The word "latah" actually comes from the Malay language where it means "ticklish" or "love madness".  While the official Russian term for latah is "miryachit", there are numerous other colourful names in the different languages found in Siberia including  "aurakh", "olan" "irkunii, and "ikoto".    Another common clinical term for latah is olonism which is derived from a Tungus word meaning "to be suddenly frightened".   

Common symptoms noted in latah and other forms of arctic hysteria include: 1. seizures, 2. unconscious state, 3. impressionableness, 4. unintentional visual suggestion, 5. mania of imitation by an inclination to repeat all visual and auditory impressinos, gestures, and word, 6. hypnotic suggestibility, 7. clairvoyance, 8. susceptibility to fighting, 9.  feeling frightened or timid, 10.  monotonous improvisation, 11. singing while asleep, 12. spasms, 13. depression, 14. suicidal behaviour, and occasionally 15. coprolalia or sexually suggestive language.  Most often affecting older women, there have been recorded cases of "mass latah" involving a number of sufferers at the same time. 

Often considered to be due to possession, latah cases are rarely regarded as mental illness and relatives may not seek medical attention when it occurs.  Latah tends to defy classification by Western academics who usually consider it to be a culture-bound psychosis like pibloktoq.  Despite various attempts at theorizing why latah occurs, no real causal explanation exists.  While latah is far more geographically distributed than pibloktoq, there are still similarities which lead to their being classified together as "arctic hysteria".  Another striking similarity is the fact that both latah and pibloktoq are becoming rarer.  Most of the references to these syndromes are decades old and new cases occur much less frequently than before.  Whether this is due to the spread of Western psychiatry or just a greater awareness of the role that culture plays in mental ilness, those few case histories that remain may eventually be the only evidence that these strange syndromes ever existed. 

Becoming a Cool Kid

In a new article published in the journal Canadian Psychology, authors presented the results of a meta-analysis synthesizing the available research on the family of studies belonging to the Cool Kids Program, a cognitive–behavioral intervention for anxiety disorders in youth, and evaluate its overall effectiveness in addressing anxious symptomatology. A search of online databases, combined with reference list examination and communication with program implementers/developers, led to the identification of (16) studies that explored the effects of the Cool Kids Program (N = 1579), or its forerunners or extensions. Analyses focused on child- and parent-report of anxiety, with effect sizes aggregated according to a random effects model and calculated as differences between intervention and control groups at posttreatment (standardized mean difference [SMD]) as well as by considering the changes in scores between time points (e.g., standardized mean gain [SMG]). Analyses indicate superior improvement for youth receiving the Cool Kids intervention as compared with controls according to SMD analyses for both child- and parent-report, as well as for SMG analyses according to parent-report, though not according to child self-report despite a nearly identical aggregated effect size; the latter was attributable to greater gains reported by youth in control conditions; secondary analyses also suggest significantly greater improvements in automatic thoughts for Cool Kids participants. This intervention has been implemented in different modalities, holds considerable promise, and in the contemporary context of evidence-based practice, should be considered a program with strong empirical support. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)

For the abstract

Does Video Game Addiction Really Exist?

 What is an addiction exactly?

While sources such as Wikipedia define addiction as "a brain disorder characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences",  this description, while useful enough when talking about drug or alcohol addiction, can become more difficult to apply to problem behaviours such as gambling.  With gambling addiction, for example, we usually talk about a persistent need to gamble to the point of interfering with normal pastimes such as work or school, which can damage the gambler financially, undermine mental health, and lead to permanent shattering of family and social relationships.   In that respect, we can call it an addiction even though there are no external signs that a gambling addiction exists at all and certainly no medical tests that can be use to diagnosis this kind of problem behavior.    The same difficulty applies to shopping addiction, sexual addiction, or any of the other behavioural addictions currently included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

Which brings us to the question of video games....

Certainly there is no disputing the fact that millions of young people around the world devote countless hours to playing video games.   Within the past two decades, video game culture has evolved along Internet culture to create entire social networks allowing gamers to immerse themselves in ways that have never been possible before.   Along with movies, television, music, and YouTube videos, news stories about the negative aspects of video game playing has sparked a backlash among parents' groups.   As well, many researchers have weighed in with studies showing the impact of video gaming on problem behaviours in adolescents.   Stereotypes have also sprung up depicting gamers as physically unfit "nerds" with few social skills though actual evidence to back up these stereotypes is often lacking.  

To read more, check out my new Psychology Today blog post.

"Astonishing" Rise in Exorcisms Poses Danger for Mental Health Patients

A new report by Theos, a Christian think tank based in the U.K., warns that the "booming industry" in exorcisms is putting people with real mental health problems at risk.  This rise in new exorcisms is being driven by " immigrant communities and Pentecostal churches which are very open about their exorcism services".   Along with a series of interviews with mental health chaplains and other people involved in mental health, "in the vast majority of cases, the person in question was suffering with mental health issues which required psychiatric assistance."  

The report also includes some of the latest statistics about mental health in the U.K. including the following facts:

• Almost ten million British adults are diagnosed with at least one mental health  problem each year.
• Around one in four adults in the UK have been diagnosed with at least one mental health problem over their lifetime.
•  Mixed anxiety and depression causes an estimated one fifth of all days lost from work in Britain. 
•  In 2014, 19.7% of people in the UK aged 16 and over showed some symptoms of  anxiety or depression, including 22.5% of women
• A little under 11% of UK adults have had suicidal thoughts over their lifetime and just under 7% have made a suicide attempt. 
• Between 4% and 10% of people in England will suffer depression over their lifetime. 

 While clerical workers and counselors had worked successfully with regular mental health services,  report author and Theos researcher Ben Ryan warns that more needs to be done to avoid "over-spiritualizing" mental health problems. "There has been an increased focus in the Anglican church on exorcisms, and partially that's in response to increased demand," he said.  " They have been getting more and more people calling them saying there's demand for this.  Outside the established church, there's a huge increase which you can see with your own eyes. If you walk down the Old Kent Road there are flyers and stickers everywhere."

This demand for new exorcisms has sparked a call for new exorcists to be trained.   One source linked to the Vatican described this demand as an "emergency" caused by increased interest in Satanism and occult practices.   While he cautioned that "Only one per cent of people who claim to have problems with demons have real need of an exorcist", many of the new evangelical exorcists offering their services fail to make that distinction and cases of people with legitimate mental health problems being seriously injured or killed during the course of the exorcisms continue to be reported.

While the report concludes by calling for an analysis of the burgeoning exorcism scene in the U.K. and other countries, it may not go far enough.   In the meantime, the extensive media publicity generated by movies and television programs about exorcism and demonic possession will likely continue feeding the demand for more exorcisms and discourage people with real mental health problems from seeking the help they need.

For the report (pdf)

The Scholar on the Gallows (Part Three)

Continued from Part Two

After being formally indicted for his role in the dry good store robbery, not to mention the murder of Frederick Mirick, Edward Rulloff finally went on trial in the Broome County courthouse  in early 1871.    Thousands of people, many of them women, stood in line for hours to get a good seat inside the courtroom to watch the proceedings.  As for Rulloff, not only was he ably defended by a "dream team" of three lawyers, but he also took an active role in his own defense (his old legal training likely came in handy at this point).    

When Gilbert Burrows gave his testimony about the robbery, Rulloff jumped in with his own objection (ignoring his lawyers completely).  Along with emphatically denying being one of the robbers (meaning that Burrows' testimony had any relevance to his case), but he also insisted that all of the physical evidence of the robbery not be presented to the jury for that same reason.   It was at this point that the presiding judge, Henry Hogeboom, cut off Rulloff's legal arguments and got the trial back underway.

But Edward Rulloff wasn't done yet and, assisted by his attorney, personally cross-examined all of the witnesses, including Gilbert Burrows.  During the course of this cross-examination, Rulloff came up with a new and novel defense, namely that Minick would never have been killed if the two clerks hadn't become violent in the first place.  As Rulloff pointed out, the amount of force they used exceeded the legal definition of legal violence meaning that they were at least partially responsible for what happened afterward.   Also, when Burrows insisted that the man who shot Mirick greatly resembled Rulloff (though he couldn't make a positive identification),  the cross-examination became even more fierce with rapid-fire questions.   Burrows held up well during the cross-examination and Rulloff, despite knowing that he was fighting for his life, handled himself as well as any lawyer could have in his place.  

Since Rulloff was being tried under a false identity, it was up to the court to prove that he was, in fact, Edward Rulloff, career criminal.   Not only was the judge who had previously identified him called in as a witness, but he brought in numerous court documents, all of them bearing Rulloff's signature.   Other witnesses testifying to seeing Rulloff (then going by the name of Edward C. Howard) with the two dead men, Jarvis and Decker, when they had rented local property together and that a note he had co-signed was definitely in his handwriting.

Once again ignoring his defense counsel, Rulloff objected that the documents were not admissible since they failed to prove that he was one of the three robbers and denounced all of the evidence presented as being circumstantial.  While Judge Hogeboom acknowledged the point, he allowed the documents to be added as evidence.   Unfortunately for Rulloff, the Binghamton Police had done their investigation too well.   On discovering that he had been posing as philologist Edward Leukto, they searched the rooms where Leukto had been staying and found enough evidence to prove his identity as Rulloff and link him to the burglary.

Finally, after eight days of straight legal obfuscation by the defendant, a jury found Edward Rulloff guilty of murder and Judge Hogeboom sentenced him to be hanged on March 3.    The accused heard the sentence with an uncharacteristic silence but that was hardly the end of his legal efforts.   Not surprisingly, he appealed his sentence and cited many of the legal objections raised during the trial as proof that his death sentence should be overturned.  

Newspapers were fascinated with Rulloff's story and numerous stories were published describing his past crimes, including the unsolved murders of his wife and daughter, and the deaths of his fellow burglars, Jarvis and Dexter, who had been lured into a life of crime by the brilliant criminal's influence.   His history as a philologist came up as well, including the mysterious manuscript that he carried around with him just about everywhere.  This was the magnum opus that he had tried to present in Poughkeepsie which purportedly "disclosed a beautiful method in languages spoken and explored by millions of our race."   None of his fellow philologists had ever had a chance to review the manuscript in detail, presumably since nobody could afford the $500,000 price tag that went with it.    

But Rulloff's magnum opus became news for another reason,   In a letter that he wrote to the Birmingham Leader on January 16, he said:  "Strange as it may seem, no man this day upon God's earth has lived with a higher object than myself, and few have accomplished a more desirable result."   He insisted that his work on philology "contained most of the leading principles connected with the formation of methodical language" but was still incomplete.   Though he made no effort to dispute his crimes, his main argument involved delaying his execution to allow him to complete his lifelong work (giving a very literal meaning to the term "publish or perish" in his case).   

As arguments go, it wasn't a particularly effective one since most newspaper editorials quickly dismissed Rulloff's strange ideas about language as nonsense.   It still led to one of Mark Twain;s most hilarious satire pieces which was published in the New York Tribune in May of that same year.   In his letter to the Tribune, Twain wrote, "I am not sorry that Rulloff is to be hanged, but I am sincerely sorry that he himself has made it necessary that his vast capabilities for usefulness should be lost to the world. In this, mine and the public’s is a common regret. For it is plain that in the person of Rulloff one of the most marvelous of intellects that any age has produced is about to be sacrificed, and that, too, while half the mystery of its strange powers is yet a secret.   Here is a man who has never entered the doors of a college or a university yet, by the sheer might of his innate gifts has made himself such a colossus of abstruse learning that the ablest of our scholars are but pygmies in his presence."    To get around the need to execute such a prodigy, Twain provided the following solution:  "If a life be offered up to the gallows to atone for what Rulloff did, would that suffice?   If so, give me the proofs for I, in all earnestness and truth, I aver that in such a case I will instantly bring forth a man who, in the interests of learning and science, will take Rulloff's crime upon himself and submit to be hanged in Rulloff's place.  I can and will do this thing and I propose this matter and make this offer in good faith.  You know me, and know my address."

Suffice it to say, nobody took Twain up on his offer and Edward Rulloff's numerous appeals failed as well.   After months of legal deliberations, he finally went to the gallows on May 18, 1871.  In the weeks leading up to his execution, Rulloff's only real regret seemed to be that he would never be allowed to finish his marvelous work on language.   According to one account, his final words before being hanged were, "Hurry it up! I want to be in hell in time for dinner!”

But the strange story of Edward Rulloff didn't end there.  Not only was his hanging well attended (it would be the last public hanging in New York state), but many of the witnesses posed to take pictures with his dead body.   Some even took clippings of his hair as souvenirs.   Even the autopsy of his brain made news as, according to one story, "the brain weight fifty-nine ounces, being nine and a half or ten ounces heavier than the average weight"  making it one of the largest on record.   

Though the magnum opus that would have supposedly revolutionized philology was never published, largely due to lack of interest, the story of Edward Rulloff led to numerous books and scientific treatises, many of which can still be found online.   Largely forgotten today, "the man with two lives" was widely considered to be one of the most fascinating criminals of his generation, both for his grandiose scientific ambitions as well as his criminal career.   While probably not  the way he would have wanted to be remembered, Rulloff's sizable brain can still be seen on display at Cornell University's Wilder Brain Collection.   If nothing else, he is in distinguished company there.