Spectral evidence

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral_evidence 

Spectral evidence is a form of legal evidence based upon the testimony of those who claim to have experienced visions.

Such testimony was frequently given during the witch trials of the 16th and 17th centuries. The alleged victims of witchcraft would claim to have been tormented by the spectral images of certain named members of the community; this was taken as evidence that those named were witches, and had given the Devil permission to assume their appearance. If accepted by a court, this testimony was virtually impossible to refute. However, spectral evidence was rarely used to secure a conviction, as theologians were unable to agree that the Devil could not take on the shape of an innocent person. The debate about the validity of spectral evidence rose to a climax with the Bury St Edmunds witch trial of 1662, and the Salem witch trials of 1692–93.

Bury St Edmunds witch trial

At the Bury St Edmunds witch trial of 1662, charges of witchcraft were brought against Amy Denny and Rose Cullender, two elderly residents of Lowestoft, Suffolk, England. The trial acquired lasting significance (chiefly due to the involvement of Matthew Hale, "one of the greatest legal figures" of the 17th century), and became an important precedent for the admissibility of spectral evidence. A published report of the trial, titled A Tryal of Witches at the Assizes Held at Bury St. Edmunds, was consulted by magistrates presiding over the Salem witch trials, thirty years later.

The suspected witches, Amy Denny and Rose Cullender, were accused of bewitching several of their neighbours' children. The alleged victims were reported to be suffering from fits, lameness, and temporary speech loss, and were often said to have been seen coughing up pins. The evidence which tied these afflictions to Denny and Cullender was the testimony of the children that they had often been threatened by apparitions of these women. For instance, Samuel Pacy made the following statement concerning his two daughters:

In their fits they would cry out, There stands Amy Duny, or Rose Cullender; and sometimes in one place and sometimes in another, running with great violence to the place where they fancied them to stand, striking at them as if they were present; they would appear to them sometimes spinning, and sometimes reeling, or in other postures, deriding or threatning them.

Not everybody present at the trial accepted this evidence unquestioningly. Three Serjeants-at-Law, among them John Kelynge, raised an objection (although the trial report appears to have been altered, to attribute this objection to Kelynge alone). According to the report:

Mr. Serjeant Keeling seemed much unsatisfied with it [the evidence], and thought it not sufficient to Convict the Prisoners: for admitting that the Children were in Truth Bewitched, yet said he, it can never be applyed to the Prisoners, upon the Imagination only of the Parties Afflicted; For if that might be allowed, no person whatsoever can be in safety, for perhaps they might fancy another person, who might altogether be innocent in such matters.

The judge, Hale, may have taken this point into consideration when he remarked to the jury that they had two questions to consider: "First, Whether or no these Children were Bewitched? Secondly, Whether the Prisoners at the Bar were Guilty of it?" Nevertheless, the jury found Denny and Cullender guilty of thirteen of the fourteen charges brought against them, and they were sentenced to death by hanging.

Salem witch trials

Initial accusations

The Salem witch trials began in February 1692, when four children of Salem, Massachusetts, began suffering from fits, and complained of being "bitten and pinched by invisible agents". When pressed to name their assailants, they accused Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and the slave Tituba, crying out "that they or specters in their shapes did grievously torment them".

Brought before the magistrates, Good and Osbourne denied the charges, but Tituba confessed. She claimed to have been coerced by the devil into hurting the children; she had also been threatened by a tall man in black clothes, who made her sign her name in a book. She said that Good and Osbourne were also witches, and described their familiars, which no-one else could see; Good's was a yellow bird, and Osbourne's were two grotesque creatures. While this testimony was being given, the children broke out into fits, and Tituba claimed to see the spectre of Sarah Good attacking them. All three women were indicted, and were returned to jail to await trial.

This was the beginning of a mass hysteria which saw numerous residents of Salem and surrounding towns arrested on charges of witchcraft. Tituba's confession had a far-reaching influence, and set the tone for later claims made against the accused. It was often said that apparitions of the suspected witches had tried to compel their victims to write their names in a book, and both the man in black and the yellow bird were seen in the company of several of the accused, including Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse, and Sarah Cloyce. Another prominent form of spectral evidence was the appearance of the spirits of the dead, as minister Deodat Lawson wrote:

They affirm'd, That they saw the Ghosts of several departed Persons, who at their appearing, did instigate them, to discover such as (they said) were Instruments to hasten their Deaths; threatening sorely to afflict them, if they did not make it known to the Magistrates.

In May 1692, a Court of Oyer and Terminer was established to try these cases. However, the court faced the problem of how much weight to give to spectral evidence. During the pre-trial hearings, various other types of evidence had been brought against the accused – including evidence of "ordinary witchcrafts" (i.e. the casting of spells resulting in injury or property damage), the discovery of poppets and witches' marks, and signs of unusual physical strength – but only the spectral evidence had been gathered for every case. Furthermore, of the 156 people taken into custody before the court suspended its activities in September, 79 were charged on the basis of spectral evidence alone.

The strength of spectral evidence was based on the assumption that the Devil could not assume another person's shape without their consent. Deodat Lawson stressed this point in a sermon preached on 24 March. He also explained that the Devil, wherever possible, binds into his service "those that make a Visible Profession" of holiness, in order to "more readily pervert others to Consenting unto his subjection". This was an attempt to allay doubts about the fact that some of the accused, such as Nurse and Corey, were well-respected community members with a reputation for piety.

However, Puritan minister Cotton Mather took a different view. In a letter to magistrate John Richards, Mather advised the court not to place too much stress upon spectral evidence, because "it is very certain that the devils have sometimes represented the shapes of persons not only innocent, but also very virtuous". He suggested that spectral evidence should be taken as a presumption of guilt, but would not in itself be sufficient for a conviction.

Internal division

The first to be tried by the court was Bridget Bishop, who was found guilty and executed. At this point, however, a debate arose among the judges. Contrary to Mather's advice, spectral evidence had played a large part in securing Bishop's conviction, and this raised questions about the methods of the court. Formal advice was requested from the ministry, and twelve ministers of the Boston area (including Increase Mather) drew up a document entitled "The Return of the Several Ministers Consulted". Once again, caution was advised:

Presumptions whereupon persons may be committed, and, much more, convictions whereupon persons may be condemned as guilty of witchcrafts, ought certainly to be more considerable than barely the accused person's being represented by a specter unto the afflicted; inasmuch as it is an undoubted and notorious thing, that a demon may, by God's permission, appear, even to ill purposes, in the shape of an innocent, yea, and a virtuous man.

It was even suggested that a more critical approach to spectral testimonies might give "some remarkable affronts" to the devils responsible for them, and "put a period" to the troubles at Salem. On the other hand, the document closed by recommending "the speedy and vigorous prosecution" of those who had "rendered themselves obnoxious" to the laws of God and man. As a result, the overall message was equivocal. Robert Calef, a contemporary critic of the trials, called the document "perfectly ambidexter, giving as great or greater encouragement to proceed in those dark methods, than cautions against them". The presiding judge, William Stoughton, read into it only an endorsement of the previous proceedings of the court, and the other judges followed his lead – the only dissenter being Nathaniel Saltonstall, who resigned.

Wider controversy

The Court of Oyer and Terminer adjourned on 22 September, with the expectation of reconvening before long. By this time, however, with nineteen people hanged (and one, Giles Corey, crushed to death), criticism of the trials was becoming increasingly vocal.

On 8 October, an influential Boston merchant, Thomas Brattle, wrote an open letter arguing against the unjust proceedings of the court. Brattle rejected the validity of spectral evidence, which he claimed was the "only pertinent evidence" brought against any of the accused. "I think it is clear," he wrote, "that the prisoner at the bar is brought in guilty, and condemned, merely from the evidences of the afflicted persons." He argued that the judges were therefore receiving testimony from the Devil, and thought it strange that they "should so far give ear to the Devill, as merely upon his authority to issue out their warrants, and apprehend people". One proof Brattle gave against spectral evidence was the following:

These afflicted persons do say, and often have declared it, that they can see Spectres when their eyes are shutt, as well as when they are open ... I am sure they lye, at least speak falsely, if they say so; for the thing, in nature, is an utter impossibility. It is true, they may strongly fancye, or have things represented to their imagination, when their eyes are shutt; and I think this is all which ought to be allowed to these blind, nonsensical girls.

It was around this time that the governor of the province, William Phips, who had been absent during the trials, returned to Massachusetts. In a letter of 12 October, he remarked that he had been surprised to find "many persons in a strange ferment of dissatisfaction", and on enquiring into the matter, he learned that "the Devill had taken upon him the name and shape of severall persons who were doubtless inocent and to my certain knowledge of good reputation". He suspended the trials, and forbade the incarceration of any more suspected witches. On 29 October, the court was officially dismissed. Phips next reviewed the petitions for the release of those who remained in jail, and where he found the evidence to be primarily spectral, he released the prisoners on bond to their families.

Cotton Mather defended the court's methods in his book, The Wonders of the Invisible World (which began circulating in manuscript form in October, but was not published until the following year). While admitting the possibility that "among the Persons represented by the Spectres which now afflict our Neighbours, there will be found some that never explicitly contracted with any of the Evil Angels", he suggested that these people may have been guilty of lesser offences, for which reason God had permitted the Devil "to bring in these Lesser ones with the rest for their perpetual Humiliation". Mather also cited the precedent of previous trials, including the Bury St Edmunds case.

Cotton's father, Increase Mather, took the opposite approach in his own work, Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits Personating Men. He argued that the Devil could indeed appear in the shape of an innocent person, and cited numerous authorities to that effect, including the Biblical story of the Witch of Endor. Against the argument that God would not allow the Devil to impose upon innocent people in this way, Increase brought forward the example of Job, and insisted that God's ways are inscrutable. He concluded that "to take away the Life of any one, meerly because a Spectre or Devil, in a bewitched or possessed person does accuse them, will bring a Guilt of innocent Blood on the Land, where such a thing shall be done".

However, in a postscript, Increase asserted that his work was not intended as "any Reflection on those worthy Persons who have been concerned in the late Proceedings at Salam". He recommended Cotton's account of the trials, and hoped that "the thinking part of Mankind will be satisfied, that there was more than that which is called Spectre Evidence for the Conviction of the Persons condemned".

A new court convened in January 1693, to consider the remaining cases; this time, the use of spectral evidence was firmly limited. Almost all of those brought before the court were acquitted; and in May, Phips issued a general pardon, bringing the trials to an end.

Other cases

Concurrent with the trials in Salem, spectral evidence was also used in a trial in colonial Rhode Island where Thomas Cornell, Jr., son of Thomas Cornell, was convicted of matricide in the death of his mother, Rebecca.

Freethought

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freethought

Freethought (sometimes spelled free thought) is an epistemological viewpoint which holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and that beliefs should instead be reached by other methods such as logic, reason, and empirical observation. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a freethinker is "a person who forms their own ideas and opinions rather than accepting those of other people, especially in religious teaching." In some contemporary thought in particular, free thought is strongly tied with rejection of traditional social or religious belief systems. The cognitive application of free thought is known as "freethinking", and practitioners of free thought are known as "freethinkers". Modern freethinkers consider free thought to be a natural freedom from all negative and illusive thoughts acquired from society.

The term first came into use in the 17th century in order to refer to people who inquired into the basis of traditional beliefs which were often accepted unquestioningly. Today, freethinking is most closely linked with deism, secularism, humanism, anti-clericalism, and religious critique. The Oxford English Dictionary defines freethinking as, "The free exercise of reason in matters of religious belief, unrestrained by deference to authority; the adoption of the principles of a free-thinker." Freethinkers hold that knowledge should be grounded in facts, scientific inquiry, and logic. The skeptical application of science implies freedom from the intellectually limiting effects of confirmation bias, cognitive bias, conventional wisdom, popular culture, urban myth, prejudice, or sectarianism.

Definition

Atheist author Adam Lee defines free thought as thinking which is independent of revelation, tradition, established belief, and authority, and considers it as a "broader umbrella" than atheism "that embraces a rainbow of unorthodoxy, religious dissent, skepticism, and unconventional thinking."

The basic summarizing statement of the essay The Ethics of Belief by the 19th-century British mathematician and philosopher William Kingdon Clifford is: "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."^[9] The essay became a rallying cry for freethinkers when published in the 1870s, and has been described as a point when freethinkers grabbed the moral high ground. Clifford was himself an organizer of free thought gatherings, the driving force behind the Congress of Liberal Thinkers held in 1878.

Regarding religion, freethinkers typically hold that there is insufficient evidence to support the existence of supernatural phenomena. According to the Freedom from Religion Foundation, "No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth." and "Freethinkers are convinced that religious claims have not withstood the tests of reason. Not only is there nothing to be gained by believing an untruth, but there is everything to lose when we sacrifice the indispensable tool of reason on the altar of superstition. Most freethinkers consider religion to be not only untrue, but harmful."

However, philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote the following in his 1944 essay The Value of Free Thought:

What makes a freethinker is not his beliefs but the way in which he holds them. If he holds them because his elders told him they were true when he was young, or if he holds them because if he did not he would be unhappy, his thought is not free; but if he holds them because, after careful thought he finds a balance of evidence in their favour, then his thought is free, however odd his conclusions may seem.

A freethinker, according to Russell, is not necessarily an atheist or an agnostic, as long as he or she satisfies this definition:

The person who is free in any respect is free from something; what is the free thinker free from? To be worthy of the name, he must be free of two things: the force of tradition, and the tyranny of his own passions. No one is completely free from either, but in the measure of a man's emancipation he deserves to be called a free thinker.

Fred Edwords, former executive of the American Humanist Association, suggests that by Russell's definition, liberal religionists who have challenged established orthodoxies can be considered freethinkers.

On the other hand, according to Bertrand Russell, atheists and/or agnostics are not necessarily freethinkers. As an example, he mentions Stalin, whom he compares to a "pope":

what I am concerned with is the doctrine of the modern Communistic Party, and of the Russian Government to which it owes allegiance. According to this doctrine, the world develops on the lines of a Plan called Dialectical Materialism, first discovered by Karl Marx, embodied in the practice of a great state by Lenin, and now expounded from day to day by a Church of which Stalin is the Pope. […] Free discussion is to be prevented wherever the power to do so exists; […] If this doctrine and this organization prevail, free inquiry will become as impossible as it was in the middle ages, and the world will relapse into bigotry and obscurantism.

In the 18th and 19th century, many thinkers regarded as freethinkers were deists, arguing that the nature of God can only be known from a study of nature rather than from religious revelation. In the 18th century, "deism" was as much of a 'dirty word' as "atheism", and deists were often stigmatized as either atheists or at least as freethinkers by their Christian opponents. Deists today regard themselves as freethinkers, but are now arguably less prominent in the free thought movement than atheists.

Characteristics

Among freethinkers, for a notion to be considered true it must be testable, verifiable, and logical. Many freethinkers tend to be humanists, who base morality on human needs and would find meaning in human compassion, social progress, art, personal happiness, love, and the furtherance of knowledge. Generally, freethinkers like to think for themselves, tend to be skeptical, respect critical thinking and reason, remain open to new concepts, and are sometimes proud of their own individuality. They would determine truth for themselves – based upon knowledge they gain, answers they receive, experiences they have and the balance they thus acquire. Freethinkers reject conformity for the sake of conformity, whereby they create their own beliefs by considering the way the world around them works and would possess the intellectual integrity and courage to think outside of accepted norms, which may or may not lead them to believe in some higher power.

Symbol

Tombstone detail of a freethinker, late 19th century. (Cemetery of Cullera, Spain).

The pansy serves as the long-established and enduring symbol of free thought; literature of the American Secular Union inaugurated its usage in the late 1800s. The reasoning behind the pansy as the symbol of free thought lies both in the flower's name and in its appearance. The pansy derives its name from the French word pensée, which means "thought". It allegedly received this name because the flower is perceived by some to bear resemblance to a human face, and in mid-to-late summer it nods forward as if deep in thought. In the 1880s, following examples set by freethinkers in France, Belgium, Spain and Sweden, it was proposed in the United States as "the symbol of religious liberty and freedom of conscience".

History

Pre-modern movement

Critical thought has flourished in the Hellenistic Mediterranean, in the repositories of knowledge and wisdom in Ireland and in the Iranian civilizations (for example in the era of Khayyam (1048–1131) and his unorthodox Sufi Rubaiyat poems). Later societies made advances on freedom of thought such as the Chinese (note for example the seafaring renaissance of the Southern Song dynasty of 1127–1279), on through heretical thinkers on esoteric alchemy or astrology, to the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation pioneered by Martin Luther.

French physician and writer Rabelais celebrated "rabelaisian" freedom as well as good feasting and drinking (an expression and a symbol of freedom of the mind) in defiance of the hypocrisies of conformist orthodoxy in his utopian Thelema Abbey (from θέλημα: free "will"), the device of which was Do What Thou Wilt:

So had Gargantua established it. In all their rule and strictest tie of their order there was but this one clause to be observed, Do What Thou Wilt; because free people ... act virtuously and avoid vice. They call this honor.

When Rabelais's hero Pantagruel journeys to the "Oracle of The Div(in)e Bottle", he learns the lesson of life in one simple word: "Trinch!", Drink! Enjoy the simple life, learn wisdom and knowledge, as a free human. Beyond puns, irony, and satire, Gargantua's prologue-metaphor instructs the reader to "break the bone and suck out the substance-full marrow" ("la substantifique moëlle"), the core of wisdom.

Modern movements

The year 1600 is considered a landmark in the era of modern free thought. It was the year of the execution in Italy of Giordano Bruno, a former Dominican friar, by the Inquisition.

Australia

Prior to World War II, Australia had high rates of Protestantism and Catholicism. Post-war Australia has become a highly secularised country. Donald Horne, one of Australia's well-known public intellectuals, believed rising prosperity in post-war Australia influenced the decline in church-going and general lack of interest in religion. "Churches no longer matter very much to most Australians. If there is a happy eternal life it's for everyone ... For many Australians the pleasures of this life are sufficiently satisfying that religion offers nothing of great appeal", said Horne in his landmark work The Lucky Country (1964).

Belgium

Main article: Organized secularism

The Université Libre de Bruxelles and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, along with the two Circles of Free Inquiry (Dutch and French speaking), defend the freedom of critical thought, lay philosophy and ethics, while rejecting the argument of authority.

Canada

In 1873 a handful of secularists founded the earliest known secular organization in English Canada, the Toronto Freethought Association. Reorganized in 1877 and again in 1881, when it was renamed the Toronto Secular Society, the group formed the nucleus of the Canadian Secular Union, established in 1884 to bring together freethinkers from across the country.

A significant number of the early members appear to have come from the educated labour "aristocracy", including Alfred F. Jury, J. Ick Evans and J. I. Livingstone, all of whom were leading labour activists and secularists. The second president of the Toronto association, T. Phillips Thompson, became a central figure in the city's labour and social-reform movements during the 1880s and 1890s and arguably Canada's foremost late nineteenth-century labour intellectual. By the early 1880s scattered free thought organizations operated throughout southern Ontario and parts of Quebec, eliciting both urban and rural support.

The principal organ of the free thought movement in Canada was Secular Thought (Toronto, 1887–1911). Founded and edited during its first several years by English freethinker Charles Watts (1835–1906), it came under the editorship of Toronto printer and publisher James Spencer Ellis in 1891 when Watts returned to England. In 1968 the Humanist Association of Canada (HAC) formed to serve as an umbrella group for humanists, atheists, and freethinkers, and to champion social justice issues and oppose religious influence on public policy—most notably in the fight to make access to abortion free and legal in Canada.

England

The term freethinker emerged towards the end of the 17th century in England to describe those who stood in opposition to the institution of the Church, and the literal belief in the Bible. The beliefs of these individuals were centered on the concept that people could understand the world through consideration of nature. Such positions were formally documented for the first time in 1697 by William Molyneux in a widely publicized letter to John Locke, and more extensively in 1713, when Anthony Collins wrote his Discourse of Free-thinking, which gained substantial popularity. This essay attacks the clergy of all churches and it is a plea for deism.

The Freethinker magazine was first published in Britain in 1881; it continued in print until 2014, and still exists as a web-based publication.

France

In France, the concept first appeared in publication in 1765 when Denis Diderot, Jean le Rond d'Alembert, and Voltaire included an article on Liberté de penser in their Encyclopédie. The concept of free thought spread so widely that even places as remote as the Jotunheimen, in Norway, had well-known freethinkers such as Jo Gjende by the 19th century.

François-Jean Lefebvre de la Barre (1745–1766) was a young French nobleman, famous for having been tortured and beheaded before his body was burnt on a pyre along with Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary. La Barre is often said to have been executed for not saluting a Roman Catholic religious procession, but the elements of the case were far more complex.

In France, Lefebvre de la Barre is widely regarded a symbol of the victims of Christian religious intolerance; La Barre along with Jean Calas and Pierre-Paul Sirven, was championed by Voltaire. A second replacement statue to de la Barre stands nearby the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Paris at the summit of the butte Montmartre (itself named from the Temple of Mars), the highest point in Paris and an 18th arrondissement street nearby the Sacré-Cœur is also named after Lefebvre de la Barre.

The 19th century saw the emergence of a specific notion of Libre-Pensée ("free thought"), with writer Victor Hugo as one of its major early proponents. French Freethinkers (Libre-Penseurs) associate freedom of thought, political anti-clericalism and socialist leanings. The main organisation referring to this tradition to this day is the Fédération nationale de la libre pensée, created in 1890.

Germany

In Germany, during the period 1815–1848 and before the March Revolution, the resistance of citizens against the dogma of the church increased. In 1844, under the influence of Johannes Ronge and Robert Blum, belief in the rights of man, tolerance among men, and humanism grew, and by 1859 they had established the Bund Freireligiöser Gemeinden Deutschlands (literally Union of Free Religious Communities of Germany), an association of persons who consider themselves to be religious without adhering to any established and institutionalized church or sacerdotal cult. This union still exists today, and is included as a member in the umbrella organization of free humanists. In 1881 in Frankfurt am Main, Ludwig Büchner established the Deutscher Freidenkerbund (German Freethinkers League) as the first German organization for atheists and agnostics. In 1892 the Freidenker-Gesellschaft and in 1906 the Deutscher Monistenbund were formed.

Free thought organizations developed the "Jugendweihe" (literally Youth consecration), a secular "confirmation" ceremony, and atheist funeral rites. The Union of Freethinkers for Cremation was founded in 1905, and the Central Union of German Proletariat Freethinker in 1908. The two groups merged in 1927, becoming the German Freethinking Association in 1930.

More "bourgeois" organizations declined after World War I, and "proletarian" free thought groups proliferated, becoming an organization of socialist parties. European socialist free thought groups formed the International of Proletarian Freethinkers (IPF) in 1925. Activists agitated for Germans to disaffiliate from their respective Church and for seculari-zation of elementary schools; between 1919–21 and 1930–32 more than 2.5 million Germans, for the most part supporters of the Social Democratic and Communist parties, gave up church membership. Conflict developed between radical forces including the Soviet League of the Militant Godless and Social Democratic forces in Western Europe led by Theodor Hartwig and Max Sievers. In 1930 the Soviet and allied delegations, following a walk-out, took over the IPF and excluded the former leaders. Following Hitler's rise to power in 1933, most free thought organizations were banned, though some right-wing groups that worked with so-called Völkische Bünde (literally "ethnic" associations with nationalist, xenophobic and very often racist ideology) were tolerated by the Nazis until the mid-1930s.

Ireland

In the 19th century, received opinion was scandalised by George Ensor (1769-1843). His Review of the Miracles, Prophecies, & Mysteries of the Old and New Testaments (1835) argued that, far from being a source of moral teaching, revealed religion and its divines regarded questions of morality as "incidental"--as a "mundane and merely philosophical" topic.

Netherlands

In the Netherlands, free thought has existed in organized form since the establishment of De Dageraad (now known as De Vrije Gedachte) in 1856. Among its most notable subscribing 19th century individuals were Johannes van Vloten, Multatuli, Adriaan Gerhard and Domela Nieuwenhuis.

In 2009, Frans van Dongen established the Atheist-Secular Party, which takes a considerably restrictive view of religion and public religious expressions.

Since the 19th century, free thought in the Netherlands has become more well known as a political phenomenon through at least three currents: liberal freethinking, conservative freethinking, and classical freethinking. In other words, parties which identify as freethinking tend to favor non-doctrinal, rational approaches to their preferred ideologies, and arose as secular alternatives to both clerically aligned parties as well as labor-aligned parties. Common themes among freethinking political parties are "freedom", "liberty", and "individualism".

Switzerland

Main article: Freethinkers Association of Switzerland

With the introduction of cantonal church taxes in the 1870s, anti-clericals began to organise themselves. Around 1870, a "freethinkers club" was founded in Zürich. During the debate on the Zürich church law in 1883, professor Friedrich Salomon Vögelin and city council member Kunz proposed to separate church and state.

Turkey

In the last years of the Ottoman Empire, free thought made its voice heard by the works of distinguished people such as Ahmet Rıza, Tevfik Fikret, Abdullah Cevdet, Kılıçzade Hakkı, and Celal Nuri İleri. These intellectuals affected the early period of the Turkish Republic. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk –field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and founder of the secular Turkish nation state, serving as its first President from 1923 until his death in 1938– was the practitioner of their ideas. He made many reforms that modernized the country. Sources point out that Atatürk was a religious skeptic and a freethinker. He was a non-doctrinaire deist or an atheist, who was antireligious and anti-Islamic in general. According to Atatürk, the Turkish people do not know what Islam really is and do not read the Quran. People are influenced by Arabic sentences that they do not understand, and because of their customs they go to mosques. When the Turks read the Quran and think about it, they will leave Islam. Atatürk described Islam as the religion of the Arabs in his own work titled Vatandaş için Medeni Bilgiler by his own critical and nationalist views.

Association of Atheism (Ateizm Derneği), the first official atheist organisation in Middle East and Caucasus, was founded in 2014. It serves to support irreligious people and freethinkers in Turkey who are discriminated against based on their views. In 2018 it was reported in some media outlets that the Ateizm Derneği would close down because of the pressure on its members and attacks by pro-government media, but the association itself issued a clarification that this was not the case and that it was still active.

United States

The Free Thought movement first organized itself in the United States as the "Free Press Association" in 1827 in defense of George Houston, publisher of The Correspondent, an early journal of Biblical criticism in an era when blasphemy convictions were still possible. Houston had helped found an Owenite community at Haverstraw, New York in 1826–27. The short-lived Correspondent was superseded by the Free Enquirer, the official organ of Robert Owen's New Harmony community in Indiana, edited by Robert Dale Owen and by Fanny Wright between 1828 and 1832 in New York. During this time Robert Dale Owen sought to introduce the philosophic skepticism of the Free Thought movement into the Workingmen's Party in New York City. The Free Enquirer's annual civic celebrations of Paine's birthday after 1825 finally coalesced in 1836 in the first national Free Thinkers organization, the "United States Moral and Philosophical Society for the General Diffusion of Useful Knowledge". It was founded on August 1, 1836, at a national convention at the Lyceum in Saratoga Springs with Isaac S. Smith of Buffalo, New York, as president. Smith was also the 1836 Equal Rights Party's candidate for Governor of New York and had also been the Workingmen's Party candidate for Lt. Governor of New York in 1830. The Moral and Philosophical Society published The Beacon, edited by Gilbert Vale.

Robert G. Ingersoll

Driven by the revolutions of 1848 in the German states, the 19th century saw an immigration of German freethinkers and anti-clericalists to the United States (see Forty-Eighters). In the United States, they hoped to be able to live by their principles, without interference from government and church authorities.

Many Freethinkers settled in German immigrant strongholds, including St. Louis, Indianapolis, Wisconsin, and Texas, where they founded the town of Comfort, Texas, as well as others.

These groups of German Freethinkers referred to their organizations as Freie Gemeinden, or "free congregations". The first Freie Gemeinde was established in St. Louis in 1850. Others followed in Pennsylvania, California, Washington, D.C., New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, Texas, and other states.

Freethinkers tended to be liberal, espousing ideals such as racial, social, and sexual equality, and the abolition of slavery.

The "Golden Age of Freethought" in the US came in the late 1800s. The dominant organization was the National Liberal League which formed in 1876 in Philadelphia. This group re-formed itself in 1885 as the American Secular Union under the leadership of the eminent agnostic orator Robert G. Ingersoll. Following Ingersoll's death in 1899 the organization declined, in part due to lack of effective leadership.

Free thought in the United States declined in the early twentieth century. By the early twentieth century, most free thought congregations had disbanded or joined other mainstream churches. The longest continuously operating free thought congregation in America is the Free Congregation of Sauk County, Wisconsin, which was founded in 1852 and is still active as of 2020. It affiliated with the American Unitarian Association (now the Unitarian Universalist Association) in 1955. D. M. Bennett was the founder and publisher of The Truth Seeker in 1873, a radical free thought and reform American periodical.

German Freethinker settlements were located in:

• Burlington, Racine County, Wisconsin
• Belleville, St. Clair County, Illinois
• Castell, Llano County, Texas
• Comfort, Kendall County, Texas
• Davenport, Scott County, Iowa
• Fond du Lac, Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin
• Frelsburg, Colorado County, Texas
• Hermann, Gasconade County, Missouri
• Jefferson, Jefferson County, Wisconsin
• Indianapolis, Indiana
• Latium, Washington County, Texas
• Manitowoc, Manitowoc County, Wisconsin
• Meyersville, DeWitt County, Texas
• Milwaukee, Wisconsin
• Millheim, Austin County, Texas
• Oshkosh, Winnebago County, Wisconsin
• Ratcliffe, DeWitt County, Texas
• Sauk City, Sauk County, Wisconsin
• Shelby, Austin County, Texas
• Sisterdale, Kendall County, Texas
• St. Louis, Missouri
• Tusculum, Kendall County, Texas
• Two Rivers, Manitowoc County, Wisconsin
• Watertown, Dodge County, Wisconsin

Anarchism

Free thought influenced the development of anarchism in the United States of America. In the U.S.,

"free thought was a basically anti-Christian, anti-clerical movement, whose purpose was to make the individual politically and spiritually free to decide for himself on religious matters. A number of contributors to Liberty were prominent figures in both free thought and anarchism. The American individualist anarchist George MacDonald [(1857–1944)] was a co-editor of Freethought and, for a time, The Truth Seeker. E.C. Walker was co-editor of the freethought/free love journal Lucifer, the Light-Bearer."

"Many of the anarchists were ardent freethinkers; reprints from free thought papers such as Lucifer, the Light-Bearer, Freethought and The Truth Seeker appeared in Liberty...The church was viewed as a common ally of the state and as a repressive force in and of itself."

European tradition

In Europe, a similar development occurred in French and Spanish individualist anarchist circles:

"Anticlericalism, just as in the rest of the libertarian movement, in another of the frequent elements which will gain relevance related to the measure in which the (French) Republic begins to have conflicts with the church...Anti-clerical discourse, frequently called for by the French individualist André Lorulot [(1885-1963)], will have its impacts in Estudios (a Spanish individualist anarchist publication). There will be an attack on institutionalized religion for the responsibility that it had in the past on negative developments, for its irrationality which makes it a counterpoint of philosophical and scientific progress. There will be a criticism of proselytism and ideological manipulation which happens on both believers and agnostics".

These tendencies would continue in French individualist anarchism in the work and activism of Charles-Auguste Bontemps (1893-1981) and others. In the Spanish individualist anarchist magazines Ética and Iniciales

"there is a strong interest in publishing scientific news, usually linked to a certain atheist and anti-theist obsession, philosophy which will also work for pointing out the incompatibility between science and religion, faith, and reason. In this way there will be a lot of talk on Darwin's theories or on the negation of the existence of the soul".

In 1901 the Catalan anarchist and freethinker Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia established "modern" or progressive schools in Barcelona in defiance of an educational system controlled by the Catholic Church. The schools had the stated goal to "educate the working class in a rational, secular and non-coercive setting". Fiercely anti-clerical, Ferrer believed in "freedom in education", education free from the authority of church and state. Ferrer's ideas, generally, formed the inspiration for a series of Modern Schools in the United States, Cuba, South America and London. The first of these started in New York City in 1911. Ferrer also inspired the Italian newspaper Università popolare, founded in 1901.

Kleine–Levin syndrome

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleine%E2%80%93Levin_syndrome 

Kleine–Levin syndrome
Other names	Familial hibernation syndrome Sleeping Beauty Syndrome
Specialty	Neurology

Kleine–Levin syndrome (KLS) is a rare neurological disorder characterized by persistent episodic hypersomnia accompanied by cognitive and behavioral changes. These changes may include disinhibition, sometimes manifested through hypersexuality, hyperphagia or emotional lability, and other symptoms, such as derealization. Patients generally experience recurrent episodes of the condition for more than a decade, which may return at a later age. Individual episodes generally last more than a week, sometimes lasting for months. The condition greatly affects the personal, professional, and social lives of those with KLS. The severity of symptoms and the course of the syndrome vary between those with KLS. Patients commonly have about 20 episodes over about a decade. Several months may elapse between episodes.

The onset of the condition usually follows a viral infection (72% of patients); several different viruses have been observed to trigger KLS. It is generally only diagnosed after similar conditions have been excluded; MRI, CT scans, lumbar puncture, and toxicology tests are used to rule out other possibilities. The syndrome's mechanism is not known, but the thalamus is thought to possibly play a role. SPECT has shown thalamic hypoperfusion in patients during episodes.

KLS is very rare, occurring at a rate of 1 in 500 000, which limits research into genetic factors. The condition primarily affects teenagers (81% of reported patients), with a bias towards males (68-72% of cases), though females can also be affected, and the age of onset varies. There is no known cure, and there is little evidence supporting drug treatment. Lithium has been reported to have limited effects in case reports, decreasing the length of episodes and duration between them in some patients. Stimulants have been shown to promote wakefulness during episodes, but they do not counteract cognitive symptoms or decrease the duration of episodes. The condition is named after Willi Kleine and Max Levin, who described cases of the disease in the early 20th century. It was added to the International Classification of Sleep Disorders in 1990.

Symptoms

Patients with Kleine–Levin syndrome (KLS) experience recurring episodes of prolonged sleep (hypersomnia). In most cases, patients sleep 15 to 21 hours a day during episodes. Excessive appetite (hyperphagia) and unusual cravings are present in half to two thirds of cases. About half of patients, mainly male patients, experience dramatically increased sexual urges (hypersexuality). Several other symptoms usually accompany the syndrome, including marked changes in mood and cognitive ability. Derealization and severe apathy are present in at least 80 percent of cases. About one third of patients experience hallucinations or delusions. Depression and anxiety occur less commonly; one study found them in about 25 percent of patients. Individuals usually cannot remember what happened during episodes. Repetitive behaviors and headaches are commonly reported. Some patients act very childlike during episodes, and communication skills and coordination sometimes worsen.

Sleep studies of KLS show varying results based on the amount of time the patient is observed. Slow wave sleep is often reduced at the beginning of episodes, and REM sleep is reduced near the end. Conversely, REM sleep is often normal at the beginning, and slow wave sleep is often normal by the conclusion. Stage two non-rapid eye movement sleep is often interrupted during KLS. Studies also show that stage one and three non-rapid eye movement sleep become more efficient when the episodes end. The Multiple Sleep Latency Test has yielded inconsistent results when given to KLS patients. In many cases, hours are spent in a withdrawn sleep-like state while awake during episodes. Most sleep studies have been performed while subject is near the end of their episodes. Some patients experience brief insomnia and become very happy and talkative after the episode ends.

The first time a patient experiences KLS, it usually occurs along with symptoms that are similar to those of the flu or encephalitis. In at least 75 percent of cases, symptoms occur after an airway infection or a fever. Viruses observed before the development of the condition include Epstein–Barr virus, varicella zoster virus, herpes zoster virus, influenza A virus subtypes, and adenovirus. Several days after symptoms first occur, patients become very tired. In cases that occur after an infection, KLS usually starts within three to five days for teenagers and fewer for children. In other cases, alcohol consumption, head injury, or international travel precede symptoms. Lifestyle habits, such as stress, alcohol abuse and lack of sleep and stress, have also been proposed as possible triggers. First episodes of KLS are preceded by a clear event in about 90 percent of cases. Recurrences generally do not have clear triggers; only about 15 percent have a precipitating event.

The condition generally disrupts the social lives and academic or professional obligations of those with KLS. Some patients also gain weight during episodes. The most severe cases cause a long-term impact on mood and cognitive attention. In rare cases, patients experience long-term memory problems.

In patients with KLS, MRI and CT scans show normal brain morphology. When SPECT is performed, hypoperfusion can often be observed in the brain, particularly in the thalamic and frontotemporal areas. The hypoperfusion is significantly diminished between episodes. Serum biology, c-reactive proteins and leptins, the hormonal pituitary axis, and protein in the cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) are normal in KLS patients.

Cause

It is not known what causes KLS, but several mechanisms have been proposed. One possible explanation is hypothalamic or circadian dysfunction. The thalamus probably plays a role in the out-of-control sleeping, and patients with diencephalic–hypothalamic dysfunction caused by tumors experience symptoms similar to those of KLS patients. Specifically, the medial temporal regions of the thalamus may be involved, although examinations of KLS patients have not consistently found abnormalities in this area. The temporal lobe also appears to play a role in the condition, possibly causing cognitive difficulties. The apathy and disinhibition found in some with KLS suggest that the condition may include frontal lobe dysfunction as well. The involvement of the thalamus, temporal lobe, and frontal lobe of the brain suggests that there is a multifocal, localized encephalopathy. There are also persistent subclinical abnormalities in some with KLS.

Another possible explanation concerns the metabolism of serotonin and dopamine. An imbalance in the neurotransmitter pathways of these chemicals could play a role. Viral infections have also been suggested as a possible cause. Evidence for their role includes lesions found in autopsies. CSF samples from KLS patients indicate that the condition has a different cause than influenza-associated encephalopathy. Triggers of KLS may also affect the blood-brain barrier, which could play a role in the condition. There is limited evidence of what role hypocretin may play, although it often influences hypersomnia.

Androgen might (indirectly) block melatonin receptors, possibly by means of vasodilation, and cause cholinergic abnormalities in some cases of Kleine–Levin syndrome.

Because KLS occurs at a much higher rate in Jews and in some families, it is likely that there is some genetic component in addition to environmental factors. Genetic studies hold promise for understanding the disease, but they have yielded inconsistent results and few patients are available for testing.

Epilepsy and depression do not appear to cause KLS. The condition's rapid onset after infections indicates that the immune system is not to blame.

One study has suggested a link to the gene LMOD3 on chromosome 3.

Diagnosis

KLS can be diagnosed when there is confusion, apathy, or derealization in addition to frequent bouts of extreme tiredness and prolonged sleep. The earliest it can be diagnosed is the second episode, this is not common. The condition is generally treated as a diagnosis of exclusion. Because KLS is rare, other conditions with similar symptoms are usually considered first.

MRIs can determine if the symptoms are caused by certain brain disorders, stroke, and multiple sclerosis. Lumbar puncture can determine if encephalitis is the cause. KLS must be differentiated from substance abuse by toxicology tests. The use of electroencephalography (EEG) can exclude temporal status epilepticus from consideration. EEGs are normal in about 70% of KLS patients, but background slowing may sometimes be detected. In addition, low-frequency high-amplitude waves can be observed during waking hours.

Initially, KLS appears similar to bipolar depression. Patients with frontal-lobe syndromes and Klüver–Bucy syndrome also display similar symptoms, but these conditions can be differentiated by the presence of brain lesions. KLS should also be distinguished from very rare cases of menstruation-caused hypersomnia.

Prevention

Lithium is the only drug that appears to have a preventive effect. In two studies of more than 100 patients, lithium helped prevent recurrence of symptoms in 20% to 40% of cases. The recommended blood level of lithium for KLS patients is 0.8–1.2 mEq/ml. It is not known if other mood stabilizers have an effect on the condition. Anti-depressants do not prevent recurrence.

Treatment

Several drug therapies have been used on patients with KLS, but none of them have been subject to randomized controlled trials. A 2016 Cochrane Review concluded that "No evidence indicates that pharmacological treatment for Kleine–Levin syndrome is effective and safe".

In several cases, stimulants, including modafinil, have been reported to have a limited effect on patients, often alleviating sleepiness. They can cause behavioral problems, but they may pose fewer issues if used in older patients with mild symptoms. In some case reports, lithium has been reported to decrease the length of episodes and the severity of their symptoms and to increase the time between episodes. It has been reported to be effective in about 25 to 60 percent of cases. Its use carries the risk of side effects in the thyroid or kidneys. Antipsychotics and benzodiazepines can help alleviate psychotic and anxiety related symptoms, respectively. Carbamazepine has been reported to be less effective than lithium but more effective than some drugs in its class. Electroconvulsive therapy is not effective and worsens symptoms.

KLS patients generally do not need to be admitted to hospitals. It is recommended that caregivers reassure them and encourage them to maintain sleep hygiene. It may also be necessary for patients to be prevented from putting themselves in dangerous situations, such as driving.

Prognosis

The frequency of KLS episodes can vary from attacks one week in length occurring twice a year to dozens of episodes that follow each other in close succession. The median duration of KLS episodes is about ten days, but some last several weeks or months. A study of 108 patients found an average of 19 episodes over the duration of the disease. Another study found a median of 3.5 months between episodes. Outside of episodes, there is no disturbance in patients' sleep patterns and they are generally asymptomatic. Patients do not experience the same symptoms in each episode.

About 80 percent of patients are adolescents when they first experience KLS. On some occasions though, its first occurrence comes in childhood or adulthood. In most adolescent-onset patients, symptoms cease by the time they are 30 years old. A French study of 108 patients found a median duration of 13 years, but a review of 186 cases found a median duration of 8 years. Unusually young or old patients and those who experience hypersexuality tend to have a more severe course. Patients who initially have frequent attacks generally see the disease cease earlier than others. The condition spontaneously resolves, and the patient is considered to be cured if there have been no symptoms for six years.

Epidemiology

Population-based studies of KLS have not been performed. Its prevalence is about 1 to 2 cases per million people, although recent studies conducted by a French research team point to a higher number of 3 per million people. It occurs most frequently among Jews in the US and Israel. First-degree relatives of people who have the syndrome are much more likely than the general population to have it, although only in about one percent of cases do family members contract it. About 68 to 72 percents of patients are male. Patients with the syndrome are more likely than the general population to have genetic disorders, and about a third of people with the syndrome encountered some form of birth difficulty. In a study of 186 older patients, about ten percent had preexisting psychiatric issues. One study found that about ten percent of patients had a neurological condition before KLS developed. The condition does not appear to occur most frequently in one season.

History

In 1815, there was a report of a young man who showed excessive appetite and prolonged sleep after experiencing a fever; this may have been an early description of the condition. Another case with similar symptoms was described by Brierre de Boismont in 1862.

Five patients with symptoms of persistent sleepiness were described in detail in 1925 by Willi Kleine, a neurologist from Frankfurt. This report was followed four years later by details of a similar case by New York-based psychiatrist Max Levin. In 1935, Levin published information about several more cases, including one described by Kleine. Levin noted that some patients displayed an intense appetite in addition to their persistent tiredness. MacDonald Critchley, who first wrote about the condition in 1942, described 11 cases he had examined and reviewed 15 other published cases in a 1962 publication. In the report, which included patients he had examined in the Royal Navy during World War II, he observed that irritability and depersonalization often occurred while patients were awake. He named the condition Kleine–Levin syndrome and noted four common traits: hypersexuality, adolescent onset, spontaneous resolution, and compulsive eating. He believed that the condition only affected males, but later studies showed some female patients. In the 1970s, several psychoanalytic and psychodynamic explanations for the condition were proposed. In 1980, a Hawaiian–Caucasian family was found in which nine family members had the condition.

Diagnostic criteria for KLS was established by Schmidt in 1990, and the International Classification of Sleep Disorders further refined them. KLS is classified as a sleep disorder, specifically one of recurrent hypersomnia. Before 2005, hyperphagia and hypersexuality were thought to occur in all cases. That was changed with the guidelines published that year, which noted that they did not always occur.