Conflicts and complexities: Medical science, exceptional experiences, and the perils of simplistic history

Abstract

Despite ongoing polemical debates over the supposedly inherent opposition between science and religion, the current consensus in professional historical scholarship is that sweeping conflict narratives do not stand up to scrutiny. Where previous generations of historians of science and medicine often assumed intrinsic conflict, more recent investigations have instead demonstrated vast complexities. This chapter illustrates responses to exceptional or spiritual experiences from the Enlightenment to the professionalization of modern psychology. Noting recent clinical attention to spontaneous and psychedelically induced spiritual and mystical experiences, it concludes by considering the ongoing repercussions of outdated historical frameworks on scientific and medical practice and research.