Epilepsy: from demons to enlightenment

Artist Jim Chambliss was recently awarded what is believed to be the world’s first PhD in Creative Arts and Medicine by the University of Melbourne. The complexity of Dr Chambliss’s thesis involved traversing these two disciplines with the cooperation of the University’s School of Culture and Communication, the Department of Medicine at St Vincent’s Hospital and the Epilepsy Foundation of Victoria.

In the 18th century, English neurologist, John Hughlings Jackson, described the ‘dreamy state’, ‘psychic seizures’ and ‘double consciousness’ features of focal epilepsy – which perplexed and fascinated people for centuries, contributing to misconceptions of people with epilepsy as being blessed with mystical, religious or philosophical revelations or cursed by demons, witchcraft or insanity.

Studying the visual expressions of 50 artists with epilepsy Dr Chambliss discovered that more than 90 per cent had actually experienced what he terms ‘intrinsic perceptions’ and integrated these fascinating imagery and experiences into their art. 

An intrinsic perception can be spontaneously and independently derived from the brain/mind in simple or complex hallucinations or happen when what is seen, felt or experienced is so altered within the neurological processes impacted by the misfiring of electrical impulses that what would be common perceived or understood as ‘real’ takes on surreal or dreamlike qualities. 

Epilepsy: From Demons to Enlightenment includes over 30 works by 25 artists from around the world with epilepsy or seizures triggered by migraine. 

The artworks provide a window into the thoughts and experiences of people with epilepsy and sit alongside explorations of some of the earliest attempts to distinguish between disease and the tragic misinterpretations of abnormal phenomena associated with epilepsy.

According to neurologist Mark Cook, Eccles Chair of Medicine at St Vincent’s Hospital, exploring historical attitudes to epilepsy is an excellent way to gain a perspective on the collision between magic and science that has occurred throughout humanity’s attempts to understand epilepsy. Professor Cook, who leads a multi-site team of researchers based in Melbourne and Seattle in the development of device that predicts epilepsy seizures in humans, also maintains an abiding interest in medical history and has worked closely with curator Jacky Healy on the development of this exhibition.

Epilepsy: From Demons to Enlightenment runs until Saturday 20 September.

www.museum.medicine.unimelb.edu.au/