Ellen White’s Head Injury

 

Seventh-day Adventists believe that Ellen G. White (born 1827, died 1915)

possessed what they “have accepted as the prophetic gift described in the Bible.” 1 When she was nine years old, an angry schoolmate threw a stone, which struck her on the nose and caused significant injury. Some have alleged that this blow so severely damaged the temporal lobe of her brain as to cause her to have a type of epilepsy known as partial complex seizures (also called complex partial seizures). Thus, it is argued, her visions were not divine revelations from God, but due to temporal lobe epilepsy.

 

The Allegation

 

In 1981, for instance, Delbert H. Hodder, a pediatrician with a special interest in pediatric neurology, wrote in Evangelica (a magazine now defunct) that Ellen White’s visions were “consistent with what is now known as partial-complex or psychomotor seizures.” 2 Four years later Molleurus Couperus, a retired dermatologist, made a similar allegation in an article in Adventist Currents when he said that Ellen White’s visions were due to “temporal lobe epilepsy.” 3

 

Since Hodder’s and Couperus’s claims are so similar, they will, with some exceptions, be treated as one in this study.

 

Epilepsy Allegation Not New

 

There is nothing new to the allegation that a prophet’s visions were due to some form of epilepsy. Critics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have claimed that the visions of the Bible prophets were epileptic seizures. As recently as 1970 Kenneth Dewhurst and A. W. Beard claimed that Paul’s vision on the road to Damascus was due to “temporal lobe epilepsy…” 4

 

With respect to the latter allegation, those who accept the evidence in the biblical accounts reject this suggestion for the simple reason that Paul was not the only one who experienced what happened that day. Those who were with him saw a light, they all fell to the ground, they all heard a voice (see Acts 9: 3-7; 22: 6-9; 26: 13, 14). This much is clear. If Paul had a seizure, then the entire group had seizures simultaneously. That this could have been the case is bizarre beyond belief—especially since to Paul the voice was an intelligible message to him, while to the others it was merely an unintelligible sound!

 

If the vision of a Bible prophet can be attributed to temporal lobe epilepsy, it is not surprising that the same allegation should be made concerning Ellen White’s visions. During her lifetime, for instance, Dudley M. Canright, a Seventh-day Adventist minister who left the church, claimed that she had a “complication of hysteria, epilepsy, catalepsy, and ecstasy” and stated that her “visions were merely the result of her early misfortune.” 5

 

Although Canright was a contemporary of Ellen White, he was not a physician; hence his claim will not be dealt with in this study. Hodder and Couperus, however, are physicians, so their claims will be considered.

 

The purpose of this study is to determine if the allegations of these critics have any validity.

 

Sources of Information

 

Since Ellen White has been dead for many years, it is obviously impossible to make a diagnosis of her case on the basis of direct clinical evidence. Both critics and defenders must reach their conclusions on the basis of available records.

 

The oldest and most reliable description of Ellen White’s childhood injury and its long-term effects comes from Mrs. White herself. It reads as follows:

 

I turned to see how far she [the angry schoolmate] was behind me, and as I turned, the stone hit me on my nose. I fell senseless. When I revived, I found myself in a merchant’s store, the blood streaming from my nose, my garments covered with blood, and a large stream of blood on the floor.

A kind stranger offered to take me home in his carriage. I knew not how weak I was, and told him I should greatly soil his carriage with blood, and that I could walk home. Those present were not aware that I was so seriously injured. I had walked but a few rods when I grew dizzy and faint. My twin sister and my schoolmate carried me home. I have no recollection of anything for some time after the accident. My mother says that I noticed nothing, but lay in a stupid state for three weeks....

As I aroused to consciousness, it seemed to me that I had been asleep. I was not aware of the accident, and knew not the cause of my sickness. 6

 

⇐ Предыдущая12345Следующая ⇒

Поделиться: