Soul Theory and Skepticism
Science Versus Spirituality

“There is no need to separate mind from brain; once we fully understand the individual and concerted actions of brain cells, we will understand the origins of creative thought.”

"Neuroscience" by Bear, Connors and Paradiso (1996)₁

“In the fifth century B.C., Hippocrates (460?-377? B.C.), often regarded as the father of modern medicine, separated medicine from religion, magic, and superstition. He rejected the prevailing Greek belief that the gods sent serious physical diseases and mental disturbances as punishment and insisted instead that such illnesses had natural causes and hence should be treated like other, more common maladies, such as colds and constipation. Hippocrates regarded the brain as the organ of consciousness, of intellectual life and emotion; thus he thought that deviant thinking and behaviour were indications of some kind of brain pathology.

Hippocrates is often considered one of the very earliest proponents of somatogenesis - the notion that something wrong with the soma, or physical body, disturbs the thought and action. [...] In a massive generalization historians have often suggested that the death of Galen (A.D. 130-200), the second-century Greek who is regarded as the last major physician of the classical era, marked the beginning of the Dark Ages for all medicine and for the treatment and investigation of abnormal behaviour. [...] Christian monasteries, through their missionary and educational work, replaced physicians as healers and authorities on mental disorder. [...] When monks cared for the mentally disordered, they prayed over them and touched them with relics or they concocted fantastic potions for them to drink in the waning phase of the moon.”

"Abnormal Psychology" by Davison & Neale (1997)₂