During the later Middle Ages, a number of religiously oriented people behaved in ways that we would consider unusual, yet it was unusual for them to be regarded as mentally disordered. This article reviews late medieval thinking and practice with regard to mental disorder and also with regard to the discernment of spirits, that is, how it could be decided whether an experience or impulse to do something was the consequence of God or a good spirit, an evil spirit, or some purely human cause. Many of the criteria for discerning a good spirit were behavioral, for example, consistently showing humility and discretion, and were clearly distinct from those displayed in mental disorder. A comparison of the criteria for mental disorder with those used to discern spirits shows how the distinction between mental disorder and religious experience could have been made and why confusion of the two seems to have been rare.

中文翻译：

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中世纪后期的精神错乱和神秘主义。

在中世纪后期，许多宗教信仰者的举止以我们认为不寻常的方式出现，但被视为精神错乱的人却是不寻常的。本文回顾了中世纪晚期关于精神障碍和精神辨别力的思考和实践，也就是说，如何决定一种经历或冲动是上帝还是一种善良的精神的结果。邪恶之灵或某种纯粹的人为原因。辨别良好精神的许多标准是行为上的，例如，始终表现出谦逊和谨慎，并且明显不同于精神障碍中表现出的那些。