Use Your Delusion.

Charles VI of France reigned from 1380 to 1422 and it was an eventful time to be the King of France. While he was on the throne the country was plunged into the Armagnac-Burgundian Civil War which was inconvenient as they were still fighting The Hundred Years War (which actually lasted, on and off, for 116 years) with England. In 1415 his army was crushed by the English at the Battle of Agincourt.

That's a lot to deal with but Charles had another problem. He believed that he had been turned to glass. He wrapped himself in blankets and avoided hard surfaces as he was fearful that he may shatter or smash into pieces. When documentary producer Victoria Shepherd discovered this story she became fascinated by it and has put together a book, a ten part series for BBC Radio 4, and a talk, The History of Delusions, which she was serving up at Conway Hall last Thursday evening.

"Don't blog about it" implored the compere Scott Wood - and I'm sure he was looking in my direction. I am - but I am being very careful to leave quite a lot out because it's worth reading that book and it's worth checking out that radio series. It was worth going to the talk to and I was pleased that I was able to put my hands on my hips, look contentedly around the room, and declare a 'good turnout". 

It was nice, too, to enjoy a couple of drinks in the nearby Enterprise pub afterwards with Dewi, Jade, Kelly, Scott, Tim, David, and Sid. Nice to feel part of this curious little Fortean community. There was lots of laughter but probably not as much as was once directed towards King Charles VI of France who was, perhaps unsurprisingly, widely derided for his delusion.

Victoria Shepherd wanted to learn more. She became, in her own words, a "detective of delusions". She discovered that, in the Middle Ages, glass was a relatively new material. It was seen as precious yet vulnerable, an example of alchemy, something quite magical even.

The King was not the only person to suffer this delusion in early modern Europe. Scores of "glass men" were reported (and they were nearly all men, "glass women" came much later and, for the most part, it was just their legs that were believed to be glass!) and, in fact, the initial meaning of melancholia included a sensation of being made of glass. Cervantes even wrote about it.

More widely speaking, delusions demand attention, they demand an audience and it is popularly believed that almost everyone is deluded about something. They may be deluded that someone who doesn't love them does love them, they may be deluded in thinking Tottenham will win the league, or they may be so far gone they genuinely believe Boris Johnson is not a liar.

But believing you're made of glass, of course, makes for a better talk. Delusions have, over the years, been variously thought to be the result of too much black bile, demonic possession, or, more recently, brain disease but it seems only mildly contentious to suggest that delusions are subconsciously formed as a strategy to reverse unfortunate situation or to make sense of wretched circumstance.

Delusions can help organise your enemy (witness Trump and Ted Cruz in the wake of the latest US school shooting suggesting that more guns are the answer), they can help reframe conflict, and they can create ambivalence and ambiguity in situations where those things might prove useful.

Some still baffle though. The Parisienne lady (Paris seems to do delusions better than anywhere) who believed she had a double (helping to bring the word doppelganger into the English language and providing source material for both Fyodor Dostoevsky and Catherine Crowe) and lead to Freud suggesting such behaviour stemmed from repression and fear of death.

Of course! The lady's name has, seemingly, not been remembered by history but there are accounts of people finding the graves of four of her children in the catacombs of Paris so it's likely she'd suffered some horrendous trauma. She'd also have been even more freaked out if she'd known that a cardboard model of Paris was being built a few miles north of Paris to confuse enemy pilots in World War I.

And what of the 43 year old woman in an asylum, in France - of course, who believed that a lightning bolt had split her in two and that she was already dead. She pleaded to be burnt alive (or burnt dead, I suppose) but it is not recorded what eventually became of her.

It is said that at a hugely religious time she felt massive guilt and shame regarding some unnamed inappropriate behaviour at her first communion. But it seems quite a stretch to go from that to believing you're dead and asking to be set on fire.

Delusions both make sense and they make no sense at all - in that they're very much like many other things in life - and though there were more stories at Conway Hall last week I'll partially respect Scott's wish and not share them here now. Just to say it was an enjoyable evening and though Victoria seemed a tiny bit nervous, understandably, at first she became more confident as she warmed to her themes and I had a nice time. I was even happier than usual because I'm going to win the lottery this weekend and then get married to Jennifer Connelly. Don't say I'm deluded.