Daniel Costa — Medicine, Religion, and History

View of St. Peter’s Basilica dome from Via della Stazione S. Pietro

Research Themes

Research in this field has explored possible relationships between epilepsy, ecstatic states, hyperreligiosity, and the historical descriptions of religious figures. Particular attention has been given to temporal lobe epilepsy and to reports of altered consciousness, visions, trance states, and behavioral automatisms in mystics and saints. Previous retrospective studies have examined figures such as St. Paul, St. Birgitta of Sweden, St. Teresa of Ávila, and other religious personalities described in historical sources. The present research differs in its primary emphasis on a large number of sworn eyewitness testimonies from the seventeenth-century beatification process of St. Joseph of Copertino..

About

Paroxysms, Testimony, and Epileptic Semiology

Interdisciplinary research examining historical testimony concerning religious behavior and experience through contemporary neuropsychiatric perspectives. Click on the link below to access my paper published in Epilepsy and Behavior Reports.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ebr.2026.100865
A meticulously arranged wooden desk in a quiet study, featuring an open, cloth-bound medical textbook displaying a detailed anatomical brain diagram beside a worn, gilt-edged seventeenth-century theology volume opened to a Latin page. A fountain pen rests across a yellow legal pad filled with neat handwritten notes. In the background, shelves of organized books fade into a soft blur. Late afternoon natural light enters from an unseen window, casting gentle, directional light and long, calm shadows across the desk surface. Shot at eye level with a shallow depth of field, photographic realism, and a clean, modern yet scholarly aesthetic that conveys thoughtful, interdisciplinary research at the intersection of medicine, religion, and history.
Approaching Bernini’s colonnade in Rome from Via delle Fornaci

“I found him in the middle of the bedroom lying on the ground as if he were dead, with his face turned to the sky, arms and legs stretched
out and extended on the floor…..the open eyes and mouth full of flies.” —Testimony of Fr. G.M. da Fossombrone

“Reciting the Litanies of the Madonna in his oratory, he singing and I responding, at Mater Divinae Gratiae he repeated these words with maximum force, and gave a huge scream, stopped speaking, became ecstatic, and rose four ditta above the ground, with arms open and face toward the Blessed Virgin, with eyes open, and remained like that for the duration of all the litanies, and returned from ecstasy, fell on his knees on the pavement and resumed the Litanies from the same words Mater Divinae Gratiae, and resumed intoning with me replying to him.” —Testimony of Fr. Angelo Masini

A polished, stainless-steel neurological reflex hammer and a stethoscope arranged carefully beside a small wooden crucifix and a rosary on a dark, matte laboratory workbench. Behind them, blurred glass labware and neatly labeled specimen jars suggest a contemporary clinical research space. Cool, diffused overhead lighting combines with a soft side light, creating delicate highlights on the metal instruments and subtle reflections on the glass. The composition uses the rule of thirds with a shallow depth of field to focus attention on the symbolic juxtaposition of medical tools and religious objects. The mood is contemplative and professional, with photographic realism and a restrained, modern aesthetic.