https://lithub.com/in-search-of-hysteria-the-man-who-thought-he-could-define-madness/

Why did Charcot medicalize hysteria and hypnosis? There is good evidence that he wanted to demystify all phenomena touted by the church as miracles. He hoped to substitute neurological explanations for religious ones. Auras, visions, imperviousness to pain, miracle cures (especially curing the blind): he wrote all of these off as hysterical symptoms. Epiphanies, the ecstasies of the saints, if not the resurrection itself, could be explained neurologically. Accounts of such religious phenomena, catalogued extensively by Charcot and reenacted onstage by Blanche and other hysterics as attitudes passionnelles, peddled a not-so-subtle form of anticlerical materialism to a hungry audience.