Enthusiasm

For much of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, enthusiasm denotes a state of (claimed) divine inspiration. The claimed inspiration is almost always seen by those who employ the term as delusory, and enthusiasm is almost always seen as bad, akin to fanaticism, irrationality, and madness. The term is most commonly applied to Protestants outside the Church of England and, at times, to Catholics and pre-Christian mystics. Throughout the period, enthusiasm much less often denotes devotion and zeal or poetic inspiration. In the nineteenth century, concern with enthusiasm declines.