Also still reading
this book about the Middle Ages. Just ran across Christine de Saint Trond, a cowherd who would "whirl herself to unconsciousness like a dervish." In her "trancelike state" she'd "clamber up into the rafters of churches and climb towers and trees, flirting with death. She also tried to replicate the torments of sinners
in Hell by putting herself in ovens, plunging into boiling water, having herself lashed to mill wheels and hanged on gallows, and lying in
open graves." Just another one of the fun loving characters from the Middle Ages!