PHANATIC, or FANATIC, a visionary; one who fancies he sees spectres, spirits, apparitions, or other imaginary objects, even when awake; and takes them to be real. See PHANTASY and FANATIC.
Such are phrenetics, necromancers, hypochondriac persons, lycanthropi, &c. See PHRENETIC, HYPOCHONDRIAC, LYCANTHROPY.
Hence the word is also applied to enthusiasts, pretenders to revelation, new lights, prophecies, &c. See ENTHUSIAST, and SECOND Sight.
PHANTASIA was the daughter of Nicarchus of Memphis in Egypt. It has been supposed that she wrote a poem on the Trojan war, and another on the return of Ulysses to Ithaca, from which compositions Homer copied the greatest part of his Iliad and Odyssey, when he visited Memphis, where they were deposited.