Possession, Demoniacal And Other Read online

  In order to show the constant nature of the phenomena of possession throughout the ages and to vindicate the importance of these various quotations, we will place side by side with the extracts from the New Testament several cases from more recent times. It would be easy to count them by dozens and even by hundreds. The lives of the saints of the Catholic Church as related in the Acta Sanctorum, are full of stories of possession and its cure. But it is not only in Christian literature that such facts are described, it is also in that of non-Christian antiquity.

  Let us first take the Greek world. Here, by way of example, is an extract from a dialogue of Lucian (born A.D. 125):

  I should like to ask you, then, what you think of those who deliver demoniacs from their terrors and who publicly conjure phantoms. I need not recall to you the master of this art, the famous Syrian of Palestine, everyone already knows this remarkable man who in the case of people falling down at the sight of the moon, rolling their eyes and foaming at the mouth, calls on them to stand up and sends them back home whole and free from their infirmity, for which he charges a large sum each time. When he is with sick persons he asks them how the devil entered into them; the patient remains silent, but the devil replies, in Greek or a barbarian tongue, and says what he is, whence he comes, and how he has entered into the man’s body: this is the moment chosen to conjure him to come forth; if he resist, the Syrian threatens him and finally drives him out.1

  At the beginning of the third century A.D. the Greek sophist, Flavius Philostratus, in his biography of the ascetic and thaumaturge Apollonius of Tyana, compiled at the request of the wife of Septimius Severus, Julia Domna, a Syrian full of wit and beauty (A. Furtwängler), relates the following:

  … These discourses were interrupted by the arrival of the messenger. He brought with him Indians who implored the aid of the Wise Men. He presented to them a poor woman who commended her son to them; he was, she said, sixteen years old, and for two years had been possessed by an evil and lying demon. “On what grounds do you believe this?” asked one of the Sages. “He is,” said she, “of particularly pleasing appearance; therefore, the demon loves him; he does not leave him the use of his reason, but prevents him from going to school, from learning to shoot with the bow, and even from remaining in the house; he drags him away into desolate places. The boy no longer even has his own voice; he utters deep and grave sounds like a grown man. The eyes with which he looks forth are not his eyes. All this afflicts me deeply, I rend my bosom and seek to bring back my child, but he does not recognize me. As I was preparing to come here, (and I have thought of it already for a year past), the demon revealed himself to me by the mouth of my child. He declared to me that he is the spirit of a man killed in war who died loving his wife. But his wife having defiled his couch three days after his death by a new marriage, he came to loathe the love of women and has diverted all his passion on to this child. He promised me, if I consented not to denounce him before you, to do much good to my son. These promises tempted me for a little while, but now for a long time past he has been the sole master in my house, where he thinks of nothing but mischief and deceit.”

  The Sage asked her if the child was there. “No,” replied the mother. “I did all that I could to bring him; but the demon threatens to throw him into gulfs, over precipices, in a word to slay him if I accuse him (the demon) before you.” “Be at peace,” said the Sage; “he will not slay your child when he has read this.” And he drew from his bosom a letter which he gave to this woman. The letter was addressed to the demon and contained the most terrible threats towards him.1

  A Christian author of the following century, Cyril of Jerusalem, gives the following general description of possession:

  … the unclean devil, when he comes upon the soul of a man … comes like a wolf upon a sheep, ravening for blood and ready to devour. His presence is most cruel; the sense of it most oppressive; the mind is darkened: his attack is an injustice also, and the usurpation of another’s possession. For he tyrannically uses another’s body, another’s instruments, as his own property; he throws down him who stands upright (for he is akin to him who fell from heaven); he perverts the tongue and distorts the lips. Foam comes instead of words; the man is filled with darkness; his eye is open yet his soul sees not through it; and the miserable man quivers convulsively before his death.2

  Zeno of Verona (died c. 375) writes in precisely the same manner:

  But we, my brethren, who do not give ourselves over to conjectures of the mind, but are taught by God himself …, we cannot so much lay claim that the souls of the dead live as rather prove it by manifest facts. For the impure spirits of both sexes which prowl hither and thither, make their way by deceitful flatteries or by violence into the bodies of living men and make their habitation there: they seek refuge there while holding them in a bondage of corruption. But as soon as we enter into the field of the divine combat (exorcism) and begin to drive them forth with the arrow of the holy name of Jesus, then thou mayest take pity on the other—when thou shalt have learnt to know him—for that he is delivered over to such a fight. His face is suddenly deprived of colour, his body rises up of itself, the eyes in madness roll in their sockets and squint horribly, the teeth, covered with a horrible foam, grind between blue-white lips; the limbs twisted in all directions are given over to trembling; he sighs, he weeps; he fears the appointed day of Judgment and complains that he is driven out; he confesses his sex, the time and place he entered into the man, he makes known his name and the date of his death, or shows by manifest signs who he is; so that we generally learn that there are many of these who, according to our own memory, persisting in the worship of idols, have recently died a violent death.1

  The sixth-century French chronicler, Gregory of Tours, is also acquainted with possession and its specific treatment:

  It is not uncommon that on the appointed feast-days those demoniac fall into a state of downright madness in the churches. They break the lamps, to the terror of the assembled parish. But if the oil of the lamps fall upon them the demon leaves them and they regain their right senses.2

  In the seventh century it is mentioned in the life of St. Gall:

  This young girl, having been held by the cruel persecution of the Old Enemy, was led to the monastery by the care of her parents, who were not of obscure origin. When she entered into the oratory of the blessed Gall the Confessor, she immediately fell to the earth by reason of the assaults of the horrible demon, and rending herself in a lamentable fashion, began to utter loud and terrible cries accompanied by the most filthy words. Then one of the brethren, of the name of Stephen, moved by her distress, recited an exorcism until such time as her torments had ceased. He later told the girl when she had come to herself what penances she should perform, and applied himself to fasting and prayer for her. But as the wretched woman made free use of forbidden meat the demon invaded her forthwith so strongly that she could hardly be held by several persons.3

  The following cases belong to the beginning of the thirteenth century; they are taken from the oldest biography4 of St. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226).

  There was a man of the name of Peter in the town of Fulgineus. At that time he was on his way to visit the abode of St. Michael, either in consequence of a vow or else of a penance self-inflicted for his sins, and he drew near to the fountain. While, wearied with travel, he quenched his thirst at this fountain, he thought he saw drinking there demons which had haunted him during three years, and which were horrible to see and to hear. As he went towards the tomb of the Holy Father (St. Francis of Assisi) cruelly torn by the demons in their fury, by a manifest miracle he was marvellously delivered from them as soon as he touched the sepulchre.…

  … This woman having been brought from the town of Narnius in a great state of madness and wandering of the mind, doing horrible things and uttering incoherent words, there appeared to her in a vision the Blessed Saint Francis, saying: “Make the sign of the Cross.” As she replied, “I cannot,” the Saint
himself made it over her and purged her of madness and demoniac imaginings.…

  Many men and women, tortured by the divers torments of devils and deceived by their spells, were also delivered by the surpassing merits of the holy and glorious Father.…

  The following extract relates to a case in the sixteenth century:

  The latter (a girl) was possessed by the demon who often threw her to the ground as if she had the falling sickness. Soon the demon began to speak with her mouth and said things inhuman and marvellous which may not be repeated.… The girl had always shown herself patient, she had often prayed to God. But when she had called upon the name of Jesus to deliver her, the evil spirit manifested himself anew, he had taken possession of her eyes which he made start out of her head, had twisted her tongue and pulled it more than eight inches out of her mouth, and turned her face towards her back with an expression so pitiful that it would have melted a stone. All the priests of the place and from round about came and spoke to her, but the devil replied to them with a contempt which exceeded all bounds, and when he was questioned about Jesus he made a reply of such derision that it cannot be set down.…1

  Now follows an extract from a narrative of the eighteenth century:

  At the unexpected rumour that two possessed women had been brought into the workhouse of that place, I followed the dictates of my pastor’s conscience and went to the workhouse on the evening of the 14th of December, 1714. After … the paroxysm began in one of the possessed women, and Satan abruptly hurled this invective at me by her mouth: “Silly fool, what are you doing in this workhouse? You’ll get lice here,” etc. I made him this answer: “By the blood, the wounds and the martyrdom of Jesus Christ, thou shalt be vanquished and expelled!” Thereupon he foamed with rage and shouted: “If we had the devil’s power we would turn earth and heaven upside down, etc.… What God doesn’t want is ours!”

  In the morning, towards 11 o’clock, this possessed woman came at my request, but not willingly, into the church of the place. There, in order that I might inform myself of her most wretched state, I began to sing the canticle: “May God the Father be with us,” and after such preparation as I judged necessary I read from the pulpit the two remarkable passages concerning possession in the fifth and ninth chapters of St. Mark, so earnestly and for so long that Satan who was in the possessed cried to me from below the pulpit: “Won’t you soon have done?” After I had replied: “When it is enough for God it will be enough for thee, demon!” Satan broke into complaints against me: “How dost thou oppress, how dost thou torment me! If only I had been wise enough not to enter thy church!” As he cried out impudently: “My creature must now suffer as an example!” I closed his mouth with these words: “Demon! the creature is not thine but God’s! That which is thine is filth and unclean things, hell and damnation to all eternity!” When at last I addressed to him the most violent exhortations in the name of Jesus, he cried out: “Oh, I burn, I burn! Oh, what torture! What torture!” or loaded me with furious invectives: “What ails thee to jabber in this fashion?”

  During all these prayers, clamourings, and disputes, Satan tortured the poor creature horribly, howled through her mouth in a frightful manner and threw her to the ground so rigid, so insensible that she became as cold as ice and lay as dead, at which time we could not perceive the slightest breath until at last with God’s help she came to herself.…

  Although the possessed once more recovered her reason on this occasion without being able, be it noted, to remember what Satan had said by her mouth, he did not leave her long in peace after my departure; he tormented her as before.…1

  Finally, here is another case from the beginning of the nineteenth century:

  The first woman possessed in the Biblical manner with whom I became acquainted, writes the Swabian poet and physician Justinus Kerner, I owe to the confidence of Doctor … He had sent her to me for cure, informing me that all treatment by ordinary methods had been fruitless when applied to this woman.

  The patient was a peasant-woman of thirty-four years.… Her past life up to this time had been irreproachable. She kept her house and showed due regard for religion without being especially devout. Without any definite cause which could be discovered, she was seized, in August, 1830, by terrible fits of convulsions, during which a strange voice uttered by her mouth diabolic discourses. As soon as this voice began to speak (it professed to be that of an unhappy dead man), her individuality vanished, to give place to another. So long as this lasted she knew nothing of her individuality, which only reappeared (in all its integrity and reason) when she had retired to rest.

  This demon shouted, swore, and raged in the most terrible fashion. He broke out especially into curses against God and everything sacred.

  Bodily measures and medicines did not produce the slightest change in her state, nor did a pregnancy and the suckling which followed it. Only continual prayer (to which moreover she was obliged to apply herself with the greatest perseverance, for the demon could not endure it) often frustrated the demon for a time.

  During five months all the resources of medicine were tried in vain.… On the contrary, two demons now spoke in her; who often, as it were, played the raging multitude within her, barked like dogs, mewed like cats, etc. Did she begin to pray, the demons at once flung her into the air, swore, and made a horrible din through her mouth.

  When the demons left her in peace she came to herself, and on hearing the accounts of those present, and seeing the injuries inflicted upon her by blows and falls, she burst into sobs and lamented her condition. By a magico-magnetic (that is to say, hypnotic) treatment … one of the demons had been expelled before she was brought to me; but the one who remained only made the more turmoil.

  Prayer was also particularly disagreeable to this one. If the woman wished to kneel down to pray, the demon strove to prevent her with all his might, and if she persisted he forced her jaws apart and obliged her to utter a diabolic laugh or whistle.…

  She was able to eat nothing but a soup of black bread and water. As soon as she took anything better, the demon rose up in her and cried: “Carrion should eat nothing good!” and took away her plate. She often fasted for two or three complete days without taking a crumb of food and without drinking a drop. On those days the demon kept quiet. Through distress, suffering and fasting, she had grown thin and was little more than a skeleton. Her pains were often so great, by night as well as day, as to beggar description, and we like herself were in despair over them.1

  Narratives such as the foregoing, above all those relating to early Christian times, have long excited the interest of doctors and religious historians, and from time to time formed the subject of monographs. In these circumstances it will be worth while to subject the question to a thorough examination from the psychological point of view, the more so as the most recent descriptions on the medical side are inadequate and have thrown little light. The psychological conception of possession is still so little known that even a man like Harnack thinks it “often defies scientific analysis even in our own times, and leaves us all at liberty to suppose that certain mysterious forces are brought into play. In this domain there are facts which cannot be ignored and yet of which no explanation is forthcoming.” Wrede has expressed the same opinion.2 In reality, there can be no question of particular enigmas in the matter of possession; the province of psychology where they are in fact encountered lies quite elsewhere.

  1 In ancient, as also sometimes in later times, it was customary to class as possession other states of enthusiasm or inspiration. I shall at first confine myself here to possession in the accepted sense, and later extend the acceptation gradually in each direction.

  2 Besides the quotations given in the text (Moffat’s trans., pub. Hodder and Stoughton), cf. also Mark xii 24 sq., 43 sq., Mark iii 22 sq., Luke xi 14–26.

  1 It is not without importance to the understanding of the New Testament writings and their bearing on the psychology of religion to observe that the term is not on
ly used in the expression but that the devils of the possessed were designated under the name of

  1 In this connection quotations such as the following, the historical truth of which is incontestable, are extremely characteristic.

  Now when Jesus had finished these parables he set out from there and went to his native place, where he taught the people in the synagogue till they were astounded. They said, “Where did he get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? Is this not the son of the joiner? Is not his mother called Mary and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? Are not his sisters settled here among us? Then where has he got all this?” So they were repelled by him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet never goes without honour except in his native place and in his home.” And he did not many mighty works there because of their Unbelief2 (Matt. xiii 53–58).

  A few chapters later Matthew relates how in one instance an exorcism by the disciples of Jesus failed, and he replied to their questions as to the cause of the failure: , on account of your little faith (Matt, xvii 14–21; cf. Mark ix 28 sq.). Both accounts are in full agreement with what psychology would lead us to expect in the attendant circumstances. Moreover, the first report is not even favourable to the miracle-working power of Jesus. It must rest on specially old and reliable tradition which in this passage has not yet been retouched. We should indeed rather expect to read: There he was not able to work many miracles owing to their lack of faith. It is obvious, however, that this mode of expression cannot proceed from a naïf outlook which regarded these cures as miracles. Moreover, Jesus might, in face of the lack of faith opposed to him, have been instinctively withheld from any greater efficaciousness.