CHAPTER IX
POSSESSION
From time to time we come across cases of demoniacal possession. In these there is apparently the permanent or temporary domination of the soul or mind of the victim by an evil spirit or demon of alien personality.
Cases of possession are invariably claimed as “proofs” of the existence of spirit intelligence, and in cases where the possession is nominally at least a mild one the possessed are sometimes quite proud of it. It is, in fact, exhibited as quaint and dreadful deformity would be--the phrase is exact. It is a mental deformity.
Now, it must be understood that the psychologists have of late years made enormous strides in their knowledge of the vagaries of the subconscious mind. Possession, like “shell shock,” is in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred a perfectly curable disease. It springs from a perversion of the subconscious state, can be diagnosed by psychoanalysis and eradicated by transference or by suggestion.
The processes of Christian exorcism often attained the same result. The wise priest was able to “cast out demons,” and medical science of to-day, working by analytical methods rather than by rule-of-thumb, achieves the same results.
Whether one accepts the scientific theory that these “possessions” are but multiple personalities and that there may be several mental personalities in the one mind, or whether one believes the idea of spirit influence, does not much matter. In any case the doors of the mind can be firmly locked on either spirit or mental disease. Possession is curable--if the patient really desires to be cured.
Possession can be readily evoked in nearly all hypnotic subjects. Not only one but several distinct personalities can be developed by the psychologist. Janet’s experiments developed in Madame B. three separate individuals: Léonie, known in the waking state as a “possessor”; Léontine under the light stage of hypnosis, and Léonore in a deeper condition.[40]
Even a popular knowledge and comprehension of this peculiar disease of the subconscious is difficult to attain without a sound elementary grasp of the principles of psychology. The bulk of books on the subject are written for the medical or scientific mind, but Coriat’s book is a sound and easily grasped introductory manual.[41]
The normal form of mental trouble is an obsession, the fear or “phobia” of some perfectly normal thing, a desire to touch objects. There are dozens of variations of these obsessions which spring to mind. The state of possession can only be said to exist when the mind is under the dominance of another individuality distinct from the normal personality.
It is curious to note that cases of possession by good spirits are absolutely unknown. A medium may be “controlled” by spirits said to be good, but this does not amount to a possession. In every case where normal personality has been overthrown and another or other personalities take possession we find--evil.
This is to certain extent explicable if we realize that every thought or wish that occurs to us, and which we _repress_ because it is bad or evil, is not destroyed or wiped out of existence, but stays as a suppressed desire or wish buried in the recesses of subconscious mind.
When normal conscious control is overthrown, these subconsciously stored desires or wishes come bubbling up--a fact that seems to explain why the language used by nicely brought up girls recovering after the administration of an anæsthetic would put a coal-heaver to flight.
In the dream state, too, these repressed desires escape all mixed up from their bondage, a fact which accounts for the peculiar medley of dreams and their frequent lack of moral balance and accentuation of sexual characteristics.
The character of a “possessing” demon is in most cases determined by experiences that the victim has passed through. Shock, neurasthenia, illness, disappointment; all these may bring about the splitting of the personality so that the secondary or possessing personality can overthrow consciousness and take charge.
The victim is often horrified to find his or her mind continually filled with terrible desires, intolerable passions, and thoughts utterly repugnant to the sedate conscious self.
Sometimes the idea of possession is stimulated by messages received through mediums or by automatic writing--this is one of the many frequent cases where undigested, uneducated Spiritualism is often abominably harmful. Anything that helps the idea of possession to grow in the afflicted mind should be avoided.
Gradually the nature of the possession becomes more acutely defined and is recognized as a different personality--an evil personality resident in the same body using the same mind. It is in all human probability only the repressed wishes--all the pent-up unfulfilled evil of a lifetime taking shape and urging gratification rather than repression in a new and secondary personality.
Possession by evil spirits is invariably connected with violence and vice. Sometimes the attacks are periodic; always they are signs of mental instability and psychic disease. A possessed person is a fit subject for psychotherapeutic treatment by qualified medical men, but a source of very real psychic danger in a séance or as a subject for well-meaning experiments in faith healing by amateurs.
In psychic healing the doctrine of sacrifice and the scapegoat had a very literal interpretation. The healer often takes upon his own soul the burden that he lifts from another. This psychic transference can only be done in safety by certain and specific ways beyond the scope of this work. It is sufficient to indicate the danger.
Possession in its varying aspects has given rise to many myths and legends. Larvæ, Incubi, and Succubi were all demons of temporary possession that tempted man. In the Middle Ages and far later the Faith strove lustily with them, and where exorcism failed the stake was found effective.
According to the older writers, Incubi were male demons who possessed the bodies of mortal women; Succubi, she-devils who seduced the souls and possessed the bodies of men.
Sorcerers had the power of despatching these erotic demons to gratify their associates or plague their enemies, and it is notable that this doctrine of vicarious enjoyment or satisfaction reappears in the Spiritualist belief in gross and earth-bound souls of sinners who haunt drinking booths and houses of ill-fame, deriving vicarious satisfaction from the sins of the living.
The old demonographers give lurid and disgustful accounts of these “possessions”[42] and insist on their contagious nature. Prosecutions for sorcery, “possession,” and similar crimes raged throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and in the pages of the records we can trace the Incubi and Succubi now hidden as familiar spirits, now described as the devil himself, but curiously true in their nature to the occasional demoniac possessions that trouble the twentieth century.
Even if one admits that the average “possession” is one’s own evil subconscious personality attempting to overthrow the conscious mind, certain questions and possibilities arise.
That the astral body or mind can make discarnate journeys is a well-known fact to all Spiritualists. There is, then, no reason to suppose that this faculty would be less material in a possessive personality whose origin was specifically in the dream realm of the subconscious.
Indeed, it is far more plausible to suppose that the possessor or demon mind would find it far easier to make the journey than the other personality, for it is recognized that the release of the actual body occurs in trance or dream state.
We have here, then, some possible psychic explanation of many of the cases of sorcery where the complaint of the sufferers was that they were victimized during sleep by demons. In other words, they were the recipients of undesired attentions by the astral body of either the sorcerer or his followers or associates.
This has been suggested to me in various forms by people who have believed themselves the victims of discarnate spirits--and who were at times possessed by them against their wills. It must, however, be admitted that in all such cases which came under my notice there had been connection with Spiritualist circles or with minor forms of occultism, and it was impossible to exclude the possibility of previous hypnosis, autosuggestion, or the little-known but common phenomena of psychic invasion--by other members of the circle.
Viewed from the psychical point of view, possession is an extremely difficult problem. Real spirit possession might occur, suggestion or psychic invasion is often indicated; and, as I have explained, multiple personality and the concentration of evil repressed desires in the secondary individuality furnishes a complete scientific explanation of the phenomenon.
These cases must be taken individually, and there are not yet grounds for laying down a general explanation of all the phenomena. One of the great difficulties is the natural reluctance of the victims to disclose exact details, but no case of possession which was not either openly or secretly erotic is known to be recorded.
Possessions fall under two heads: those in which the possessing spirit urges the victim to the commission of injurious acts in person, and thereby derives direct satisfaction through the body; and those in which a vicarious satisfaction is achieved through the astral body. The possibility of intercourse between spirit and mortal has been held to be a possibility since Biblical times, and the expulsion of the fallen angels was due to this sin.[43]
Stainton Moses held that much of the lower phenomena was caused by spirits who had not yet reached man’s plane of intelligence, just as some was produced by others who had proceeded further and returned to enlighten man.[44] This belief occurs in folklore, in Oriental religions, and in a myriad variations.
The djinn of the _Arabian Nights_ is a very real thing to the modern native, and a considerable literature exists in which the intercourse between djinn and mortal is the main theme. In the same way the belief in fairy wives or husbands is not so long dead in Europe and alive to-day among the hill tribes of the Pamirs.
The whole theory of spirit possession or demon possession is linked with this idea. In the “possessed” state the victim is unconscious of deeds done and words said. The blame is the blame of the demon.
In nine cases out of ten frenzy or hysteria accompanies nominal possession. There are gifts of strange tongues usually said to be Eastern or Indian, and the possessed pour out streams of gibberish in which a few dominant words or phrases bearing a slight resemblance to some known tongue may be distinguished.
Clairvoyance, the gift of prophecy, and other psychic qualities appear at the time of the seizure. Often there is marked anæsthesia and insensitiveness to pain. Hot objects may be handled with impunity, electric shocks are not felt.
These cases are not genuine cases of possession in its worst sense when they begin, but very frequently the victim is urged by fools to develop these wonderful powers and the Darker Powers accept the invitation and step in.
The occultist and the scientist agree about very few things, but both agree that possession and surrender to possession are the first steps to moral and physical disaster. The transferable or infectious quality of possession is not so widely known as it should be, but with the increase of Spiritualism its effects will in a year or so become capable of perception by even the most unenlightened.
A girl of my acquaintance, the daughter of wealthy and respectable Midland parents, became interested in psychic matters. Her faith was greater than her powers of discernment and she was, like all too many Spiritualists, of neurotic and hysterical temperament.
Her first actual essays were with automatic writing; then as she was an art student she tried painting under spirit control. Some slight success attended her efforts and she became interested in Egyptian mythology because her spirit paintings were Egyptian in character.
I did not see her frequently, but met her about a year after she had taken up her Egyptian studies. She stated that in her was reincarnated the soul of an Egyptian priest. This invading entity dominated her entire mind and mode of life.
Before, she had been a healthy, normal girl although inclined to be neurotic, but once given over to this obsession she found that owing to the psychic change of sex all men were repugnant to her. She was possessed by a male mind in a female body, and with this extraordinary inversion of normal feelings was obliged to break off her engagement.
The remainder of her life was short but tragic. Her automatic writings (which were destroyed after her unhappy death at her own hands) showed the ascendancy of the possessing demon as it grew over her. Interspersed with these records were the tragic outpourings of her soul, her self-analysis of her psychic disaster. There were things there terrible to read.
It is not perhaps fair to blame psychic science for disastrous tragedies such as these, but it must be openly admitted that occultism is not for the multitude.
There is nothing known to-day that was not known in the past, but Spiritualists and other investigators have discovered a few of the minor marvels that were known to, but wisely hidden by, the ancients. Sometimes they are like children playing with a box of drugs, some of which are active poisons.
One message of consolation, one instance of subconscious telepathy with a medium, and they are convinced of the truth of Spiritualism and will not be warned that whatever truth it may hold it also holds Untruth and Danger as well as Hope.
The threshold between the innocent “control” and the malevolent “demons of possession” is a very, very narrow one. Sometimes, indeed often, there is no dividing line at all. The charges that Spiritualism is the high road to lunacy have these unfortunate occurrences as their basis.
FOOTNOTES:
[40] Pierre Janet: _L’automatisme Psychologique_.
[41] _Abnormal Psychology._ Isador H. Coriat. Rider, 1911.
[42] See _Tableau de L’Inconstance des Démons_. Pierre de Lancre.
[43] Jude VI, 7.
[44] Stainton Moses, _Spirit Identity_, Appendix II.