Possession, Demoniacal And Other

by T K Oesterreich

  He had grown much thinner, and when he spoke of his state his head and body were convulsed at frequent intervals and shrank together visibly. He was also suddenly and without being able to resist, obliged to cry out like an animal.

  In his natural state he seemed a very gentle and reasonable man and spoke accordingly, but in the midst of a conversation the expression, attitude, and tone of voice would change brusquely and he would begin to walk precipitately and make movements as if he were full of anger: notwithstanding which he was always fully conscious.1

  One of Kerne’s women patients thus describes her own state:

  When the magnetism (the hypnosis) had been applied during three weeks I was obliged immediately after the magnetization to pronounce, in part mentally and in part by soundless movements of the lips, beautiful religious sentences from which I drew great hope of a cure, and the fits became less frequent. But after three weeks had elapsed the Evil One who was hidden within me began to rage again. I was obliged almost without ceasing to utter cries, weep, sing, dance, and roll upon the ground where I went into horrible contortions; I was forced to jerk my head and feet in all directions, howl like a bear and also utter the cries of other animals, things which had, moreover, all happened before on previous occasions.2

  I strove vigorously (on the doctor’s instigation) to repress the fits, but only succeeded at the end of fourteen days and solely by the help and prayers of a dear and very pious woman.

  I am never absent, I always know what I am doing and saying, but I cannot always express what I wish; there is something within me which prevents it. In the most furious fits I dare not offer the slightest resistance, for I should only make myself more unhappy, and force is, moreover, of no avail; it is therefore voluntarily that I give myself up to the power of the Evil One and let him rage, for it is only so that I can once more get a little rest.1

  Eschenmayer relates of the C. St. case observed by him:

  … The strange and demoniac individuality which formerly contented itself with shouting and uttering animal cries by her mouth, began to speak diabolical words. The girl retained consciousness when the voice spoke, but she could not prevent it even by trying with all her might; she heard it resound externally like that of a strange individual lodged within her, without being able to control or do anything with it.2

  His (the possessing spirit’s) rage was always directed against Dürr; when he could do nothing to him with hands and feet (C. St. was held down) he spat upon him. Between whiles C. was often heard sighing, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”3

  … She had heard and seen everything which happened. For she never lost consciousness, but in spite of her efforts she could not resist the demon when he took possession of her body. We asked her whether the tears which the demon shed must not have been inspired by her, but she denied it positively.4

  In the same way Janet relates of his patients:

  … He murmured blasphemies in a deep and solemn voice: “Cursed be God,” said he, “cursed the Trinity, cursed the Virgin …” then in a higher voice and with eyes full of tears: “It is not my fault if my mouth says these horrible things, it is not I … it is not I.… I press my lips together so that the words may not come through, may not break forth, but it is useless; the devil then says these words inside me, I feel plainly that he says them and forces my tongue to speak in spite of me.”

  … The demon twisted his arms and legs and made him endure cruel sufferings which wrung horrible cries from the wretched man.5

  The derangements caused by possession in the victim’s actions are particularly striking:

  … Finally the conversation had to be broken off because the impression which it made upon him put him completely out of temper. He became very weak and was hardly able to utter another word. The hands fell inert. We begged him to make Caroline wake up in order to revive her a little; at first he would not, and it was only by begging that he induced him to do it. But then a strange scene began. Someone stood before C. with the coffee which the demon did not like. As often as she wished to put it to her lips, he came back and she took nothing. If the bowl was taken from her, C. came back and wished to drink. Thus personalities and faces alternated with a hitherto unheard-of rapidity.6

  But hardly had D. and R. accompanied her to the staircase when they dragged her in again to the door, for the demon would not let her go further.… When she had lain down on the sofa he at once began his diabolical grimaces, shook his fist at us, and as on the first occasion had a fit of violence during which he shook Caroline’s head so terribly that all her hair flew out around her—a torture from which she expected the worst, for it always rendered her unconscious. We then applied ourselves four to one to hold her head and arms and master him, but he rose up again with great violence.1

  … The demon had grown yet more hardened, and Caroline complained that he prevented her from praying either by obscenities, abuse, or suffering.2

  During the most violent compulsive motor manifestations the consciousness sometimes remains perfectly clear. The following is a case in point:

  … On the 3rd of January he was taken with a fit so violent that he believed that if it were repeated he would die. This fit was of the following nature: the devil threw him into the air and when he had fallen raised his feet one after the other with terrible rapidity, making them fall and strike the earth at the same rapid rate and with a noise that was heard from a long distance, and which two storeys away resounded like a horse’s gallop. Soon he began to move his arms in circles with the same furious speed, and to fling himself hither and thither in the bed. We laid him on two sacks of straw, which were lying upon the floor, so that he might not do himself an injury. Night and day these unspeakable torments continued.3

  Little by little the devil manifested himself more and more by day. Until now he had only uttered a shrill whistling by the mouth of the tormented man; in the last days he passed to other sounds which were like the cries of divers animals. Soon he crowed like a cock, hissed like a serpent, mewed like a cat, called like a cuckoo, and finally neighed like a horse.

  Then came the most dangerous period. The state of the brother grew considerably worse and his will, which had until then remained free to resist the devil, often became as if paralyzed. From time to time the devil twisted his face in order to make a mock of our worthy father—but the latter said to those around him: “You should not laugh at these dreadful things but should most earnestly execrate this demon from hell!” This continued until the expulsion, which took place the other day.4

  In the afternoon of Thursday the 10th of February, the entry of the evil spirits really took place. It was pointed out to me that he had whirled round in a circle three times in a strange manner, and when I caused the brother who had observed him to imitate it, that so modest a brother would not indulge in such buffooneries of his own accord. He came into my room to dance to a light tune. Nevertheless he once more took a staunch resolution to vanquish the infernal influence and began to sing the canticle “All to the honour of my God.” The dances which he executed, now and also later, were very finished ones in which he showed much grace and elegance, accompanied by bows, etc. It should be noted that the possessed man had never in his life put one foot before the other to dance, which showed that it was certainly the devil who was the real dancer. Suddenly he cried: “Who wants to come to hell?” He screamed and clawed with both hands. The devil was therefore present once more.1

  The possessed was in my room: he danced incessantly. It caused the poor brother atrocious sufferings, as he was obliged to abandon his body to these compulsory and endless dances. When the diabolic voice cried through his mouth: “We will dance him to death!” the exorcism was hurried on.2

  It is clear that these cases present phenomena entirely similar to those appearing in a number of modern cases of divided personality, such as I have described at length in the first book of my Phänomenologie des Ich.

  A mild form of these phenomena is by no means ra
re. They include all cases in which an individual feels that another person thinks within him and criticizes him.

  “I feel,” said a woman patient of Sollier, “that another person is drawn out of me, as if my limbs were stretched to form new ones. The last time that this happened to me the sensation was so strong that I joked about it, saying, ‘I am in the same case as father Adam when his wife was taken out of his side.’ The person is absolutely similar to myself.… She speaks just as I do, but is always of a contrary opinion.… I feel her especially in my head, preventing me from speaking so that she may say the opposite of what I think. This lasts for whole days and exasperates me when I am obliged to hold a conversation. It leaves me with a head like a block of wood for a long time.”3

  If we imagine such secondary processes growing stronger and stronger, not stopping short at mere compulsive ideas, but reaching the stage when a strange vital sentiment is also imposed on the individual, together with, as it were, the whole character of another person, it will be seen that we are getting perceptibly nearer to true possession. Possession with conservation of the original consciousness is a strict extension of the state of a patient of Janet-Raymond who experienced a strong impulse to imitate the bearing of shop-girls and often succumbed to it when he was alone.

  A young man of twenty-nine years, Ch., has been subject for the last eighteen months to the kind of fits which are somewhat gratuitously described as somnambulism. The patient’s mother, who has sometimes, but rarely, been present when the fits took place, has described them; but above all—and this is worthy of note—the patient himself has done so; it is he who relates in his own way what he experiences and what takes place. Almost every day, preferably in the morning, he may be surprised alone in his room in strange attitudes. He stands before a mirror and seems to smirk and simper at himself. He smiles, half closes his eyes, throws sidelong looks, bends down and gives little shakes of the head or makes beckoning gestures with his hand. Then he walks about the room, but it is not at all his ordinary gait: he advances with mincing steps, his body swaying to and fro with brusque sideway movements. He balances his hips as if to swing a dress from side to side, and in fact runs his hands over an imaginary skirt, always accompanying this performance with grimaces and little shakes of the head. From time to time he comes to a standstill and changes his style: he now assumes a grave and majestic mien; his eyes are half closed in an expression of modesty and dignity, but he maintains his womanly deportment with its undulating skirts and chatters under his breath, bending right and left. This performance is prolonged with many variants in the grimaces and attitudes for several hours.

  If we now question the patient and ask him what those ridiculous scenes mean, he is quite ready to give an account of them and explain them himself, for he remembers them perfectly and will describe in great detail the strange sentiments which animate him while he is indulging in his little comedies.…

  “If I make these grimaces it is not my fault,” he repeats, “it is one of those girls who has eclipsed me again. You cannot imagine the mischief they do me. They are little girls whom I have met every day for two years past in this wretched quarter where I am obliged to live. I feel driven to take up my stand along the road by which they go to the workroom and in this way they eclipse me. When I am alone there are moments in the day when I am no longer my own man: the picture of one of these girls appears to me so vividly that I see her talking, gesticulating … It is so clear and precise that I follow the movements of her head and copy them without realizing it. Then it is useless for me to seek myself, it seems to me that I disappear, I lose my ego, my real existence; it is as if I no longer existed, as if they had taken my place. My body takes on the manners of one of them, her funny little ways, the little bird’s head moving all the time. When another invades me she produces a different impression, carrying the head high and proudly; others give me erotic ideas or oblige me to chatter like themselves; in fact, each of them transforms me …. I feel such self-disgust that I even beat myself; I have put up genuine struggles against this other ego, but it is all in vain. I spend hours seeking for myself in the midst of the impressions left upon me by these girls, and against my will I disappear more and more.”1

  To-day we no longer have the same conviction. A more exact analysis shows that the states of mind apparently belonging to a second ego are really a part of the original individual.

  In early psychological theory such cases are naturally regarded as showing two souls one within the other. The demon has not only entered into the strange organism but into the human soul. “A spirit may dwell within a spirit” declares Kerner.1

  In the case of the Janet-Raymond patient there is an obsessive state of intuition and imitation. The sense of life which animates the girls takes possession of him and fills him to such a point as to produce compulsive imitation of their bodily movements.

  In principle the state of possession is of exactly the same nature. The documents reproduced show how the possessed are filled against their will with psychic activity and, as it were, a complete personality, a demon. But everything is incomparably stronger and more violent than in the case of Janet’s psychasthenic, and the scope of these phenomena is also much wider. His case showed bodily attitudes and movements of moderate amplitude. Here, on the contrary, speech also proceeds from the patients, who think and feel with far more acute intensity, and also manifest affective and motor phenomena of such force that several adults are incapable of mastering a frail girl. Finally, there are a number of passive derangements of attitude against which the patient’s will is equally powerless. His head is twisted, his tongue hangs far out of his mouth, his body is bent backwards like the arc of a circle, so that the feet almost touch the head, etc.

  The compulsive actions are particularly impressive in the case of Jeanne Féry:

  The devils constrained her to cry out in such a way that the clamour never on any occasion lasted less than two or three hours. Often, moreover, seizing her by night, they threw her from her bed … several times they prevented her from eating and drinking for the space of three days.

  … What is more, these same devils feeling their strength little by little to grow less by the power of God in his Church, did their utmost to take away her life. Thus one day amongst other things they led her so swiftly to the river which runs hard by behind the cloister and plunged her therein so cleverly that her guard had no succour but to shout for help. Nevertheless, whatever efforts they made to submerge her they were in no way able to do her harm; but she was, by divine grace, and by the good aid of the nuns her fellows, dragged out and brought back safe and sound to the chamber. But they did not for all that desist from following their cruel enterprise: for one day they threw her out of the windows of her chamber into the courtyard of the monastery. And three separate times did they take her up to the highest storeys of the house in order to throw her down, but their efforts were frustrated by divine protection.1

  In the following case the state was confined in the beginning to compulsive movements which did not at first appear to imply any division of personality, then finally this latter supervened under the influence of the medical “treatment”:

  A young gentleman used from time to time to fall into a certain convulsion, having now the left arm alone, now a single finger, now one thigh, now both, now the backbone and the whole body so suddenly shaken and tormented by this convulsion that only with great difficulty could four menservants hold him down in bed. Now it is a fact that his intellect was in no way disturbed nor tormented: his speech was untrammelled, his mind not at all confused, and he was in full possession of all his senses, even at the height of this convulsion. He was racked at least twice a day by the said convulsion, on coming out of which he was quite well except that he felt prostrate with fatigue by reason of the torments which he had suffered. Any skilled doctor might have judged that it was a true epilepsy if the senses or the mind had been deranged withal. All the best doctors being called in, judged
that it was a convulsion approaching very nearly to epilepsy which was excited by a malignant vapour enclosed in the backbone, from whence the said vapour spread only to those nerves which have their origin in the backbone, without in any way attacking the brain. This judgment having been formed as to the cause of the sickness, nothing of what the art prescribes was left undone to relieve this poor sick man; but in vain we put forth all our efforts, being more than a hundred leagues from the cause of the malady.

  For in the third month they discovered that it was a devil who was the author of this ill, who declared himself of his own accord, speaking freely by the mouth of the sick man in Latin and Greek, although this latter had no knowledge of Greek. He discovered the secrets of those who were there present, and principally of the doctors, mocking at them because with useless medicines they had almost caused the death of the sufferer. Any and every time that his father came to see him, as soon as he saw him from afar he cried out: “Make him go away, do not let him come in, or else take from him the chain round his neck,” for being a knight he wore, according to the custom of the French knights, the collar of the Order from which hung the image of St. Michael. When aught from the Holy Scriptures was read in his presence he became much more irritated, indignant, and agitated than before. When the paroxysm had passed the poor tormented man remembered all that he had done or said, repenting thereof and saying that against his will he had done or said those things.1

  We have very full information concerning the possession of Jeanne des Anges, who has left us an autobiography. This is not the best personal evidence available; as coming from a highly hysterical person of somewhat weak moral nature, it must be accepted with great reserve; but in any case it is interesting enough and not least so as constituting an authoritative source of information concerning a personality of this psychic type. In the study of possession it has inter alia some importance as showing how the excitement of anti-religious sentiments resulting from the influence of the idea of possession, is partially accepted by an hysterical young nun not particularly well suited to the life of devotion, but who, on the other hand, does not rise above the religious ideas of her environment but conforms to them outwardly from force of habit and upbringing. This partial acceptance takes place when the ideas are, moreover, so potent that the girl is impelled to suffer their ascendancy which is stronger than her own will. Like many other cases of possession the state is further complicated by hallucinatory phenomena which, however, I shall have no occasion to discuss.