Possession, Demoniacal And Other

by T K Oesterreich

  He reached a condition in which he could neither walk nor stand upright, nor attempt to dress and undress himself.… He was driven to outrageous things contrary to human intelligence. He kept reason and awareness. But “this horrible power which governed me made me do what I would not and I accomplished it to the letter.…”

  In spite of all this his soul did not cease from looking towards God. “Often in the midst of these infernal pains came impulses to unite myself to Jesus Christ in unions with Him which were very sweet and the memory of which greatly touches me now, but which were completely lost and forgotten when the despair returned.… It is yet another marvel that during all this time of my greatest sufferings and despair I composed all the canticles on divine love which being gathered together have made a whole book … and gave myself great strength by composing them .…” In his trials he felt at once despair of acting in conformity with the will of God and desire to do so.

  This state of Surin is essentially of the same nature as the case of possession at Loudun already cited. It is nevertheless distinguished therefrom by the lack of compulsive acts of violence and in addition, at least as it seems from Delacroix’ publication, by something very important to us: the absence of the idea of possession. It seems that Surin simply regarded himself as a sick man. “They are in no wise madnesses, but extreme sufferings of the mind,” said he. Those around him were incapable of reading his mind and regarded him as mad during the twenty years which his illness lasted, by reason of the great number of senseless compulsive actions which he committed and his inability to make others understand him—his voluntary actions were always thwarted by inhibitions or compulsions—and he was inscribed upon the registers of his Order as sick in mind. This was justifiable inasmuch as from the psychic point of view he was really seriously ill, but unjustifiable inasmuch as it is only customary to class as insane those whose understanding deserts them in their fits.

  The total duration of the illness of Surin, who was already a neurotic exhausted by ascetic practices when he came to Loudun, amounted to more than twenty years; he was delivered from it in the last years of his life, but then fell into another abnormal state which cannot be studied here.1

  Surin’s autoanalysis should be read in conjunction with the statements of Ludwig Staudenmaier.1 Following on experiments in the writing known as automatic, a number of obsessive personalities developed which he thereafter cultivated more or less voluntarily, but which subsequently acquired a high degree of autonomy and finally produced in him a strong resemblance to the possessed, particularly of the non-somnambulistic type of Surin. Only the element of violent agitation remained absent. Although Staudenmaier also fails to interpret the case aright—he leans towards the synthetic conception of the ego which prevails in Franco-English psychology—his analyses nevertheless show with great clarity that the compulsive functions of his own ego are concerned throughout. These functions developed to an extraordinarily high degree, so that he came to feel them as highly obsessive. Staudenmaier seems never to have fallen into the somnambulistic state properly so called, but like Surin to have retained full and uninterrupted consciousness of his state. (In addition to these phenomena and others purely psychological, particularly hallucinations, he developed other abnormal psycho-physical manifestations, the reality of which is beginning to be generally recognized, but whose nature is still unexplained, for which reason I shall not discuss them.)

  From the beginning of his experiments in automatic writing Staudenmaier preserved the full or almost full consciousness of what he wrote under compulsion in the passive state. There was therefore no complete unconsciousness of the writing as has been claimed, at least with reference to other cases. But the character of the writing was without doubt purely passive. He wrote compulsively with his sensory consciousness, but not voluntarily. Acoustic sensations were soon added: he heard immediately before what he had to write, and this phenomenon rapidly took precedence, so that Staudenmaier finally gave up the writing completely and contented himself with listening to the voices with which he was able to converse while fully conscious. Some of these voices were evil in character, as we have seen in other cases. In spite of a proper realization that they were not incarnated spirits, Staudenmaier treated them as autonomous beings, as did the early cases of possession, spoke to them, reproached them, etc., which evidently favoured the development of these secondary phenomena.

  I will confine myself to reproducing a few particularly interesting extracts from his description:

  In the end the inner voice … made itself heard too often and without sufficient reason, and also against my will; a number of times it was bad, subtly mocking, vexatious, and irritable. For whole days at a time this insufferable struggle continued entirely against my will.

  Often the statements of these so-called beings proved to be fabrications. Opposite the house where I lived a strange tenant was just moving in. By way of test I asked my spirits his name. Without hesitation I received the reply: Hauptmann von Müller. It later proved that the information was completely false. When in such a case I afterwards reproached them gently, I often elicited this sincere reply: “It is because we cannot do otherwise, we are obliged to lie, we are evil spirits, you must not take it amiss!” If I then became rude they followed suit.

  “Go to blazes, you fool! You are always worrying us! You ought not to have summoned us! Now we are always obliged to stay near you!” When I used stronger language it was exactly as if I had hurled insults at a wall or a forest: the more one utters the more the echo sends back. For a time the slightest unguarded thought that passed through my mind produced an outburst from the inner voices.1

  Particularly precious is Staudenmaier’s admission that little by little the nexus of personal sentiments corresponding to the different voices manifested themselves in him.

  Later there were manifested in a similar manner personifications of princely or ruling individuals, such as the German Emperor, and furthermore of deceased persons such as Napoleon the First. At the same time a characteristic feeling of loftiness took possession of me; I became the lord and master of a great people, my chest swelled and broadened almost without any action on my part, my attitude became extremely energetic and military, a proof that the said personification was then exercising an important influence. For example, I heard the inner voice say to me majestically: “I am the German Emperor.” After some time I grew tired, other conceptions made themselves strongly felt and my attitude once more relaxed. Thanks to the number of personalities of high rank who made their appearance in me, the idea of grandeur and nobility gradually developed. My highness is possessed by a great desire to be a distinguished personality, even a princely or governing personality, or at least—this is how I explain after the event—to see and imitate these personalities. My highness takes great interest in military spectacles, fashionable life, distinguished bearing, good living with abundant choice beverages, order and elegance within the house, fine clothing, an upright military carriage, gymnastics, hunting and other sports, and seeks accordingly to influence my mode of life by advice, exhortations, orders, and threats. On the other hand, my highness is averse to children, common things, jesting and gaiety, evidently because he knows princely persons almost exclusively by their ceremonial attitude in public or by illustrations. He particularly detests illustrated journals of satirical caricatures, total abstainers, etc. I am, moreover, somewhat too small for him.1

  In other words, Staudenmaier is moved by personal sentiments which are not identical with his own and which he does not fully accept. But these states of feeling are also and naturally states of his own ego and not those of another. He excludes them a priori from his character or else gives himself up to them for a time and imagines that he has passed into another psychic state. For example, in the following case which concerns a feeling that he is a child:

  Another important rôle is played by the “child” personification: “I am a child. You are the father. You must play with me
.” Then childish verses are hummed, “The little wheel goes thud, thud, thud,” “Comes a little flying bird.” Wonderfully tender childishness, and artless ways such as no real child would show in so marked and touching a manner. In moments of good humour I am called Putzi, or else he says simply “My dear Zi.” When walking in town I must stop at the toy-shop windows, make a detailed inspection, buy myself toys, watch the children playing, romp on the ground, and dance in a ring as children do, thus consistently behaving with an entire absence of loftiness. If on the request of “the child” or “the children” (at times there occurred a division into several kindred personalities), I happen to pause in a shop and look over the toy counter, this personification bubbles over with joy and in a childish voice cries out ecstatically: “Oh, how lovely! It’s really heavenly!”2

  Since the “child” personification has acquired a greater influence over me, not only has my interest in childish ways, toys, and even shops increased, but also my search for childish satisfactions and the innocent joys of the heart, a fact which acts upon the organism, rejuvenating and refreshing it, and driving away many of the cares of the grown man, accustomed more and more to use his intelligence. In the same way a number of other personifications also have a beneficial effect upon me. For example, my interest in art and understanding of artistic things have increased considerably. Particularly remarkable and characteristic of the profound division which takes place in me is the following fact: that whereas my interest in art was formerly very slight, especially as regards that of antiquity and the Middle Ages, certain of my personifications are passionately interested in these latter and have continually impelled me to devote attention to them.3

  It will not be surprising to find that with Staudenmaier the sentiments of strange personalities also have an influence on the physiognomy.

  The facial expression often had a character of its own, and I no longer displayed my known and habitual features, a fact which did not escape the persons who knew me well.1

  … It also often happened that my features changed visibly. When the notions of grandeur were particularly active in me I found on glancing into the mirror that the whole expression of my face was becoming that of Napoleon. I could often recognize merely by a glance what cerebral centres were playing the leading part, for they visibly imprinted on me the lineaments of the persons, real and fictitious, whom they were imagining most vividly.2

  The phenomena of obsessive personality alone are remarkable, but the fantastic nature of the psychic image grows still more marked in a number of cases: at times there arises a very remarkable inter-relationship between the possessed and the personality imposing itself upon him. It is not merely impulses and inhibitions which traverse the normal life of the individual and may, as in the case of Staudenmaier, disturb it so little that those around him have no knowledge of them, the possessed retaining a sane judgment of his state and not being, therefore, deranged in the strict sense; but the phenomena of obsession take forms which at first sight disconcert even the modern psychologist and oblige him to bethink himself in order that the sequence of the psychical processes may become quite clear to him. The possessed, already filled with the idea that a strange spirit has entered into him, behaves towards his abnormal state in a manner consistent with this belief. Like Staudenmaier he addresses the demon in his soul, talks to him, petitions him, etc.; in short, treats him as an ordinary living person. And now comes the most remarkable fact: the “second” personality behaves as if it really were such a being. It gives replies, makes promises, feels repentance, just like a real person.

  Things may reach the point of an audible conversation between the possessed and his state of psychic compulsion. In such cases we are confronted by a marked aggravation of this state which also appears in modern nervous affections, where it takes the form of a colloquy with pseudo-hallucinations.

  In possession, therefore, everything is accentuated. It is not in imagination that the possessed hears someone answer him, his own organs of speech enter into movement which is not voluntary but automatic and compulsive. Thus there occurs the singular spectacle of two persons appearing to express themselves through the same body. It is said in one case that the phenomenon was of such a nature “that one seemed to hear two persons engaged in a sharp dispute and loading one another with abuse.”1

  In certain cases we have exact information as to the gist of these “conversations with oneself,” and even possess fragments of them. They are in the same naïf form which the “possessing spirit” uses sometimes in furnishing autobiographic details.

  The “obsessing personality” in lucid possession behaves both towards the outside observer and the exorcising priest as if it were a real person, a statement equally true of somnambulistic possession. The documents quoted have already contained some examples; reports show that the possessing spirit talks with the exorcist, grows angry with him, insults him, attacks him, replies to questions—in short, behaves as if a demon had entered into the body of the possessed.

  The accounts of possession are full of these things. In lucid cases the “demon” also converses with the person who “speaks to” him. It is as if actors interpolated here and there in their parts replies improvised on the spur of the moment. There is only this essential difference, that they would act voluntarily whereas the possessed replies on compulsion. I will quote examples taken from original texts:

  Caroline related that the night before when she was reciting a long canticle he had intervened several times in a great rage; but that, when reminded of his promise, he had remained quiet from one o’clock onwards.2

  Caroline told us several times that the demon, in consequence of the scurvy tricks of his comrades in hell, was always made to waver in well-doing, which she felt deeply, and was only able to keep him in the right way by remonstrances and incessant prayers. But she perceived that she could not master him unaided and keep him from backsliding.3

  … On the other hand, Caroline received this morning at seven o’clock from the higher angels the order to make another serious effort alone with him. She obeyed. She began by prayers and supplications. She exhorted him in so lively a manner that the demon was moved thereby and prayed. He repeated three canticles after her. In the beginning it was to all appearance with earnestness. She went through each passage of the verses as if she were teaching him the catechism, aptly and well, so that he might apply everything to his inner state. We marvelled at the cleverness with which she said: “Look, my dear child, it is thus that you should understand it.” In this way she brought him to speak of confession, but this already was only by forcing him. In the end he was, at her express injunction, to say the Lord’s Prayer three times. The first time he got through it, but we observed that his seriousness was vanishing. The second time when he was in the middle of the prayer he began to laugh. To our reprimand he replied arrogantly: “I won’t pray any more!” Caroline tried to force him, but in vain; the angel told her that she must give it up. This attempt had lasted from seven to eleven o’clock in the morning.1

  When he was asked whether he also went to church, he replied that he liked to go, not to hear the sermon but to see beautiful and well-dressed ladies.… As for the Gospel, he had never troubled about it but had believed that he would go to heaven. When we asked him whether after death he had not at least been permitted to go and see it, he replied: “What do you suppose! I wasn’t allowed to have a taste of it, for the Old Man (it was thus that he referred to Satan) came and growled: “Off with you to hell!” His departure thither was hastened with a kick, then the Old Man got out the register of sins, read him all his own, and with an ironic smile said to him: “Look, W., I tempted you, then seduced you; why did you always listen to me? Now you are mine!” No man knows the half of his sins, but they are all recorded there in writing as fine as a hair.

  He gave with a shudder of fear particulars of the place in hell where he had been. “Everything which is here esteemed beautiful, lovable, and agreeable, becom
es down there hateful, nauseating, and shapeless. The devil forces one to continual copulation with the women with whom one has had one’s way on earth. There is a stench, filth, and loathsomeness which can hardly be borne,” etc., etc.2

  In many other cases there are also “attempts at conversion” of the demon. The exorcist speaks as if he had before him a sinner to convert. Thus conversations of the following type occur:

  … Although all the manifestations appeared unfavourable I wanted … to make an attempt to know whether there was in him any response to good. I asked gravely: “Can you repeat ‘God be merciful to me a poor sinner and receive me with pity in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ?’” He refused and told us contemptuously to mind our own business, saying: “I shall not do it, and even if I did, what good would it do me? For me all pity is lost!” Nevertheless, we did not leave him but comforted him with suitable passages from the Gospels. In the end he began to stammer like a child: “Go-Go-God!” Here he stopped and said: “Ah, if you knew how much that costs a damned soul you would not insist!” …3 Soon he lent ear to our remonstrances and we took up again the thread of yesterday’s conversation. He now had the choice of preparing for initiation by becoming progressively better or else being expelled by violence. Again we commanded him to repeat after us: “God be merciful …” which he did with less effort. As for our desire to make him say Our Father, he at first refused obstinately, asking how he could say “Father” when he was damned and lost. Earlier, earlier, it might have been possible.…1

  Already during the repetition (of a canticle) it was observed that he was profoundly agitated. But soon he was seized with a lively repentance of his sins and, breaking into poignant lamentations, wrung his hands, imploring the pity of his heavenly Father. “Yes, yes,” cried he, “compassionate and pitiful!” All his features were animated by an emotion hitherto unknown to his heart. From his eyes flowed the tears of repentance, he was overwhelmed with indescribable grief.2