Possession, Demoniacal And Other

by T K Oesterreich

  It will be noted that all these cases relate to conversations with the “demon” during which the possessed kept their full consciousness. Eschenmayer expressly emphasizes this:

  She had heard and seen all that occurred. For she never lost consciousness, but in spite of her utmost efforts she could not resist the demon when he took possession of her body. We asked her then if the tears which the demon shed must not have been inspired by her, but she denied it positively.3

  In the narrative of Ambroise Paré we read:

  This demon, constrained by the ceremonies and exorcisms, said that he was a spirit and was not damned for any crime. Being questioned as to who he was, or by what means and by whose power he tormented this gentleman thus, he replied that he had many dwellings where he hid and that at the time when he left the sick man at rest he went to torment others. For the rest, that he had been projected into the body of this gentleman by a certain person who should be nameless, that he had entered by the feet, creeping up to the brain, and that he would go forth by the feet when the day covenanted between them should have come. He discoursed of many other things according to the custom of demoniacs. I assure you that I do not bring this forward as a new thing, but so that it may be known that sometimes devils enter into our bodies and torture them with unheard-of torments. Sometimes also they do not enter in, but trouble the good humours of the body or else send the bad ones to the principal parts.4

  Although these conversations may be very remarkable, our distrust of the whole state is greatly enhanced by the fact that the demon only replies very cautiously to ticklish questions. Thus the demon of Caroline St. did not like to be questioned as to his earthly past.

  This was the opportunity for recalling to him old, earthly relationships, a matter on which he replied with great reluctance. In the end the conversation had to be broken off, because the impression which it made on him was completely distasteful. He became very weak and was hardly able to utter another word. The hands fell inert.1

  When questions by means of which we desired to explore more deeply the secrets of healing and grace were asked, we were generally rebuffed with the reply: “You are going too far; that also I ought not to tell; it is left to each man’s faith.”2

  Nevertheless, as a more complete study of pathological cases shows, it would be quite false to conclude that this generally results from cheating, that C. St. was deliberately playing a part. Such a conception of fraud on the part of the possessed must be regarded as an absurd hypothesis when the cases are considered as a whole and it is observed how the patients suffer from their state. It is certain that these dialogues are most intimately bound up with the terrible motor excitement of the fits. No one will ever pretend, however, that this latter is simulated, for the bodily strength displayed by the possessed during the fits is so great that they are revealed as pathological at the first glance.

  And now, how are all the cases to be explained? Is there a second apperception so that the obsessing personality is in reality entirely autonomous, existing side by side with the normal one and understanding what the exorcist says to it? And also, when the possessed reprimands the spirit who is within him, does the latter hear, does it understand, and does it according to circumstances accept the rebuke or not? The “psychology without a subject” which we have rejected is inclined in the first case to answer in the affirmative, since it regards the demon merely as a secondary psychic complex which is in essence of a nature entirely similar to that of the individual himself, and consequently hears and understands as he does. In the second case, where we are dealing with the relations between the possessed and his demon, psychology without a subject has not yet pronounced itself. Manifestly it ought also to admit between the two complexes reciprocal relations, in part purely intellectual, since the demon reacts to thoughts not expressed aloud.

  Together with psychology without a subject, into which we do not wish to enter more deeply, we also reject its explanation of the reciprocal relations between the possessed and his demon.

  The true state of things is essentially the same as when I converse mentally with someone and in imagination hear him reply, by which means a conversation may be enacted. In these circumstances the arguments of the other person may also have a character of compulsion.

  In the case of possession there is nothing more than an extraordinary accentuation of this phenomenon. Instead of the discussion being purely and simply a figment of the imagination, there is simultaneous compulsive excitement of the vocal organs and eventually yet other actions of a compulsive nature. But there is no essentially new phenomenon; we are dealing throughout and always with parasitic psychic obsessions. There develops in the psyche a sort of secondary system of personality which directs the person’s life against his will. The subject loses control over a considerable number of his states, and it is this part of his personality which plays the obsessive rôle of a demon. The fact that the latter, questioned on delicate matters, hesitates and refuses to reply, should be thus interpreted—the imaginary person conducts himself exactly like a real one. Compulsions are not in themselves entirely heterogeneous in the psychic life, but in their character of intellectual processes are of exactly the same nature as all others of their kind. They are distinguished by the single fact that they are not of a voluntary or simply passive nature, but are accomplished against the will of the subject.

  If we bear very clearly in mind that the processes in question as intellectual functions resemble in principle all others of the same category, we shall be less surprised that they are not entitled by their content to a place entirely apart. They may be characterized by comparing them to the performance of a more or less eminent actor who plays his part in more or less close accordance with the author’s text.

  Particularly remarkable and noteworthy is the impression gleaned from a survey of accounts of the demon’s general conduct: we feel that it is “incoherent” and “incalculable.” This is a fact which strikes every careful reader with a knowledge of psychology. It is nevertheless, at least in one respect, a complete delusion. For if by way of experiment we adopt the point of view that a strange “spirit” has lodged in the soul of the possessed, this impression disappears and his conduct does not seem to be less the result of determination and motive than that of a real living person.

  Considered from another standpoint, however, this highly deceptive appearance is not really so deceitful after all. For in effect the conduct of the ordinary man also defies calculation; we know none of the psychic laws which would enable us to forecast it. Only intuitive sympathy enables us to experience after the event and consequently to “understand” why a man acts now in this fashion, now in that.

  If this intuition ceases, as is the case at least in the first moment when we realize that we are dealing not with a possessing spirit but with compulsive phenomena, we at once lose the feeling of an intimate connection between the mere verbal declarations and the other “demoniac” reactions. We now realize very plainly how unpredictable the reactions of a personality really are, not because the conduct of the demon is much more haphazard and irregular than that of real persons, but rather because the reactions of the latter are just as fortuitous and incalculable as those of the demon.

  But if we now consider that in the compulsive functions there is also an “inner coherence” analogous to the expression of a real personality, and that they proceed from a personal consciousness, even though it be only secondary and obsessive, we once more have the feeling1 when intuition of this state resumes its sway, of an inner coherence in these compulsions; with nevertheless this difference: we now know that there is merely a deceptive appearance and not an entirely genuine second person. Not an entirely genuine person, I say, for such a person appears only when the subject becomes identified with this second personality, as in true demoniacal somnambulism. So long as we are not dealing with such a case the second person remains unreal and apparent; it is no more than a body of compulsive functions.

&
nbsp; The casual observer of possessed persons always has the impression that there are two wills in the same individual. This is particularly clear in the already quoted narrative of Eginhard:

  It was a very extraordinary spectacle for those of us who were present to see this wicked spirit express himself through the mouth of the poor woman and to hear now the sound of a masculine voice, now that of a feminine one, but so distinct the one from the other that we could not believe that the woman alone spoke but thought we heard two people in a lively quarrel loading one another with abuse. And in effect there were two persons, there were two different wills—on one side the demon who wished to break the body of which he was in possession, and on the other the woman who wished to be delivered from the enemy who obsessed her.1

  Does this description correspond exactly to the facts?

  Such is far from being the case, for the possessed do not speak with a dual will properly so called, they speak from processes which impose themselves upon them, but they do not say that their will is exercised alike in both directions. They only exercise it on one side, while on the other they suffer and rebel. This is a fact of the greatest importance, for it shows that the very core of our personal being is in the will. Our states may be what they please, and in fact they may be exceedingly strange and contradictory; they are “ours” in the proper and strict sense of the word because we voluntarily range ourselves on their side. Until that moment they do not reach the heart of our being.

  There are naturally other states and functions which we repudiate but which nevertheless make good their claim as belonging to us; for if not they would have to be those of another subject and in that case we should not be able to experience them, in the proper sense of the word, as original states, but only to imagine them. We should then be once more confronted with the same psychological situation of sentiments due to obsessive imagination which the subject rejects by the action of the will.

  Something happens here to which we habitually pay no attention—namely, that all entirely normal states and functions, before becoming such, have to pass through another stage, that of acceptance. In the normal subject there are as a rule only a relatively small number of processes which do not pass this test, and they generally vanish very quickly after repudiation. In pathological cases these processes may on the contrary be extremely numerous, arise with great intensity, and be uncoercible. But they are nevertheless states of the subject, and in exactly the same measure as those which have attained to acceptance, with this sole difference, that the first are obsessive processes to which the subject feels himself compelled, while in the second case he appropriates them to himself by the action of the will. Only the will, in the narrowest sense of the word, has no need to pass through this stage of acceptance.

  The existence of such a threshold of acceptance is not contradicted by the fact that sometimes a process is refused at a certain moment to arrive at acceptance later. In these cases it is the judgement of the subject which has been modified, a change usually of a passive nature and which as a rule defies real explanation. But it also remains a fact that every process has to undergo a more or less careful examination before being completely accepted. The result in the case of analogous processes is not, however, always the same, this being dependent on whether it has or has not been preceded by changes in the censor.

  In order to complete the survey of this subject attention should be drawn to the fact that a conversation may seem to be exchanged between compulsions. Cases have occurred in which the individual did not appear to be possessed by a single spirit but by several, which spoke through him in succession and even held discussions amongst themselves. Thus in the case published by van Gennep1 the individual was possessed by the “spirit of a dead man.” This latter was questioned as to relations in the Beyond and made all sorts of replies until a demon intervened and reproached him with unveiling transcendental secrets.

  (At first it is the spirit of the dead man incarnated in the possessed which speaks to the narrator.)

  … Do not pray for the damned, for prayer is a torture in hell … it is a redoubling of pains.… I am speaking to you as a damned soul, do you hear? Do you understand?

  Here the damned discoursed for an hour with a gloomy, terrifying and melancholy eloquence, and that with such rapidity that it was impossible to write down what he said. Then after this monologue he continued:

  Do not follow my example.… If only after five million million centuries I had a minute’s rest.… But no! it is always eternity.…

  Are your parents damned too? the narrator asks the spirit.

  … My parents are here, happily, for I can make them suffer.

  Here there is a change of scene: it is a demon who takes the place of the damned and threatens to double his torments because he has unveiled the mysteries of hell.

  In these cases of dual possession also there is merely an exaggeration of the state in which every dramatist or novelist finds himself when he hears various persons holding conversations.

  The relations between the demon and the possessed in various circumstances call much more urgently for comment and explanation. The former expresses himself on this subject, in cases of somnambulistic possession as well as others, exactly as if he had introduced himself into the latter. The researches of the nineteenth century have enabled us to throw light on somnambulistic and hypnotic states, and the facts as observed are so astonishing that the obstinate persistence of belief in the demon is not in any way surprising; it must even be said that it disappeared from the scene before a complete psychological explanation of possession was possible. For a long time people contented themselves on the most difficult points with the conviction that pathological manifestations were involved.

  Observations by the demon about the possessed may be found, for example, in the case of Caroline St., who was sometimes in a somnambulistic state and sometimes in one of possession.

  The demon said of Caroline.… Prayer is generally too irksome for him, as well it may be, for Caroline prays much and says: “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanse me from all my sins”; and adds every time the prayer that it may also cleanse W. (the demon), so that she prays for him also—the silly thing!1

  He related himself how Caroline had prayed and had spoken to him on the previous night. The protecting spirit (a vision which Caroline has in addition to her phenomena of possession) had not guarded him sufficiently; the evil spirits had come back, had mocked him and striven to turn him aside once more. On the apostrophe of Caroline who was weeping bitterly he had again seen things differently, had decided to remain good and had left her in peace.2

  … Then he touched upon his relations with Caroline. He said: Since he had been converted (in the lucid state she had sought to convert him) and felt the same as herself, she could no longer clearly distinguish herself from him. The two of them were so united in their prayers, in their canticles, and generally in all that they did and refrained from doing, that she asked him constantly: “Is it you, W., or I?” for as he not only speaks with her voice but also thinks with her mind, his being is completely confounded in hers, he has exactly her voice except only when he is excited and provoked to fight; then he resumes his manly voice with a heavy strain on her vocal organs. 1

  The apparent confusion of the two minds is particularly evident in Lemaître’s case observed in our own times.

  The case is one of somnambulistic possession and concerns a schoolboy of fourteen, Fritz. The spirit which is in him is called Algar and professes to be an Armenian. A few quotations will show the relations between Algar and the possessed boy.

  … Then Fritz rose and spoke in a deep guttural voice with a strong exotic accent which obliged me to make him repeat several words which were badly enunciated. My own questions will be found in parentheses.

  (Has Fritz seen or read any Armenian?) “Picture postcards.”

  (When and how did Algar appear?) “Fritz was twelve years old. It was one day when he was very tired with
having studied his geography.… (Discretion obliges me to leave out several passages which I replace by dots). As a punishment he had been told to work … in the garden. Fritz refused and was given a box on the ears. (Will Algar remain long with Fritz?) It is necessary for another two months, or perhaps less, until the cure, but M. Lemaître must help by making Fritz come more often than every Wednesday. (What relations are there between the Algar family and Fritz?) The family has done much to comfort Fritz when he was scolded, especially the daughter.… Algar was the first name of the son, aged about twenty.…”

  During lesson-time Fritz had, in a short fit of somnambulism, recited some Latin verses.

  (Who composed the Latin verse which Fritz said to me in the course of a lesson?) “I know Latin and Fritz can write it when I am there. It is, however, better that he should not tire himself with the study of this language which is too difficult for him.” 2

  (How comes it … that Fritz quoted to me a verse which I finally discovered in Horace?) “I did not know,” replied Algar, “that that verse was from Horace, but if I re-discover it this is because Fritz must have heard or read it some time at school, even although he never learnt Latin there.”

  It is true that Algar has only dwelt in Fritz for three years, but that does not prevent him from bringing up from the depths of his consciousness accidentally and without any desire to do so, poetry casually heard many years before. Thus … Algar expresses himself in the following terms about some verses: “I wrote this poem which Fritz had probably heard recited by a servant when he was four or five years old.”