Possession, Demoniacal And Other

by T K Oesterreich

  The following declarations show, moreover, how Jeanne des Anges recognizes lucidly the abnormal and compulsive character of the phenomena, how nevertheless she sometimes accepts them willingly and even induces them, so that it is impossible for the division of consciousness to become permanent in her.

  I lamented continually at the bottom of my heart and asked God to send me some person who should penetrate to the depths of my soul and recognize the disorders which these accursed spirits created with my unruly passions.… I felt that I had scarcely any further strength to resist the horrible temptations which I suffered.

  The devil often tricked me by a lurking satisfaction I had in the agitations and other extraordinary things which he wrought in my heart. I took an extreme pleasure in hearing them discussed and was very well content to appear more tormented than the others, which gave great strength to these accursed spirits for they are well pleased to be able to beguile us into watching their operations, and by that means they insinuate themselves little by little into our souls and acquire great ascendancy over them; for they contrive so that we feel no dread of their malice. On the contrary they make themselves familiar to the human spirit and win from it by these little satisfactions a tacit consent to operate in the mind of the creature whom they possess which is very harmful to them (the possessed), for by this means they impress upon them whatever they please and make them believe what they desire, the more readily in proportion as they are the less regarded as the enemies of salvation; and if they are not very faithful to God and attentive to their conscience they are in danger of committing great sins and falling into grave errors. For after these accursed spirits have thus insinuated themselves into the will they partly persuade the soul of what they desire.…

  This is the way in which they often treated me; whence it came about that I was almost always in remorse of conscience, and with good reason, for more often than not I saw quite well that I was the prime cause of my troubles and that the demon acted only according to the openings which I gave him.1

  It is not that I think myself guilty of the blasphemies and other disorders into which the demons have often thrown me, but that having let myself be carried away by their suggestion in the beginning, they took possession of all my inner and outer faculties to use them according to their will and afterwards threw me into these great disorders.2

  As I presented myself at Communion, the devil took possession of my head, and after I had received the blessed host and half moistened it the devil threw it in the priest’s face. I know well that I did not do this thing, but I am fully assured to my great confusion that he would not have had this power if I had not been in league with him. I have experienced similar things on several other occasions, for when I resisted them strongly I found that all these furies and rages melted away as they had come; but alas, it too often happened that I did not make very violent efforts to resist, chiefly in things where I saw no grave sin; but in this I deceived myself, for as I did not restrain myself in the little things my spirit was afterwards surprised into great ones and the demons who possessed me had the subtlety not to confront me with evil suddenly but little by little.3

  … My malady was as much within me as without.4

  … For a long time I had no freedom except at night, and thus I could not make known the state of my soul.5

  … I cannot express the violent torments of mind which I suffered during that time. I say with truth, I do not think that there has ever been anyone who resisted God so much as I or who was so hotly pursued.6

  … They gave me very evil desires and feelings of quite licentious affection for the persons who might have helped my soul, so as to lead me to further withdrawal from communication with them.7

  One night, when I had arisen to say orisons, I felt myself much tormented by unseemly thoughts.8

  One day he (a demon) would have prevented me from communicating in order to make me interrupt my novena. To this end Behemoth (another demon) and he laid hold of my head as soon as it was morning and agitated me in such a way that although I recognized my disorder I had no force in me to prevent it. All that I could do was to submit myself to the command of God and accept my disorder as a punishment for my infidelities.9

  … I felt forming within me in a very intelligible manner a voice which told me that.…10

  … Three days during which my mind was exercised by divers thoughts on all these things, together with fear of speaking out about them.11

  Given the whole character of Jeanne des Anges it is not surprising that the sexual feelings hitherto suppressed by her religious calling should have broken violently loose during possession. This is what happened moreover to her companions, who took her as model for their derangements. The acts of exorcism which have come down to us contain on this subject a mass of disgusting details. This is what Légué and G. de la Tourette say:

  Each day they were exorcised in the various churches of the town. Jeanne des Anges attracted particular attention by the violence of her fits, the obscenity of her language, and her cynical postures.… The inventions of the most licentious imagination would find it difficult to come anywhere near the facts. The pen refuses to set down here the cynical actions which were customary with Jeanne de Anges and her companions, and the obscene remarks to which they incessantly gave utterance.1

  The case of Jeanne des Anges is finally remarkable from another point of view. It shows that in certain circumstances movements, even of great violence, may occur in possession without a concomitant affective state.

  Although I was outwardly in a state of great agitation, I felt within a calm and brightness which were the effect of what the Father said to the demon, for although I understand Latin not at all and the demon did what he could to distract my attention, I could not but make many reflections upon the wickedness of souls which are unfaithful to God and upon the happiness of those who are faithful to him.2

  I had a furious contortion which bent me backwards; my face became frightful.… I should say that, when the demon wrought this contortion of which I have spoken, he impressed upon my spirit a lively sense of the destruction which he brings, and thus it seemed to me that I was a damned soul.3

  The compulsions often thwart and disturb the purely interior actions of the subject. This is demonstrated with particular clarity by the fact that Jeanne des Anges makes it a matter for remark when these derangements are lacking in her.

  For the period of a month I found much liberty in all my religious exercises; it seemed that my enemies had lost their accustomed power to hinder me by their disturbances from performing them.4

  … He (an exorcist) could not give me back my outward liberty; I sometimes had it inwardly.5

  I sometimes had my liberty when I was not at all with Father Surin.6

  1 Kerner, Nachricht, etc., p. 13.

  2 Ibid., p. 40.

  1 Justin Martyr, Apologia, ii, quoted by Kerner, Geschichten, etc., p. 7.

  2 Such a case is that related by von Müller, Gründliche Nachricht, in which possession by an evil spirit alternates with possession by a good one.

  3 Kerner, Nachricht, etc., p. 60.

  4 G. Müller, Gründliche Nachricht, p. 22.

  5 Ibid., p. 67.

  6 F. Podmore, The Newer Spiritualism, London, 1910, pp. 279 sq.

  1 Kerner, Geschichten, etc., pp. 48 sq.

  1 Historischer Bericht, was sich mit einem bessessenen Mägdlein zu Lewenberg in Schlesien von Lichtmess bis auf Himmelfarth im Jahre 1605 für überaus schreckliche Dinge zugetragen, beschrieben durch Tobiam Seilerum, printed in John Bodinus’ Dœmonomania.

  2 Van Gennep, Un cas de possession, “Archives de psychologie,” x, 1911, pp. 91 sq.

  1 Kerner, Geschichten, etc., pp. 92 sq.

  1 Harnack, Medizinisches aus der ältesten Kirchengeschichte, p. 105.

  2 Kerner, Geschichten, etc., p. 140.

  3 Kerner, ibid., p. 141.

  1 Kerner, Nachricht, etc., p. 42, cf. also the case on p. 19.

&n
bsp; 2 Fr. Guden, Schreckliche Geschichte, pp. 131 sq.

  3 Kerner, Geschichten, etc., p. 74.

  4 Kerner, Nachricht, etc., p. 29.

  1 Kerner, Nachricht, etc., p. 29.

  2 Pathologica dœmoniaca, etc., Lipsiæ, 1707, pp. 9 sq. and 17 sq.

  3 Relation de l’état de quelques personnes prétendues possédées, Toulouse, 1682, pp. 10 sq. and 67.

  1 Kerner, Nachricht, etc., pp. 44–46.

  2 Kerner, ibid., p.

  3 Ibid., p. 31.

  1 Kerner, ibid., p. 85.

  1 There is no single phrase in English which gives the exact connotation of “subjektlose Psychologie,” which I have literally translated “psychology without a subject.” It may, however, be taken to refer to the school of psychology, which, denying the existence of a single continuing “ego,” analyzes the personality in terms of a series of separate though correlated psychological states (TRANS.).

  2 Cf. my Phänomenologie des Ich, Leipzig, 1910, book i, pp. 315 sq.

  1 Collationes patrum, vii, 12. Petschenig (Vienna, 1886–88), trans. Gibson in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Oxford and New York, 1894), xi.

  2 Calmeil, De la Folie, i, 269; quoted from S. Goulard, Histoires admirables et mémorables, Paris, 1600, vol. i.

  3 Kerner, Nachricht, etc., pp. 13 sq.

  1 Calmeil, De la Folie, ii, pp. 3 sq.

  1 Kerner, Nachricht, etc., pp. 50 sq.

  2 Ibid., pp. 62 sq.

  1 Ibid., pp. 64 sq.

  2 Eschenmayer, Konflikt, etc., p. 4.

  3 Ibid., p. 15.

  4 Ibid., p. 28.

  5 P. Janet, Névroses et idées fixes, i, pp. 384 and 383.

  6 Eschenmayer, Konflikt, etc., pp. 46 sq., cf. p. 123.

  1 Eschenmayer, Konflikt, pp. 56 sq.

  2 Ibid., p. 92.

  3 Anonymous, Wahre Geschichte der Befreiung eines vom Teufel Besessenen (translated from the review Der Missionar, 2nd ed., Aixla-Chapelle, 1887, pp. 6 sq.

  4 Ibid., pp. 8 sq.

  1 Ibid., pp. 16 sq.

  2 Ibid., p. 18.

  3 P. Sollier, Les Phénomènes d’autoscopie, Paris, 1903, pp. 19 sq.

  1 F. Raymond and Pierre Janet, Dépersonnalisation et possession chez un psychasthénique. “Journal de psych. norm. et pathol.,” 1904, vol. i, pp. 28 sq.

  1 Kerner, Nachricht, etc.

  1 La possession de Jeanne Féry (1584) “Bibliothèque diabolique,” vol. iv, pp. 8 sq.

  1 A case of Ambroise Paré, quoted by Calmeil, De la Folie, etc., vol. i, pp. 176 sq. Œuvres complètes d’Ambroise Paré, Paris, 1841, vol. iii, pp. 63 sq.

  2 Sœur Jeanne des Anges, “Bibliothèque diabolique,” p. 65.

  1 Sœur Jeanne des Anges, p. 71.

  2 Ibid., p. 79.

  3 Ibid., p. 85.

  4 Ibid., p. 108.

  5 In this connection I must point out that the statement of H. Diels (Internationale Monatschrift, book ix (1915), pp. 133 sq.), according to which the French Bibliothèque Nationale, at the Government’s suggestion, categorically refused an exchange service with Germany, is inaccurate.

  1 Calmeil, De la Folie, vol. ii, pp. 59 sq.

  2 Versuch einer Theorie des religiösen Wahnsinns, vol. i, pp. 394 sq. (Halle, 1848).

  1 On sentiments of a dual nature, further details will be found in my Phänomenologie des Ich, vol. i, chap. xiv.

  1 Paris, 1908, chapter on Peines mystiques.

  1 Particulars of this will be found in vol. ii of my Phänomenologie des Ich. Cf. also Delacroix, op. cit.

  1 Staudenmaier, Die Magie als experimentelle Naturwissenschaft, Leipzig, 1912.

  1 Ibid., pp. 20 sq.

  1 Ibid., pp. 29 sq.

  2 Ibid., p. 30.

  3 Ibid., p. 70.

  1 Ibid., p. 28.

  2 Ibid., p. 101.

  1 Quoted by Janet, Névroses et idées fixes, Paris, 1898, i, p. 384.

  2 Eschenmayer, Konflikt, etc., p. 30.

  3 Ibid., p. 67.

  1 Ibid., p. 113.

  2 Ibid., p. 16.

  3 Ibid., pp. 22 sq.

  1 Ibid., p. 24.

  2 Ibid., p. 25.

  3 Ibid., p. 28.

  4 Quoted by Calmeil, De la Folie, i, 178, Œuvres Complètes d’A. Paré, Paris, 1841, iii, 64.

  1 Eschenmayer, Konflikt, pp. 46 sq.

  2 Ibid., p. 125.

  1 The word is not used in the sense of an emotional phenomenon, but, in default of a better expression, in the sense attributed to it in common parlance.

  1 Quoted by A. Maury, La Magie et l’astrologie, 3rd edit., Paris, 1864, p. 327 and P. Janet, Névroses et idées fixes, Paris, 1898, vol. i, p. 384.

  1 Archives de psychologie, x, 1911, p. 92.

  1 Eschenmayer, Konflikt, etc., p. 24.

  2 Ibid., p. 31.

  1 Ibid., pp. 83 sq.

  2 A. Lemaître, Fritz Algar, “Archives de psychologie,” v, 1906, pp. 85 sq.

  1 Ibid., p. 88.

  2 P. Janet, L’Automatisme psychologique, Paris, 1889, pp. 131 sq.

  1 A Lemaître, loc. cit., p. 90.

  2 It is amusing that Fritz’ aversion for Latin manifests itself in the somnambulistic state also.

  3 Ibid., p. 86.

  4 Ibid., p. 88.

  1 Naturally the question at once arises of studying more closely this parallelism between external hypnotic suggestion and voluntary somnambulistic determination; it is an extremely interesting problem of experimental psychology, our knowledge of suggested actions being, generally speaking, inadequate. There are, moreover, plenty of other problems. Thus it seems that Algar was able to disappear at will, that is to say, that Fritz was able voluntarily to end his somnambulism and recover his normal state, while the converse was manifestly not within his power.

  2 The generally hypermnesic character of Fritz’ somnambulism is also demonstrated by the creation and use of a personal alphabet which would have taken some time to learn in the normal waking state.

  3 Loc. cit., pp. 92 sq.

  1 Ibid., pp. 94 sq.

  2 Ibid., pp. 89 sq. Fritz suffered from obsessive day-dreams in which he always saw himself playing the part of a great personage.

  1 St. Epiphanius (Hær.), 48, 4, ii, p. 430), ed. Dind, quoted by Bonwetsch, Geschichte des Montanismus, Erlangen, 1881, pp. 19 sq.

  2 L’Automatisme psychologique, Paris, 1888.

  1 Epiphanius (Hær.), 48, ii.

  2 This interpretation of the words of Montan is found also in their translator Weinel (Die Wirkungen der Geister im nachapostolischen Zeitalter bis auf Irenaus, Freiburg, 1899); but Weinel forgets that the normal personal consciousness has disappeared, and therefore falls into a completely false interpretation; he pays no attention to the fact that the personality gifted with apperception who thus remarks that the ordinary person sleeps is not at all this latter but the new and divine one.

  Weinel himself offers (loc. cit., pp. 92 sq.) these observations: “Montan has perfectly described the prophet’s personal experience, or rather not Montan but the ‘Lord’ who speaks. (Here follows the sentence quoted above uttered by the mouth of Montan.) In this state the man is as if he slept or as if his heart, the seat of consciousness according to the ancients, were drawn out of his bosom and a strange power had given him another for such time as it should speak by his mouth. It is with him as often with us in dreams: as if he were only the spectator or auditor of what the strange force which has ‘taken possession of him’ says and does. As in a dream he hears only a distant and strange voice which uses his vocal organs like a plectrum striking the strings. And this state had seized him as if some strange thing had ‘flown’ into him, like a puff of wind or a heady perfume. All this is not depicted by the man but by God who is within him. We may wonder whether the man in his waking state remembers it.

  “… He who carries the spirit within him shows to a marked degree the need to elucidate his state, to explain this strange thing which has come suddenly into his life and imposed itself upon him. This is what gives rise to these na�
�f theories formulated from time to time, partly in the waking state and partly in ecstasy. We will allude here only to the Clairvoyante of Prevorst who has reflected at length upon her state and who in the half-waking condition wrote rhymes similar (at least in certain cases) to the words of Maximilla.

  “‘Play of thought—Thou dost bear me away from the goal—My prescience is subtle—So works in me the other’s thought—Among the intruding thoughts—Of the earthly tumult—Remains long flickering—The sense of spiritual things.’”

  In the case of the Clairvoyante of Prevorst, however, it is she herself in her character of clairvoyante who gives an account of her state, while in the case quoted above it is the Paraclete.

  1 E.g., Pierre Janet in Les Obsessions et la psychasthénie, Paris, 1903.

  2 A. Poulain, Des Grâces d’oraison. Traité de théologie mystique, 5th edit., Paris, 1906, p. 423.

  1 Thus the expression obsessio was used arbitrarily in the sense of possession in a Responsum of the theological faculty of Rostock, as early as the year 1691 (cf. Magikon, Archiv. für Beob. a. d. Gebiete d. Geisterkunde, 1853, see vol. v, p. 227.

  2 Two vols., Paris, 1903. Vol. ii., which gives a detailed analysis of these cases, was written in collaboration with the neurologist of the Salpêtrière, F. Raymond.

  3 Wiesbaden, 1904.

  4 The psychological structure of these states, which is insufficiently explained by psychiatric literature, has been closely analyzed by me in the first vol. of my Phänomenologie des Ich (chap. xiii).

  1 H. Oppenheim, Lehrbuch der Nervenkrankheiten, 6th edit., Berlin 1913, ii, pp. 1525 sq.

  2 Ibid., p. 1526.

  3 Ibid., p. 1525.

  4 P. Janet, loc. cit., i, p. 12.

  1 Poulain, op. cit., p. 424. Scararnelli, Direttorio Mistico, v, 41. Schram, Institutiones theologiœ mysticœ, Augsburg, 1777, no. 208 (ed. of 1848, no. 217).

  2 Meynard, Traité de la vie intérieure, vol. ii, no. 139.

  3 Heinrich Suso, Deutsche Schriften in neuhochdeutscher Schriftsprache, ed. by H. Denifle, Munich, 1880, book i, pp. 483 sq.

  1 Ibid., pp. 90 sq.