The affective states are also the same as in possession. This may be seen in the following case where the patient really lost consciousness during the fits. It is reproduced as an example of modern hysterical “demoniacal attacks.”
… Suddenly terrible cries and howlings were heard; the body, hitherto agitated by contortions or rigid as if in the grip of tetanus, executed strange movements: the lower extremities crossed and uncrossed, the arms were turned backwards and as if twisted, the wrists bent, some of the fingers extended and some flexed, the body was bent backwards and forwards like a bow or crumpled up and twisted, the head jerked from side to side or thrown far back above a swollen and bulging throat; the face depicted now fright, now anger, and sometimes madness; it was turgescent and purple; the eyes widely open, remained fixed or rolled in their sockets, generally showing only the white of the sclerotic; the lips parted and were drawn in opposite directions showing a protruding and tumefied tongue.
If fright predominated the head was slightly inclined towards the neck and thorax, the two clenched hands clutched the eyes and forehead tightly giving from time to time glimpses of a drawn face and haggard eyes; the body was as it were huddled up, the legs and thighs close to the trunk; the patient either lay on one side twisted upon herself, or on her face with legs doubled up on the abdomen and both hands hiding her face.
If anger was in the ascendant she flung herself upon the obstacle, tried to seize, clasp and bite it; often she was her own victim, tore her hair, scratched her face and bosom, rent her clothing, and during this melancholy spectacle aggravated the frightful nature of the scene by an accompaniment of cries of pain and rage.
The patient had completely lost consciousness.1
The relationship between these fits and possession is sufficiently obvious.
But are the states completely identical, as Richer and almost all French psychologists assert?
A closer study shows that such is not the case and it is very regrettable that this should not hitherto have been adequately recognized, for it would otherwise have been considered essential to enquire more deeply than heretofore into the psychic state during hysteria of the interesting cases which the Saltpêtrière has had the opportunity of studying.
The great difference between modern hysterical attacks and the old states of possession is psychic. Viewed from the outside, as regards contortions and motor excitement the states are similar; but from the psychological point of view, in so far as the study of modern cases permits us to formulate a judgement, they are, owing to the attitude adopted by the patients towards their fits, totally different. To-day they consider them as natural phenomena, pathological manifestations, even although they sometimes try to resist them. They never doubt for a single instant that they and they alone experience these states which even now seem often to show a compulsive character (a consequence of their persistence, even when an individual struggles against them). Formerly, on the contrary, the idea of possession supervened and occasioned an automatic development of the compulsion in the direction of a secondary personality. Judging by the reports, no manifest second personality ever speaks by the mouth of modern patients, a fact showing between hysteria and possession a difference so radical that, at least from the psychological point of view, it is impossible to speak of the states as in any way identical.
So profound is the influence of general outlook on psychic processes that it imprints on even the most acute manifestations of hysteria widely varying physiognomies. It would be interesting, if such an attempt were possible, to analyze closely in the documents of psychiatric literature this transformation of hysterical attacks under the influence of progress.
It would be a chapter from the history of psychic pathology—a history hardly as yet seriously broached by the method of psychology—and in particular from the history of hysteria, for hysteria really has a history. And if it is not alone in this—psychasthenia is also not without its history, and the hallucination-systems of psychoses, particularly paranoia, often bear a certain “stamp of the times”—its history is, owing to the acute suggestibility which characterizes this state, quite particularly voluminous. An historical survey of psychic pathology would only be possible on a very wide basis and after a thorough and fairly exhaustive study of general historical sources bearing on the story of the mind and of civilization. It would raise the question of the diverse psychic constitution of races and nationalities with an acuteness proportionate to the light thrown on that great psychological problem, the psychic decadence of whole epochs. All these are problems far exceeding in scope its particular domain of psychology.1
1 By way of curiosity we will mention this note on the epidemic of Kintorp: … Now, some were more tormented than others, and some less. But this was common to them, that as soon as one was tormented, at the mere sound the others shut away in various rooms were tormented also. (Calmeil, De la Folie, i, pp. 269 sq., quoted from Goulard, Histoires admirables, i, Paris, 1600).
2 Amsterdam, 1716.
3 Ibid., p. 207.
4 Calmeil, abstract of Histoire des diables de Loudun, ii, pp. 54–69.
1 Histoire des diables de Loudun, pp. 354 sq.
2 Ibid., pp. 206 sq.
3 Calmeil, loc. cit., ii, 161.
4 Two cases in Kerner, Geschichte Besessener neuerer Zeit, pp. 104–112.
1 As Kerner remarks: “It was very difficult to get book learning into her head, although she was good for work of other kinds; thus later on she never spent her time in reading books” (Ges. Bes., p. 20).
2 Ibid., pp. 35 sq.
3 Ibid., p. 42.
4 Eschenrnayer, Konfiikt, etc., pp. 1 sq.
1 Bälz, Wiener klinische Wochenschrift, 1907, p. 1041.
2 B. Heyne. Ueber Besessenheitswahn, Paderborn, 1904, p. 62.
1 Kerner, Nachricht, etc., p. 60.
2 Bodinus, Dmonomania, Hamburg, 1698, p. 156. Calmeil, De la Folie, i, p. 183.
3 Kerner, Nachricht, etc., p. 19.
4 Ibid., p. 11.
1 Kerner, Nachricht, etc., pp. 57 sq. There is in Kerner (Geschichten, etc., pp. 110 sq.) another case in which possession was produced, or at least enormously intensified, by exorcism.
2 Bibliothèque diabolique, vol. v, Sœur Jeanne des Anges, Paris, 1886, p. 17.
3 P. Janet, Un cas de possession et d’exorcisme moderne, in “Névroses et ideés fixes,” i, Paris, 1898.
1 Kerner, Nachricht, etc., pp. 49 sq.
1 Iconographie de la Saltpêtrière, iii, pp. 106 sq.
2 Perty, Mystische Erscheinungen, p. 344, quoted by Kiesewetter, Geschichte des Okkultismus, vol. ii, p. 669.
1 Th. Lipps, Zeitschrift für Hypnotismus, vol. vi, and O. Vogt, ibid., vol. v, have given excellent analyses of suggestion.
1 A. Deissmann, Licht vom Osten, 3rd edit., Tübingen, 1909, pp. 192 sq.
2 Mainz, 1838.
1 Manuale Exorcismorum, continens Instructiones et Exorcismos ad eiiciendos e corporibus spiritus malignos et ad quævis maleficia depellenda et ad quascumque infestationes dsemonum reprimendas: R. D. Maximiliani ab Eynatten S.T.L. Canonici et Scholastici Antver-piensis industria collectum. Antverpiæ, 1626.
2 Ibid., p. 3
3 Ibid., p. 20.
1 Louis Langlet, Etude mddicale d’une possession, thesis, Paris, 1910, p. 45.
1 Manuale … pp. 44 sq.
2 Ibid., pp. 46 sq.
1 This is Lemaìtre’s case.
2 Nachricht, etc., p. 17.
3 Ibid., p. 18.
4 Ibid., p. 19.
5 Harnack, Medizinisches aus der ältesten Kirchengeschichte. In Texte und Untersuchungen zur Gesch. der altchrist Literatur, viii, pp. 105–59.
1 Jerome, Life of St Hilarion, 18. Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, vol vi, St Jerome, pp. 306–307.
1 Wiener klinische Wochenschrift, 1907, p. 1041.
2 Ibid., pp. 984 sq.
3 Ibid., p. 1092.
1 Kerner, Geschichten, etc., p. 123.
2
Dupray, Psychologie d’un démon familier, “Journal de psychol.,” vol. iii (1906), p. 532.
3 Kerner, Geschichten, etc., pp. 22 sq.
4 Ibid., p. 35.
1 Ibid., p. 40.
2 Ibid., pp. 105 sq.
3 Bibliothèque diabolique (1886), v, p. 19.
1 Kerner, Geschichten …, p. 25.
1 Histoire des diables de Loudon, pp. 347 sq.
1 Manuale exorcismorum, p. 245.
2 H. Schneider, Kultur und Denken der alten Ægypter, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1909, pp. 364 sq.
3 One hundred and first year, vol. ii, 1896, pp. 512–551.
4 Publications of the Gesellschaft für Expérimental-Psychologie zu Berlin, vol. ii, Leipzig, 1890, pp. 6–9.
1 L’Origine cénesthésique des idées hypocondriaques microzoomaniaques in Bullet. de l’Institut. gén. psych., vol. vi (1906), pp. 64 sq.
2 Ibid., p. 64.
3 No objection need be taken to this expression which is here used for the sake of brevity.
1 P. Janet, L’ Automatisme psychologique, Paris, 1888, pp. 440 sq.
2 There may, moreover, be found amongst these sources narratives completely grotesque in character. For example: “Those who are possessed by demons speak with their tongue hanging out, through the belly, through the natural parts; they speak divers unknown languages, cause earthquakes, thunder, lightning, wind, uproot and overthrow trees, cause a mountain to move from one place to another, raise a castle in the air and put it back in its place, fascinate the eyes and dazzle them.…” (A. Paré, Œuvres, 9th edit., Lyon, 1633, quoted by Calmeil, De la Folie, vol. i, p. 176.) Belief in the possession of animals also exists, moreover. It is related of Hilarion that he once cured a possessed camel. Cf. J. Burckhardt, Die Zeit Constantins des Grossen, Leipzig, 1880, p. 389. Also in the New Testament the devil once passed into a herd of swine.
1 P. Janet, Les Obsessions et la psychasthénie, Paris, 1903, i, pp. 275 sq.
1 P. Richer, Études cliniques sur la grande hystérie, Paris, 1885, pp. 303:q.
2 Ibid., p. 202.
3 Ibid., p. 200.
1 Ibid., pp. 441 sq.
1 Henri Cresbron (? Cesbron) has given an interesting preface to a history of hysteria in his thesis for the doctorate of medicine: Histoire critique de l’hystérie (Paris, 1909). This work is at once a history of hysterical phenomena in European civilization, of research, and of the various theories of hysteria. The first subject is somewhat less well treated than the second; the author has, moreover, confined himself in the main to the French literature of hysteria.
PART II
THE DISTRIBUTION OF POSSESSION AND ITS IMPORTANCE FROM THE STANDPOINT OF RELIGIOUS PSYCHOLOGY
CHAPTER V
SPONTANEOUS POSSESSION PROPERLY SO CALLED AMONGST PRIMITIVE RACES
HAVING in the previous chapters made a detailed study of the psychological nature of possession, we shall now proceed to examine its importance from the standpoint of religious and racial psychology.
In order to investigate this question we must distinguish two forms; possession as we know it represents only one, in addition to which there is another, very similar and at the same time very different. Whilst the states of possession hitherto considered are, taken as a whole, absolutely involuntary, so that the patient desires ardently to be rid of them, there is another form of possession voluntarily provoked by the possessed and the advent of which he seeks by every possible means. We shall have to deal with this second voluntary and desired form of possession later. For the moment we shall still confine ourselves to the first and consider the extent of its distribution.
This may be said to be universal, for there is no quarter of the globe where such phenomena have not occurred. The great majority of the cases designated by the name of possession have, in fact, been no more than physical maladies, considered, as we have seen, by primitive peoples as due to the entry of a demon into the human body.
As regards the wide dissemination of the first-named or involuntary type of possession throughout the Christian era, I have already given at the beginning of this work a series of testimonies demonstrating the constant nature of its manifestations from century to century and thereby justifying the fact that I have based my analysis on documents belonging to widely different periods.
To the foregoing evidence I shall now add further material in order to show that possession essentially similar in nature has occurred outside the bounds of Christian civilization.
The documents cited have no pretension to be exhaustive. In perusing the accounts of ethnological travel I have constantly found new cases, but this increase in documentation brings nothing fundamentally new. Fresh matter can only be expected from a detailed study of particular cases, which is not possible except to an investigator living for a long period of time on the spot or to a missionary. Further systematic research into all existing documents, including those still undiscovered or widely dispersed, would have only an ethnogeographical significance inasmuch as it would give, with all possible plenitude, a general view of the distribution of these phenomena amongst the various branches of the human species, a task falling outside the scope of our subject. A detailed discussion of cases quoted will generally be superfluous, as everything necessary to their understanding is to be found in explanations already furnished.
I shall begin with primitive civilization, as regards which the data concerning spontaneous possession are still exceedingly scanty. The majority of the relevant documents which I can produce relate to Africa, where happily the main regions furnish their contribution so well that we may consider possession as a frequent phenomenon widely disseminated throughout this giant continent.
Here are first some cases observed amongst the Kabyles by Mayor, a missionary at Moknea, and later communicated to Flournoy by H. Besson.1
First case: I was called one day to go to a woman who used often to come to the station. I knew her as a sensible person, affectionate towards everyone, intelligent, quiet, natural, healthy in body and mind. I found her sitting in front of the house surrounded by numerous people. A priest, holding a lighted wick in front of the sick woman’s mouth, was commanding the “spirit” to depart. Hearing the sound of my steps on the gravel, Fatma cried out in a completely changed voice: “I do not want him who comes with his iron-shod boots, I will not see him, I do not want the Gospel.” I had not finished speaking to her before she became natural again and at once declared that she had distinctly felt herself under the influence of the devil. Two years later she had another fit.
Second case: M. and Mme. Mayor had gone to a Kabyle village to hold a service. They found a woman named Teitem struggling in the grip of several persons who held her fast; she wanted at all costs to run away. The missionary was told that “the demon had smitten this woman,” the expression used by the natives to denote these cases. The priest was exorcising her and commanding the demon in the name of all the saints in the Arab calendar to depart. A strange voice issuing from the woman’s mouth refused energetically. M. and Mme. Mayor were both seized with the feeling that they were in presence of a demoniac influence. They began to pray. During the prayer the voice cried: “Go away!” Then the woman returned to her right senses. Later she was again taken with similar fits.
Third case: A man was known locally as being “sick of the demon.” When in his right senses he obtained shelter in the mosques and monasteries. He often came to the station, where M. Mayor used to give him food and talk to him; his demeanour was that of a quiet beggar. When the fits took him, however, he used to flee into forests and caves, and wound himself with stones and pieces of wood. He one day came to the station in the course of an attack; he did not recognize M. Mayor and fled with wild gestures as soon as he was approached.
When he came to himself he declared positively that during his fits he was possessed “by an evil spirit.”
M. Mayor observed (Besson adds) several other cases of the same kind, but the three quoted are the most characteristic. Here are the
general observations which up to the present he has been able to make on these unfortunate people: the fits come on suddenly and go off in the same way, leaving the body in a certain lassitude. The voice is changed; the glance is fixed and haggard, but the eyes are in a normal position; the pulse beats regularly. The patient recognizes neither relatives nor children; he refuses to eat or drink; a force drives him to run away. His moral being seems changed, and it is as if there were a substitution of personalities. The presence of the missionary excites him to the highest degree or else frightens him, whereas, restored to his right mind, he shows affection and confidence towards “the man of the Book.” Some cases have a fit every month, others every six months. Some only have two or three, or even a single one, in their lifetime. The proportion of women affected by this malady is greater than that of men.1
The distinguished ethnologist Frobenius has collected documents relating to possession in Central Africa.2 We shall take cognizance of them later in so far as they deal with voluntary possession. But they also contain accounts of spontaneous possession which by their data as to its genesis furnish an ideal complement to other reports, the great majority of which give hardly a glimpse of how possession arises amongst primitive people. It emerges from Frobenius’ accounts that the phenomenon is the same as we have already seen amongst the quite uncultured representatives of central European civilization.
Frobenius’ work, based on the stories of the natives whose confidence he had won, describes an exorcism in detail. It conveys the impression that primitive man is much more suggestible than his civilized brother. The latter may perhaps be frightened in the darkness of the night, and when he is very much afraid it may seem to him as if from somewhere a shape emerged. Primitive man at once suffers hallucination and may through terror when confronted by the ghost fall into a lethargic condition with transitory psychic disturbance; at least, Frobenius’ narrative can hardly be otherwise construed.
To a man who goes out by night it may befall to be met by a babaku (a black spirit) who gives him a sickness. The alledjenu (another name for the spirit) may then go his way, but the man has been deprived of his intelligence, he is sick.1
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