Possession, Demoniacal And Other

by T K Oesterreich

  Doehler in his monograph on the Greek oracles also arrives at this conclusion:

  With the exception of a small number of cases in which the Pythoness seems to have been ill-inspired, the oracles which have come down to us justify the reputation for wisdom of the prophetic sanctuaries and particularly that of Delphi.3

  The author of the most recent research into the nature of the oracles, A. W. Persson, is of the same opinion:

  However sceptical one may be on the subject of the oracles, it must be admitted that the priests of Delphi too often had extremely good information at their command.”4

  The question of the reality of parapsychic phenomena in the Pythoness is complicated by the fact that we are not dealing with one person but that, as is alleged, several women produced these phenomena at the same time. This is, in its assumption, a completely unique situation. We cannot help wondering—supposing that the information is true—how women possessing the gift could always be found in the neighbourhood of Delphi and how the priests set about discovering them. Are we to suppose that the Greeks were not only, from the standpoint of general civilization, the most richly endowed people known to us, but that they also possessed special parapsychic faculties? Even so we should be obliged to grant that predisposed persons were so plentiful in ancient Greece as to render it always possible for the priests of Delphi to find one or several Pythonesses with a capacity for supernormal practices amongst the women of the countryside. If the probability of such a wealth of supernormal temperaments in Greece could be established from documentary evidence, the spiritual picture of the Hellenes would be enriched by a new and most interesting trait. For it does not seem plausible that there existed at Delphi an emanation from the earth which released parapsychic faculties in everyone, but rather that the priests must have had to seek out gifted persons.

  The acceptance as real of parapsychic phenomena does not, of course, signify any return to the old doctrine of possession.

  There is a sort of intermediate position between belief in real possession by spirits and the complete rejection of early accounts of the inspiration of the Pythoness. It is possible to hold the latter as genuine without attributing it to the entrance of a strange soul into her soul or body.

  Unhappily our knowledge of parapsychic states is up to the present so restricted that we are quite unable to contemplate bringing psychologico-historical criticism to bear on these documents with a view to discriminating between the false and the true. We must defer an answer to these questions until we know more of parapsychic phenomena, their frequency and conditions of origin. The purely negative reply which so greatly facilitated for rationalism the historical criticism of all these accounts is frankly no longer possible to-day.

  1 Cf. above, pp. 281 sq.

  2 Livingstone, Missionary Travels, p. 86, quoted by Andrew Lang, The Making of Religion, 2nd edit., London, 1900, p. 135.

  3 Unfortunately I forgot to note this case at the time and cannot now trace it.

  1 The Rituale Romanum of to-day still gives as criterion of possession (x, 1): Ignota (antea) lingua loqui pluribus verbis vel loquentem intelligere; distantia et occulta patefacere. Cf. Cornelius Krieg, Wissenschaft der Seelenleitung, vol. i, Freiburg, 1904, p. 180.

  2 Naum Kotik, Die Emanation der psychischen Energie, Wiesbaden, 1918, p. 13.

  3 Von der Goltz, loc. cit., p. 18.

  1 Cf. du Prel, Die Mystik der alten Griechen, Leipzig, 1888.

  2 For quotations from these authors cf. Stützle, Das griechische Orakelwesen …, Ellwangen, 1891.

  3 E. von Lasaulx, Das pelasgische Orakel des Zeus zu Dodona, Würzburg, 1840, p. 14.

  4 Ibid., p. 4.

  1 D. E. Strauss, Das Leben Jesu, 3rd edit., Tübingen, 1839, vol. ii, p. 30.

  2 I. H. Fichte, Zur Seelenfrage, eine philosophische Konfession, Leipzig, 1859, p. 280. For the author’s general outlook, his work Der neuere Spiritualismus, sein Wert und seine Täuschungen, Leipzig, 1878

  1 Chr. C. J. Bunsen, Gott in der Geschichte oder der Fortschritt des Glaubens an eine sittliche Weltordnung, Leipzig, 1857–58.

  2 Max. Perty, Die sichtbare und die unsichtbare Welt, Leipzig, 1880, p. 124.

  3 Fr. Fischer, Der somnambulismus, vol. iii, Bâle, 1839, pp. 367–412.

  4 C. du Prel, loc. cit., p. 37.

  1 For fuller details cf. ibid., pp. 41 and 64.

  2 J. Burckhardt, Griechische Kulturgeschichte, 3rd edit., vol. ii, chap. iv.

  3 J. Beloch, Griechische Geschichte, vol. i, Leipzig, 1893, p. 243.

  4 K. F. Nägelsbach, Die nachhomerische Theologie des griechischen Vollcsglaubens, Nuremberg, 1857, p. 186.

  5 Thucydides, v, 26.

  1 Ibid., i, 118 and ii, 54; cf. Plutarch, de Pyth. or., 19.

  2 Bergk, Griechische Literaturgeschichte, i, Berlin, 1872, p. 331.

  3 E. Doehler, Die Orakel, Berlin, 1872, p. 15.

  4 A. W. Persson, Vorstudien zu einer Geschichte der attischen Sakralgesetzgebung, i, en Lunds Universitet, N.F. avd., i, vol. xiv, No. 22, p. 72.

  INDEX

  ABYSSINIA, possession in, 136–7; Zar-possession in, 234–5

  Acceptance of functions by the will, 67; of compulsive ideas, 77, 82 sq.; of the idea of possession (J. des Anges), 49, 88 sq.

  Achille, case of, 95, 109–17

  Acoustic phenomena in possession, Staudenmaier, 57; the Bataks, 268–72; the Sibyls, 333

  Acta Sanctorum, passages from, 5, 176

  Ælius Aristides on the , 154

  Africa, distribution of possession in, 132; in Kabylia, 132; in Central —, 133; in Abyssinia, 136–7; in East —, 137; inMadagascar, 138; among the Ba-Ronga, 138–43; in South — (the Bantu races), 143; animal possession in —, 144–5; possession in the Middle Ages in —, 186; voluntary possession in —, 253–65; O. Dapper on possession in —, 263–44; the Zulus, 265

  Age of Enlightenment in Germany, and possession, 192–4; — and Shamanism, 295; — and voluntary possession, 365; — and belief in spirits, 376, 378–9

  Age when spontaneous possession occurs, 121

  Aissaoua, possession amongst the, 263

  Altaians, Shamanism amongst the, 294, 302, 309

  America, possession in, 197–9; spiritualistic literature, 210; voluntary possession amongst aborigines, 286–93; spiritualism in, 365; the Piper case, 371–4

  Amnesia, after possession, 13, 32–3; after somnambulism, 39; narratives illustrating, 146, 218, 345, 360, etc.

  Anæsthesia, cases illustrating sensory — during possession, 266, 270, 272, 299, 352, etc.

  Ananias and Sapphira, 238, 323

  Ancestor-worship and posesssion, in China, 219; amongst the Bataks 265–76; in New Guinea, 284–6

  Angels, source of belief in, 148

  Animal possession, 28; involuntary — in Japan, 95, 106–7, 225–8; in Africa, 144–5; in antiquity, 162; in China, 220, 224; in Indo-China, 228; in Niam-Niam, 228; voluntary — in masked dances, 242, amongst the Malay pigmies, 245, the Aissaoua, 263, the Malays, 276, the Dyaks, 276; in Siam, 252; in China, 364

  Animals, possession amongst, 96, 124 note

  Anouilh, Mgr., on possession in China, 221

  Anthony, St., temptation of, 83

  Apollonius of Tyana, story from life of Flavius Philostratus, 6

  Arabia, Zar-possession in, 231

  Arrian on the Corybantes, 344

  Art, the possessed in, 25

  Artificial extinction of possession, 100

  Artificial possession, primitives, 236 sq.; higher civilizations, past, 311–48, present, 348–75

  Artificial production of psychic division, possibility of, 98

  Ascetic mortifications and possession, 117. See also Suso, Surin, Tranquille

  Asia, possession in, spontaneous, 145 sq.; voluntary, 348 sq.

  Assyrians, demonology of, 147–8

  Atharva-Veda, story from, 173

  Augustine, St., story of a cure by, 177; attitude towards the oracles, 330

  Australian aborigines, thana
tomania amongst, 239

  Autobiography of possessing demons, 31, 63

  Autodescriptions of possession, 12–3; Jeanne des Anges, 49 sq.; Surin, 50 sq.; a Burman, 218; a Batak medium, 269; a Tonga Islander, 278; a Hausa, 260–1; Freimark’s case (a young sculptor), 369–70

  Automatic speech (glossolalia), 28; Staudenmaier, 57, 60; Jeanne des Anges, 87, 334, 374, 375

  Automatic writing, Staudenmaier, 57; case of Achille, 109–17; in spiritualism, 366, 374, 375

  Autosuggestion and the genesis of possession, 91–2, 95, 193, 378; — consequent on sin, 162; cure of possession by —, 108–9, 267; — and emotional excitement, 117; — and possession amongst primitives, 134; — and ikota, 205; — and change of personality amongst savages, 237; — amongst civilized peoples, Carnival, 237; — and suicide, 238; — and psychic troubles, 240; — and genesis of voluntary animal possession, 270. See also Suggestion

  Babylonia, demonology in, 147–8; influence on the Jews, 169; Babylonian tablets and the Atharva-Veda, 173

  Bälz, on possession in Japan, 95, 106–7

  Bantu races, possession amongst, 143 sq.

  Ba – Ronga, exorcism of sickness amongst, 120; possession amongst, 138–43; effects of possession amongst, 377; possession a growing phenomenon, amongst, 379

  Bastian, A., personal experience of exorcism in Guiana, 120; on animal possession in Africa, 144; American case reported by, 198; recognized the importance of possession amongst primitives, 378

  Bataks of Sumatra, spontaneous possession amongst, 145–6; voluntary possession amongst, 265–74, compared with Siberian shamans, 305, with the Pythoness, 321, with the Chinese, 363, with spiritualists, 366; possession the source of mythology amongst, 378; possession and prophecy, 381

  Beer, possession amongst Bori and Asama from drinking forbidden, 135–6

  Beloch on the oracles, 387

  Benediction an echo of possession, 119

  Bergk on the oracles, 314, 320, 324, 331, 332, 387–8

  Bernard of Clairvaux, St., cures of possession by, 177–81

  Besisi, possession amongst the, 275

  Besson, H., on possession in Kabylia, 132–3

  Bhuta-dancers, 351

  Biblical accounts of possession, New Testament, 3–5, 12, 28; Old Testament, 168–9; higher criticism of, 193–4

  Bibliothèque diabolique, 14, 48, 49–50, 86 note

  Binterim, A. J., history of Christian exorcism, 101, 168

  Blasphemy in demoniacal possession, 21, 33–4, 35, 87–8; in obsession, 79

  Blood, possession from drinking, 344–5 and note

  Bodinus, Dœmonomania, 14; case from, 30; exorcism of animals and houses, 96

  Bori, exorcism amongst, 134–5; voluntary possession amongst, 253–63

  Boudah, possession by the, 136, 235

  Brahman Kecava, story of the, 175

  Buddha, evidence of possession in the life of, 174

  Buddhist priests and possession, 361, 363

  Buildings, blessing and exorcism of, 96, 119, 147

  Burckhard, on fourth-century demonology, 158

  Buriats, Shamanism amongst, 294, 299, 300, 302–3, 304

  Burmah, possession in, 218, 351 and note, 352

  Calmeil, L. F., case of a Spanish nun, 41; on the Corybantes, 93

  Carnival, psychic intoxication of, 237; historical connection with Dionysiac cult, 339

  Cassandra, 311

  Cassian, John, distinguishes between somnambulistic and lucid possession, 40; on sin and possession, 163–4

  Catholicism, Roman, a modern stronghold of possession, 199–202; — and rationalism, 379; criteria of possession in, 382

  Ceylon, possession in, 215–7; the Veddas, 246–52; voluntary possession, devil-dances, 349–50 and note

  Charcot on relationship between possession and hysteria, 126

  Child personification by Staudenmaier, 59

  Children, compulsive states in, 82, 84–5; superior suggestibility of, 240; Children’s Crusade, 187

  China, possession in, 95, 219 sq.; spiritualism in, 219; voluntary possession in, 348, 355; Parapsychic phenomena in, 382

  Cholera and possession in South India, 214–5

  Christian Church, early, and possession, 160 sq.; use of exorcism by, 164

  Christian era, importance of possession in the, 155

  Christian natives, not subject to possession, 137; not immune from possession, 145–6, 284; perform exorcism, 219; possession disappears on conversion, 220, 272; relapse into possession, 218, 268, 363–4; outlook on possession, 269

  Christianity and possession, 379

  Chrysostom on the Pythoness, 315

  Cicero on the oracles, 325, 385; on the Sibyls, 335

  Civilizations, possession in the higher, 147 sq.

  Clement of Alexandria on the dialect of the gods, 159

  Codrington on the Melanesiane, 280–4

  Collapse preceding possession, 241–2, 250; accompanying possession, 251–2, 275

  Compulsive states, 54, 65, 77; literature of, 78; kinds of, 78–9; emotional—, 85; possession constituted by, 120–1

  Conduct of the “demon,” 65 sq.; — of the ordinary man, 66

  Confessions of possessing spirits, 31–2. See also Autobiography

  Consciousness of original personality disappears when resistance to compulsions ceases, 82

  Constellations a cause of possession, 152

  Conversations between the possessed and his compulsion, 60 sq.; theory of, 65; — between compulsions, 68

  Conversion of the “demon,” attempts at, 62, 104

  Corybantism, 93, 344

  C. St. case, 20, 21, 43, 44, 63–4, 69, 84; genesis of possession in, 94–5; efforts to convert the “demon,” 104; analogy with Bori possession, 136, with possession in ancient Greece, 341, with possession amongst the Ba-Ronga, 378

  Cukasaptati, story from, 175

  Cynanthropy, 191

  Dances, possession — amongst the Bori, 135; in Madagascar, 138, the Ba-Ronga, 141, the Bataks, 146, 270, 272; the zikr dance, 233; masked —, 242–3, 287; ritual — the origin of drama, 243; ceremonial — amongst the Veddas, 247, 250–2; possession — amongst the Hausa, 255, the Melanesiane, 281, the Hametz Indians, 291; devil — in India and Ceylon, 349–51

  Dancing monk, case of the, 44

  Dapper, O., on possession in Africa in the seventeenth century, 263–4

  Dead, possession by the, 26–7, 34–5, 68–9; amongst the Wasu, 137; in the Kabbala, 185; in modern times, 186; the Watseka Wonder, 210–1; the Piper case, 371–4; possession by — in China, 220; thanatomania attributed to, 239; communication with the — in China, 219; the Wu priesthood, 357, 361; amongst the Veddas, 247, 250–2, the Bataks, 266, the Tonga Islanders, 278–9; in European spiritualism, 366; belief in survival of the — fostered by possession, 376

  Death resulting from possession, 117 sq., 222–4; — from autosuggestion, 238–40; Plutarch’s story of the Pythoness, 321–2; early — of mediums, amongst the Bataks, 269, 272, in China, 363–4

  Delphic oracle, 156, 311; the Pythoness, 311–31; analogy with Wu-possession, 376

  Delusion, cases of, 121

  Demoniacal somnambulism, 39

  Demons, belief in, traceable to Mesopotamia, 148, — fostered by possession, 376

  Devil, belief in the, a cause of possession, 69, 80, 96, 99; — always accompanies gravest forms of possession, 121; absence of — is a deterrent to possession, 124; — in modern times, 106, 378

  Dhaca – kumara – Caritam, story of simulated possession from, 175

  Dibbuk, exorcism of the, 207–10

  Diodorus Siculus, origin of the Delphic chasm, 317, 318

  Dion Cassius on the Delphic chasm, 317

  Dionysiac cult, 156, 311, 335–43

  Dionysius the Areopagite, rules for treatment of the possessed, 160

  Divine possession, 156 sq.; generally voluntary, 157; amongst the Tonga Islanders, 276 sq.; in Polynesia, 286; true Shamanism not a form of, 294–310; in
Ancient Greece, 311 sq.; Jamblich on, 343

  Djinns, the, 233

  Distribution of spontaneous possession, 131 sq.

  Division of the subject, whether entailed by possession, 32, 47, 54, 59

  Doehler on the oracles, 388

  Dreams, artificial inducement of, 309; importance of, in history of religion, 376; — as origin of myths, 378

  Dual nature, sentiments of a, 53

  Dual personality, 19; in somnambulism, 39

  Dual possession, 69

  Du Prel and spiritualism, 365; on parapsychic phenomena, 386

  Ecstasy, states of, 12. See also Divine possession

  Education and possession, 99, 121, 165

  Eginhard, case of possession described by, 66–7

  Ego a synthesis of psychic processes, 123. See also Subject

  Egypt, exorcism against children’s maladies in, 120; sickness considered a sign of possession in, 124; inscription from a stela at Thebes, 149–51; priests as exorcists, 151; possession in modern —, 230 sq.; vaticination in ancient —, 348

  Emotional compulsions tend to become true nature, 85

  England, possession in, 195–6; spiritualism in, 364

  Enlightenment, the Age of, in Germany. See Age

  Epidemics of possession at Kintorp, 40 and 92 note; at Madrid, 41; cause of, 92; in Africa, 137–8; amongst the Ba-Ronga, 139; in antiquity, 161; in modern times, 187 sq.; list of, 188–90; — and hysteria, 190; the Zar, 231

  Epidemics, psychic, other than possession, 187; Carnival, 237; trembling amongst children, 240

  Epileptic fits, 135; model for auto-suggestive states of possession, 136

  Esquirol and witchcraft trials, 191; saw possessed persons, 195

  Euphrates and Tigris region. See Mesopotamia