Demoniacal Possession

( Originally Published 1919 )

Sir Oliver Lodge—His Plaint—The Judaic and Catholic Churches—Their Doctrines on Spirits—On Demonology—Practice and Universality of Necromancy in Mosaic Times —Their Evocators or Mediums—Condemnation of Mediums by Moses—Possession in the Time of Our Saviour —His Command and Power over Demons—Apostolic and Early Christian Times—Means of Detecting Spirit Presence—Prayer of the Christian Church—"Mountain Meadows Massacre" —John D. Lee—His Extraordinary Statement.

The very great number of mediums or py In obedience to the advice of Samuel, the prophet, Saul, King of Israel, renewed the prohibition of Moses and "drove out of the land all necromancers and sorcerers."

And what inference are we to draw from the many examples of demoniacal possession and the evil influence of lost spirits upon man recorded in the New Testament ? Listen to this : "And when Jesus was come on the other side of the water, into the country of the Gerasens, there met him two that were possessed with devils. . . . And behold they cried out, saying: What have we to do with thee, Jesus, son of God? Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?"

Does not the appeal of these unhappy spirits, lost in endless woe, to our Saviour not to send them into the abyss, but to permit them to enter the herd of swine, hint that these evil spirits found some relief of pain in being permitted to remain on earth? The fear of torment before the time intimates that the time of their extreme punishment was not yet come (Luke VIII, 31).

If you say our credulity has been imposed upon by what is termed fictitious possessions produced by diseases of the mind, by hallucinations, by the distempered imagination of those who thought themselves possessed, or that feigned to be so for a purpose; and that there never was and is not now any case of demoniac possession, we reply that if there was and is no real possession, Christ and His Apostles and the Christian Church are in error and must wilfully involve all true believers in error, by speaking, acting, and praying as if these cases were a reality and not a figment of our imagination. Our Saviour spoke to and commanded these demoniac spirits who dwelt in human beings, and the spirits answered and obeyed, and gave proofs of their presence by tormenting the wretched men or women they were forced to depart from. They cast these men into violent convulsions, threw them on the ground, left them for dead, entered into hogs and rushed these animals into the sea. Was all this a delusion ?

Our Divine Lord tells the Jews, in proof of His mission, that devils are cast out by Him, and promised the Apostles the same power that He Himself possessed over these fallen spirits.

Can all this be nothing but a figure of speech ?

Let it be conceded that there are counterfeit demoniacs who use the actions, words, motions, contortions, cries, howlings and convulsions of one possessed, and that some acts which seem to be supernatural, may be produced by an overheated imagination, by sleight-of-hand, by contrivance and trick,—still there are insurmountable difficulties in the way. If a person, all at once, speaks and understands languages he never learned, talks informationally on profound and sublime subjects he never studied and of which an hour before he was densely ignorant, or discovers the unspoken and secret thoughts of another ; if he is lifted into the air without visible assistance, and all this be done without any personal motive, interest or passion, what conclusion must we come to?

If it be said that speaking foreign languages by one who can only express himself normally in his mother tongue, or that floating in the air by a man without visible help, are an impossibility, then those hierophants of Spiritism Weir, Home, Reggazoni, Dupotet, Owens, and others are deceiving us. But supposing them to be parties to a conspiracy of lies, what are we to say of the Bible, of the Jewish Talmud, the Hebrew Mishna and Gemora, all of which emphatically tell us of demoniac possession, of the speaking of foreign tongues and of levitation? And how can we explain away the statements of St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Bossuet, de Merville, and above all and over all the prayer of the historic Catholic Church in her Exorcism of the Possessed?

It may be asked, "How can God, our Creator, allow these sons of malediction' to possess our souls or obsess our bodies?" We reply,

"Does not God permit the lustful man to ruin the innocent girl?" An evil spirit out of the human body, and an evil soul within it, can injure only those who consort with them and surrender their will to their baneful influence. God, through His own mysterious ways, governs the universe and all who dwell within it till the Judgment of the Great Day, when justice shall be meted to all with rigorous impartiality. On that day unrepenting evil men and unrepenting rebellious angels will alike hear and suffer the "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matt. XXV, 41).

The Sacred Scriptures, the Catholic Church, her theologians, her great doctors and her early Fathers, all teach that rebel angels,—called, today, spirits by the Spiritists,—are unclean, promoters of spiritual darkness and spiritual wickedness. They are called "angels of darkness" by St. Paul, who also says that they sometimes transform themselves into angels of light, in order that they may the more easily seduce men, and that they suffer grief, despair and rage in their state of irrevocable damnation.

Among early Christian writers there perhaps was none who had a more intimate acquaintance with the spiritual phenomena of his age (second century), than Tertullian. In his "Apologeticum" (Chap. XXII) he says : " The subtility of the substance of these spirits gives to them a marvelous aptitude for penetrating the double substance of man. The body and the soul can be tainted and vitiated by their sinister influence and their impure contact. And when these necromancers (mediums) evoke the dead, and spirits answer, it is by the aid and help of demons."

Down the avenue of time all history is punctuated with multitudinous and pitiable examples of demoniac possession. And so well authenticated and thoroughly verified are these cases of human possession that we cannot refuse to accept them as facts without using methods of criticism which would destroy the credibility of all history.

And not only have individuals fallen under the baneful influence of these malign creatures, but masses of human beings have been driven by them to the perpetration of atrocious acts of brutality and cruelty outside the nature of man. That profound reasoner, Orestes A. Brownson, rose from the study of the phenomena of the French Revolution, convinced that masses of the people were demonized. He states that many of those who participated in atrocious deeds of inhumanity afterwards acknowledged that they could not help doing You have perhaps heard of the "Mountain Meadows Massacre," when, on the 20th of September, 1857, one hundred and thirty emigrants men, women, and children—on their way through Utah to the Pacific Coast, were ruthlessly slaughtered. A man named John D. Lee was the leader of the murderers. That we may realize the value of his statement when about to be executed, twenty years after the wholesale murder, I insert this extract taken from a sketch of his life by Mr. Josiah F. Gibbs, author of "Lights and Shadows of Mormonism" :

"In stature John D. Lee was about five feet eight inches, of powerful build, tireless energy and unchallenged courage. He was also a man of more than average intelligence, of deep religious convictions, love for his family and friends, and loyal to his duty as he saw it."

On the morning of the 23rd of March, 1876, Lee, after his trial and conviction, was executed for his part in the awful slaughter. Standing near his coffin he made a brief farewell address, in which he denied any intent to do wrong:

" There are," he said, "thousands of people in I know it."

And read this from the N. Y. Times, Feb. 14th, 1918 :

" The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People sent this telegram last night to President Wilson : 'Speaking on behalf of millions of Americans, we respectfully call your attention to the horrible crime at Estill Springs, Tenn., where a fellow-American, accused of murder, was first tortured by hot irons and then slowly burned to death by a mob, the second burning recently of this kind.' "

Is it possible to believe that man, made in the image and likeness of God, civilized man, church-going man, could of his own volition be so atrociously cruel? If it be, where, then, is the difference between these men and the demons of hell The Times, moreover, did not tell all, for present by invitation at this unbelievable act of savagery, were women, young maidens and little children. Are we not constrained to admit with the illustrious M. Ratisbonne that : "There are many evil men and women in our midst who are possessed with evil spirits and, like the Magdalene, are not conscious of it."