The demonomaniacal hysteria of the Cloister, of which we have
enumerated a few examples of a most remarkable kind, was present, in
the Middle Ages, in the form of an epidemic neurosis, characterized
by complex disturbances of the nervous system between the life of
relation and of organic life; that is to say, by functional symptoms
dependent on the general sensibility of the organs of sense, the active
organs of movement, and the intelligence. In our observations we shall
consequently recognize:
_Hyperæsthesia and spasm of the stomach and abdominal organs_, in the
hallucination of poisoning by witches.
_Hyperæsthesia of the ovary and the uterus and vagina_, from the
hallucination of painful cohabitation with incubi.
_Spasms of the pharynx and laryngeal muscles_: coughs, screams and
barks of the prodromic period to convulsive attacks.
_Vaso-motor disturbances_, in the cutaneous marks, which are attributed
to the Devil, but are simply produced by contact with some foreign body.
_Somnambulism_, in the execution of movements (sometimes in opposition
with the laws of equilibrium), in a lucid state of mind, outside the
condition of wakefulness, with or without mediumistic faculties and
the conservation of memory; in the perception of sensations, without
the intervention of the senses; in sensorial hallucinations produced
by a simple touch; in _ecstasy_, with loss of tactile sense and
hallucinations of vision.[75]
_Suggestion_, unconsciously provoked in rapid modifications of
sensibility, in alterations of motility, in automatic movements
executed in _imitation_ (_one form of suggestion_), or by the
domination of a foreign willpower, and, in general, _in the penetration
of an idea or phenomenon into the brain_, by word, gesture, sight, or
thought.[76]
_Catalepsy_, in the immobility of the body, the fixity of the regard,
and the rigidity of the limbs in all attitudes, that we desire to place
them (_a very rare_ phenomenon).
_Lethargy_, in the depression of all parts of the body, and a
predisposition on the part of the muscles to contract.
_Delirium, finally_, in the impossibility of hoping to discern false
from true sensations.
We find, after this, that in analyzing the principal symptoms of
hystero-demonomania, we easily note the characteristics of ordinary
hysterical folly; we see that _it always attacks_ by preference the
impressionable woman. She who is fantastic, superstitious, hungry for
notoriety, full of emotions,—one who possesses to the highest degree
the gift of assimilation and imitation,—the subject of nightmare,
nocturnal terrors, palpitations of the heart; a woman fickle in
sentiment, one passing easily from joy to sadness, from chastity to
lubricity,—a woman, in a word, who is capable of all manner of deceit
and simulation, a natural-born deceiver.
The attacks of delirium among hystero-demonomaniacs have always a
pronounced acute character; but, although violent and repeated, they
are liable to disappear rapidly, and are often followed by relapse.
These attacks of delirium are observed:
1. _Before the convulsive attacks_, under the form of melancholia or
agitation, with hallucinations of sight and hearing.
2. _During convulsive attacks_, in the period of passional attitudes,
under the most varied forms, by gestures in co-ordination with the
hallucinations observed by the mind of the patient; we often see such
persons express the most opposite sentiments—piety, erotism, and terror.
3. _After convulsive attacks_, in the form of despair, shame, rage,
sadness, with an abundant shedding of tears.
4. _Without convulsive attacks_; in that case, the delirium may occur
at any period; it is masked hysteria, which has a very great analogy to
masked epilepsy.
The delirium of these patients, _en resume_, has for essential
characteristics, exaltation of the intelligence, peculiar fixity of
ideas, perversion of the sentiments, absence of will power, tendency
to erotism. In a number of observations on delirium among hysterical
cases in a state of hypnotism recently published, patients have been
noted who believed that they cohabited with cats and monkeys, while
some had hallucinations of phantoms and assassins—visions that resulted
from complex hallucinations and have a certain similarity to those of
hystero-demonomania observed in the Middle Ages; and, if the demons
did not actually play the principle _role_ in these hallucinations, it
is because the imagination had not the anterior nourishment and belief
in supernaturalism and no faith in the sexual relations of demons with
mankind.
It was in 1491, about the time Jeanne Pothiere was on trial, that it
was noticed that young girls in religious communities were subject
to an epidemic mental affection, which led its victims to declare
that they had fallen into the power of evil spirits. This species of
delirium betrayed itself to the eyes of its observers by a series of
strange and extravagant acts. These patients at once pretended to be
able to read the future and prophesy. (See Calmeil, work cited.)
Abusive religious practices, false ideas of the future life, a tendency
to mysticism, the fear of Hell and the snares of the Devil, the
development of hysterical neurosis, in one subject, into suggestion
inherent to imitation; such was the succinct history of the epidemic
of the nuns of Cambrai. Jeanne Pothiere, their companion, denounced by
them, was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, for having cohabited
“434 times” (so the nuns said) with a Demon, and having introduced the
lustful devil into their before peaceful convent. For it could have
been nothing less than a demon that chased the poor young nuns across
the fields and assisted them to climb trees, where, suspended from the
branches, they were inspired to divine hidden things, to foretell the
future, and be the victims of convulsions.
Sixty years later, in 1550, there suddenly occurred a great number of
hystero-demonomaniacal epidemics similar to that in the convent of
Cambrai. The nuns of Uvertet, following a strict fast, were attacked
by divers nervous disorders. During the night they heard groans,
when they burst out in peals of hysterical laughter; following this
manifestation, they claimed they were lifted out of their beds by a
superior force; they had, at the same time, contractions in the muscles
of the limbs and of the face. They attacked each other in wild frenzy,
giving and taking furious blows; at other times they were found on
the ground, as though “inanimate,” and to this species of lethargy
succeeded a maniacal agitation of great violence. Like the nuns of
Cambrai, they climbed trees and ran over the branches as agile as
so many cats, descending head downwards with feet in the air. These
manifestations were, of course, attributed to a compact with the Devil,
and the officers of the law, acting on the accusations of these nuns,
arrested a midwife residing in the neighborhood, on the charge of
witchcraft (_sorcery_). It is needless to add that the midwife died
soon after.
A neurosis almost similar occurred the same year among the nuns at
Saint Brigette’s Convent. In their attacks these nuns imitated the
cries of animals and the bleating of sheep. At chapel one after the
other were taken with convulsive syncope, followed by suffocation and
œsophageal spasms, which sometimes persisted for the space of several
days and condemned the victims to an enforced fast. This epidemic
commenced after an hysterical convulsion occurred in one of the younger
nuns, who had entered the convent on account of disappointment in love.
Convinced that this unfortunate creature had imported a devil into the
religious community, she was banished to one of the prisons of the
Church.
At about this same time another epidemic of hystero-demonomania broke
out at the Convent of Kintorp, near Strasbourg. These nuns insisted
that they were possessed. Convulsions and muscular contractions which
followed these attacks, along with delirium, were attributed to
epilepsy. Progressively, and as though by contagion, all the nuns were
stricken. When the hysterical attack arrived they uttered howls, like
animals, then assaulted each other violently, biting with their teeth
and scratching with finger-nails. Among those having convulsions the
muscles of the pharynx participated in the general spasmodic condition.
The attack was announced by a fetid breath and a sensation of burning
at the soles of the feet. One day some of the young sisters denounced
the convent cook, Elise Kame, as a sorcerer, although she suffered
like the others from convulsive hysteria. This accusation finished
the poor girl, who, together with her mother, was committed alive to
the flames. Their death, most naturally, did not relieve the convent
of the disease; the nervous malady, on the contrary, spread around
in the neighborhood of the institution, attacking married women and
young girls, whose imaginations were overpowered by the recital of
occurrences within the convent walls.
We must admit that at that period doctors confounded hysteria with
epilepsy. Spasms of the larynx, muscular contractions that we of the
present day can provoke experimentally, as well as other phenomena
of hysterical convulsions in somnambulic phases of hypnotism, were
considered at that period only the manifest signs of diabolical
possession. As to the stinking breath, which revealed the presence
of the Devil among the nuns, that is a frequent symptom in grave
affections of the nervous system; it is often a prodroma of an attack
or series of maniacal convulsions. We have found that this fetidity of
breath coincides with the nauseating odor of sweat and urine, to which
we attribute the same semeological value as that of the mouth.
Another epidemic of hysterical convulsions, complicated with
nymphomania, occurred at Cologne in 1554, in the Convent of Nazareth.
Jean Wier, who was sent to examine these patients, recognized that the
nuns were possessed by the Demon of lubricity and debauchery, who ruled
this convent to a frightful extent.
P. Bodin has himself furnished the proofs; it was this author who
wrote the history of erotic nuns. He remarks: “Sometimes the bestial
appetites of some women lead them to believe in a demon; this occurred
in the year 1566, in the Diocese of Cologne, where a dog was found
which, it was claimed, was inhabited by a demon; this animal bit the
religious ladies under their skirts. It was not a demon, but a natural
dog. A woman who confessed to sinning with a dog was once burned at
Toulouse.
“But it may be that Satan is sometimes sent by God, as certain it is
that all punishment comes from him, through his means or without his
means to avenge such crimes, as happened in a convent in Hesse, in
Germany, where the nuns were demonomaniacs and sinned in a horrible
manner with an animal.”
Thus says Bodin, the public prosecutor of sorcerers among the laity and
the religious orders. Would he not have shown much greater wisdom if he
had humanely judged the actions of mankind, and had condemned as social
absurdities the innumerable convents and monasteries to which the
fanaticism of the Middle Ages attracted so many men and women who might
have followed more useful avocations? The convulsions of nymphomaniac
girls were very wild, and diversified by curious movements of the
pelvis, while lying in a position of dorsal decubitus, with closed
eyelids. After such attacks these poor nervous nuns were perfectly
prostrated, and only breathed with the greatest difficulty. It was thus
with young Gertrude, who was first attacked by a convulsive neurosis
which it was claimed had been induced by nymphomaniac practices in the
convent, and that evil spirits possessed these nuns.
In 1609, hystero-demonomania made victims in the Convent of Saint
Ursula, at Aix. Two nuns were said to be _possessed_; these were
Madeleine de Mandoul and Loyse Capel. They were exorcised without
success. Led to the Convent of Saint Baume, they denounced Louis
Gaufridi, priest of the Church of Acoules of Marseilles, as being a
sorcerer, who had bewitched them.
The Inquisitor Michaelis has left us the history of this trial by
exorcism. These patients had all the symptoms of convulsive hysteria,
with nymphomania, catalepsy, and hallucinatory delirium. This Judge,
however, only saw in these manifestations the work of several demons,
who tormented these nuns one after, the other, at the instigation of
the priest, Louis Gaufridi, who was arrested, tried, condemned by the
executioner, and led to the gallows with a rope around his neck, in
bare feet, a torch in hand; thus punished, the unfortunate and innocent
priest fell into a state of dementia, and while in this condition
confessed that he was the author of the nuns’ demonomania.
As soon as Gaufridi had been sentenced to death by the Inquisition,
the nuns of Saint Brigette’s Convent, at Lille, who had assisted at
the exorcism of the nuns of Saint Ursula, in turn were attacked by
hystero-demonomania. The report soon spread that they, too, were
possessed, and the Inquisitor Michaelis came to Avignon to exorcise the
demons. One of these nuns, Marie de Sains, suspected of sorcery, was
sent to jail. Three of her companions, treated by exorcism, denounced
the unfortunate girl as a witch. Marie de Sains, who, up to this time,
had asserted innocence, finished by declaring herself guilty towards
the rest of the nuns in the cloister. The demons found under the
nuns’ beds were placed there, according to Marie’s statement, by the
unfortunate Gaufridi.
She testified that, “the Devil, to recompense the priest, gave him the
title of ‘Prince of Magicians;’ and promised me,” added the nun, “all
kinds of sovereign honors for having consented to poison the other
nuns’ minds by witchcraft. Sister Joubert, Sister Bolonais, Sister
Fournier, Sister Van der Motte, Sister Launoy, and Sister Peronne, who
were first to have symptoms of _possession_ through diabolical power,
soon fell under the action of the potent philter. The witchcraft was
made with the host and consecrated blood, powdered billy goat horns,
human bones, skulls of children, hair, finger-nails, flesh, and seminal
fluid from the sorcerer; by adding to this mixture pieces of the human
liver, spleen, and brain, Lucifer gave to the hideous melange a virtue
of terrible strength. The sorcerers who gave this horrible concoction
to their acquaintances not only destroyed them, but also a large number
of new-born children.”
This unfortunate, besides, accused herself of having caused the death
of a number of persons, including children, the mother, and often
godmother; she claimed to have administered debilitating powders to
many others. She confessed to casting an evil spell on the other
nuns, which had given them over to lubricity; declared she had been
to the witch _vigils_ and cohabited with devils, and that she had
also committed sodomy, had intercourse with _dogs_, _horses_, and
_serpents_; finally, she acknowledged that she had accorded her favors
to the priest, Louis Gaufridi, whereas the nun was really innocent.
Marie de Sains was found guilty of being possessed by a demon. She was
exorcised and condemned to perpetual imprisonment and most austere
penances by the Court of Tournay.
Immediately after the trial of Marie de Sains another nun, Simone
Dourlet, was tried for the crime of sorcery, and by force of torture
and _suggestions_, she admitted to have been at a witch _vigil_ and was
guilty. The history of this poor girl is revolting, for not only was
she innocent of all crimes imputed to her, but she was not even sick.
She was the victim of the hallucinations of her companions.
Another form of hystero- or hysterical demonomania was observed the
same year near Dax, in the Parish of Amon, where more than 120 women
were attacked by _impulsive insanity_, following the expression of
Calmeil, but which has been designated by others as the _Mal de Laira_.
This neurosis, which was only a variety of hysteria, was characterized
by convulsions and loud barking. De L’Ancre gives an interesting
description of this outbreak, but does not fail to attribute the
affection to sorcerers. “It is a monstrous thing,” says he, “to see in
church more than forty persons, all braying and barking like dogs, as
on nights when the moon is full. This music is renewed on the entrance
of every new sorcerer, who has perhaps given the disease to some other
woman. These possessed creatures commence barking from the time they
enter church.”
The same barking symptoms were noticed in dwellings when these witches
passed along the street, and all passers by commenced to bark also when
a sorcerer appeared.
The convulsions resembled those noticed in enraged insane persons.
During the attack the victims would wallow on the earth, beating the
ground with their bodies and limbs, turning their violence on their own
persons without having will power to control their madness for evil
doing. According to Calmeil their cases were rather hysterical than of
an epileptic type.
A very remarkable fact in regard to this neurosis was that those women
who howled were exempt from convulsions and reciprocally. These howls
or barks were comparable to the cries uttered by the nuns of Kintorp
and the bleatings of the sisters of Saint Brigette.
We have also the record of a German convent, where the nuns meowed like
cats, and ran about the cloister imitating feline animals.
It is useless to add that the _Mal de Laira_ was a cause of several
condemnations of nuns who admitted they had bewitched their
companions.[77]
Among the numerous trials for Demonidolatry, that which has been most
noted was certainly the case of Urbain Grandier, and the Ursulines of
Loudun, from 1632 to 1639.
The Convent of Loudun was founded in 1611 by a dame of Cose—Belfiel.
Only noble ladies were received therein—Claire de Sazilli, the
Demoiselles Barbezier, Madmoiselle de la Mothe, the Demoiselles
D’Escoubleau, etc. These titled ladies had all received brilliant
educations, but had submitted to life in a nunnery by vocation. Seven
of these young women were suddenly attacked by hallucinations. They all
claimed to be victims of witchcraft.
During the night these girls went in and out of the convent doors,
sometimes standing on their heads, as is the case with certain
individuals subject to natural somnambulism. These nuns all accused a
chaplain of the order recently deceased of causing their troubles, and
several of the ladies claimed that the chaplain’s ghost made shameful
propositions to them.
The disease grew worse from day to day, until Justice was called on
to interfere, when the nuns changed their minds and declared that the
real cause of their possession was in reality one Urbain Grandier,
priest to the Church of Saint Pierre of Loudun, a man distinguished for
his brilliant intelligence, perfect education, but rather given to
gallantry, and a desire for public notoriety.
Was it Mignon, the new chaplain of the order, who _suggested_ to the
nuns their pretended persecutor?
That was the story, but Urbain Grandier attached no importance to the
rumor.
The attacks of the nuns increased more and more, however, and were
complicated with catalepsy, ecstasy and nymphomania, the victims making
obscene and shameful remarks. Then exorcisers were called in, but met
with no success. These ladies on the contrary endeavored to provoke
the priests by lascivious gestures and indecent postures. Some of them
wriggled over the floor like serpents, while others moved their bodies
backwards so that their heads touched their heels, a motion, according
to eye-witnesses, made with the most extraordinary quickness. At times
the nuns screamed and howled in unison like a chorus of wild beasts.
A historian of the time, De Le Menardy, witness _de visu et de auditu_,
has written: “In their contortions they were as supple and easily bent
as a piece of lead—in such a way that their bodies could be bent in
any form—backwards, forwards and sidewise, even so the head touched
the earth, and they remained in these positions up to such a time as
their attitudes might be changed.” These movements were especially
produced during the time of the attempted exorcisms. At the first
mention of Satan “they raised up, passed their toes behind their necks,
and, with legs separated, rested themselves on their perinæums and
gave themselves up to indecent manual motions.” They were delirious at
this time from demonomanical excitement. Madam de Belfiel claimed to
be sitting on seven devils, Madam de Sazilli had ten demons under her,
while Sister Elizabeth modestly asserted her number of imps to be five.
During the exorcisms these poor women _fell sound asleep_, which
induces Calmeil to think “the condition of these women resembled
closely that of _magnetic somnambulists_.” This supposition would
permit us to explain the impossibility of the nuns telling on certain
days what they had said or done during the course of a nervous attack.
The days when they escaped _contortions_—when they were to the
contrary violently exalted by the nature of these tactile and visceral
sensations—they recalled too much, for the power of reflection
disgusted these unfortunates with their own vile and uncontrollable
acts and assertions.
This epidemic had continued fifteen months, and all the Ursuline nuns
had been attacked by the epidemic when Laubardemont, one of the secret
agents of the Cardinal Richelieu, arrived at Loudun to examine into the
alleged Demonidolatry said to exist in the convent. The Cardinal had
given this agent absolute and extended power. Urbain Grandier, who was
the author of a libel against Richelieu, was arrested for complicity
in this sorcery, and brought before a commission of Justices, whose
members had been chosen by Laubardemont. He was confronted by the nuns,
invited to exorcise them, and then subjected to most cruel tortures.
Iron needle points were stuck in his skin, all over the body, in order
to find anæsthetised points, which were the pretended marks of the
Devil.
Notwithstanding his protestations of innocence, the Judges taking
the acts of the accusers while in the poor priest’s presence, for
his appearance was the signal for scenes of the most violent frenzy,
condemned the man to be tied to a gallows alive. There he was subjected
to renewed tortures, while the various muscles of his body were torn
apart and his bones broken.
The punishment of Urbain Grandier did not put an end to the epidemic
of hysterical demonomania among the Ursulines, for the malady extended
to the people of the town, even to the monks who were charged with
conducting the exorcisms; but the vengeance of his Red Eminence
(Cardinal Richelieu) was satisfied.
Many commentaries have been made since then on this outbreak of
Demonidolatry among the Ursulines. These we have no desire to reproduce
nor to discuss, as it would only tend to show the ancient ignorance
prevailing regarding diseases of the nervous system, and the want of
character and weakness of the physicians of that epoch, together with
the fanaticism of the monks and priesthood. One thing, however, appears
to be worthy of remembrance; that is the analogy between the convulsive
symptoms observed among the nuns and the phenomena of somnambulism
described by Calmeil. This fact appears to us as so much the more
remarkable, as the learned doctor of Charenton was a declared adversary
of magnetism, and published his work almost half a century since—that
is, in 1845.
The sleep into which the nuns fell during the period of exorcism,
the forgetfulness of the scenes witnessed where they had played such
a _role_, are, to our mind, only phenomena of hypnotism, and the
resemblance is so strong that we do not believe it would be impossible
to artificially reproduce another epidemic of hysterical demonomania.
Let us for an instant accept the _hypothesis_ of a convent, where
twenty young nuns are confined. Of these at least ten will be subject
to hypnotism. Let us now admit that these recluses, living the
ordinary ascetic and virtuous life of the cloister, plunged deeply in
the mysticisms of the Catholic faith, receive one day as confessor
and spiritual director a man of energetic character, knowing all the
practices of _hypnotism_ and of _suggestion_—a disciple let us say
of Puel, Charcot, De Luys, Barety, Bernheim—a perfect neurologist.
Now, if this man cared to magnetize individually each of these nuns
in the silence and obscurity of the confessional, and should then
suggest to them that they were _possessed_ by all the demons known to
sorcery, what would occur? Let us suppose again that he should carry
his physiological power further and put his _subjects_ into an ecstacy,
catalepsy or lethargy—into a condition where marked hallucinations
might occur and nervous excitation be provoked, how long would it be
before this man could make these women similar to those who once lived
in the convent of the Ursulines at Loudun?
We have not admitted this fiction for the purpose of having any one
conclude that the possessed of Loudun were the mere playthings of
some person who used hypnotism in an interest that we ignore; but, if
this fact may be considered possible by the will of an individual,
who can affirm at this day that there does not exist an unknown
force, intelligent or not, capable of producing the same pathological
phenomena observed long ago? What we call, in 1888, hypnotism in the
amphitheatres of our universities, we reserve for another chapter,
where we will give revelations much more extraordinary, and also more
supernatural; our chapter on the neurology of the nineteenth century
will, we promise, be _very interesting_.
Let us yet remark that the hystero-demonomaniacal manifestations were
not peculiar to the Ursulines of Loudun. They have been observed in
many convents in the same conditions of habits and prolonged fastings
among debilitated young girls; from long vigils spent in prayer and
nervous depression, caused by over-religious discipline; by mystical
exhortations from a man invested in a sacred character, on whom fall
all the discussions, all the entreaties, and all the thoughts of the
girls in the cloister.
The history of the nuns of Loudun was identically reproduced under
the same conditions among the sisters of Saint Elizabeth’s Convent
at Louviers, in 1643, three years after the execution of poor Urbain
Grandier for witchcraft.
In a short time eighteen nuns were attacked with hysterical
demonomania; they had active hallucinations of all the senses,
convulsions, and delirium. Like the Ursulines, they blasphemed,
screamed, and gave themselves over to all manner of strange
contortions, claiming to be _possessed_ by demons, describing in
obscene terms the orgies of the witch vigil (_Sabbat_), perpetrating
all varieties of debauchery, even unknown to the vilest prostitutes;
after this they finally accused one or more persons of bewitching them
through sorcery.
The nuns of Louviers, for instance, after being duly exorcised
according to the Canons of the Church, accused as the author of their
affliction, and as a bad magician, their old time confessor, the Abbot
Picard, who died before their symptoms were developed; then they
accused another priest, by the name of Francois Boulle, and several of
their companions, notably Sister Madeleine Bavan. These innocent people
were tried by the Parliament of Rouen, who ordered that the body of the
priest, Picard, should be exhumed, carried to the stake, there tied to
the living body of Francois Boulle, and after being burnt their ashes
should be cast to the winds. This execution, in the open air, occurred
in the seventeenth century, in the “Old Market Place” at Rouen, at the
spot where Joan d’Arc had also been burnt alive for being _possessed_,
as was claimed, by supernatural beings. What a comment on intelligence
in an age of partial enlightenment!
In order to close this chapter on hysterical demonomania among
religious orders, of which we have given some examples, we shall
cite an interesting relation left us by the Bishops and Doctors of
Sorbonne, together with the testimony of the King’s deputies, regarding
the _possession_ of nuns at the Convent of Auxonne. Here there were
always convulsions and screams, with blasphemy, aversion to taking the
sacraments, possession, and exorcisms; and there was, undoubtedly, the
phenomenon of _suggestion_ observed with much precision.
We might say that the nuns of Auxonne were accessible to suggestion;
for, at the command or even the thought of the exorcists, they fell
into a condition of somnambulism; in this state they became insensible
to pain, as was determined by pricking Sister Denise under the
finger-nail with a needle; they had also the faculty of prosternating
the body, making it assume the form of a circle,—in other words, they
could bend their limbs in any direction.
The Bishop of Chalons reports that “all the before mentioned girls,
secular as well as regular, to the number of eighteen, _had the gift of
Language_, and responded to the exorcists _in Latin_, making, at times,
their entire conversation in the classical tongue.
“Almost all these nuns had a full knowledge of the secrets and inner
thoughts of others;[78] this was demonstrated particularly _in the
interior commandments_, which had been made by the exorcists on
different occasions, which they obeyed exactly ordinarily, _without the
commandments being expressed to them either by words or any external
sign_.
“The Bishop himself, among others, experimented on the person of Denise
Pariset, to whom, _giving a command mentally to come to him immediately
and be exorcised_, whereupon the aforesaid nun immediately came to him,
although her residence was in a quarter of the village far removed
from the Episcopal residence. She said on these occasions that she was
commanded to come; and this experiment was repeated several times.
“Again, in the person of Sister Jamin, a novice, who on hearing the
exorcism, told the Bishop his interior commandment made to the Demon
during the ceremony. Also, in the person of Sister Borthon, who, being
_commanded mentally_ to make her agitations violent, immediately
prostrated herself before the Holy Sacrament, with her belly against
the earth and her arms extended, executing the command at the same
instant, with a promptitude and precipitation wholly extraordinary.”[79]
Here, I believe, are facts so well authenticated of transmission of
thought or of mental _suggestions_, perhaps _voluntarily unknown_ to
certain modern neurologists. These neuropaths of Auxonne presented
still more extraordinary phenomena; at the word of command they
suspended the pulsations of the pulse in an arm, in the right arm, for
example, and transfered the beatings from the right arm to the left
arm, and _vice versa_. This fact was discovered by the Bishop, and
many ecclesiastics verified the same, and “it was promptly done in the
presence of Doctor Morel, who recognized and makes oath to the fact.”
We cannot dwell too long on the Demonomania of the Middle Ages, to
which we have, perhaps, added some historical facts which are new and
which we believe it to be our duty to publish, seeing a connection with
modern hypnotism. We shall thus open a new field for investigation on
strange affections, classed up to the present time in all varieties
of monomania, but which appear to us to belong to a variety of mental
pathology independent of insanity, properly speaking. If it were
otherwise it would be necessary to recognize as crazy persons, not only
the Demonomaniacs of the Middle Ages, but also the Jansenists, who went
into trances, and the choreics and convulsionists (_convulsionnaires_)
of the eighteenth century. They were certainly not crazy, those who
came to the mortuary of Saint Medard, to the tomb of the Deacon Paris,
to make an appeal against the Papal bull of Clement XI. And was it
not another cause than auto suggestion, to which it is necessary to
attribute the nervous phenomena that the _appelants_ exhibited during
thirty consecutive years?
The exaltation of religious ideas, so often advanced by psychologists,
cannot account for these phenomena. I have seen palpable proofs of
this in the various accidents that suddenly overcame sceptics and
strong-minded men of modern times, who came as amateurs to assist at
the experiments on convulsive subjects. These symptoms, as is well
known, are usually ushered in by violent screams, rapid beatings of
the heart, contractions of muscles, and analogous nervous symptoms.
Besides, it is incontestible that many patients and infirm people
obtain an unhoped for cure following convulsive cries; while others, in
a state of health, are taken with hallucinations and delirium. I have
seen patients who would lacerate certain portions of the body that were
the seat of burns, and continue to walk, cry, gesticulate, and abuse
themselves, like insane persons in a real state of dementia.
The Jansenists did not speak, had no compacts with demons, no
exorcisms at which Inquisitors and their acolytes could suggest ideas
of demonomania; and notwithstanding their great austerities and the
most rigorous fasts, we note among the _convulsionnaires_ of Saint
Medard only the ideas of possession by the Holy Spirit and divine
favors obtained through the protection of the kind-hearted Deacon; and
meantime, those possessed by God, as by the Devil, were subjects of
somnambulism, to trances, lethargy, catalepsy, and other phenomena.[80]
The last analogy, finally, between the two nervous epidemics, was the
Royal authority, a special form of _suggestion_ in the Middle Ages,
which put an end to sorcery or witchcraft as well as to Jansenism.