Creed-makers before the Reformation conceived, what is probably true, that
natural barriers at all times have effectually debarred even the mightiest
devil, as well as each and all of his disembodied imps, from coming
directly into such close contact with a human body, or any other material
object, as enabled them to produce effects perceptible by man's physical
senses. Being themselves spirits, whether primarily earth-born or foreign,
devils could effect direct access to, and could harm the minds and souls
of men, and, unaided by mortals, could incite human beings to evil actions
and self-debasement, while yet, so long as they were unaided by voluntary
human alliance, they were absolutely unable to act upon matter--unable to
subject human forms to fits, twitchings, tumblings, transformations,
sicknesses, pains, &c., such as the bewitched of old experienced, and such
as await many mediumistic persons to-day. Devils, formerly, and spirits
now, to make the effects of their powers observable, or to make themselves
felt by men's external senses, usually must act first and directly upon
the equivalent to such nervous fluid or aura as enables man's mind to
actuate his own body. Any disembodied spirit, of whatsoever grade or
character, may be, and probably is, seldom able to command that
intermediate aura--or that _something_--excepting when in or near an
animal organism which possesses those properties or conditions, whatever
they are, which render a person mediumistic. Constructors of the
witchcraft creed probably had learned that nature always and everywhere
makes matter intangible by spirit directly, and they thence inferred that
the devil could never get into close contact with human bodies without the
aid of some spirit, or of appendages to some spirit, who holds living
alliance with matter, and consequently has in or around itself nervous
fluid, or its equivalent, which is usable by mind not its own--is
loanable, or at least liable to be abstracted.
Transpiring observation now quite distinctly perceives that control of
human organisms by disembodied spirits is usually attended by conditions
fundamentally analogous to an antecedent covenant. The old creed-makers
may have reasoned from facts of experience and observation much more
generally and logically than the present age imagines. No special desire
is felt, and we do not see that any special obligation rests upon us, to
palliate the doings of those monastics who in dark ages both fabricated
and shackled the devil of witchcraft. Still we do not begrudge them such
justification as may flow out that passing facts. We have already stated
the probability that nature makes physical man intangible by spirits
directly. Because of protracted observations of their doings, we assume
that spirits are able to read at a glance the properties of each form to
which they give special attention, and are at no loss to determine what
organisms are controllable by them when conditions are all favorable. One
and an important condition is, absence of resistance to control by the
mind to which the susceptible organism pertains. The genuine owner
generally _can_ withhold his or her nervous fluids, or auras, or those
properties, of whatever kind or name, which a spirit must use in the
controlling process; and, consequently, _a quasi agreement_, amounting at
least to acquiescence on the part of the medium, is generally a necessary
preliminary to any modern spirit-manifestation, especially with mediums
not much accustomed to be controlled.
When and where belief prevailed that all disembodied spirits who ever
actuated human forms were the devil or his imps, the inference that those
whom he and his controlled had entered into an agreement with _him_, was
natural and almost necessary. For an agreement or consensus between a
controlling spirit and the will of the person controlled is very common
now, and, no doubt, has been in all past ages. The assumption, however,
which seems to have been prevalent formerly, that such consensus involved
eternal reciprocal obligation between the devil and a human soul, or the
sale of that soul to the Evil One, could not be required or suggested by
any facts perceivable by modern observation. No doubt each successive use
of properties of a particular body by an intelligence from outside itself,
generally enables the foreign spirit subsequently to manage that body with
increasing ease to itself, and with more satisfaction probably to both
parties; and the practice, if mutually pleasurable, renders prolonged
co-operation probable; but co-operation for a time imposes no obligation
or necessity that the parties shall remain forever conjoined. Common use
of the same magnetism, nervous elements, or whatever they use in common,
may tend to make a spirit and a mortal assimilate in their tastes,
emotions, motives, and characters. This co-operation may evoke such
sympathy between them, that each may often be drawn to the of other's aid,
and conjointly they may manifest both physical and mental powers which
neither could put forth alone. And it is possible that a liberated spirit
may be so linked in sympathy with numerous other spirits, that the joint
powers of many are at his service, so that through a single human form
there may be manifested to the outer world the effects of the combined
forces of legions of ascended spirits, either good or bad, in one
accordant band.
Obviously, spiritual beings, of whatever quality, are generally dependent,
for any manifestation to the outer world, on one or more of a class of
mortals possessing special properties or susceptibilities. Nature seems to
impose such necessity. She does not let even man's own spirit act upon his
stable body directly, but through something evanescent before microscope
and scalpel.