which he conversed; but, on hearing the Gospel, he professed to become
converted, and had no more communication with his spirit. It had left
him, he said; it spoke to him no more. After a protracted trial I
baptised him. I watched his case with interest, and for several years he
led an unimpeachable Christian life; but, on losing his religious zeal,
and disagreeing with some of the church members, he removed to a distant
village, where he could not attend the services of the Sabbath, and it
was soon after reported that he had communications with his familiar
spirit again. I sent a native preacher to visit him. The man said
he heard the voice which had conversed with him formerly, but it
spoke very differently. Its language was exceedingly pleasant to
hear, and produced great brokenness of heart. It said, "Love each
other; act righteously--act uprightly," with other exhortations such us
he had heard from the teachers. An assistant was placed in the village
near him, when the spirit left him again; and ever since he has
maintained the character of a consistent Christian.'[2]
This anecdote illustrates what is called by spiritists 'change of
control.' After receiving, and deserting, Christian doctrine, the patient
again spoke unconsciously, but under the influence of the faith which he
had abandoned. In the same way we shall find that a modern American
'Medium,' after being for a time constantly in the society of educated
and psychological observers, obtained new 'controls' of a character more
urbane and civilised than her old 'familiar spirit.'[3]
It is admitted that the possessed sometimes display an eloquence which
they are incapable of in their normal condition.[4] In China, possessed
women, who never composed a line of poetry in their normal lives, utter
their thoughts in verse, and are said to give evidence of clairvoyant
powers.[5]
The book--_Demon Possession in China_--of Dr. Nevius, for forty years a
missionary, was violently attacked by the medical journals of his native
country, the United States. The doctor had the audacity to declare that he
could find no better explanation of the phenomena than the theory of the
Apostles--namely, that the patients were possessed. Not having the fear of
man before his eyes, he also remarked that the current scientific
explanations had the fault of not explaining anything.
For example, 'Mr. Tylor intimates that all cases of supposed demoniacal
possession are identical with hysteria, delirium, and mania, and
suchlike bodily and mental derangements.' Dr. Nevius, however, gave what
he conceived to be the notes of possession, and, in his diagnosis,
distinguished them from hysteria (whatever that may mean), delirium, and
mania. Nor can it honestly be denied that, if the special notes of
possession actually exist, they do mark quite a distinct species of mental
affection. Dr. Nevius then observed that, according to Mr. Tylor,
'scientific physicians now explain the facts on a different principle,'
but, says Dr. Nevius, 'we search in vain to discover what this principle
is.'[6] Dr. Nevius, who had the courage of his opinions, then consulted a
work styled 'Nervous Derangement,' by Dr. Hammond, a Professor in the
Medical School of the University of New York.[7] He found this scientific
physician admitting that we know very little about the matter. He knew,
what is very gratifying, that 'mind is the result of nervous action,'
and that so-called 'possession' is the result of 'material derangements of
the organs or functions of the system.'
Dr. Nevius was ready to admit this latter doctrine in cases of idiocy,
insanity, epilepsy, and hysteria; but then, said he, these are not what I
call possession. The Chinese have names for all these maladies, 'which
they ascribe to physical causes,' but for possession they have a different
name. He expected Dr. Hammond to account for the abnormal conditions in
so-called possession, but 'he has hardly even attempted to do this.' Dr.
Nevius next perused the works of Dr. Griesinger, Dr. Baelz, Professor
William James, M. Ribot, and, generally, the literature of 'alternating
personality.' He found Mr. James professing his conviction that the
'alternating personality' (in popular phrase, the demon, or familiar
spirit) of Mrs. Piper knew a great deal about things which Mrs. Piper, in
her normal state, did not, and could not know. Thus, after consulting many
physicians, Dr. Nevius was none the better, and came back to his faith in
Diabolical Possession. He was therefore informed that he had written 'one
of the most extraordinarily perverted books of the present day' on the
evidence of 'transparent ghost stories'--which do not occur in his book.
The attitude of Dr. Nevius cannot be called strictly scientific. Because
pathologists and psychologists are unable to explain, or give the _modus_
of a set of phenomena, it does not follow that the devil, or a god, or a
ghost, is in it.
But this, of course, was precisely the natural inference of savages.
Dr. Nevius catalogues the symptoms of possession thus:
1. The automatic, persistent and consistent acting out of a new
personality, which calls himself _shieng_ (genius) and calls the patient
_hiang to_ (incense burner, 'medium').
2. Possession of knowledge and intellectual power not owned by the patient
(in his normal state), nor explainable on the pathological hypothesis.
3. Complete change of moral character in the patient.
Of these notes, the second would, of course, most confirm the savage
belief that a new intelligence had entered into the patient. If he
displayed knowledge of the future, or of the remote, the inference that a
novel and wiser intelligence had taken possession of the patient's body
would be, to the savage, irresistible. But the more cautious modern, _even
if he accepted the facts_, would be reduced to no such extreme conclusion.
He would say that knowledge of the remote in space, or in the past, might
be telepathically communicated to the brain of some living person; while,
for knowledge of the future, he could fly, with Hartmann, to contact with
the Absolute.
But the question of evidence for the facts is, of course, the only real
question. Now, in Dr. Nevius's book, this evidence rests almost entirely
on the written reports of native Christian teachers, for the Chinese were
strictly reticent when questioned by Europeans. 'My heathen brother, you
have a sister who is a demoniac?' asks the intelligent European. The reply
of the heathen brother is best left in the obscurity of a remarkably
difficult and copious Oriental language. We are thus obliged to fall back
on the reports of Mr. Leng and other native Christian teachers. They are
perfectly modest and rational in style. We learn that Mrs. Sen, a lady in
her normal state incapable of lyrical efforts, lisped in numbers in her
secondary personality, and detected the circumstance that Mr. Leng was on
his way to see her, when she could not have learned the fact in any normal
way.[8] 'They are now crossing the stream, and will be here when the sun
is about so high;' which was correct. The other witnesses were examined,
and corroborated.[9] Dr. Nevius himself examined Mrs. Kwo, when possessed,
talking in verse, and, physically, limp.[10]
The narratives are of this type; the patient, on recovering consciousness,
knows nothing of what has occurred; Christian prayers are often
efficacious, and there are many anecdotes of movements of objects
untouched.[11]
By a happy accident, as this chapter was passing through the press, a
scientific account of a demoniac and his cure was published by Dr. Pierre
Janet.[12] Dr. Janet has explained, with complete success, everything in
the matter of possession, except the facts which, in the opinion of Dr.
Nevius, were in need of explanation. These facts did not occur in the case
of the demoniac 'exorcised' by Dr. Janet. Thus the learned essay of that
eminent authority would not have satisfied Dr. Nevius. The facts in which
he was interested did not present themselves in Dr. Janet's patient, and
so Dr. Janet does not explain them.
The simplest plan, here, is to deny that the facts in which Dr. Nevius
believes ever present themselves at all; but, if they ever do, Dr. Janet's
explanation does not explain them.
1. His patient, Achille, did _not_ act out a new personality.
2. Achille displayed _no_ knowledge or intellectual power which he did not
possess in his normal state.
3. His moral character was _not_ completely changed; he was only more
hypochondriacal and hysterical than usual.
Achille was a poor devil of a French tradesman who, like Captain Booth,
had infringed the laws of strict chastity and virtue. He brooded on this
till he became deranged, and thought that Satan had him. He was convulsed,
anaesthetic, suicidal, involuntarily blasphemous. He was not 'exorcised'
by a prayer or by a command, but after a long course of mental and
physical treatment. His cure does not explain the cures in which Dr.
Nevius believed. His case did not present the features of which Dr.
Nevius asked science for an explanation. Dr. Janet's essay is the
_dernier cri_ of science, and leaves Dr. Nevius just where it found him.
Science, therefore, can, and does, tell Dr. Nevius that his evidence for
his facts is worthless, through the lips of Professor W. Romaine Newbold,
in 'Proceedings, S.P.R.,' February 1898 (pp. 602-604). And the same
number of the same periodical shows us Dr. Hodgson accepting facts similar
to those of Dr. Nevius, and explaining them by--possession! (p. 406).
Dr. Nevius's observations practically cover the whole field of
'possession' in non-European peoples. But other examples from other areas
are here included.
A rather impressive example of possession may be selected from
Livingstone's 'Missionary Travels' (p. 86). The adventurous Sebituane was
harried by the Matabele in a new land of his choice. He thought of
descending the Zambesi till he was in touch with white men; but Tlapáne,
'who held intercourse with gods,' turned his face west-wards. Tlapáne used
to retire, 'perhaps into some cave, to remain in a hypnotic or mesmeric
state' until the moon was full. Then he would return _en prophète_.
'Stamping, leaping, and shouting in a peculiarly violent manner, or
beating the ground with a club' (to summon those under earth), 'they
induce a kind of fit, and while in it pretend that their utterances are
unknown to themselves,' as they probably are, when the condition is
genuine. Tlapáne, after inducing the 'possessed' state, pointed east:
'There, Sebituane, I behold a fire; shun it, it may scorch thee. The gods
say, Go not thither!' Then, pointing west, he said, 'I see a city and a
nation of black men, men of the water, their cattle are red, thine own
tribe are perishing, thou wilt govern black men, spare thy future tribe.'
So far, mere advice; then,
'Thou, Ramosinii, thy village will perish utterly. If Mokari moves first
from the village, he will perish first; and thou, Ramosinii, wilt be the
last to die.'
Then,
'Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance,'
'The gods have given other men water to drink, but to me they have given
bitter water. They call me away. I go.'[13]
Tlapáne died, Mokari died, Ramosinii died, their village was destroyed
soon after, and so Sebituane wandered westward, not disobedient to the
voice, was attacked by the Baloiana, conquered, and spared them.
Such is 'possession' among savages. It is superfluous to multiply
instances of this world-wide belief, so freely illustrated in the New
Testament, and in trials for witchcraft. The scientific study of the
phenomena, as Littré complained, 'had hardly been sketched' forty years
ago. In the intervening years, psychologists and hypnotists have devoted
much attention to the theme of these 'secondary personalities,' which
Animism explains by the theory of possession. The explanations of modern
philosophers differ, and it is not our business to discuss their
physiological and pathological ideas.[14] Our affair is to ask whether, in
the field of experience, there is any evidence that persons thus
'possessed' really evince knowledge which they could not have acquired
through normal channels? If such evidence exists, the facts would
naturally strengthen the conviction that the possessed person was inspired
by an intelligence not his own, that is, by a spirit. Now it is the firm
conviction of several men of science that a certain Mrs. Piper, an
American, does display, in her possessed condition, knowledge which
she could not normally acquire. The case of this lady is precisely on a
level with that of certain savage or barbaric seers. Thus: 'The Fijian
priest sits looking steadily at a whale's tooth ornament, amid dead
silence. In a few minutes he trembles, slight twitchings of face and limbs
come on, which increase to strong convulsions.... Now the god has
entered.'[15]
In China, 'the professional woman sits at a table in contemplation, till
the soul of a deceased person from whom communication is desired enters
her body and talks through her to the living....'[16]
The latter account exactly describes Mrs. Piper. When consulted she passes
through convulsions into a trance, after which she talks in a new voice,
assumes a fresh personality, and affects to be possessed by the spirit of
a French doctor (who does not know French)--Dr. Phinuit. She then displays
a varying amount of knowledge of dead and living people connected with her
clients, who are usually strangers, often introduced under feigned names.
Mrs. Piper and her husband have been watched by detectives, and have not
been discovered in any attempts to procure information. She was for some
months in England under the charge of the S.P.R. Other ghosts, besides
Dr. Phinuit, ghosts more civilised than he, now influence her, and her
latest performances are said to exceed her former efforts.[17]
Volumes of evidence about Mrs. Piper have been published by Dr. Hodgson,
who unmasked Madame Blavatsky and Eusapia Paladino.[18] He was at first
convinced that Mrs. Piper, in her condition of trance, obtains knowledge
not otherwise and normally accessible to her. It was admitted that her
familiar spirit guesses, attempts to extract information from the people
who sit with her, and tries sophistically to conceal his failures. Here
follow the statements of Professor James of Harvard.
'The most convincing things said about my own immediate household were
either very intimate or very trivial. Unfortunately the former things
cannot well be published. Of the trivial things I have forgotten the
greater number, but the following, _rarae nantes_, may serve as samples
of their class. She said that we had lost recently a rug, and I a
waistcoat. (She wrongly accused a person of stealing the rug, which was
afterwards found in the house.) She told of my killing a grey-and-white
cat with ether, and described how it had "spun round and round" before
dying. She told how my New York aunt had written a letter to my wife,
warning her against all mediums, and then went off on a most amusing
criticism, full of _traits vifs_, of the excellent woman's character.
(Of course, no one but my wife and I knew the existence of the letter in
question.) She was strong on the events in our nursery, and gave striking
advice during our first visit to her about the way to deal with certain
"tantrums" of our second child--"little Billy-boy," as she called him,
reproducing his nursery name. She told how the crib creaked at night, how
a certain rocking-chair creaked mysteriously, how my wife had heard
footsteps on a stair, &c. &c. Insignificant as these things sound when
read, the accumulation of them has an irresistible effect; and I repeat
again what I said before, that, taking everything that I know of Mrs.
Piper into account, the result is to make me feel as absolutely certain as
I am of any personal fact in the world that she knows things in her
trances which she cannot possibly have heard in her waking state, and that
the definitive philosophy of her trances is yet to be found. The
limitations of her trance information, its discontinuity and fitfulness,
and its apparent inability to develop beyond a certain point, although
they end by arousing one's moral and human impatience with the phenomenon,
yet are, from a scientific point of view, amongst its most interesting
peculiarities, since where there are limits there are conditions, and the
discovery of them is always the beginning of an explanation.
'This is all I cam tell you of Mrs. Piper. I wish it were more
"scientific." But _valcat quantum!_ it is the best I can do.'
Elsewhere Mr. James writes:
'Mr. Hodgson and others have made prolonged study of this lady's trances,
and are all convinced that supernormal powers of cognition are displayed
therein. They are, _prima facie_, due to "spirit control." But the
conditions are so complex that a dogmatic decision either for or against
the hypothesis must as yet be postponed.'[19]
Again--
'In the trances of this medium I cannot resist the conviction that
knowledge appears which she has never gained by the ordinary waking use of
her eyes, ears, and wits.
'The trances have broken down, for my own mind, the limits of the admitted
order of nature.'
M. Paul Bourget (who is not superstitious), after consulting Mrs. Piper,
concludes:
'L'esprit a des procédés de connaître non soupçonnés par notre
analyse.'[20]
In this treatise I may have shown 'the will to believe' in an unusual
degree; but, for me, the interest of Mrs. Piper is purely anthropological.
She exhibits a survival or recrudescence of savage phenomena, real or
feigned, of convulsion and of secondary personality, and entertains a
survival of the animistic explanation.
Mrs. Piper's honesty and excellent character, in her normal condition, are
vouched for by her friends and observers in England and America; nor do I
impeach her normal character. But 'secondary personalities' have often
more of Mr. Hyde than of Dr. Jekyll in their composition. It used to be
admitted that, when 'possessed,' Mrs. Piper would cheat when she
could--that is to say, she would make guesses, try to worm information out
of her sitter, describe a friend of his, alive or dead, as 'Ed.,' who may
be Edgar, Edmund, Edward, Edith, or anybody. She would shuffle, and repeat
what she had picked up in a former sitting with the same person; and the
vast majority of her answers started from vague references to probable
facts (as that an elderly man is an orphan), and so worked on to more
precise statements. Professor Macalister wrote:
'She is quite wide-awake enough all through to profit by suggestions. I
let her see a blotch of ink on my finger, and she said that I was a
writer.... Except the guess about my sister Helen, who is alive, there was
not a single guess which was nearly right. Mrs. Piper is not anaesthetic
during the so-called trance, and if you ask my private opinion, it is that
the whole thing is an imposture, and a poor one.'[21]
Mr. Barkworth said that, as far as his experience went, 'Mrs. Piper's
powers are of the ordinary thought-reading [i.e. muscle-reading] kind,
dependent on her hold of the visitor's hand.' Each of these gentlemen had
only one 'sitting.' M. Paul Bourget also informed me, in conversation,
that Mrs. Piper held his hand while she told the melancholy tale connected
with a key in his possession, and that she did not tell the story promptly
and fluently, but very slowly and hesitatingly. Even so, he declared that
he did not feel able to account for her performance.
As these pages were passing through the press, Dr. Hodgson's last report
on Mrs. Piper was published.[22] It is quite impossible, within the space
allotted, to criticise this work. It would be necessary to examine
minutely scores of statements, in which many facts are suppressed as too
intimate, while others are remarkably incoherent. Dr. Hodgson deserves the
praise of extraordinary patience and industry, displayed in the very
distasteful task of watching an unfortunate lady in the vagaries of
'trance.' His reasonings are perfectly calm, perfectly unimpassioned, and
his bias has not hitherto seemed to make for credulity. We must, in fact,
regard him as an expert in this branch of psychology. But he himself makes
it clear that, in his opinion, no written reports can convey the
impressions produced by several years of personal experience. The results
of that experience he sums up in these words:
'At the present time I cannot profess to have any doubt but that the chief
"communicators" to whom I have referred in the foregoing pages are
veritably the personalities that they claim to be, that they have survived
the change we call death, and that they have directly communicated with
us, whom we call living, through Mrs. Piper's entranced organism.'[23]
This means that Dr. Hodgson, at present, in this case, accepts the
hypothesis of 'possession' as understood by Maoris and Fijians, Chinese
and Karens.
The published reports do not produce on me any such impression. As a
personal matter of opinion, I am convinced that those whom I have honoured
in this life would no more avail themselves of Mrs. Piper's 'entranced
organism' (if they had the chance) than I would voluntarily find myself in
a 'sitting' with that lady. It is unnecessary to wax eloquent on this
head; and the curious can consult the writings of Dr. Hodgson for
themselves. Meanwhile we have only to notice that an American 'possessed'
woman produces on a highly educated and sceptical modern intelligence
the same impression as the Zulu 'possessed' produce on some Zulu
intelligences.
The Zulus admit 'possession' and divination, but are not the most
credulous of mankind. The ordinary possessed person is usually consulted
as to the disease of an absent patient. The inquirers do not assist the
diviner by holding his hand, but are expected to smite the ground
violently if the guess made by the diviner is right; gently if it is
wrong. A sceptical Zulu, named John, having a shilling to expend on
psychical research, smote violently at _every_ guess. The diviner was
hopelessly puzzled; John kept his shilling, and laid it out on a much more
meritorious exhibition of animated sticks.[24]
Uguise gave Dr. Callaway an account of a female possessed person with
whom Mrs. Piper could not compete. Her spirit spoke, not from her mouth,
but from high in the roof. It gave forth a kind of questioning remarks
which were always correct. It then reported correctly a number of singular
circumstances, ordered some remedies for a diseased child, and offered to
return the fee, if ample satisfaction was not given.[25]
In China and Zululand, as in Mrs. Piper's case, the spirits are fond of
diagnosing and prescribing for absent patients.
A good example of savage possession is given in his travels by Captain
Jonathan Carver (1763).
Carver was waiting impatiently for the arrival of traders with provisions,
near the Thousand Lakes. A priest, or jossakeed, offered to interview the
Great Spirit, and obtain information. A large lodge was arranged, and the
covering drawn up (which is unusual), so that what went on within might be
observed. In the centre was a chest-shaped arrangement of stakes, so far
apart from each other 'that whatever lay within them was readily to be
discerned.' The tent was illuminated 'by a great number of torches.' The
priest came in, and was first wrapped in an elk's skin, as Highland seers
were wrapped in a black bull's hide. Forty yards of rope made of elk's
hide were then coiled about him, till he 'was wound up like an Egyptian
mummy.'
I have elsewhere shown[26] that this custom of binding with bonds the seer
who is to be inspired, existed in Graeco-Egyptian spiritualism, among
Samoyeds, Eskimo, Canadian Hareskin Indians, and among Australian blacks.