PRODIGIOUS EFFECTS OF IMAGINATION IN THOSE MEN OR WOMEN WHO BELIEVE
THEY HOLD INTERCOURSE WITH THE DEMON.
As soon as we admit it as a principle that angels and demons are
purely spiritual substances, we must consider, not only as chimerical
but also as impossible, all personal intercourse between a demon and a
man, or a woman, and consequently regard as the effect of a depraved
or deranged imagination all that is related of demons, whether incubi
or succubi, and of the _ephialtes_ of which such strange tales are
told.
The author of the Book of Enoch, which is cited by the fathers, and
regarded as canonical Scripture by some ancient writers, has taken
occasion, from these words of Moses,[322] "The children of God, seeing
the daughters of men, who were of extraordinary beauty, took them for
wives, and begat the giants of them," of setting forth that the
angels, smitten with love for the daughters of men, wedded them, and
had by them children, which are those giants so famous in
antiquity.[323] Some of the ancient fathers have thought that this
irregular love of the angels was the cause of their fall, and that
till then they had remained in the just and due subordination which
they owed to their Creator.
It appears from Josephus that the Jews of his day seriously
believed[324] that the angels were subject to these weaknesses like
men. St. Justin Martyr[325] thought that the demons were the fruit of
this commerce of the angels with the daughters of men.
But these ideas are now almost entirely given up, especially since the
belief in the spirituality of angels and demons has been adopted.
Commentators and the fathers have generally explained the passage in
Genesis which we have quoted as relating to the children of Seth, to
whom the Scripture gives the name of _children of God_, to distinguish
them from the sons of Cain, who were the fathers of those here called
_the daughters of men_. The race of Seth having then formed alliances
with the race of Cain, by means of those marriages before alluded to,
there proceeded from these unions powerful, violent, and impious men,
who drew down upon the earth the terrible effects of God's wrath,
which burst forth at the universal deluge.
Thus, then, these marriages between the _children of God_ and the
_daughters of men_ have no relation to the question we are here
treating; what we have to examine is--if the demon can have personal
commerce with man or woman, and if what is said on that subject can be
connected with the apparitions of evil spirits amongst mankind, which
is the principal object of this dissertation.
I will give some instances of those persons who have believed that
they held such intercourse with the demon. Torquemada relates, in a
detailed manner, what happened in his time, and to his knowledge, in
the town of Cagliari, in Sardinia, to a young lady, who suffered
herself to be corrupted by the demon; and having been arrested by the
Inquisition, she suffered the penalty of the flames, in the mad hope
that her pretended lover would come and deliver her.
In the same place he speaks of a young girl who was sought in marriage
by a gentleman of good family; when the devil assumed the form of this
young man, associated with the young lady for several months, made her
promises of marriage, and took advantage of her. She was only
undeceived when the young lord who sought her in marriage informed her
that he was absent from town, and more than fifty leagues off, the day
that the promise in question had been given, and that he never had the
slightest knowledge of it. The young girl, thus disabused, retired
into a convent, and did penance for her double crime.
We read in the life of St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux,[326] that a
woman of Nantes, in Brittany, saw, or thought she saw the demon every
night, even when lying by her husband. She remained six years in this
state; at the end of that period, having her disorderly life in
horror, she confessed herself to a priest, and by his advice began to
perform several acts of piety, as much to obtain pardon for her crime
as to deliver herself from her abominable lover. But when the husband
of this woman was informed of the circumstance, he left her, and would
never see her again.
This unhappy woman was informed by the devil himself that St. Bernard
would soon come to Nantes, but she must mind not to speak to him, for
this abbot could by no means assist her; and if she did speak to him,
it would be a great misfortune to her; and that from being her lover,
he who warned her of it would become her most ardent persecutor.
The saint reassured this woman, and desired her to make the sign of
the cross on herself on going to bed, and to place next her in the bed
the staff which he gave her. "If the demon comes," said he, "let him
do what he can." The demon came; but, without daring to approach the
bed, he threatened the woman greatly, and told her that after the
departure of St. Bernard he would come again to torment her.
On the following Sunday, St. Bernard repaired to the Cathedral church,
with the Bishop of Nantes and the Bishop of Chartres, and having
caused lighted tapers to be given to all the people, who had assembled
in a great crowd, the saint, after having publicly related the
abominable action of the demon, exorcised and anathematized the evil
spirit, and forbade him, by the authority of Jesus Christ, ever again
to approach that woman, or any other. Everybody extinguished their
tapers, and the power of the demon was annihilated.
This example and the two preceding ones, related in so circumstantial
a manner, might make us believe that there is some reality in what is
said of demons incubi and succubi; but if we deeply examine the facts,
we shall find that an imagination strongly possessed, and violent
prejudice, may produce all that we have just repeated.
St. Bernard begins by curing the woman's mind, by giving her a stick,
which she was to place by her side in the bed. This staff sufficed for
the first impression; but to dispose her for a complete cure, he
exorcises the demon, and then anathematizes him, with all the _eclat_
he possibly could: the bishops are assembled in the cathedral, the
people repair thither in crowds; the circumstance is recounted in
pompous terms; the evil spirit is threatened; the tapers are
extinguished--all of them striking ceremonies: the woman is moved by
them, and her imagination is restored to a healthy tone.
Jerome Cardan[327] relates two singular examples of the power of
imagination in this way; he had them from Francis Pico de Mirandola.
"I know," says the latter, "a priest, seventy-five years of age, who
lived with a pretended woman, whom he called Hermeline, with whom he
slept, conversed, and conducted in the streets as if she had been his
wife. He alone saw her, or thought he saw her, so that he was looked
upon as a man who had lost his senses. This priest was named Benedict
Beina. He had been arrested by the Inquisition, and punished for his
crimes; for he owned that in the sacrifice of the mass he did not
pronounce the sacramental words, that he had given the consecrated
wafer to women to make use of in sorcery, and that he had sucked the
blood of children. He avowed all this while undergoing the question.
Another, named Pineto, held converse with a demon, whom he kept as his
wife, and with whom he had intercourse for more than forty years. This
man was still living in the time of Pico de Mirandola.
Devotion and spirituality, when too contracted and carried to excess,
have also their derangements of imagination. Persons so affected often
believe they see, hear, and feel, what passes only in their brain, and
which takes all its reality from their prejudices and self-love. This
is less mistrusted, because the object of it is holy and pious; but
error and excess, even in matters of devotion, are subject to very
great inconveniences, and it is very important to undeceive all those
who give way to this kind of mental derangement.
For instance, we have seen persons eminent for their devotion, who
believed they saw the Holy Virgin, St. Joseph, the Saviour, and their
guardian angel, who spoke to them, conversed with them, touched the
wounds of the Lord, and tasted the blood which flowed from his side
and his wounds. Others thought they were in company with the Holy
Virgin and the Infant Jesus, who spoke to them and conversed with
them; in idea, however, and without reality.
In order to cure the two ecclesiastics of whom we have spoken, gentler
and perhaps more efficacious means might have been made use of than
those employed by the tribunal of the Inquisition. Every day
hypochondriacs, or maniacs, with fevered imaginations, diseased
brains, or with the viscera too much heated, are cured by simple and
natural remedies, either by cooling the blood, and creating a
diversion in the humors thereof, or by striking the imagination
through some new device, or by giving so much exercise of body and
mind to those who are afflicted with such maladies of the brain that
they may have something else to do or to think of, than to nourish
such fancies, and strengthen them by reflections daily recurring, and
having always the same end and object.
Footnotes:
[322] Gen. vi. 1, 2.
[323] Athenagorus and Clem. Alex. lib. iii. & v. Strom. & lib. ii.
Pedagog.
[324] Joseph. Antiq. lib. i. c. 4.
[325] Justin. Apolog. utroque.
[326] Vita St. Bernard, tom. i. lib. 20.
[327] Cardan, de Variet. lib. xv. c. lxxx. p. 290.