This disease is perhaps the most distressing species of insanity; since,
with the exception of the miserable belief of being possessed by the evil
spirit, the patient is often in full possession of his other faculties,
and will even endeavour to reason with his attendants, with some apparent
plausibility, on the very aberration that constitutes the malady.
The word 'daemon' among the ancients was not considered as specific of an
evil spirit; on the contrary, it signified genius, intellect, mind.
[Greek: Daimonion], from [Greek: daimon], meant wisdom, science. The first
notions of daemons were probably brought from Chaldea, whence they spread
amongst the Persians, Egyptians, and Greeks. Gales maintains that the
original institution of daemons was an imitation of the Messiah. The
Phoenicians called them _Baalim_. So far do these early opinions
prevail, that among the Anabaptists we find a sect called Daemoniac, who
believe that devils shall be saved at the end of the world.
Plato gave the name of daemons to the benevolent spirits who regulated the
universe. The Chaldeans and Jews considered them as the causes of all
human maladies. Saul was agitated by an evil spirit, and Job and Joram
suffered under a similar visitation.
Daemonomania differs widely from the mental disease called Theomania. In
the latter state of insanity the patient fancies that he is placed in
communication with the Deity or his angels; in the former, he feels
convinced that he has become the prey of the destroyer of mankind.
Under the head of "Unlawful Cures," instances are related of the firm
belief in the power of evil spirits to cause various diseases. Perhaps the
origin of daemonomania may be traced to fanatical persecution; never was
the malady so common as during the denunciations of Calvin, when torture
was frequently resorted to, to make the victims of bigotry renounce a
supposed pact with the devil. D'Agessau was right when, in advising the
parliament of Paris to repeal all statutes against sorcery, he recommended
that daemoniacs should be handed over to the physician, instead of the
priest or the executioner.
The sufferings which daemoniacs say they endure must be excruciating; so
powerful is moral influence over our physical sensations. They will tell
you that the devil is drawing them tight, and suffocating them with a
cord; that he is pinching and lacerating their entrails, burning and
tearing their heart, pouring hot oil or molten lead in their veins, while
internal flames are consuming them. Their strength is exhausted, their
digestive functions impaired, their appearance soon becomes miserable in
the extreme, their countenances pale and haggard: the wretched creatures
endeavour to conceal themselves during their scanty meals, or their
attempts to enjoy a broken slumber; they are persuaded that they no longer
possess a corporeal existence that requires refection or repose,--the evil
spirit has borne away their bodies, the devil requires no earthly support;
they even deny their sex: they are doomed to live for ever in constant
agony. These unfortunate creatures are mostly women. One of them asserts,
with horrid imprecations, that she has been the devil's wife for a million
of years, and had borne him a numerous family; her body is nothing but a
sack made of a devil's skin, and filled with their offsprings in the shape
of devouring snakes, toads, and venomous reptiles. She exclaims that her
husband constantly urges her to commit murder, theft, and every imaginable
crime; and sometimes with bitter tears supplicates her keeper to put on a
strait waistcoat, to prevent her from doing evil. Another woman,
forty-eight years of age, assures us that she has two devils who have
taken up their residence in both her hips, and have grown up to her ears:
one of them is black and yellow, the other black, both in the shape of
cats. She fills her ears with snuff and grease to satisfy their diabolical
cravings. She eats with voracity, but is a perfect skeleton in appearance;
the devils consume all, and leave her nothing. They constantly bid her to
go and drown herself; but she cannot obey them, since eternity is her
doom. They are scarcely sensible of painful agents, and are unconscious of
heat, cold, or the inclemency of the weather. Their perspiration,
frequently profuse, exhales a most unpleasant odour; hence the vulgar
fancy that they smell of the lower regions. This circumstance is the usual
consequence of many nervous affections, and arises, most probably, from
the foulness of the breath, a natural result of impaired digestion, and
from a peculiar acrimony of the cutaneous secretions.
Pinel relates the case of a missionary whose enthusiastic aberrations led
him into the horrible belief, that he could only be saved from eternal
torments, by what he called a _baptism of blood_. This fatal mania induced
him to attempt the life of his wife, who was fortunate to escape from the
danger, after he had immolated two of his children, to secure their
salvation! Tried for this crime he was sentenced to perpetual confinement
in Bicetre. In his dungeon he fancied himself the _fourth person in the
trinity_, maintained that he was sent upon earth to baptize with blood,
and all the power of the universe could not affect his life. During ten
years' confinement this miserable wretch, betrayed the same insanity
whenever religious subjects were touched upon, in all other matters, he
reasoned most soundly. His lucid intervals at last became so long in their
duration and calm, that it was questioned whether he might not be
liberated--until on a Christmas eve, his sanguinary monomania resumed all
its intensity, and having by some means or other obtained possession of a
leather-cutter's knife, he inflicted a desperate wound on one of his
keepers, and cut the throat of two patients who were near them; many other
inmates of the establishment would, no doubt, have been sacrificed by the
desperate maniac had he not been secured. This case might decidedly be
considered one of true daemonomania.
It has been generally remarked that cases of daemonomania are more common
amongst women than in men. Their greater susceptibility to nervous
affections, their warmth of imagination and strong passions, which habit
and education compel them to restrain, produce a state of concentration
that must cause increased excitement, and render them more liable to those
terrific impressions that constitute the disease. These terrors, from
false notions of the Deity, make them anticipate in this world the
sufferings denounced in the next. One woman has been known to become
daemonomaniac after an intense perusal of the Apocalypse, and another by
the constant reading of the works of Thomas a Kempis. Women, moreover, at
certain critical periods are subject to great mental depression, which
they have not the power to relieve by exciting pursuits, like men.
Melancholy succeeds a dull sameness. Religion, viewed in a false light,
becomes her refuge; more especially at an advanced period of life, when
loss of youth and beauty is bitterly felt, as galled vanity compares the
present with the past. Hysteric symptoms are now developed: the passions,
which are too frequently increased even to intensity, rather than cooled,
by years, prompt her to rebellious thoughts that religion and virtuous
feelings strive to restrain; and these powerful agents, acting upon a
predisposition morbidly impressionable from ignorance or the errors of
education, accelerate the invasion of this cruel malady. Jacobi informs
us, that this is still the character which, in some catholic countries,
insanity connected with superstition frequently assumes.
Pliny tells us that women are the best subjects for magical experiments;
Quintilian is of the same opinion: Saul consults a witch; Bodin, in his
calculations, estimates the proportion between wizards and witches as one
to fifty. It is, perhaps, owing to these remarks that many ungenerous
writers have denied _women_ a soul, as not belonging to _mankind_. There
exists a curious anonymous work, published at the close of the sixteenth
century, to prove that women are not men, or, in other words, reasonable
creatures, and entitled "_Dissertatio perjucunda qua Anonymus probare
nititur Mulieres homines non esse_." Our author upon this principle
endeavours to show that women cannot be saved. One Simon Geddicus, a
Lutheran divine, wrote a serious confutation of this libel upon the fair
sex, in 1595, and promises the ladies an expectation of salvation on their
good behaviour. According to a popular tradition among the Mahometans,
women are excluded from paradise: St. Augustin, however, calls them the
_devout sex_; and in the prayer to the Virgin of the Romish Church we find
"_Intercede pro devoto foemineo sexu_." An hypothesis still more absurd
was broached by a Doctor Almaricus, a theological Parisian writer of the
twelfth century, who advanced that, had it not been for the original sin,
every individual of our species would have come into existence a complete
man; and that God would have created them by himself, as he created Adam.
Our worthy doctor was a disciple of Aristotle, who maintained that woman
was a defective animal, and her generation purely fortuitous and foreign
to nature. Howbeit, my fair readers will learn with satisfaction that the
doctrines of this aforesaid Almaricus were condemned by the church as
heretical, and his bones were therefore dug up, and cast into a common
sewer, as an _amende honorable_ to the offended ladies.
"A woman," says one of the primitive fathers of the church, "went to the
play, and came back with the devil in her; whereupon, when the unclean
spirit was urged and threatened, in the office of exorcising, for having
dared to attack one of the faithful, 'I have done nothing,' replied he,
'but what is very fair; I found her on my own grounds, and I took
possession of her.'"
St. Cyprian informs us, that when he was studying magic, he was
particularly intimate with the devil. "I saw the devil himself," he says;
"embraced him; I conversed with him, and was esteemed one of those who
held a principal rank about him." Who can doubt the assertion of a saint!
It appears, that in those wonderful days the devil usually wore a black
gown, with a black hat; and it was observed that, whenever he was
preaching, his _glutei muscles_ were as cold as ice.
At all times satire has endeavoured to make invidious distinctions between
the sexes: this is not fair. Women are generally what men have made them.
In a physical, and, consequently, to a certain degree in a moral point of
view, their organization is essentially different from ours; therefore, a
masculine woman is as intolerable as an effeminate man. The education of
females tends in a great measure to increase that susceptibility to
trifling excitements, which in after-life urges them to the extremes of
good or evil. While the toys and amusements of boys are of a manly nature,
a girl is taught to practise upon her darling doll all the arts which a
few years after she will practise upon herself. Many intelligent writers
have doubted the expediency of giving woman any education beyond the
sphere of her domestic pursuits and occupations; Erasmus wrote largely on
this subject to Budaeus. Vives treats of it in his _Institutio foeminae
Christianae_; and a German authoress, Madame Schurman, has published a
treatise on the problem, "_Num foeminae Christianae conveniat studium
literarum?_"
It is this nervous flexibility in women that exposes them to that constant
succession of emotions which are expressed by a rapid transition from
tears to smiles; and, anomalous as it may appear, they are more exposed to
fond impressions in their grief than at any other moment; they then feel
more helpless, and stand in greater need of consolation. The story of the
Matron of Ephesus is not so great a libel on the sex as one might imagine.
Their mind is prone to romantic enthusiasm; they delight in the
extraordinary, the terrible, and as Madame de Sevigne, who well knew her
sex, expresses it, they enjoy in chivalric tales _les grands coups
d'epee_. Prudence preventing them too frequently from expressing their
thoughts, thinking becomes more intense; and Publius Syrus has said,
"_Mulier quae sola cogitat, male cogitat_:" but when the suppressed volcano
bursts forth, its eruptions are boundless; it is then that one may
exclaim, "_Notumque fuerit quid foemina possit_." No passion is more
overwhelming than when it has been kept down by dissimulation; opportunity
is their curse: Montaigne has too truly said, "_Oh le furieux avantage que
l'opportunite_!" and our Denham has beautifully illustrated its fearful
circumstances:
Opportunity, like a sudden gust,
Hath swell'd my calmer thoughts into a tempest.
Accursed opportunity!
That works our thoughts into desires; desires
To resolutions; those being ripe and quickened,
Thou giv'st them birth, and bring'st them forth to action.
It is a perilous ordeal for such to whom the lines of Ovid might apply,
Quae, quia non liceat, non facit; illa facit.
To what prejudice against women are we to trace their sex having been
chosen to represent the Furies, stern and inexorable ministers of Divine
wrath; the Harpies, who defiled all they touched; the perilous Sirens;
unless it be to woman's fascinations in youth, and envious bitterness in
old age--the conventional type of witchcraft? This unhappy selection of
woman for working _malefices_ has been attributed to the facility which
the devil found in tempting Eve. A witch is supposed by the most learned
in the black art to be in compact with Satan, whom she is obliged to obey;
whereas a sorcerer commands the devil himself by his knowledge of charms
and invocations, but more especially of perfumes that the evil spirits
delight in when properly suffumigated, or abhor when maliciously given
them to smell. Thus the burning of a fish's liver by Tobit drove the devil
into the remote parts of Egypt; and Lilly informs us, that one Evans
having raised a spirit at the request of Lord Bothwell and Sir Kenelm
Digby, and forgotten his favourite fumigation or incense, the angry elf
whipped him up, and carried him from his house in the Minories to
Battersea Causeway.
Although fairies are mostly considered juvenile, and many of their kind
acts are recorded, yet are they in general mischievous imps; Mr. Lewis
describes those he saw in the silver and lead mines of Wales, as only
being about half a yard high. As a punishment for their vagaries, all
their children are stunted and idiotic; and this accounts for their
abominable custom of substituting their own "base elfin breed" for healthy
infants. Hence are idiots commonly called changelings.
Daemoniacs are prone to commit suicide, less from their loathing an irksome
life than through fear, not of future torments, but of the renewal or the
continuance of their worldly sufferings. Perhaps they may entertain some
doubts as to the punishment of another existence, while their actual
condition is intolerable; we not unfrequently see desperate men rushing to
meet the very fate they dread.
Daemonomania may be referred to a false view of divine justice,--ignorance,
and consequent weakness of intellect,--and a pusillanimous apprehension of
perhaps a merited chastisement. It is a disease which seldom admits of a
cure. If the consolations of true religion are proffered, they are either
spurned with anger, or merely produce an evanescent melioration. Zacutus
relates the case of a daemoniac who was cured by a person who appeared to
her in the form of an angel, to inform her that her sins had been
forgiven: it is possible that stratagems of a similar nature might
prevail. I attended a monomaniac lady in Paris, who fancied herself in
Jerusalem on the eve of its destruction. She furiously opposed all
endeavours to move her from her residence; and it was only by personating
a Jewish rabbi, and offering to take her to New Jerusalem as a place of
refuge, that she consented to accompany me in a carriage to a _maison de
sante_ near the capital. Here imagination subdued imagination. I have had
the pleasure to hear that ever since I thus succeeded in breaking a link
in the morbid association of her fancies, her state of mind rapidly
improved, and that she is now restored to perfect sanity.
Daemonomania has been known to be epidemic. From 1552 to 1554 no less than
eighty-four persons became possessed in Rome. The endeavours of a French
monk to exorcise them proved of no avail; and as most of the unfortunate
victims of credulity were Jewesses who had consented to be baptized, the
Jews were of course accused of sorcery. About the same period a similar
disease broke out in a convent near Kerndrop, in Germany, when all the
nuns were possessed, and denounced their cook, who, having confessed that
she was a witch, was duly burnt alive with her mother.
Daemonomania has been considered an hereditary visitation, and whole
families have therefore been deemed in pact with the evil one. Insanity is
unfortunately known to attach itself to certain generations; but perhaps
it has not been sufficiently observed, when endeavouring to account for
this melancholy fact, that the mind becomes gradually influenced by the
nature of the constant conversation we daily and hourly are exposed to
hear; and it is not impossible but that this transmission of mental
disease may be attributed to morbid moral and physical sympathies, which
might be avoided by withdrawing the persons exposed to it from the sphere
of their action. Constant anxious thoughts and painful reflections tend to
produce an increased sensorial power in the brain, with a diminished
sensibility to external impressions. So great has been this effect upon
the senses, that maniacs have been seen to gaze upon the meridian sun
without any sensible effect on the organs of vision. It is therefore
possible that an individual who beholds with incessant horror insanity in
his family, or who constantly hears of their aberrations, may ultimately
experience a similar peculiarity of the mind: hence wit as well as madness
have been known to be the heir-looms of a race. Although the examples of
vice, one might imagine, would inspire a love for virtuous actions, yet we
daily see profligacy the characteristic of an entire family; and there are
names which have been rendered by misconduct synonymous with depravity.
This sad fact can only be attributed to natural temperament, whether it be
sanguine or melancholic. It has been observed that our constitutions
exercise a control over diseases, that modifies them in a peculiar manner.
The more acute the sensibility, the greater is the predisposition to
insanity. Warm and ungovernable passions will drive one female into all
the horrid excesses of nymphomania, while the timid hypochondriac and
hysteric woman will gradually sink into a morose or a malevolent
despondency. Burton attributes daemonomania to other causes, and tells us
that the devil is so cunning that he is able to deceive the very elect;
and, to compel them the more to stand in awe of him, he sends and cures
diseases, disquiets their minds, torments and terrifies their souls, to
make them adore him; and all his study, all his endeavour, is to divert
them from true religion to superstition; and because he is damned himself,
and is in error, he would have all the world participate of his errors,
and be damned with him.
Amongst the various motives that induced the evil one to pay his sinister
visits to frail mortality, that of inflicting upon them a salutary, or a
vexatious fustigation, is frequently recorded by the fathers and other
writers. It was more especially upon the backs of saints that this
castigation took place. St. Athanasius informs us that St. Anthony was
frequently flagellated by the devil. St. Jerome states that St. Hilarius
was often whipped in a similar manner; and he calls the devil "a wanton
gladiator," and thus describes his mode of punishment: "Insidet dorso ejus
festivus gladiator; et latera calcibus, cervicem flagello verberans."
Grimalaicus, a learned divine, confirms the fact in the following passage:
"Nonnumquam autem et aperta impugnatione grassantes, daemones humana
corpora verberant, sicut B. Antonio fecerant." St. Francis of Assisa
received a dreadful flogging from the devil the very first night he came
to Rome, which caused him to quit that city forthwith. Abbe Boileau's
remarks on this circumstance savour not a little of impiety and
freethinking, for he says, "It is not unlikely that, having met with a
colder reception than he judged his sanctity entitled him to, he thought
proper to decamp immediately, and when he returned to his convent told the
above story to his brother monks." Howbeit, Abbe Boileau is no authority,
and it is to be feared that, partaking of the satirical disposition of his
brother, he sacrificed piety to wit; for it is well known, beyond the
power of sceptic doubts, that the aforesaid saint's assertion cannot
possibly be impugned by proper believers. His power over the fiery
elements was established; whereby he possessed the faculty of curing
erysipelas, honoured by the appellation of St. Anthony's fire. In the like
manner St. Hubert cured hydrophobia, and St. John the epilepsy.
It is, however, pleasing to know that it was not always that the beatified
succumbed to these Satanic pranks, and many instances are recorded of the
devil's being worsted in these sacrilegious amusements, as fully appears
in the history of the blessed Cornelia Juliana, in whose room, one day,
says her history, "the other nuns heard a prodigious noise, which turned
out to be a strife she had had with the devil, whom, after having laid
hold of him, she fustigated most unmercifully; then, having him upon the
ground, she trampled upon him with her foot, and ridiculed him in the most
bitter manner (_lacerabat sarcasmis_)." This occurrence is
incontrovertible, being affirmed by that learned and pious Jesuit,
Bartholomew Fisen.
This partiality of devils for flagellation can most probably be attributed
to their horribly jealous disposition; for it is well known that the
saints took great delight in fustigating, not only those who offended
them, but their most faithful votaries. Flagellation was therefore the
most grateful punishment that could be inflicted to propitiate the
beatified; and we have several well-authenticated facts which prove that
the Virgin was frequently appeased by this practice. Under the pontificate
of Sextus IV., a heterodox professor of divinity, who had written against
the tabernacle, was flogged publicly by a pious monk, to the great
edification of the by-standers, more particularly the ladies. The
description of this operation would lose materially by translation, I
therefore give it in the original. "Apprehendens ipsum revolvit super ejus
genua; erat enim valde fortis. Elevatis itaque pannis, quia ille minister
contra sanctum Dei tabernaculum locutus fuerat, coepit cum palmis
percutere _super quadrata tabernacula_ quae erant nuda, non enim habebat
_femoralia vel antiphonam_; et quia ipse infamare voluerat beatam
Virginem, allegando forsitan Aristotelem in libro priorum, iste praedicator
_illum confutavit legendo in libro ejus posteriorum_: de hoc autem omnes
qui aderant gaudebant. Tunc exclamavit _quaedam devota mulier_, dicens,
'_Domine Praedicator, detis ei alios quatuor palmatus pro me_; et alia
postmodum dixit, 'Detis ei etiam quatuor; sicque _multae aliae_ rogabant,
ita quod si illarum petitionibus satisfacere voluisset, per totum diem
aliud facere non potuisset."
We need not seek for similar instances of the mighty power of proper
fustigation in foreign parts. The Annals of Wales record a singular
instance of the kind, which happened in the year 1188, as related by
Silvester Gerald, in such a circumstantial manner that the most obdurate
incredulity alone could doubt the fact:--"On the other side of the river
Humber," he says, "in the parish of Hoeden, lived the rector of that
church, with his concubine. This concubine, one day, sat rather
imprudently on the tomb of St. Osanna, sister to King Osred, which was
made of wood, and raised above the ground in the shape of a seat: when she
attempted to rise from that place, she stuck to the wood in such a manner
that she could not be parted from it, till, in the presence of the people
who flocked to see her, she had suffered her clothes to be torn from her,
and had received a severe discipline on her naked body, and that too to a
great effusion of blood, and with many tears and devout supplications on
her part; which done, and after she had engaged to submit to further
penitence, she was divinely released."
In this instance, as in many others, freedom from vulgar habiliments
appears to have been considered as acceptable to Heaven; so much so,
indeed, that the state of greater or lesser nudity has been commensurate
with the degree of the offence. The Cynic philosophers of Greece, among
whom Diogenes made himself most conspicuous, used to appear in public
without a rag upon them. The Indian wise men, called Gymnosophists, or
naked sages, indulged in the same vagaries. In more modern times, the
Adamites appeared in the simple condition of our first father. In the 13th
century, a sect called _Les Turlupins_ (a denomination which appears to
have been an opprobrious nickname), perambulated France, disencumbered of
vain accoutrements; and, in 1535, some Anabaptists made an excursion in
Amsterdam in the condition in which they had quitted their baths, for
which breach of decorum the impious burgomasters had them bastinadoed. We
further read of one Friar Juniperus, a worthy Franciscan, who, according
to history, "entered the town of Viterboo, and, while he stood within the
gate, he put his hose on his head, and his gown being tied round his neck
in the shape of a load, he walked through the streets of the town, where
he suffered much abuse and maltreatment from the wicked inhabitants; and,
still in the same situation, he went to the convent of the brothers, who
all exclaimed against him, but he cared little for them, _so holy was the
good little brother_ (_tam sanctus fuit iste fraticellus_)."
The pranks of brother Juniper have been performed at sundry periods by
various holy men. Are we not warranted in conceiving that these
individuals were daemonomaniacs? for surely the devil alone could have
inspired them with such fancies, although Cardinal Damian defends the
practice in the following terms, when speaking of the day of judgment:
"Then shall the sun lose its lustre, the moon shall be involved in
darkness; the stars shall fall from their places, and all the elements be
confounded together: of what service then will be to you those clothes and
garments with which you are now covered, and which you refuse to lay
aside, to submit to the exercise of penitence?"
It must be remarked, in extenuation of these exhibitions, that they were
accompanied by flagellation; which sometimes bore a close analogy to those
of the Saturnalia and Lupercalia, and the discipline of the flagellants
was not always dissimilar to that of the Luperci.
To resume: Daemonomania may be considered the result of a morbid condition
of the mind, and the dread of supernatural agency. The belief of an
incarnation of the devil leads to the natural apprehension of his having
taken possession of our bodies, when a credulous creature fancies that he
has fallen into his snares, and forsaken the ways of the Omnipotent. This
sad delusion has been admirably illustrated by Sir Walter Scott in his
curious and learned Demonology. "It is, I think," says he, "conclusive
that mankind, from a very early period, have their minds prepared for such
events (supernatural occurrences) by the consciousness of the existence of
a spiritual world. But imagination is apt to intrude its explanations and
inferences founded on inadequate evidence. Sometimes our violent and
inordinate passions, originating in sorrow for our friends, remorse for
our crimes, our eagerness of patriotism, or our deep sense of
devotion,--these, or other violent excitements of a moral character, in
the visions of the night, or the rapt ecstasy of the day, persuade us that
we witness with our eyes and ears an actual instance of that supernatural
communication, the possibility of which cannot be denied. At other times
the corporeal organs impose upon the mind, while the eye and the ear,
diseased, deranged, or misled, convey false impressions to the patient.
Very often both the mental delusion and the physical deception exist at
the same time; and men's belief of the phenomena presented to them,
however erroneously, by the senses, is the firmer and more readily
granted, that the physical impressions corresponded with the mental
excitement."
From the foregoing observations we may venture to conclude, that an
individual who gives credence to apparitions will also believe in the
incarnation of the devil. In both cases we infer that spiritual beings can
assume corporeal forms; and, although we may not presume to question the
possibility of such appearances when it may please the Omnipotent so to
will it, to believe in possession is actually to admit that the devil is a
spiritual being endowed with specific attributes and powers, and acting
either independently or with the consent of the Almighty. This admission
would to a certain extent border on the heresy of the Manicheans, who
believed, with the heresiarch Cubricus, that there existed a good and an
evil principle coeternal and independent of each other. We find in Holy
Writ that indulgence was granted to Satan to visit the earth. But the
period when miraculous power ceased, or rather was withdrawn from the
church, is not determined. The Protestants bring it down beneath the
accession of Constantine, while the Roman Catholic clergy still claim the
power of producing or procuring supernatural manifestations when it suits
their purpose; but, as Scott justly observes, it is alike inconsistent
with the common sense of either Protestant or Roman Catholic, that fiends
should be permitted to work marvels, which are no longer exhibited on the
part of religion.
Cullen's opinion on this disease is worthy of remark. He says, "I do not
allow that there is any true daemonomania, because few people nowadays
believe that demons have any power over our bodies or our minds; and, in
my opinion, the species recorded are either a species of melancholy or
mania,--diseases falsely referred by the spectators to the power of
demons,--feigned diseases,--or diseases partly real or partly feigned."
Esquirol, moreover, justly observes, that "in modern times the punishments
that the priest denounces have ceased to influence the minds and the
conduct of men, and governments have recourse to restraints of a
different kind. Many lunatics express now as much dread of the tribunals
of justice, as they formerly entertained of the influence of stars and
demons."
We frequently meet with despondent monomaniacs labouring under the fatal
delusion of having forfeited all hopes of salvation, and being in fact
inevitably doomed to perdition, but who are apparently of sound mind when
touching upon other subjects. The case of one Samuel Brown was peculiarly
striking. This unfortunate man, at a period when all his intellectual
faculties were in full vigour, fancied that his rational soul had
gradually succumbed under divine displeasure, and that he solely enjoyed
an animal life in common with brutes.
Esquirol affirms that this form of lunacy is of rare occurrence, and that
out of upwards of 20,000 insane persons whom he has observed, scarcely one
case of daemonomania could be found in a thousand, and these were amongst
the lowest and most uneducated classes of society. The most powerful charm
to withstand the efforts of the evil spirit, is the following one
generally made use of in Livonia.
_Two eyes have seen thee--may three eyes deign to cast a favourable look
upon thee, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost._