As also before mentioned, there were demons who cohabited with women at night, and sometimes with men, calledincubiandsuccubi, following as they were active, (incubare, to lie upon), or passive, (sub cubare, to lie under).
Calmeil has written, that virgins dedicated to chastity by holy laws were frequently visited by these demons, disguised in the image of Christ, or of an angel, or seraphim. Sometimes the Devil took the form of the Holy Virgin, and attempted to seduce young monks from paths of piety. “Having impressed the victims with the power of beauty,” says the sage alienist,([69]) “the wicked demon then got into the bed of the young girl, or young man, as the case might be, and sought to seduce them through shameful practices. The Gods, so say the ancients, often sought the society of the daughters of Princes; these pretended Gods were nothing but demons. A Devil possessedRhea, under the form of Mars, and this succubus passed for Venus the day Anchises thought he cohabited with the Godess of beauty.
“The demon incubi accosted by preference fallen women, under the form of a black man, or goat. From times immemorial, damned spirits have attacked certain females, under the form of lascivious brutes. Hairy satyrs or shags, fauns and sylvains were only disguised incubi.
The connections between thepossessedandincubiwere often accompanied by a painful sensation of compression in the epigastric region, with impossibility of making the least movement, the victim could not speak or breathe. She had all the phenomena noticeable in an attack of nightmare. Meantime, some had different sensations. A nun of Saint Ursula, named Armella, said that she seemed “always in company with demons who tempted her to surrender her honor. During five months, while this combat lasted, it was impossible to sleep at night, by reason of the specters, who assumed varied and monstrous shapes.”[70]This virtuous nun preserved her chastity notwithstanding the frightful ordeal.
Angele de Foligno accused the incubi, says Martin del Rio, of beating her without pity, of putting fire in her generative organs, and inspiring her with infernal lubricity. There was no portion of her body that was not bruised by the attack of these demons, and the lady was not able to rise from her bed.
Another nun, named Gertrude, cited by Jean Wier, avowed that from the age of fourteen years, she had slept with Satan in person, and that the Devil had made love to her, and often wrote her letters full of the most tender and passionate expressions. A letter was found in this poor nun’s cell, on the 25th of March, 1565. This amorous epistle was full of the details of the Demon’s nocturnal debaucheries.
Bodin, in his “Demonomania” gives the observation of Jeanne Hervillier, who was burned alive, by sentence of the Parliament of Paris. She confessed to her Judges, that she had been presented to the Devil, by her grandmother, at the age of twelve years. “A Devil in the form of a large black man, who dressed in a black suit and rode a black horse. This Devil had carnal intercourse with her, the same as men have with women, only without seed. This sin had been continued every ten, or fifteen days, even after she married and slept with her husband.”
This same author reports many instances of the same kind. Among others, that of Madelaine de la Croix, Abbess of a nunnery in Spain, who went to Pope Paul III., confessing, that from the age of twelve years, she had relations with a demon,in the form of a Moor, and, that for more than thirty years this commerce had been continued. Bodin firmly believes, that this nun had been presented to Satan, “from the belly of her mother,” and affirms that “such copulations are neither illusions, nor diseases.” In his work, he also gives extracts of the interrogatories put to the Sorcerers of Longni, in the presence of Adrien de Fer, Lieutenant General of Laon. These sorcerers were condemned to be burnt at the stake, for having commerce with incubi. He mentions Marguerite Bremond, who avowed that she had been led off one evening, by her own mother, to a reunion of Demons, and “found in this place six devils in human shape, but hideous to behold. After the demon dance was finished, the devils returned to the couches with the girls, and one cohabited with her for the space of half an hour, but she escaped conception, as he was seedless.”
One of the distinctive characters of demons, was their infectious stink, which exhaled from all portions of the body. This odor attributed to the Devil was an hallucination to the sense of smell which entered, like those of the genesic sense, into all the complex hallucinations of Demonomania.
Examples of men cohabiting with demons, are cited by many authors of the Middle Ages. Gregory of Tours has left us the record of Eparchius, Bishop of Auvergne, who cohabited with succubi.
Jerome Cardan, physician and Italian mathematician, tells of a priest who cohabited for over fifty years, with a demon disguised as a woman.
Pic de Mirandolle, relates how another priest had commerce for over forty years with a beautiful succubus, whom he called Hermione. Bodin recounts the story of Edeline, the Prior of a religious communityin Sorbonne. An adversary of Demonomaniacal doctrines, Edeline was accused by the theologians of defending demons. Before the Tribunal the Prior declared that he had been visited by Satan, in the form of a black ram, and had prostituted his body to an incubus, and only obeyed his master in preaching that sorcery was a chimerical invention. “Although the proof furnished by the registers of the Tribunal of Poitiers,” remarks Calmeil, “leaves no doubt as to the alienation of the intellectual faculties at the moment of his trial, Edeline was none the less condemned to perpetual seclusion from the world.”
As another striking example of hallucination, bearing upon this question of incubism, Guibert de Nogent tells of a monk, “who was sick, and retained the services of a Jew doctor. In exchange for health, the aforesaid physician, demanded a sacrifice. ‘What sacrifice?’ asked the monk. ‘The sacrifice of that which is the most precious to men,’ answered the Jew. ‘What may that be?’ inquired the monk. And the demon, for it was the Devil disguised as a doctor, had the audacity to explain. ‘Oh curses! Oh shame! to require such a thing of a priest’—but the victim, nevertheless, did what was asked. It was the denial of Christ and the true faith.”
Like psycho-sensorial hallucinations of the other senses, that of the genesic sense may assume the erotic type of disease, and is due undoubtedly, in some men, to a repletion of the spermatic vesicules. It is this that Saint Andre, physician in ordinary to Louis XIV., gives as an explanation of incubism. “The incubus,”[71]says this writer, “a chimera that had for its foundation only a dream, an over excited imagination, too often a longing after women; artifice had no less a part in the creation of the incubus,—a woman, a girl, only a devotee in name, already long before debauched, but desiring to appear virtuous to hide her crime, passes off the offenses of some lover as the act of a demon; this is the ordinary explanation. In this artifice the woman is often aided by thesuggestionsof the man—a man who has heardsuccubispeaking to him in his sleep, usually sees most beautiful women in his dreams, which, under such circumstances, are often erotic.”
It is certain that an ardent imagination and exaggerated sexual appetite have played a leadingrolein the history ofincubi, but, meantime, there may be exceptions.
Nicholas Remy, Inquisitor of Lorraine, has given a description ofimpuritiescommitted between demons and sorcerers, according to the testimony given by thosepossessed.[72]Fortunately, he has only given a Latin version of what they have told him. He states: “Hic igitur, sive vir incubet, sive succubet fœmina, liberum in utroque naturæ debet esse officium, nihilque omnino intercedere quod id vel minimum moretur atque impediat, si pudor, metus, horror, sensusque, aliquis acrior ingruit; il icet ad irritum redeunt omnia e lumbis affœaque prorsus sit natura.”
Then comes the sentence of the four girls of Vosges, according to the confessions, who were named Nanette, Claudine, Nicola, and Didace, and of whom Nicholas Remy, fortunately for the masses of the profession, only speaks in Latin, lest modesty be shocked at the narration. “Alexia Drigæa recensuit doémoni suo pœnem, cum surrigebat tentum semper extitisse quanti essent subices focarii, quos tum forte præsentes digito demonstrabat; scroto ac coleis nullis inde pendentibus, etc.” (We forbear from further quotation and for fuller particulars refer the reader to the original.)
Were these girls attacked by a malady, a complex hallucination of the senses that led them to firmly believe they were possessed or owned by a supernatural being who obliged them to abdicate their free will in his favor? Were they only, after all, prostitutes suffering from nymphomania? We can only insist that prostitution, or a low standard of morality, enters largely into the history of thosepossessedby incubi.
Aside from imaginaryvigils(Sabbat), supposed to be frequented by those who were really insane, it is well to remember there were numerous houses of prostitution, conducted by old bawds and unscrupulous panderers, where nightly orgies occurred and scenes of wild debauchery were common. The real sorcerers boasted of their magic and their relations withdemons, but, in reality, they knew nothing except the art of compounding stupefying drugs, of which they made every possible use. Having passed their entire lives in vice, their passions, instead of becoming extinct, were exalted by age. “Before ever becoming sorcerers,” remarks Professor Thomas Erastus, “theselamia(magicians) were libidinous and in close relation with the Evil One.”[73]
Pierre Dufour, the celebrated bibliomaniac, made a very lengthy and learned investigation as to the connection of sorcery with the social evil, and reaped a veritable harvest of facts, duly authenticated by the histories of trials for the crime of Demonidolatry, arriving at the conclusion that sorcery made fewer dupes than victims. Says Dufour: “Aside from a very small number of credulous magicians and sorcerers, all who were initiated in the mysteries served, or made others serve, in the abominable commerce of debauchery. Thevigiloffered a fine opportunity as a spot for such turpitudes. Such reunions of hideous companies of libertines and prostitutes was for the profit of certain knaves, and the sorcerers’ assemblage was patronized by many misguided young women, who fell from grace through libidinous fascination.”
Meantime, sorcery persisted always, notwithstanding judgments and executions. In the year 1574, on the denunciation of an old demented hag, eighty peasants were burned alive at Valery, in Savoy. Three years later nearly four hundred inhabitants of Haut-Languedoc perished for the same offense. In 1582 an immense number of so-called sorcerers were executed at Avignon. From 1580 to 1595 nine hundred persons accused of witchcraft were put to death.
In 1609, in the country of Labourde (Basses Pyrenees), the prisons were overcrowded with men, women and children accused of sorcery. Fires for stake-burnt victims lit up all the villages in the Province, and the courts spared no one. Many of these unfortunates accused themselves of believing in the demons of sorcery and having visited diabolical gatherings (vigils), where they had prostituted themselves to incubi. Others, to whom the death penalty was meted out, were innocent persons who had beeninformed against, but these, too, although denying all charges, were condemned to be burnt alive.
The same year some of the inhabitants of the country of Labourde, who had sought refuge in Spain, were accused of having carried demons into Navarre. Five of these unfortunates were burnt at the stake by order of the Inquisition, one woman being strangled and burned after her death. Even bodies were exhumed to be given to the flames. Eighteen persons were permitted to make penance for their alleged sorceries.
During two years, 1615 and 1616, twenty cases of Demonidolatry were punished in Sologne and Berry; these persons were accused of being at a vigil, without having been anointed with frictions however. An old villain, aged seventy-seven years, named Nevillon, pretended to have seen a procession of six hundred people, in which Satan took the shape of a ram, or buck, and paid the sorcerers eight sous, for the murder of a man, and five sous for the murder of a woman. They accused him of having killed animals by the aid of his bewitchings. Nevillon was hung along with those he accused. Another peasant, by the name of Gentil Leclercq, avowed that he was the son of a sorcerer, that he had been baptized at thevigil, by a demon calledAspic; he was condemned to be hanged, and his body was burnt. The same it was in the case of a man called Mainguet and his wife, together with one Antoinette Brenichon, who asserted they had all three visited a witch reunion in company.
An accusation of anthropophagy was launched against the inhabitants of Germany, by Innocent VIII., in 1484, and a hundred women were also accused of having committed murders, and cohabiting with demons.
The Inquisitors inspired the story of Nider, on the Sorceries of the Vaudois. They found, according to the testimony of certain witnesses, that these Vaudois cut the throats of their infants, in order to make magical philters, which would permit them to traverse space to attend thevigilof the witches, (Sorcerers). Other personsaccused themselvesof cohabiting with demons; some pretended they had caused disasters, floods and tempests, by the influence they had through Satan. Many submitted to the most horrible tortures with an insensibility so complete,that the theologians concluded that the fat of the first born males procured this demonological faculty for bearing pain. This general anæsthesia permits us to affirm that these unfortunates were neuropathic.
It would be a difficult matter to establish the exact number of victims offered up to the fanaticism of the Inquisition. Already, in 1436, the inhabitants in the country of Vaud, Switzerland, had been accused of anthropophagy, of eating their own children, in order to satisfy their ferocious appetites. Some one said they had submitted to the Devil, and raised the outcry that they had eaten thirteen persons within a very short time. Immediately the Judge and the Prosecutor of Eude, investigated the story. Failing to obtain the proof of eye witnesses, they subjected, according to Calmeil, hundreds of unfortunates to the tortures of the rack, after which a certain number were burned at the stake. Entire families overpowered by terror, fled from home, and found refuge in more hospitable lands; but fanaticism and death followed them like a plague.[74]
The moral and physical torture, undergone by those who were suspected of this anthropophagical sorcery, made some of the victims confess that they had the power to kill infants, by uttering charm words, and that ointments made of baby fat gave them the power to fly through the air at pleasure; that the practice of Demonic science permitted them to cause cows and sheep to abort, and, that they could make thunder and hail storms, and destroy the crops of others; that they could create flood and pestilence, etc. This was the anthropophagical epidemic of 1436.
The same observations might be made regarding what was known as lycanthrophy, which always arose among the possessed and sorcerers; that is to say crazy people, especially those of the monomaniac type, accused themselves and others with imaginary crimes, in confessions made to judges. As an example, we can cite the case of the peasant, spoken of by Job Fincel, and also one mentioned by Pierre Burgot, of Verdun, who did not hesitate to assert themselves to be guilty of lycanthrophy. They were burned alive at Poligny, but the remains of the five women and children, whose flesh they pretended to have devoured, were never found. In order to transform themselves into wolves, they claimed to use a pomade given them by the Devil; and, while in a certain condition, they copulated with female wolves. Jean Wier has written long essays on this last case of lycomania, and thinks the malady of these two men was due to narcotics, of which they made habitual use; but Calmeil is inclined to consider, that in a general manner, lycomania is a partial delerium confined to homicidal monomaniacs. This appreciation of the case seems justified by the similar one of Gilles Gamier, who was convinced that he had killed four children, and eaten their flesh. He was condemned to be burnt at the stake at Dole, as a wehr-wolf, (loupe garron), and the peasants of the suburbs were authorized by the same order to kill off all men like him. But we must not conclude from this particular instance, that a general law existed on the subject.
In 1603, the Parliament of Bordeaux, thought itself liberal in admitting attenuating circumstantial evidence, in the case of a boy from Roche Chalais, named Jean Grenier, who was accused of lycanthropy, by three young peasants. In the trial, no attempt was made to find evidence, the accused confessed all that was desired, and he was sentenced to imprisonment for life, before which verdict was announced, the Court said, that having taken into consideration the age and imbecility of this patient, who was so stupid that an idiot or child of seven years would know better, it added mercy to the judgment.”
He was then one of the imbeciles of the village, such as we see in asylums for insane, whose presence we rid ourselves of by isolation in charitable institutions.
At the same epoch, in the space of two years, 1598 to 1600, we can count the number of poor wretches of the Jura, whose poverty compelled them to beg nourishment, and who were almost all condemned to death as Demonidolators and lycanthropes. Ready and only too willing to leave this world, these poor people answered all questions as to accusation in the affirmative, and went to death with the greatest indifference. The infamous prosecutor, Bouget, who was sent into the Jura as a criminal agent, boasted that he had executed alone more than six hundred of these innocents.
The Inquistorial terror then reigned supreme; and it was only with extreme difficulty, at that time, that a poor idiot, named Jacques Roulet, condemned to death as a lycanthrope by the criminal Judge of Angers, was placed in an asylum for idiots, by order of the Parliament of Paris; this, too, in the seventeenth century.
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; inecstasy, 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 inimitation(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 rarephenomenon).
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 thatit always attacksby 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 formof 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 principlerolein 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 assaultedeach 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 bepossessed; 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 ofdementia, 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 ofpossessionthrough 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 witchvigilsand cohabited with devils, and that she had also committed sodomy, had intercourse withdogs,horses, andserpents; 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 andsuggestions, she admitted to have been at a witchvigiland 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 byimpulsive insanity, following the expression of Calmeil, but which has been designated by others as theMal 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 thenuns 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 theMal de Lairawas 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, whosuggestedto 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, witnessde 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 womenfell sound asleep, which induces Calmeil to think “the condition of these women resembled closely that ofmagnetic 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 escapedcontortions—when they were to the contrary violently exalted by the nature of these tactile and visceral sensations—they recalled toomuch, 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 arole, 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 thehypothesisof 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 ofhypnotismand ofsuggestion—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 werepossessedby all the demons known to sorcery, what would occur? Let us suppose again that he should carry his physiological power further and put hissubjectsinto 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, bevery interesting.
Let us yet remark that the hystero-demonomaniacalmanifestations 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 bepossessedby 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 beingpossessed, 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 thepossessionof 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 ofsuggestionobserved 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 exorcistsin 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 particularlyin 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, beingcommanded mentallyto make her agitations violent, immediately prostrated herself before the Holy Sacrament, with herbelly 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 mentalsuggestions, perhapsvoluntarily unknownto 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, andvice 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 theappelantsexhibited 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 theconvulsionnairesof 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 ofsuggestionin the Middle Ages, which put an end to sorcery or witchcraft as well as to Jansenism.
Among the phenomena observed in demonomaniacal hysteria there are some, as we have remarked, that modern neurologists have wished topass over in silence, because it was impossible to give a rational explanation. It arose from that mysterious force which acts upon the human personality and its faculties and producessupernatural resultsin contradiction to well known scientific laws, known in one sense asPsychic Force, but which is nothing else thanmodern spiritualism.
This force, a power possessed in a high degree not only by hysterical persons, but all varieties of neuropaths, who are designated asmediumsby spiritual psychologists,cannot be doubted by real scientists to day.
The demonologists of the Middle Ages have often mentioned it in the demonomaniacs,and attributed it to possession by evil spirits; and, if not pathologists,they did not disdain to occupy themselves with something that tends to simplify the study of the physiology of the nervous system; but to minds of the modern type, that consider science as synonymous with truth, it seems strange and incomprehensible that our learned investigators should have been overpowered by the fear of the criticism that might overtake them becausethey cannot explain purely and simply an inexplicable fact, a truth, real positive and certain.
Not being ourselves timorous to this prudence, which is, they claim, one of the conditions,sine qua non, to be a candidate for the Institute of France, we shall now pursue our investigations with the historical documents regarding the medical Middle Age we possess, and thus loyally seek a scientific interpretation for facts observed in modern spiritualism orpsychic force.
Among these documents we will choose as a type the “Trial made to deliver a girl possessed by the Evil Spirit, at Louviers.” This suit, which dates back to 1591, is in reality a series of trials written up by several magistrates, in the presence of numerous witnesses, reporting with precision all facts observed by them—facts interpreted, it is true, with ideas of the demonidolatry of the sixteenth century, but having a character whose authenticity is undisputed, andeven undiscussed. The first trial is thus conceived:[81]
“On Saturday, the 18th day of August, 1591, in the morning at Louviers, in the aforesaid place, before us, Louis Morel, Councillor of the King, Provost General and Marshal of France for the Province of Normandy, holding Court in the service of the King in the villages and castles of Pont de l’Arche and Louviers, with one lieutenant, one recorder, and fifty archers, assisted by Monsieur Behotte, licentiate of law, Judge Advocate and Lieutenant General of Monsieur the Viscount of Rouen, in the presence of Louis Vauquet, our clerk.” * * *
This old document, in French now almost obsolete and difficult of translation,[82]goes on to state that in a house at Louviers, belonging to Mrs. Gay, two officers, belonging to the troops occupying the town, who had temporary quarters with Gay, complained to their commandant that “a spirit in the house mentioned tormented them.” Now, this house was occupied by three ladies: Madame Gay, one of her friends, a widow named Deshayes, and a servant girl called Francoise Fontaine.
Captain Diacre, who was commandant of the village, found on investigation the general disorder of the residence, the furniture turned upside down, the two ladies terrified, and the servant girl with several wounds on her body. The latter was suspected of being in league with the Devil, and was arrested and cast into the prison of the town. On her person was found a purse containing a teston (old French coin), a half teston, and a ten-sous piece. The trial proved nothing. The ladies might have had nightmare, the officers might have been drunk, the noises heard might have been the result of a thousand different causes, but it is necessary to mention this case in order to comprehend the subsequent trials.
The second trial, witnessed, tried, and authenticated by the same authorities, determined the fact that Francoise Fontaine was born at Paris, Faubourg Saint Honore, and that at the age of twenty two years she had already witnessed similar phenomena in a house “haunted,” said she, “by evil spirits that frightened her so much that she went to a neighbor’s to sleep while her mistress was absent from home.” This statement was proved correct in six subsequent trials containing the depositions of Marguerite Prevost, Suzanne Le Chevalier, Marguerite Le Chevalier, and Perrine Fayel.
The following trial states that on Saturday, the 31st of August, 1591, before Louis Morel, Councillor of the King, assisted by his clerk, Louis Vauquet, etc., etc.,
“Came Pierre Alix, first jailer and guard of the prison, who threw himself on his two knees before us, holding the prison keys in his hand, pale and overcome by emotion; for which action we remonstrated, when he stated to our great astonishment that he did not wish to longer act as prison guard, for the reason that the evil spirit that tormented the aforesaid Francoise Fontaine likewise tormented him, and also the prisoners, who desired to break jailand fly in order to save themselves, having a presentement that the aforesaid Francoise Fontaine, was in a dungeon or pit, andthat she had removed a great iron door that had fallen upon her afterwards; and several persons having ran to her along with the jailer found the aforesaid Fontaine acting as though possessed by an evil spirit, with her throat swollen,” etc.
Let us pass over an interminable recital made by Francoise Fontaine to the priests and counsellors of the King, relative todiabolic possession, to which she had been subject all her life. Also, as to the testimony of many witnesses as to her performance while in jail; as, for instance, “the body of Francoise rose in the air about four feet, without being in contact with anything, and she floated towards us in the air,” etc., etc.
Francois Fontaine claimed that she had consented to belong to the Demon, who was “a black man with whom she had cohabited.” Considered from a medical standpoint the girl was a victim to hysterical demonomania.
Let us make a few more extracts from the records of this trial:
“As the aforesaid Fontaine told us these things, being meantime on her two knees before us, who were seated on a raised platform, the aforesaid Fontaine fell forward on her face as though she had been struck from above, and the candles in the chandeliers of the room were extinguished, except those on the clerk’s table, the which were roughly blown upon several times without being put out, when no visible person present was near them to blow, and these candles were raised out of their candlesticks, lighted as they were, and rubbed against the ground in an attempt to extinguish them, and the which were finally extinguished with a great noise, without any human hand appearing near them; the which so astonished the priest, the advocate, the first jailer, the archers guard, who were present, that they retired, leaving us alone, the hour being then nine o’clock at night.
“Finding myself alone, I recommended my soul to God, and exclaimed in a loud voice the words, ‘My God, give me grace not to lose my soul to the Devil, and I command thee O, Demon, by the power I have invoked, to leave the body of Francoise Fontaine! Again I repeat the command!’”
At the same instant the exorcist felt himself seized by the legs, arms and body, and tightly held in the arms of an unknown force, which felt hot and blew a warm breath, while blows were rained on the Judge’s body as though he were beaten by a heavy piece of wood. He was struck on the jaw and under the ear hard enough to draw blood, etc.
At the eleventh trial it was found that Francoise Fontaine was bodily raised out of bed during the night by an unseen force, and this fact is duly authenticated by witnesses.
In the following trial the same phenomena were produced in the church at Louviers, during the mass of exorcism, where:
“Francoise Fontaine floated from the earth into the air, higher than the altar, as though lifted up by the hair by an unseen hand, which quickly alarmed the assistants, who had never before witnessed such an occurrence,” etc.
In presence of these facts Francoise was led back to prison, and it was decided by the clerical council, assisted by two eminent physicians, Roussel and Gautier, to cut off the girl’s hair, as was the custom when witches were arrested.
During this operation, which was performed publically by Dr. Gautier, the same phenomenon was reproduced. For says the veracious old French chronicle: “Francoise est de rechef enleuee en l’air fort hault, la tete en bas, les pieds en hault sans que ses accoustrementz se soient renuersez, au trauers desquelz il sortoit par deuant et par derriere grande quantite d’eaue et fumee puante.”
Like the many preceding trials, with experiments, which are duly attested by magistrates, physicians and the clerk, seven person in all, who witnessed the phenomena, as to material facts, we cannot suspect people whose honesty was never doubted; for it was through their influence that Francoise Fontaine was set at liberty, after all her inexplicable symptoms had disappeared and her nervous malady abated.
In order to render an account of thesupernaturalphenomena observed by early demonographers and attributed to evil spirits, let us briefly glance at the experiments made regardingSpiritualismby a few brave physiologists of our own epoch, who have dared to investigate the analogyexisting between these two orders of phenomena.
Among the modern experimenters who have made a scientific study of this subject—let us call itPsychic Force, if you will—we will mention Mr. Crookes, member of the Royal Society of London, the (English Academy of Sciences), the master mind, the most illustrious in modern science; the discoverer of thallium, radiant matter, photometer of polarization, spectral microscope—a chemist and physicist of the first order, accustomed to the most minute experimental investigations.
The experiments of thissavanthave been arranged by him in three classes, as follows:
Class I.—Movement of weighty bodies with contact, but without mechanical effort.
This movement is one of the most simple forms of the phenomenon observed; it presents degrees that vary from trembling or vibration of the chamber and its contents up to the complete elevation in the air, when the hand is placed above, of a weighty body. We commonly object that when they touch an object put in motion, they push, draw or raise it. I have experimentally proved that this is impossible in a great number of cases; but, as a matter of evidence, I attach little importance to that class of phenomena considered in themselves, and have only mentioned them as a preliminary to other movements of the same kind, but without contact.
“These movements (and I may truly add all other similar phenomena) are generally preceded by a particular breeziness of the air, amounting sometimes almost to a true wind. This air disperses leaves of paper and lowers the thermometer several degrees.
“Under some circumstances, to the subject of which I shall, at some future day, give more details, I have not found any of this air; but the cold was so intense that I can only compare it to that experienced by placing the hand at a short distance from mercury in a state of congelation.” (Crookes).
I have obtained, like the eminent “member of the Royal Society of London,” the movement of weighty bodies by contact very easily, not only lifting massive tables of a weight altogether out of proportion and far superior to the force of a very robust man, but have also seen this furniture move in a given direction; I have even noted a small square table keep time in beating with a determined cadence. This phenomenon, well known to all experimenters, may be reproduced without the assistance of a powerful medium; it was well known in times of antiquity, but is not mentioned in the writings on sorcery during the Middle Ages.
As extraordinary as these facts seem, they are no more singular than those observed by W. Crookes, and very recently by Zoellner,[83]Professor in the University of Leipsic and correspondent of the French Institute, in presence of Professors Fechner, Braune, Weber, Scheibner, and the celebrated surgeon, Thiersch. It was with Slade, an American medium as extraordinary as Home, that Zoellner experimented. These experiments may be thus briefly mentioned:
1. Movements made by psychic force, through the medium of Slade, of a magnet enclosed in a compass box.
2. Blows struck on a table, a knife raised in air, without contact, to the height of a foot.
3. Movement of heavy bodies. Zoellner’s bed was drawn two feet from the wall, Slade remaining seated with his back to the bed, his legs covered and in full view of the experimenters.
4. A fire-screen broken with noise, without contact with the medium, and the fragments thrown five feet.
5. Writing produced on several experimental occasions between two slates belonging to Zoellner, and held well in view.
6. Magnetization of a steel needle.
7. Acid reaction given to neutral substances.
8. Imprints of hands and naked feet on smoked surfaces or surfaces powdered with flour, which did not correspond with the hands and feet of the medium, who remained meantime in full view of the experimenters, while Slade’s feet were covered with shoes.
9. Knots tied in bands of copper sealed at both ends and held in the hands of Slade and Zoellner, etc.
We find the same tests and facts observed by Mr. Crookes and the French experimenters, who, following his example, have sought to account forPsychic Force.
Class II.—Phenomenon of percussion and other analogous noises.
The popular name ofspiritual rappinggives a very poor idea of this class of phenomena. On different occasions during his experiments, Mr. Crookes heard blows of a delicate variety, such as might be produced by the point of a needle; a cascade of sounds, as acute as those coming from an induction coil in full activity; sharp blows or detonations in the air; acute notes of a metallic variety; rasping sounds similar to that heard from a machine with rubbing action; noises like scratching; twittering chirps like a bird, etc.
“I have observed these noises,” says Crookes, “with the majority of mediums, each of whom has a special peculiarity. They were more varied with Mr. Home; but, for force and certainty of result, I have never met a medium who approached Kate Fox. For several months I experimented, it may be said, in an unlimited manner, and verified the different manifestations induced by the presence of this lady, and I especially examined the phenomenon relative to these noises.
“With mediums, it is necessary in general that they be methodically seated for theseancebefore noises are heard, but with Miss Kate Fox it was sufficient to merely place her hand on any object, no matter what, and violent blows were heard, like a triple sound of beating, and sometimes so loud as to be heard at different pieces of furniture in the room.
“In this manner, I have heard these noises on a living tree, on a fragment of glass, on a membrane extended in a frame—for instance, a tambourine—on the top of a cab, and on the edge of the parquet railing in the theatre.
“However, effective contact is not always necessary. I have heard the noise sound inside walls, when the hands and feet of the medium were tightly held; when Miss Fox was seated in a chair; when she was suspended above the platform; finally, when she had fallen on a sofa in a dead faint.
“I have heard these same noises on the harmonica; I have felt them on my shoulder and under my hands; I have heard them on a leaf of paper held between the fingers by the aid of a wire passed through one corner.
“With a perfect knowledge of the numerous theories advanced, in America principally, to explain these knocks or spirit rapping, I have verified them by all methods I could imagine, so that I have acquired a positive conviction as their objective reality, and the absolute certainty that it was impossible to produce these sounds by artifice or some mechanical means.
“An important question is here asked that deserves attention,i.e.‘are these noises governed by an intelligence?’[84]
“From the commencement of my investigations, I have recognized the fact that the power which produced the phenomena, was not simply a fluid force, but thatit is associated with an intelligence, or follows its directions.”
During the three years that I have experimented in psychology with Dr. Puel and his friends, there has been noseancewhere we have not been able to determine more or less important phenomena of percussion. An experiment I love to make is that of striking my fingers on the table, either to imitate the music of a band with drum accompaniment with some known air, and the same sound is immediately produced on the under surface of the piece of furniture, with the same rhythm appearing to be invoked by an invisible hand performing under the table. This phenomenon is manifested sometimes spontaneously upon my demand or that of my assistant. I observed it one evening at my own house for more than a quarter of an hour from, the moment I entered the room; in this case the noise was a rolling, which appeared to arise from the metallic surface of a table. It was a member of my family who called my attention to the abnormal noise, so much the more curious, inasmuch as I could produce it at will, giving shades and variations expressed by the movements of my hand. In order to respond in advance to any objection, I will say it was two o’clock in the morning when this phenomenon was produced, and there was no passing carriages in the street to make any kind of a vibration.