Footnotes:[Skip]

I conclude this chapter with one more attempt to avoid misunderstanding. For purposes of clarity it will be necessary to consider various factors out of relation to other factors. But it should hardly need pointing out that in actual life such a separation does not obtain. The organism functions as a whole; each part acts upon and is acted upon by every other part.Life in action is a synthesis, and one resorts to analysis only for the purpose of more adequate comprehension. It is not, moreover, pretended that any one of the factors described in the following pages will explain religion, nor even that all of them combined will do so. The origin of the religious idea is a quite different enquiry, and is adequately dealt with in the writings of men like Tylor, Frazer, Spencer, and other representatives of the various schools of anthropologists. My present purpose is of a more restricted kind. It is that of tracing the operation of various processes, some normal, but most of them abnormal, that have in all ages been accepted as evidence for the supernatural. That the religious idea has been associated with these processes, and that for multitudes they have served as strong evidence of its truth, cannot be denied. And an examination of this aspect of the history of religion ought not to be ignored, however unpalatable such a study may be to certain supersensitive minds.

Footnotes:[Skip][1]Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 11-3.[2]Varieties, p. 14.[3]Religions of Primitive Peoples, p. 50.[4]Page 288.[5]Page 410.[6]Page 387.[7]Page 370.[8]Varieties, p. 4.[9]"The hypothesis of faculties ... must be regarded as productive of much error in psychology. It has led to the false supposition that mental activity, instead of being one and the same throughout its manifold phases, is a juxtaposition of totally distinct activities, answering to a bundle of detached powers, somehow standing side by side, and exerting no influence on one another. Sometimes this absolute separation of the parts of mind has gone so far as to personify the several faculties as though they were distinct entities."—Sully,Outlines of Psychology, p. 26.[10]Varieties, p. 478.[11]The Blot upon the Brain, p. 4.[12]The Blot upon the Brain, p. 16.[13]Cited by Dr. Ireland, p. 49.

[1]Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 11-3.

[2]Varieties, p. 14.

[3]Religions of Primitive Peoples, p. 50.

[4]Page 288.

[5]Page 410.

[6]Page 387.

[7]Page 370.

[8]Varieties, p. 4.

[9]"The hypothesis of faculties ... must be regarded as productive of much error in psychology. It has led to the false supposition that mental activity, instead of being one and the same throughout its manifold phases, is a juxtaposition of totally distinct activities, answering to a bundle of detached powers, somehow standing side by side, and exerting no influence on one another. Sometimes this absolute separation of the parts of mind has gone so far as to personify the several faculties as though they were distinct entities."—Sully,Outlines of Psychology, p. 26.

[10]Varieties, p. 478.

[11]The Blot upon the Brain, p. 4.

[12]The Blot upon the Brain, p. 16.

[13]Cited by Dr. Ireland, p. 49.

Ever since the time of Aristotle it has been an accepted truth that man is a social animal. Not only is individual human nature such that it craves for intercourse with its kind, but it can only be effectively understood in the light of those thousands of generations of associated life that lie behind us all. As an isolated object, considered, that is, apart from his fellows, man is more or less of a myth. At any rate, he would not be the man we know and so may well be left out of account. Man as we know him is essentially a member of a group; he is a part of a really organic structure inasmuch as the characteristics of each part are determined by its relations to the whole, and the characteristics of the whole determined by a synthesis of the qualities of the parts.

But while there is agreement in the fact, there is a considerable divergence of opinion as to its nature. What is the nature of this fact of sociability? What is the character of the force that binds the members of a group so closely together? By some, the cause of sociability is found in the pressure exerted upon all by purely external forces. The need for protection, it is said, drives human beings together, and thus in course of time the feeling of sociability is developed. This seems much like mistaking a consequence for a cause. It certainly leaves unanswered the questionWhyshould people have drawn together in the face of danger? Most certainly collective action strengthens the capacity for defence; and it also increases the certainty of obtaining the means of subsistence. Such consequences furnish a justification, so to speak, of group life, but they disclose neither its nature nor itscause. And most certainly they do not bring us into touch with the fundamental qualities ofhumansociety. The need for food, shelter, or protection will not differentiate the gregarious from the non-gregarious forms of life, nor the social from the merely gregarious. All forms of life require food, protection, and shelter; they are part of animal economics. There is nothing specifically human about them.

We may reach what I conceive to be the truth in another way. Environment is to-day almost a cant word. It is very largely used, and, as one might expect, largely misunderstood. Without actually saying it in so many words, a vast number of people seem to conceive the environment as consisting of the purely material surroundings of man. This is to overlook a most important fact. Even in the lowest stages of human society, where man's power over natural forces is of the poorest kind, it is not an exact statement of the case, and it is profoundly untrue when we take society in its higher developments. If we take the lowest existing savage race we find that its attitude towards life, what it does, and what it refrains from doing, is the product of a certain mental attitude, which is itself the outcome of a number of inherited ideas and customs. A number of white people, placed in exactly the same material environment and faced with exactly the same external circumstances, bring a different psychological inheritance into play, and act in an entirely different manner. If we transport a Chinaman into England, or an Englishman into China, we find that both of them possess the same biological and material needs whether in their native country or elsewhere. Yet this community of needs does not makethe Chinaman a member of English society, nor an Englishman a member of Chinese society. They are one in virtue of certain broad human characteristics; they are divided by certain qualities characteristic of their special groups. Each society is marked by the possession of certain psychological characteristics—a number of specific beliefs and emotional developments—without which its distinctive group character disappears. This is true of groups within the State; it is true of the State as a whole; it is true, on the most general scale of all, of the race.

In other words, the distinguishing feature of human society is the possession of a psychological medium. The adaptations that the human being must make are mainly of a psychological character. Theirformmay be partly determined by external conditions, but this does not affect the general truth. Whether we take man in a civilised or in an uncivilised state we find the important thing about him to be his relations to his fellows. He is not merely a member of a tribe or a society, but he thinks that society's thoughts, he feels their emotions, his individual life is an expression of the psychical life of the group to which he belongs. And his transactions with nature are an expression of the ideas and beliefs current in the society of which he is a part.

The recognition of this truth was one of the outstanding contributions of Herbert Spencer to the science of sociology. Whereas other writers had stressed the power of the environment, as a purely material thing, in shaping human institutions, Spencer placed chief stress upon the emotional and intellectual life of primitive man as determining their beginnings. He showedhow man's feelings and beliefs about himself, and about his fellows, and about the world of living forces with which he believed himself to be surrounded, were the all-important factors of social evolution. And the subsequent history of society has been such that scientific sociology is very largely the study of the growth and elaboration of an essentially psychical environment. The lower animal world—except so far as we allow for the operation of instincts—has, broadly, only the existence of other animals and the physical surroundings for its environment. With man it is vastly different. Owing primarily to language, the environment of the man of to-day is made up in part of the ideas of men who lived and died thousands of years ago. The use of clothing and the invention of tools would alone make mind a dominant fact in human life. But apart from these things, the great fact of social heredity, in virtue of which one generation enjoys the acquired culture of preceding generations, and without which civilisation would have no existence, is a great and dominantmentalfact. Our institutions, our customs, are transmitted to us as so many psychic facts. Every new invention, every fresh culture acquisition, is helping to strengthen and broaden the psychical environment of man. Each newcomer is born into it; it moulds his nature and determines his life, as his own career and his own acquisition help to mould the life of his successors. Whether the phenomena be simple or complex, whether we are dealing with man in a civilised or in an uncivilised state, there is no escape from the general truth that man is everywhere under the domination of his mental life.

So far as this enquiry is concerned, we need onlydeal with one aspect of the psychological medium in which primitive human life moves. And so far as primitive mankind seeks to control the movements of social life, there can be no question that this is done under the impulsion of that class of beliefs which we call religious. The operation of religious belief in savage society is neither spasmodic nor local. It is, on the contrary, universal and persistent. It influences every event of daily life with a force that the modern mind finds very difficult to appreciate. In almost every action the savage feels himself to be in touch with a supersensual world of living beings that exert a direct and inescapable influence. And any study of human evolution that is to be of real value must take this circumstance into consideration to a far greater extent than is usually done. Professor Frazer, dealing with the origin of various social institutions, rightly observes that "we are only beginning to understand the mind of the savage, and therefore the mind of our savage forefathers who created these institutions and handed them down to us," and warns us that "a knowledge of the truth may involve a reconstruction of society such as we can hardly dream of." He also warns us that we have at all times, in dealing with social origins, to "reckon with the influence of superstition, which pervades the life of the savage and has contributed to build up the social organism to an incalculable extent."[14]

In emphasising this it must not be taken to imply that because social institutions and human actions are in primitive times moulded by religious beliefs, they stand to them in a relation of complete dependence.It only means that the psychological medium is of such a character that supernaturalistic reasons are found for doings things that are susceptible to a totally different explanation. The facts of life are expressed in terms of supernaturalism. Birth, marriage, death, social cohesion, leadership, health and disease, are all natural facts, and the mere play of social selection determines the weeding out of practices that are sufficiently adverse to tribal well-being to threaten its security. But in primitive times all these facts are allied with religious beliefs, and to the primitive mind the religious belief becomes the chief feature connected with them. As a matter of fact, this is far from an uncommon feature of social life to-day. The amount of supernaturalism current is still very large; and one still finds people explaining some of the plainest facts of social life in terms of supernaturalistic beliefs. It is all part of the truth that man is always under the domination of the psychological forces.

This being granted, the enquiry immediately presents itself, How comes it that the facts of social life should be expressed in terms of supernaturalism? Why do these facts not immediately present themselves in their true nature? To answer this question one must bear in mind a yet further truth. This is that the explanation which man offers to himself or to others of phenomena must always be in terms of current knowledge. A modern called upon to explain a storm, an eclipse, or a disease, does so in terms of current physical or biological science. This is done in virtue of a mass of prepared knowledge, slowly accumulated by preceding generations, and which forms part of his social heritage. Primitive man likewise explains thingsin terms of current knowledge, but in his case the amount of reliable information is of a very scanty and generally erroneous description. The inherited knowledge which enables a modern schoolboy to start life with what would have been an outfit to an ancient philosopher, had yet to be created. Instead of finding, as we find, tools ready to hand, replies prepared to questions that may arise, primitive mankind must create its own tools and prepare its own answers. And in consequence of this the social environment, which at all times determines the form of man's mental output, is with primitive man radically different from our own. But however the form varies there is agreement on this one point—in both cases phenomena are explained in terms of known forces; the reasoning of each is determined by the knowledge of each. The laws of mental life remain the same in all stages of culture. The brain functions identically whether we take the savage or the scientist. In a general way the savage intelligence is as rational as that of a modern thinker. The difference is dependent upon the accuracy and extent of the information possessed by each. Hence the vital difference in the conclusions reached. Hence, too, the dominance of supernaturalism in primitive times.

The great distinction between primitive and scientific thinking may be expressed in a sentence—the modern mind explains man by the world, primitive thought explained the world by man. In the one case we move from within outward, in the other from without inward. We are not now concerned with semi-metaphysical idealistic theories that would reduce the "whole choir of heaven and furniture of earth" to the creation of mental activity, but with the plain, understandabletruth that the human organism is fashioned by the environment in which it dwells. And there is amongst those capable of expressing an authoritative opinion—an agreement supported by evidence that has simply nothing against it—that the world of primitive man is overpoweringly animistic. In the absence of that mass of scientifically verified knowledge which forms part of our social heritage, humanity commences its intellectual career by endowing natural forces with the qualities possessed by itself. The forces conceived are living ones. They are to be dreaded exactly as human beings are to be dreaded; to be appeased or circumvented by the same methods that man applies to his fellows. The problem before the savage is thus a very real one. In essence it is the problem that is ever before humanity—that of subjugating forces to its own welfare. Primitive man is not, however, concerned with the elaboration of theories; nor is he consumed with vague 'spiritual yearnings.' His difficulty is how to control or placate those invisible but very real powers upon which he believes everything depends. He would willingly ignore them if he could, and would cheerfully dispense with their presence altogether if he believed that things would proceed as well in their absence. But there they are, inescapable facts that have to be reckoned with.

The general outlook of the primitive mind is well put by Miss Mary Kingsley in the following passage:—

"To the African the Universe is made up of matter permeated by spirit. Everything happens by the direct action of spirit. The thing he does himself is done bythe spirit within him acting on his body ... everything that is done by other things is done by their spirit associated with their particular mass of matter.... The native will point out to you a lightning-stricken tree and tell you that its spirit has been killed. He will tell you, when the earthen cooking pot is broken, it has lost its spirit. If his weapon fails him, it is because someone has stolen its spirit or made it weak by means of his influence on spirits of the same class.... In every action of his life he shows you how he lives with a great spirit world around him. You see him before he starts out to fight rubbing stuff into his weapon to strengthen the spirit that is in it; telling it the while what care he has taken of it.... You see him leaning over the face of the water talking to its spirit with proper incantations, asking it when it meets an enemy of his to upset his canoe and destroy him.... If a man is knocked on the head with a club, or shot by an arrow or a bullet, the cause of death is clearly the malignity of persons using these weapons; and so it is easy to think that a man killed by the falling of a tree, or by the upsetting of a canoe in the surf, or in a whirlpool in the river is also a victim of some being using these things as weapons. For a man holding this view, it seems both natural and easy to regard disease as a manifestation of the wrath of some invisible being, and to construct that intricate system which we find among the Africans, and agree to call Witchcraft, Fetish, or Juju."[15]

Miss Kingsley is here dealing specifically with West Africa, but her description applies in a general way to uncivilised people all over the world. There is much closer resemblance between the beliefs of uncivilised peoples than between civilised ones, becausethe conditions are much more alike. And under substantially identical conditions the human mind has everywhere reached substantially identical conclusions. The philosophy of the savage is simple, comprehensive, and, given the data, logical. He does not divide the world into the natural and the supernatural; it is all one. At most, he has only the seen and the unseen. The supernatural, as a distinct category, only appears when a definite knowledge of the natural has arisen to which it can be opposed. He has no such distinction as that of the material and the immaterial; so far as he thinks of these things, the invisible is only a finer form of the visible. Of one thing, however, he is perfectly convinced, and this is that he is at all times surrounded by a host of invisible agencies to which all occurrences are due, and with whom he must come to terms. Even death wears a different aspect to the primitive mind from that which it presents to the modern. To us death puts a sharp and abrupt termination to life. To the primitive mind death involves no such ending.[16]Death is no more of a break than is sleep; and at all times the conception of an annihilation of personality requires a marked degree of mental power. So with the savage—the 'dead' man simply goes on living. He may be incarnated in some natural object, or he may simply go on living as one of the innumerable company of tribal ghosts. But he remains a force to be reckoned with, and the need for dealing with these ghostly personages is one of the ever-present problems of primitive sociology, andbrings us very near the beginnings of all religious beliefs and ceremonies—if it does not form their real starting-point.

On one point all modern schools of anthropologists are agreed. This is that man's first conception of the supernatural—or what afterwards ranks as such—is derived from a purely mistaken interpretation of natural phenomena. In this they have returned to the standpoint of Hobbes, that "fear of things invisible" forms the "natural seed of religion." One source of origin of this belief in a supernatural world is certainly found in the phenomena of dreaming. To the savage his dreams are as real as his waking experiences. He does notdreamhe goes to distant places; he goes there during his sleep. He does notdreamthat people visit him; they actually come. If a West African wakes up in the morning with a tired, bruised feeling, this arises, as Miss Kingsley says, from his 'soul' having been out fighting and got ill-treated. The only philosophy of dreaming amongst savage races is that of the excursions and incursions of a 'soul' or double.

Another powerful factor in the development of belief in the supernatural is that of man's attempt to explain natural happenings. Why do things happen? Why does the sun rise and set, why does rain fall, thunder crash, rivers flow? Note the way in which a child answers similar questions, and one is on the track of the primitive intelligence. If man's own movements are caused by a 'soul' or double, then other things must also move because they possess a 'soul.' If an answer is to be found at all, it is only along these lines that the primitive mind is able tofind it. And, once the answer is given, there are a thousand and one things occurring that lend it apparent support. Resemblances in nature, coincidences, echoes, shadows, etc., all give their support to this primitive hypothesis—the only one possible in the circumstances, and the one still endorsed by the majority of the world's population.

Particularly strong endorsement of this belief is supplied by disease and abnormal nervous states. Instances to illustrate this are innumerable, but from the numerous cases cited by Spencer I select the following: Among the Amazulus convulsions are believed to be caused by ancestral spirits. With Asiatic races epileptics are regarded as possessed by demons. With the Kirghiz the involuntary muscular movements of a woman in childbirth are believed to be caused by a spirit taking possession of the body. The Samoans attribute all madness to possession. The Congo people have the same notion of epilepsy. The East Africans believe that falling sickness is due to spirits.[17]In Rajputana, says Mr. W. Crooke, disease is generally attributed to Khor or the agency of offended spirits. The Mahadeo Kolis of Ahmadnagar believe that every malady or disease that seizes man, woman, or child, or cattle, is caused either by evil spirits or by an angry god. The Bijapur Veddas have a yearly feast to their ancestors to prevent the dead bringing sickness into the house.[18]"A Catholic missionary," says Professor Frazer, "observes that in New Guinea thenepir, or sorcerer, is everywhere.... Nothing happens without the sorcerer's intervention; wars, marriage, death, expeditions,fishing, hunting, always and everywhere the sorcerer."[19]

In Ancient Egypt, Chaldea, and Assyria there is ample evidence that the same belief flourished. Everywhere we find the exorcist and the witch-doctor existing as natural consequents of the belief that disease has a supernatural origin. We see it in both the teaching and practice of the early Christian Church. That great father of the Church, Origen, says: "It is demons which produce famine, unfruitfulness, corruption of the air, and pestilence." St. Augustine said that "All diseases of Christians are to be ascribed to demons." The Church of England still retains in its Articles an authorisation for the expulsion of demons; and a number of charms yet in wide use amongst civilised nations show how persistent is this belief. For centuries there existed all over Europe sacred pools, wells, grottos, etc., all bearing eloquent witness to the deep-seated belief that disease was of supernatural origin, and was to be conquered by supernatural means.

Enough has been said to indicate the kind of environment in which primitive man moves, and also to understand why ideas concerning the supernatural exert such an enormous influence in early society. In a world where everything was yet to be learned, man's first attempts at understanding himself and his fellows were necessarily blundering and tentative. His first attempts at explanation are expressed in terms of his own nature. He sees himself, his own passions, strengths, and weaknesses reflected in the nature around him. This is the outstanding, dominating fact in primitive life. Leave out this consideration andprimitive sociology becomes a chaos. Admit it, and we see the reason why social institutions assumed the form they took, and also a key to much that happens in subsequent human history. In primitive life religious beliefs are not something separate from other forms of social life; so far as man seeks consciously to shape that life they are to him an essential part of it. And the mistake once made is perpetuated. The initial blunder once committed, daily experience seems to give it constant justification. In the absence of knowledge concerning natural forces every event,—particularly if unusual,—every case of disease, endorses and strengthens the mistake made. A psychological fatality drives the human race along the wrong path of investigation, and only very slowly is the mistake rectified. One cannot see how it could have been otherwise. The only corrective is knowledge, and knowledge is a plant of slow growth. This psychological first step was man's first attempt to frame a theory of things satisfactory to his intellect—an attempt that, beginning in the crude animism of the savage, ends in the verifiable laws of modern science.

From the point of view of our present enquiry two things are to be noted. The first is that man's conviction of the nearness of a supernatural world began in his lack of knowledge concerning the nature of natural forces. Of this there can be little doubt. One can take all the facts upon which primitive mankind built, and still builds, its theories of supernaturalism, and show that they may be explained in a quite different manner. The movements of the planets, the rush of comets, the presence of disaster, the thousand and one operations of natural forces no longer suggestto educated minds the action of personal beings. The whole data of the primitive theory of things have been rejected. The premises were false, and the conclusions necessarily false also.

The second point is that from the earliest times one of the strongest proofs of human contact with a supernatural world has been found in the existence of abnormal or pathological states of mind. These may have sometimes arisen quite naturally; at other times they have been deliberately induced. How much the perpetuation of religious beliefs as a whole owes to this factor has never yet been adequately realised. That it has had a very great influence seems beyond dispute. For it seems certain that had not "proofs" of a supernatural world been offered in the shape of visions, ecstatic states, etc., religious beliefs would hardly have exercised the power that has been theirs. The number of people who are able to maintain a strong consciousness of the truth of religion, merely looking at it as a philosophy of existence, is naturally very few. The great majority require more tangible evidence if their belief is to be kept alive and active. And curiously enough, the very growth of a naturalistic explanation has driven a great many to find the evidence they desired in those abnormal states of mind that seemed to defy scientific analysis. In succeeding chapters evidence will be given to show to what extent this kind of evidence for the supernatural has been offered and accepted. It will be seen, as Professor Tylor points out, that the line of religious development is continuous. The latest forms stretch back in an unbroken line to the earliest. And if this proves nothing else, it at least proves that consequences donot always die out with the conditions that gave them birth. It was the world of the savage that gave birth to the supernatural. But the supernatural is still with us, even though the world that gave it birth has disappeared. We retain conclusions based on admittedly false premises.

Footnotes:[Skip][14]Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship, pp. 36-7.[15]West African Studies, pp. 394-6.[16]See an interesting article on this point by W. H. R. Rivers on "The Primitive Conception of Death," inThe Hibbert Journalfor Jan. 1912.[17]Principles of Sociology, vol. i.[18]Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India, i. p. 124.[19]Golden Bough, 3rd ed., i. 337.

[14]Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship, pp. 36-7.

[15]West African Studies, pp. 394-6.

[16]See an interesting article on this point by W. H. R. Rivers on "The Primitive Conception of Death," inThe Hibbert Journalfor Jan. 1912.

[17]Principles of Sociology, vol. i.

[18]Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India, i. p. 124.

[19]Golden Bough, 3rd ed., i. 337.

"It is an interesting problem," says Professor J. H. Leuba, "to determine what influences have led theologians to anchor their beliefs upon the proposition that religious experience differs from other forms of consciousness in that it gives one animmediateknowledge of the external existence of certain objects of belief, although they do not fall under the senses, and an immediate knowledge of the truth of certain historical facts."[20]This is, indeed, an interesting problem, and, we may add, one of growing importance, since there is a pronounced tendency on the part of present-day exponents of religion to rest their case almost entirely upon the immediacy of their religious consciousness. This conception of a certain order of experience, however, is not and cannot have always existed. A belief may be so widely and so generally diffused that it is accepted without resistance, and, as it would almost seem, in the absence of evidence. But its intuitive character is only superficial, and disappears on careful examination. The mere vogue of a belief constitutes in itself a kind of evidence, and for many people the most powerful kind of evidence. But the conviction itself has a history, and it is in the unravelling of that history, in the discovery of the class of facts upon which the conviction has been built, that the work lies. And when this is done it will be found that our intuitions are invariably based upon a continuous—even though partly unconscious—appeal to facts. Sometimes it will, of course, be found that a renewed and deliberate appeal to the facts in question will justify the conviction.At other times it will be found that the facts demand an altogether new interpretation. For centuries all the observed facts supported a conviction that the earth was flat. It was a fresh scrutiny of the facts in the light of a new conception that revolutionised human opinion on the subject.

What, then, is the history, and what are the facts upon which the belief that religious experience brings man into contact with a kind of existence not given in ordinary experience, is based? The kind of answer that will be given to this question has already been indicated. Religious beliefs are in their origin of the nature of an induction from an observed order. The induction is not the result of that careful collection of facts, leading up to an equally careful generalisation and subsequent verification, which is a characteristic of modern science, but it is an induction none the less. The primitive mind is not so much engaged in seeking an explanation of certain experiences, as it has an explanation forced upon it. To picture the savage as inventing a theory in the sense in which Darwin propounded the theory of Natural Selection is to quite misconceive the nature of the savage intelligence. But to conceive the savage as having a certain explanation suggested by the pressure of repeated experiences, and that this explanation subsequently assumes the character of a fixed belief, is well within the scope of the facts known to us. In this stage of culture the existence of supernatural beings is as much a deduction from experience as any modern scientific generalisation. Certain things are seen, certain feelings are experienced, and the conclusion is that they are the products of supernatural agency.From this point of view religion is no more than a primitive science. It is the first stage of that long series of generalisations which, beginning with crude animism, ends with the discoveries of a Copernicus, a Newton, a Darwin, or a Spencer. It is a history that begins with vitalism and ends with mechanism. We commence with a world in which there exists a chaotic assemblage of independent personal forces, and end with a universe that is self-acting, self-adjusting, self-contained, and in which science makes no allowance for the operation of intelligence save such as meets us in animal organisation.

Now amongst the facts that suggest to the primitive intelligence the operation of 'spiritual' forces are those connected with the human organism itself in both its normal and abnormal states. But it is important to note—particularly so for the understanding of the part played by ecstatic religious phenomena in comparatively recent times—that once the occurrence of a certain state of mind is conceived as the product of intercourse between man and spirits, there is every inducement to cultivate these frames of mind whenever renewed intercourse is desired. This does not imply, at least in the earlier stages, conscious imposture. Generally the operator imposes on himself as much as he imposes on others. Noting that privation of body, or torture of mind, or the use of certain herbs is followed by visions or ecstasy, it is believed, not that the vision is the product of the practice, but that the practice is the condition of illumination.

This attitude of mind is fairly paralleled by what takes place at the ordinary spiritualisticseance. Those attending are advised that the chief condition of acommunication with the inhabitants of the other world is a passive state of mind. This passivity cannot exclude expectancy, since it is only assumed in order that something may occur. If nothing occurs, if no communications are received, it is because the requisite conditions have not been fulfilled, and the sceptic is met with much semi-scientific jargon as to conditions being necessary to every scientific investigation. The fact that this passivity and expectancy, with other attendant circumstances, not the least of which is the contagious influence of a number of people with a similar mental disposition, opens the way to self-delusion is ignored. Then when the expected and desired result follows, the mental attitude cultivated is taken as the condition of communication with the spiritual world, instead of its being, in all probability, the true cause of what is experienced. In this way the story of supernatural intercourse runs clear and unbroken from primitive savagery to its survival in modern civilisation. When Professor Tylor says, "The conception of the human soul is, as to its most essential nature, continuous from the philosophy of the savage thinker to that of the modern professor of theology,"[21]he makes a statement that is true of the whole story of supernatural intercourse in all its varied manifestations.

The chief distinction between primitive and modern man lies in the consideration that in the first case the blunder is inevitable, in the latter case the remedy lies to hand. How could primitive man be aware of the real connection between the use of certain drugs or herbs and an excitation or depression of the activitiesof the nervous system? He does observe consequences, but he is quite ignorant of causes. Even to-day their full consequences are unknown; and it is absurd to expect that savage humanity should have been better informed. And even when a more rational theory exists, the practice persists under various forms. This is a principle that receives vivid illustration from the history of religions. The modern believer in mystical states of consciousness no longer advocates the use of drugs, and even fasting is going out of fashion. But we still have a continuation of the primitive practice in the shape of insistence on the cultivation of abnormal frames of mind if we are to experience a consciousness of communion with an alleged supersensible reality. That is, we are to achieve by a mental discipline what the savage or the medieval monk achieved by coarser and more obvious methods. To withdraw the mind from the normal influence of everyday life is to expose it to the play of hallucination and delusion. There is really no vital difference between unhealthy, solitary brooding on a given subject and drugging the mind with hashish. This class of modern mystic is one with the savage in an inability to recognise that the illumination is the product of the discipline, not the mere condition of its possession. Between the drug of the savage, the fasting and self-torture of the medieval monk and the prayerful meditation of the modern mystic, the difference is only that of changed times and altered conditions. The method is the same throughout.

The truth of this has been well put by Tylor:—

"The religious beliefs of the lower races are in no small measure based on the evidence of visions anddreams, regarded as actual intercourse with spiritual being. From the earliest stages of culture we find religion in close alliance with ecstatic physical conditions. These are brought on by various means of interference with the healthy action of body and mind, and it is scarcely needful to remind the reader that, according to philosophic theories antecedent to those of modern medicine, such morbid disturbances are explained as symptoms of divine visitation, or at least of superhuman spirituality. Among the strongest means of disturbing the functions of the mind so as to produce ecstatic vision, is fasting, accompanied, as it usually is, with other privations, and with prolonged solitary contemplation in the desert or in the forest. Among the ordinary vicissitudes of savage life, the wild hunter has many a time to try involuntarily the effects of such a life for days together, and under these circumstances he soon comes to see and talk with phantoms which are to him invisible spirits. The secret of spiritual intercourse thus learnt, he has thence-forth but to reproduce the cause in order to renew the effects."[22]

As a means, then, of strengthening and perpetuating a consciousness of intercourse with the spiritual world, we have to reckon with, not merely the accidental occurrence of abnormal nervous conditions, but with their deliberate cultivation. The practice is world-wide, and persists in some form or other in all ages. Thus we find the Australians and many tribes of North American Indians use tobacco for this purpose. In Western Siberia a species of fungi, the 'fly Agaric,' so called because it is often steeped and the solution usedto destroy house flies, is used to produce religious ecstasy. Its action on the muscular system is stimulatory, and it greatly excites the nervous system.[23]An early Spanish observer says of the ancient Mexicans that they used a kind of mushroom, "which are eaten raw, and on account of being bitter, they drink after them, or eat with them a little honey of bees, and shortly after they see a thousand visions."[24]The mushroom was called the "bread of the gods." The Californian Indians give children tobacco, in order to receive instruction from the resulting visions. North American Indians held intoxication by tobacco to be supernatural ecstasy, and the dreams of men in this state to be inspired. The Darien Indians use the seeds of the Datura Sanguinea to induce visions. In Peru the priests prepared themselves for intercourse with the gods by partaking of a narcotic drink from the same plant. In Guiana the priest was prepared for his functions by fasting and flagellation, and was afterwards dosed with tobacco juice.[25]In India the Laws of Manu give explicit instructions as to the means of producing visions. Chief of these is the use of the 'Soma' drink. This is prepared from the flower of the lotus. The sap of this, says De Candolle, would be poisonous if taken in large quantities, but in small doses merely induces hallucination. Opium and hashish, a preparation of the hemp plant, have been in general use among Eastern peoples, as a means of producing ecstasy from remote antiquity. Opium, it is well known, produces anextraordinary state of exaltation, intensifying the sense of one's personality, and inducing a pleasurable consciousness of mental strength and clarity. Under its influence, as De Quincey said, time lengthens to infinity and space swells to immensity.[26]Belladonna, a drug much used by medieval witches and sorcerers, has also had its vogue for purely religious purposes.With the Greeks the laurel was sacred to Æsculapius. Those who wished to ask counsel of the god appeared before the altar crowned with laurel and chewing its leaves. Before prophesying, the Greek priestesses drank a preparation of laurel water. This contains, although it was, of course, unknown to them, two toxic substances—prussic acid and the volatile oil of laurel. The first would induce convulsions, the second, hallucinatory visions. The two combined were calculated to produce with both subject and observer a profound impression of spiritual illumination and possession.

It is unnecessary to multiply examples of the action of various drugs or herbs on the nervous system, or to cite the people who use them. Enough has been said to indicate how widespread is the practice, and the consequences are not hard to foresee. A very moderate development of intelligence would enable men to associate certain consequences with the use of particular drugs, but a very considerable amount of knowledge would be required to explain why these consequences were produced. In a social environment saturated with superstition the explanation lies ready to hand, and is accepted without question. A people that sees spiritual agency in all the familiar phenomena of nature are certainly not less likely to trace its influence in the mysterious and unaccountable effects of narcotics and stimulants. And each repeated experiment provides additional proof. Man thus not only believes himself to be surrounded by a spiritual world; he is actually able to enter into communication with it by methods that are defined in the clearest possible manner. Every repetition strengthens the delusion andeven when the delusion, as such, is exploded, the temper of mind induced by it persists.

Various other methods are employed to induce a feeling of religious exaltation. Prominent among these are dancing and singing. Dancing in connection with religious ceremonies is now generally outgrown in the civilised world, but singing is still the vogue. That is, singing is not, it must be remembered, practised from any desire to cultivate a love of music, although it may appeal to music-lovers. Still, its avowed purpose is to induce a feeling of devoutness in the congregation. The hypnotic consequences of a body of people singing in unison, or the soothing, mystical effect of certain airs from a choir upon a congregation, are recognised in practice if not in theory. This is a phenomenon that is not, of course, exclusively associated with religion. In this as in other instances religion only utilises the ordinary qualities of human nature. But in all cases the purpose and the result are the same. That is, the subject is placed for the time being in a supernormal condition, and the mild state of passivity or enthusiasm created makes him more susceptible to the influence brought to bear upon him. This is true of religious singing and chanting, from the forest gatherings of the primitive savage down to the more sedate and elaborate assemblages in church or chapel.

Primitive dancing had both a sexual and religious significance, although, as will be seen later, in the primitive mind the sexual functions themselves are very closely associated with supernatural agency. Tylor is of opinion that originally men and women dance in order to express their feelings and wishes,[27]but it is certain it very early and universally became associated with religious ceremonies, and that because of the ecstasy induced. In some cases drug-taking and dancing go together. In others, reliance is placed on dancing alone. This latter is the case with the 'devil dancers' of Ceylon. In Africa the witch doctor discovers who has been guilty of sorcery by the aid of inspiration furnished during a dance. The whirling dance of the Eastern dervish is well known. Dancing also figures in the Bible. The Jews danced around the golden calf (Ex. xxxii. 19) in a state of nudity. David, too, danced naked before the Lord. Dancing was also part of the religious ceremonies attendant on the worship of Dionysos or Bacchus.[28]Along with the drinking of certain vegetable decoctions, dancing formed an important part of the witches' saturnalia during the medieval period. When in a state of frenzy, partly drug induced and partly the product of exhilaration caused by wild dancing, visions of Satan followed. In the dancing mania of the fourteenth century, the sufferers saw visions of heaven opened, with Jesus and the Virgin enthroned. Dancing was one of the prominent characteristics of the French Convulsionnaires in the eighteenth century. In more recent times we have the dancing and singing connected with the Methodist revival. In modern instances the dancing seems to have been consequent on religious excitement rather than precedent to it, but in earlier times there is no doubt that it was deliberately practised as a means of producing a state of exaltation.

Among the commonest methods of inducing a senseof religious exaltation is the practice of fasting. In various guises, this is the most persistent form of religious self-torture. Amongst more civilised people the reason given for fasting is that it is a form of repentance, the genuineness of which is attested by voluntary punishment. But originally there seems little reason to doubt that it was adopted for a different purpose. It was valued not because the fasting person felt that he had done anything for which it was necessary to repent, but because it was believed to bring people into closer touch with the spiritual world. There is, of course, a very obvious reason for this belief. A lowered vitality is favourable to hallucinations of every description. A shipwrecked sailor is placed, by no act of his own, in precisely the same condition as is the primitive medicine man or the medieval saint by his own volition. It has always been recognised, and by none more readily than by the great religious teachers of the world, that a well-nourished body is inimical to what they chose to term "spiritual development." The historic Christian outcry against fleshly indulgence has much more in it than a revolt against mere sensualism. A well-fed body has been deprecated because it closed the avenue to spiritual illumination. Hence it is that fasting has found such favour in all religious systems. The ascetic saw more because, by reducing the body to an abnormal state, he provided the conditions for seeing more. The Zulu maxim, "A stuffed body cannot see secret things," really expresses in a sentence the philosophy of the matter.

Among the Blackfoot Indians of North America, when a boy reaches puberty he is sent away fromhis father's lodge in search of a spiritual protector or totem. Seeking a secluded spot, he abstains from food until he is favoured in a dream with a vision of some animal or bird, which is at once adopted by him.[29]This custom obtains with most of the North American tribes. Among these tribes, also, the soothsayer prepares himself by fasting for the ecstatic state in which the spirits give their messages through him. The ordinary member of the tribe who wants anything will fast until he is assured in a dream that it will be granted him. Similarly, the Malay, to procure supernatural intercourse, retires to the jungle and abstains from food. The Zulu doctor prepares for intercourse with the tribal spirits by spare diet or solitary fasts. Fasting is part of the ordinary regimen of the Hindu yogi. Of certain Indian tribes we are told that before proceeding on an expedition they "observe a rigorous fast, or rather abstain from every kind of food for four days. In this interval their imagination is exalted to delirium; whether it be through bodily weakness or the natural effect of delirium, they pretend to have strange visions. The elders and sages of the tribe, being called upon to interpret these dreams, draw from them omens more or less favourable to the success of the enterprise; and their explanations are received as oracles, by which the expedition will be faithfully regulated."[30]Amongst the Samoans, when rain was required, the priests blackened themselves all over, exhumed a dead body, took the skeleton to a cave and poured water over it. They had to fast and remain in the cave until it rained. Sometimes theydied under the experiment, but they generally chose the showery months for their rain-making.[31]

In both the Old and New Testaments fasting figures largely. The encounter of Jesus with Satan is preceded by a forty days' fast. St. Catherine of Sienna began regular fasts at a very early age. Santa Teresa kept lengthy fasts every year. The fasting of the monks and nuns during the epidemic period of monasticism is too well known to call for more than a mere reference. Perhaps the most curious religious reason given for fasting is that cited by a writer from a monkish chronicler:—

"As a coach goes faster when it is empty, a man by fasting can be better united to God; for it is a principle with geometers that a round body can never touch a plane except in one point.... A belly too well filled becomes round, it cannot touch God except in one point; but fasting flattens the belly until it is united with the surface of God at all points."[32]

George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, confesses that he "fasted much" and "walked abroad in solitary places," and "frequently in the night walked about mournfully by myself." After much brooding and fasting, he heard a voice which said, "There is one, even Jesus Christ, that can speak to thy condition." Such an experience is not at all surprising, seeing the method pursued to acquire it. Less fasting and brooding, with more genial intercourse with his fellows, might easily have prevented Fox, as it has prevented others, hearing heavenly voices proffering him counsel. Such an experience is well within the reach of anyonewho cares to acquire it. Tylor has well said that "So long as fasting is continued as a religious rite, so long the consequences in morbid mental exaltation will continue the old savage doctrine that morbid phantasy is supernatural experience. Bread and meat would have robbed the ascetic of many an angel's visit; the opening of the refectory door must many a time have closed the gate of heaven to his gaze." No one will question the truth of this principle, so long as we are dealing with uncivilised mankind. Many, however, shrink from acknowledging that the practices current in more civilised times are disguised illustrations of the same principle of interpretation, which descends direct from savages, and but for them would never have existed.

Commenting on the practices of certain savage medicine-men, a missionary remarks:—

"It always appeared probable to me that these rogues, from long fasting, contract a weakness of brain, a giddiness, a kind of delirium, which makes them imagine that they are gifted with superior wisdom, and give themselves out for physicians. They impose upon themselves first, and afterwards upon others."[33]

This is shrewdly said, and is a good example of the readiness with which obvious truths are recognised when they do not clash with religious prepossessions. The difficulty for others is to discern any real line of demarcation between the practices of civilised and uncivilised. So far as one can see, the only real distinction is that the method employed by savages is open. That followed by civilised people is more or less disguised. But derangement of function is derangementof function, no matter how produced. And if we decline to believe that a savage holds genuine intercourse with a spiritual world, as a consequence of this derangement, in what way are we justified in accepting the testimony of a Christian visionary to similar intercourse, when the derangement is in his case no less clear? It is a case of accepting both, or neither. The sane and scientific conclusion seems to lie in the following from Dr. Henry Maudsley:—

"Now that the mental functions are known to be inseparably connected with nervous substrata, disposed and united in the brain in the most orderly fashion, superordinate, co-ordinate, and subordinate—the whole a complex organisation of confederate nerve centres, each capable of more or less independent action—a natural interpretation presents itself. The extraordinary states of mental disintegration evince the separate and irregular function of certain mental nerve tracts, or grouped nerve tracts with which goes necessarily a coincident suspension, partial or complete, of the functions of all the rest; the supernatural incubus, therefore, neither demoniac nor divine, only morbid. Thus the strange nervous seizures, with their mental concomitants, not being outside the range of positive research, but interesting events within it, become useful natural experiments to throw an instructive light upon the intricate functions of the most complex organ in the world—the human brain. Steadily are the researches of pathology driving the supernatural back into its last and most obscure retreat; for they prove that in the extremest ecstasies there is neithertheolepsynordiabolepsy, nor any otherlepsyin the sense of possession of the individual byan external power; what there is truly is apsycholepsy."[34]

States of exaltation produced by the aid of drugs, fasting, or other forms of self-torture come naturally under the category of deliberately induced states of mind, owing to the conviction that spiritual knowledge may be gained in this way. But there are other states that arise naturally and which foster the same conviction. It has already been pointed out that the generally accepted theory with uncivilised peoples is that all disease is due to the action of malevolent spirits. There is no need now to repeat proof of this, and in any case it lies to hand in any work that deals with uncivilised life. Nor need we go back to uncivilised times for evidence. One requires only to look but a very little way into the history of any country to find the supernaturalistic theory of disease in full swing, and even to-day one may discover indications of its once general rule. Its importance to the present enquiry lies in the part it has played in building up in the religious consciousness a general conviction of religious truth that does not disappear even when it is seen that the evidence upon which it rests is faulty. Just as the inhabitants of a Welsh village have their general belief in religion strengthened by the semi-hysterical speeches of an Evan Roberts, and the convulsive capers of a whole congregation, so in all ages people have found endorsement of their belief in a supernatural world in the existence of cases the pathological nature of which admits of no doubt. Belief in the supernatural character of specific nervous conditions or mental states may disappear, but the factthat this belief has been general for a time leaves behind a certain psychological residuum in favour of supernaturalism in general.

The connection between the priest and the physician is naturally a very ancient one. The priest, indeed, is the primitive physician, the belief that diseases are supernaturally caused indicating him as the agent of their cure. And it is only to be expected that when the attempt is made to divert the treatment of disease from priestly hands the effort should be met with determined opposition. Quite naturally, too, the first gropings after a scientific theory of disease show a curious mixture of rationalism and superstition. Thus, in Greece, the temple hospitals devoted to the mythical Æsculapius, which were situated at Epidaurus, Pergamus, Cyrene, Corinth, and many other places, served as colleges, hospitals, and places of worship. Sufferers slept in the temples in the hopes of receiving messages from the gods, and the priests themselves professed to have ecstatic visions which enabled them to prescribe for those afflicted.[35]Great emphasis was placed on bathing, light, air, and food, and it is pretty clear that the priests had begun to mix both faith and physic in a most perplexing manner.

The definite separation of medicine from magic and religion begins with Hippocrates. His theory of disease was simple. He did not deny that there might be a supernatural side to disease; he insisted that there was always a natural one, and that this was the side with which we should be concerned. Each disorder,he said, had its own physical conditions, and he laid down the rule that we "ought to study the nature of man, what he is with reference to that which he eats and drinks, and to all his other occupations and habits, and to the consequences resulting from each."[36]In Egypt, also, very considerable advance was made in the same direction. Probably a good deal of their knowledge resulted from the practice of embalming, in spite of the priestly interdict on dissection. At all events, there is no doubt that considerable advance had been made. Herophilus and Erasistratus wrote of the structure of the heart, and described its connection with the veins and arteries. The two kinds of nerves, motor and sensory, were described, and the influence of foods, etc., as influencing health, dwelt on. Insanity was also dealt with as due to natural and controllable causes, and the effects of colour and music in dealing with mania noted.[37]Had this advance been followed, the history of European civilisation might have been different from what it was. Plagues, epidemics, and diseases, with their far-reaching social and political consequences,—consequences that are too little noted, or even understood, by historians,—might have met with adequate resistance, and some would never have occurred.

The Pagan schools of medicine came to an untimely, although in some cases a lingering, end. "The introduction of Christianity," says a medical writer, "had an undoubted influence on the course of medical science; for the Christian was taught to recognise, in every bodily infirmity, the dispensation of the Almighty, and in the calm, abstracted pursuits of those holy men who passed their time in prayer and meditation, a propitiation: hence medicine fell into the hands of monks and anchorites, who assumed to themselves, exclusively, the power of interpreting all natural phenomena as indications of the Divine Will, and pretended to possess some occult and supernatural means of curing disease."[38]Reversing the natural order of things, the physician was replaced by the priest. The supernaturalistic theory was revived, and held its own for well on a thousand years. For every complaint the Church provided a specific in the shape of a charm, an incantation, or a saint. St. Apollonia for toothache, St. Avertin for lunacy, St. Benedict for stone, St. Clara for sore eyes, St. Herbert for hydrophobia, St. John for epilepsy, St. Maur for gout, St. Pernel for agues, St. Genevieve for fevers, St. Sebastian for plague, etc.[39]The height of absurdity was reached when, in spite of the monopoly of the treatment of disease by the priesthood, the Council of Rheims (1119) actually forbade monks to study medicine. This was followed by the Council of Beziers (1246) prohibiting Christians applying for relief to Jewish physicians, at a time when practically the only doctors of ability in Christendom were Jews. In 1243the Dominicans banished all books on medicine from their monasteries. InnocentIII.forbade physicians practising except under the supervision of an ecclesiastic. Honorius (1222) forbade priests the study of medicine; and at the end of the thirteenth Century BonifaceVIII.interdicted surgery as atheistical. The ill-treatment and opposition experienced by the great Vesalius at the hands of the Church, on account of his anatomical researches, is one of the saddest chapters in the history of science.[40]

When the sight of bodily disease strengthened and confirmed belief in the supernatural, mental disease must have offered still more convincing evidence. Among uncivilised people we know that this is so. To quote again from the indispensable Tylor:—

"The possessed man ... rationally finds a spiritual cause for his sufferings.... Especially when the mysterious unseen power throws him helpless on the ground, jerks and writhes him in convulsions, makes him leap upon the bystanders with a giant's strength and a wild beast's ferocity, impels him with distorted face and frantic gesture, and voice not his own nor seemingly even human, to pour forth wild incoherent raving, or with thought and eloquence beyond his sober faculties to command, to counsel, to foretell—such a one seems to those who watch him, and even to himself, to have become the mere instrument of a spirit which has seized him or entered into him, a possessing demon in whose personality the patient believes so implicitly that he often imagines a personal name for it, which it can declare when it speaks inits own voice and character through his organs of speech."[41]

It was this conception of insanity, universally current in the uncivilised world, that was revived with fearful intensity in the early Christian Church, and which certainly served its purpose in intensifying the genuine belief in supernaturalism. Jesus had given His followers power to expel demons "In My name," and this power of exorcism was one upon which the early Christians specially prided themselves. It is with unconscious sarcasm that Dean Trench puts the question, If one of the disciples "were to enter a madhouse now, how many of the sufferers there he might recognise as 'possessed'?"[42]One may safely say that he would regard all as under the dominion of evil spirits. No other cause of insanity appears to have been recognised, and the Church devised the most elaborate formulæ for casting out demons. The assumed demoniac was prayed over, incensed, and evil-smelling drugs burned under his nose. A set form of objurgation then followed:—

"Thou lustful and stupid one.... Thou lean sow, famine-stricken and most impure.... Thou wrinkled beast, of all beasts the most beastly.... Thou bestial and foolish drunkard.... Thou sooty spirit from Tartarus.... I cast thee down, O Tartarean boor, into the infernal kitchen.... Loathsome cobbler ... filthy sow ... envious crocodile.... Malodorous drudge ... swollen toad ... lousy swineherd," etc. etc.[43]

Then followed the exorcism proper:—

"By the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ, which God hath given to make known unto His servants those things which are shortly to be ... I exorcise you, ye angels of untold perversity.... May all the devils that are thy foes rush forth upon thee and drag thee down to hell!... May the Holy One trample on thee and hang thee up in an infernal fork, as was done to the five kings of the Amorites!... May God set a nail to your skull, and pound it with a hammer as Jael did to Sisera!... May Sother break thy head and cut off thy hands, as was done to the cursed Dagon!... May God hang thee in a hellish yoke, as seven men were hanged by the sons of Saul!"[44]

Marcus Aurelius mentions as one of his debts to the philosopher Diognetus that he had taught him "not to give credit to vulgar tales of prodigies and incantations, and evil spirits cast out by magicians or pretenders to sorcery, and such kind of impostors."[45]What would have been the thoughts of the great emperor, could he have revisited the earth two centuries after his death and seen the then civilised world enveloped in a mental atmosphere in which such ideas as those above described could live?

All over Europe for centuries lunatics were whipped, and otherwise ill-treated, in the hopes of expelling the demons that were troubling them. The seventy-second Canon of the Church of England still provides that no unlicensed person shall "cast out any devil or devils" under pain of penalties prescribed. A Bishop of Beauvais, in the fifteenth century, not only caused five devils to come out of one person, butactually induced them to sign a document promising not to molest this particular sufferer again. Tremendous, again, were the labours of the Jesuit Fathers of Vienna, who boasted that they had cast out no less than 12,652 'living devils.' Such arithmetical exactitude silences all hostile comment. In some parts of Scotland, as late as 1783, lunatics were left all night in the churchyard, with a holy bell over their heads. In Cornwall, St. Nun's pool was famous for the cure of lunatics. The poor devils were tied hand and foot and doused in the water until they were cured—or killed. Even the embraces of prostitutes, for some peculiar reason, were recommended as a cure for insanity.[46]In 1788, in Bristol, a drunken epileptic, one George Larkins, was brought into church, and seven clergymen solemnly set themselves to the task of exorcising the possessing demon. Whereupon Satan swore 'by his infernal den'—an oath, says the chronicler, nowhere to be found but in Bunyan. Under date of October 25, 1739, John Wesley also relates how he was sent for and assisted at the expulsion of a demon from the body of a young girl.

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