Popular Science Monthly/Volume 50/December 1896/Possession and Mediumship
| POSSESSION AND MEDIUMSHIP. |
By Prof. WILLIAM ROMAINE NEWBOLD.
ALL the phenomena of which I have been treating in my past papers can be grouped under the three conceptions of suggestibility, automatism, and subconscious mental states. Suggestibility, in its narrowest sense, denotes an increased tendency on the part of certain mental states to work out their own proper results, without interference from other states, and especially without interference from that innermost essence of our sense of self which we call our will. It applies, therefore, primarily to states existing within the range of the individual's consciousness. The suggestible individual, when he can remember or describe his condition, usually feels his will or self in abeyance, and describes himself as the victim of a power which he can not resist. His body obeys commands which he himself is unwilling to obey; ideas and beliefs possess his consciousness which he himself is unable to expel, even though he recognizes their absurdity; hallucinations of all the senses obtrude themselves upon him, or portions of his conscious realm are withdrawn from him in a manner which he can not but ascribe to the workings of some force foreign to himself. When this sense of opposition is lacking, it is because the suggestion meets with no opposition on the part of his accredited beliefs and instincts, and thus merely augments the stream of his normal consciousness without his discovering its extraneous origin.
Suggested hallucinations and ideas do not differ in any respect from spontaneous hallucinations and automatic ideas, save that the source of the former is apparent and that of the latter is not. In the fields of sensation and ideation, therefore, the conceptions of suggestibility and automatism practically coincide. The case of motor automatism is somewhat different. Suggested movements are controlled through the agency of ideas, the ideas being directly suggested and the movements springing from them. But in automatic movements the patient is not conscious of any ideas controlling his movements; they seem to him to spring from some source outside himself. Some of these movements may plausibly be ascribed to purely physiological causes; others seem to require the assumption of realms of mind dissevered from the normal consciousness of the patient. If this view be correct, these forms of automatism also would fall under the conception of suggestibility, for they also would spring from mental states, although those states would not lie within the range of the patient's consciousness.
We may further conjecture that some of the hallucinations and automatic ideas, which rush cometlike into the patient's consciousness from nowhere in particular, had, in fact, an actual being in the subconscious realm before becoming parts of the upper system; but, from the nature of the case, it is never possible to verify the conjecture beyond a peradventure.
The words suggestibility and automatism, then, do not so much designate distinct classes of phenomena as the same phenomena viewed from slightly different points, while the conception of the subconscious is an inference based upon the relations which we know to exist between mental states and certain complex movements of the body. All these phenomena belong together; they can not be separated in theory, and they constantly occur together in practice; in short, they form a distinct natural family by themselves.
It is only within the last few years that they have attracted the attention of professed psychologists, yet we can not suppose that they never existed before. Even a superficial acquaintance with the literature of occultism, present and past, is sufficient to convince one that they have existed from time immemorial, that they have provided in the past the basis for many of man's most cherished convictions, precisely as in the present they constitute the chief content of our modern "spiritualism."
To get the least insight into these phenomena one must at the outset disabuse one's self of the pseudo-scientific notion that they are due to the "power of the imagination." It represents a rough attempt to get at the truth, but, like many another half truth, does more harm than good. We must clearly grasp the conception that man's mind is in many respects like his body. Like his body, it is the scene of constant struggle and rivalry between competing activities—it might not be far amiss to call them forces—in the ebb and flow of which his being consists. As disease germs occasionally succeed in effecting lodgment in his body and flourish, in spite of the agencies that strive to effect their destruction, so thought germs occasionally take root in his mind, sprout and grow in spite of all that "he himself" can do to prevent it. Where are they to be found? In all that we can see, hear, or think, everything carries with it some suggestive power. Usually the trivial suggestions of the environment pass by unnoticed, but occasionally, under some special circumstances or in some sensitive temperaments, they take root. A friend of mine told me that he was talking with his wife one evening of a recent murder, and, as he talked, his eyes rested on her eyes for a moment longer than usual. He saw her shrink and turn pale, but paid little attention to it at the moment. A little later he fancied she still looked troubled, and tried to comfort her, but she would have none of it; she could not allow him to come near her. She kept thinking of his killing her and was afraid of him. She did not believe it at all; she knew how absurd it was as well as he did, but, she said, the moment he allowed his gaze to rest on her while speaking of that horrible subject, she saw him killing her, and could not shake the thought off. It wore off in the course of half an hour or so. An isolated suggestion of this kind very seldom gets lodged in a sound mind. The most common source of contagion is to be found in the beliefs of the community in which one lives. We are by nature social animals, and our aptness for social life is largely due to our sensitiveness to the collective suggestions of the social environment. An individual who proves refractory to such influences, and evolves along his own lines without reference to the claims or the standards of his age, soon lands either in Bedlam or the lockup. All the forces which we vaguely call evolutionary have for ages been impressing this trait upon man, and consequently we find it a potent factor in the production of automatisms of all kinds. A suggestible patient often responds to such impressions almost as mechanically as a mirror, and faithfully reflects the opinions and prejudices of his human environment without feeling his voluntary self to be in the least concerned in it. The cases of Mr. B and of Mr. Le Baron, which I gave in my August paper, are illustrations in point. Automatisms of this sort are always popularly ascribed to the intervention of some intelligence distinct from that of the patient, but the further definition of the intelligence varies in different ages and countries.
I shall pass over the familiar convulsive epidemics of flagellation, of dancing, of tarantism, the "holy jerks" of the great revival in the Southern States at the opening of this century, the convulsionaries of Saint-Médard, etc. All these have been often described, and I shall assume that my readers are acquainted with them. I shall, however, take a few cases from various periods of the world's history, described by persons of different convictions and in each case differently interpreted, and shall try to show the absolute identity of type in each. The first occurred in France in 1636 in a Roman Catholic community, the second in England a generation later; both were ascribed to evil spirits. The third occurred in China only a few years ago, and was ascribed to the agency of a native goddess. The fourth and fifth are recent cases, one from Switzerland and one from British Columbia; both occurred among Spiritists, and were believed to be due to the spirits of deceased human beings, although one should note that in the last case the patient was not himself, for a moment misled as to the true character of the phenomena. In all, the automatic processes manifested themselves, partly by hallucinations of sight and hearing, partly in compulsory ideas and emotions, and partly by more or less significant automatic movements. In all there also appears to be a tendency toward association and systematization of the automatic processes with one another, so that what begins by being a more or less confused medley, in some cases rising to the point of mania, finally becomes a tolerably coherent expression of a characteristic personality which in turn represents the notions entertained by the patient and the community in which he lives as to what the demon, god, or spirit ought to do and say. Especially should one note how the automatic processes invariably present themselves to the patient as being something absolutely foreign to himself—a trait which Prof. James happily hit off in terming such attacks "invasions."
The story of the "Devils of Loudun" has often been told. In 1631 an epidemic of "possession" broke out among the nuns in a convent at Loudun, in southern France, and was ascribed by the sufferers to the machinations of a priest named Urbain Grandier. Grandier, by his dissolute life and overbearing conduct, had made himself many bitter and powerful enemies, chief among whom was Mignon, the father confessor of the convent, and there is good reason for believing that, originally at least, the "epidemic" was nothing more than a conspiracy devised by Father Mignon and the Mother Superior for the destruction of Grandier. It was most successful. Grandier was accused of witchcraft, and, although he escaped several times through technicalities, he was finally tried by a tribunal appointed by Cardinal Richelieu, was condemned, tortured, and burned.
Shortly after his death one of the priests who were trying to exorcise the devils from the nuns. Father Surin by name, claimed to be himself possessed by the devils and has left a vivid account of his experience. He seems to have been a feeble and credulous old man, and whatever the origin of the "epidemic" may have been I am inclined to regard his experience as a genuine invasion of the normal self by a mass of well co-ordinated ideas suggested by the shrieks and antics of the possessed. It finds an almost perfect parallel in the experience of Mr. R. L. Stevenson, which I narrated in my last paper.
In a letter to a friend, Father Surin says[1]: "Matters have come to such a pass that God has permitted, on account of my sins I suppose, something which has perhaps never before been seen in the Church. During the exercise of my ministry the devil passes from the body of the person possessed and, entering into mine, throws me down, convulses me, visibly passes through me, keeping possession of me many hours as a demoniac. . . . I do not know how to express to you what then takes place within me; and how that spirit unites with mine without depriving me either of consciousness or of my soul's freedom, yet acting all the while like another self, and as if I had two souls, of which the one is deprived of its body and of the use of its organs, and stands aside looking on the one that has got in. . . . The two spirits struggle in the same field, that is my body, and the soul is as it were divided. One part of it is the subject of diabolic impressions; another, of the motions which are proper to it, or which God gives it. . . . I feel that the cries which spring from my lips come equally from these two souls, and I can scarcely discriminate whether it is joy [allégresse] that gives rise to them or the extreme excitement [fureur] that fills me. . . . While my body rolls on the ground and the ministers of the Church talk to me as to a devil and heap maledictions upon me, I can not tell you what joy then fills me, having become a devil, not by rebellion against God, but by the misfortune which simply but clearly portrays to me the state to which sin has brought me. . . . My condition is such that I have few free actions; when I wish to speak, my speech is arrested; at mass I am stopped short; at table I can not raise food to my mouth; at confession I suddenly forget my sins, and I feel the devil come and go within me as in his own house. . . . As soon as I wake he is there, at my prayers; he takes away my thought when he pleases, when my heart begins to open to God he fills it with rage, he puts me to sleep when I wish to be awake, and openly, by the mouths of the possessed, he boasts that he is my master."
A parallel case is given by Henry More, the Cambridge Platonist, in his Appendix (page 58) to the second edition of Joseph Glanvil's book, "Saducismus Triumphatus, or, Full and Plain Evidence concerning Witches and Apparitions," London, 1682. It is entitled, "A story of the marvelous condition of one Robert Churchman of Balsham, some six or seven Miles off from Cambridge, when he was inveigled in Quakerism, how strangely he was possessed by a Spirit that spoke within him, and used his Organs in despight of him, while he was in his Fits. And how he was recovered from his Error, and regained to the Church by the devotions and diligence of Dr. J. Templar, still Minister of that place, as it is set down in his Letter to a friend, which is as follows."
Dr. Templar relates that he found the Quakers "very busie in enticing my people to a compliance with their perswasions in Religion," and among those influenced was this Robert Churchman. While Churchman was still in doubt the wife of a Quaker came to his house to visit his wife, but was refused admittance."After some Parley the Quaker's Wife spake unto him in these words, Thou wilt not believe except thou see a Sign, and thou mayest see some such. Within a few nights after Robert Churchman had a violent storm upon the Room where he lay, when it was very calm in all other parts of the Town, and a "Voice within him, as he was in bed, spake to him, and bad him, Sing praises, sing praises, telling him, that he should see the glory of the New Jerusalem, about which time a glimmering light appeared all about the Room. Toward the morning the Voice commanded him to go out of his Bed naked with his Wife and Children. They all standing upon the Floar, the Spirit making use of his Tongue, bid them to lye down and put their Mouths in the dust, which they did accordingly. It likewise commanded him to go and call his Brother and Sister, that they might see the New Jerusalem, to whom he went naked about half a Mile." This lasted three or four hours, during which "the drift of what was spoken was to perswade him to comply with the Quakers," and afterward "he came to himself and was able to give a perfect account of what had befallen him." The spirit returned several times, but finally, after Dr. Templar had prayed with him daily for some time, he was left "perfectly free from all molestation. The Quakers hearing of his condition gave it out, that the Power of God would come upon him again, and that the wound was but skinned over by the Priest. Which made me the more importunate with him to keep close to the publick Service of God and to have nothing to do with them or their Writings. Which direction he followed till November, 1661, and then perusing one of their Books, a little after upon the tenth day of that Month, his troubles returned. A voice within him began to speak to him after the former manner. . . . The design which he discerned that it did aim at was to take him off from coming to the Church (where he had been that day) and from hearing the Word of God." This continued several days, but he was "very peremptory in his resisting of it. When it began to sollicite him he replyed. That he saw it was a Spirit of delusion, which he would not obey. Upon which the Spirit denounced a Curse against him in these words, Go ye cursed into everlasting Fire! and so left him with a very great heat in his body. After this, he was in his own apprehension in a very comfortable condition, and while he was considering what had happened a Voice within him spake to him saying, That the Spirit which was before upon him was a Spirit of delusion, but now the true Spirit of God was come into him." It then gave him instruction in religious matters, contradicting what the former voice had said. Several times it came, and as Robert Churchman still doubted whether it were a good spirit or no it promised him what sign he would. Upon that he desired it to turn into brass a certain candlestick. "Presently there was a very unsavoury smell in the Room, like that of the Snuff of a Candle newly put out; but nothing else was done towards the fulfilling of the Promise. Upon the Lord's day following, he, being at Church, it came upon him. When the Chapters were named he turned to them in his Bible, but was not able to read. When the Psalm was sung, he could not pronounce a syllable. Upon Monday morning his Speech was wholly taken from him. When I came to him, and asked him how it was with him, he moved his head towards me but was not able to speak; I waited an Hour or two in the Room, hoping that his Speech might have returned unto him, and that I might have gained from him some account of his condition. But finding no alteration, I desired those who were present to joyn with me in Prayer. As we were Praying, his Body with much violence was thrown out of Bed, and then with great vehemence he called to me to hold my Tongue. When Prayer was done, his Tongue was bound as before, till at last he broke out into these words, Thine is the Kingdom, Thine is the Kingdom; which he repeated, I believe, above an hundred times. Sometimes he was forced into extream laughter, sometimes into singing; his hands were usually imployed in beating his Breast. All of us who stood by could discern unusual heavings in his body. This distemper did continue towards the morning of the next day, and then the voice within him signified to him that it would leave him, bidding him to get upon his knees in order to that end, which he did, and then presently he had a perfect command of himself. When I came to him he gave me a sober account of all the passages of the day before, having a distinct remembrance of what the Spirit forced him to do, and what was spoken to him by those who stood by. In particular he told me, he was compelled to give me that disturbance in prayer, which I before mentioned, the Spirit using his Limbs and Tongue as it pleased, contrary to the inclination of his own mind." Finally, Robert Churchman was "released from all his trouble" through the diligent prayers of Dr. Templar, with the happy result that both he and his wife and "some others who were too much byassed with the Principles of the Quakers "acquired" a perfect dislike of that way."
Demon possession is at the present time common in China, and a number of curious cases have been collected and published recently by a missionary who has had forty years’ experience among the Chinese.[2] Most of his narratives are in the third person, but one is given in the patient's own words. His name was Kwo, and he is described as a "hardy mountaineer, thirty-eight years of age, bright and entertaining, with nothing in his appearance which could be regarded as unhealthy or abnormal." His account is as follows:[3]
"Near the close of year before last (1877) I bought a number of pictures, including one of Wang Mu-niang, the wife of Yuhwang [the chief divinity of China]. For the goddess Wang Muniang I selected the most honorable position in the house; the others I pasted on the walls here and there as ornaments. On the second day of the first month I proposed worshiping the goddess, but my wife objected. The next night a spirit came, apparently in a dream, and said to me: ‘I am Wang Mu-niang of Yuin-men san [the name of a neighboring mountain]. I have taken up my abode in your house.’ It said this repeatedly. I had awakened, and was conscious of the presence of the spirit. I knew it was a shie-kwei (evil spirit), and as such I resisted it, and cursed it, saying, ‘I will have nothing to do with you.’ This my wife heard, and begged to know what it meant, and I told her. After this all was quiet and I was not disturbed for some days. About a week afterward a feeling of uneasiness and restlessness came over me which I could not control. At night I went to bed as usual, but grew more and more restless. At last, seized by an irresistible impulse, I arose from my bed and went straight to a gambler's den in Kao kia, where I lost at once sixteen thousand cash [sixteen dollars, a large sum for a peasant Chinaman]. I started for home and lost my way. But when it grew light I got back to my house. At that time I was conscious of what I was doing and saying, but I did things mechanically, and soon forgot what I had said." In this condition he remained for some days, the prey of irresistible impulses, which soon took a homicidal turn, and culminated in maniacal outbursts, alternating with epileptiform attacks. He was chained in bed, and for five or six days raved wildly. "My friends were in great distress. They proposed giving me more medicine, but the demon, speaking through me, replied, ‘Any amount of medicine will be of no use.’ My mother then asked, ‘If medicine is of no use, what shall we do?’ The demon replied, ‘Burn incense to me, and submit yourself to me, and all be well.’ My parents promised to do this, and knelt down and worshiped the demon, begging it to torment me no longer. Thus the matter was arranged, I all the time remaining in a state of unconsciousness." After more prayers and worship Kwo recovered consciousness, and was told what promises had been made in his name. He at once refused to worship the demon, upon which he was attacked again. Finally, he consented, and for some time the demon gave him little trouble, coming only at intervals, and then behaving very well. It promised to heal diseases, but "many diseases were not under its control, and it seemed as if it could perfectly cure only such as were inflicted by spirits"—in other words, those that were due to suggestion and could be relieved in the same way.
In the summer of 1878 a native missionary named Leng heard of Kwo, and persuaded him to tear down the shrine of the goddess and become a Christian, assuring him that if he did so he would be freed from the spirit's power. This he did, and a few days later his child died, which his wife ascribed to the vengeance of the goddess. Then the demon returned once more and said: "If your husband is determined to be a Christian, this is no place for me. But I wish to tell you that I had nothing to do with the death of your child." "What do you know of Jesus Christ?" they asked. The answer was: "Jesus Christ is the great Lord over all; and now I am going away, and you will not see me again." And the demon was as good as his word.
Prof. Forel, of Zurich, has given an account[4] of a case of this sort which seems to have puzzled him considerably. The patient, K. K., was a German, a wagon-maker by trade, had lived in the United States for some years, and had got interested in "spiritualism." Several times he tried to get the spirits to write by his own hand without success, but at last the hand started suddenly and wrote against his will. The writing was followed by automatic ideas in the form of the inner voice. All the communications professed to emanate from a spirit who, although unknown to him, was interested in him, and desired to improve him and prepare him for the life to come. Its commands were usually simple and reasonable enough. For example, the patient had been an excessive smoker, but at the spirit's command he gave up smoking entirely, and without especial suffering. Sometimes, however, the spirit was whimsical and even malicious. It forced him to smash lamps, break his false teeth, and do other things which caused him no little annoyance. The spirit always claimed that these irrational and disagreeable things were imposed upon him to test his obedience or to punish him for his sins. He was entirely unable to resist them. This patient gave himself into custody at an insane asylum at Burgholzi, in Switzerland, and was cured by suggestion in one hypnotic sitting.
It is not surprising that phenomena of this kind are common among spiritists. It would seem that the most favorable condition for the development of automatism would be a state of passivity on the part of the patient or "medium," in which he simply watches the impulses and thoughts that arise within him without attempting to repress any of them. Now, this condition finds its ideal fulfillment in the "developing séance" of the spiritist. A group of credulous folk gather in the dusk or darkness, and sing invocations to the spirits whom they believe to be hovering above them and watching for an opportunity to "impress" them. Their sole practical principle is "not to resist the spirits," and consequently the least tendency to spontaneous automatism is fostered and allowed to develop to the utmost. Furthermore, its development is favored by the complex suggestions of the environment and by the direct exhortations of believers. I remember one such "developing séance" which I attended some years ago, at which a stout woman rose and delivered an "inspirational" address, purporting to proceed from the spirit of a Methodist minister who had recently died in the neighborhood. As soon as it was concluded she fell heavily on the floor in hysterical convulsions. Three or four excited women at once ran to her, crying, "Don't resist, dear," "Let him take possession of you," "He won't hurt you, don't be afraid," etc., while the victim struggled and moaned: "Oh, I can't, I can't let him! Take him away!" In a few minutes another woman began to speak in the name of the spirit supposed to be controlling the first "medium," and immediately the struggles of the latter ceased. At that time I knew little of these phenomena, and the incident puzzled me a good deal. I never supposed, of course, that it was due to spirits, but I did not see any way of ascribing it to fraud either. With the exception of myself, all present were ardent "spiritualists," and I had every reason to believe them sincere in their efforts to reach the other world. It was not a paid sitting, and most of those present were personal friends of one another. From my present point of view it seems intelligible enough, and is quite analogous to that last described.
But the best case of this kind that I have yet seen described is that of Mr. Charles H. Tout, of which he has himself written a very acute analysis.[5] He had become interested in these questions and took part in some sittings at which no professional mediums were present. Almost from the outset two ladies of the circle were affected with spasmodic twitchings of the fingers and arms. "Sometimes these movements were very violent, causing them to slap and thump the table with such force as to seriously bruise their fingers and hands. . . . With the exception of these two ladies, none of the sitters were much affected on these occasions, though at times an almost irresistible impulse came upon myself to imitate their actions; but though I occasionally allowed the impulse, at the suggestion of the other sitters, to have full play, it never with me took the bit between its teeth and got beyond my control. I could always stop at once any movements in my limbs, or change the attitude of my mind, by an effort of will." At a later sitting a dream-personality similar to that of Mr. Stevenson developed itself. "I seemed to have, as it were, stepped aside, and some other intelligence was now controlling my organism. I was merely a passive spectator interested in what was being done. My second self seemed to be a mother overflowing with feelings of maternal love and solicitude for some one. The very features of my face seemed to be changing, and I was distinctly conscious of assuming the look of a fond and devoted mother looking down upon her child. I even inwardly smiled as I thought how ridiculous I must be looking, but I made no effort to resist the impulse. I now felt I wanted to caress and console somebody, and the impulse was strong upon me to take my friend in my arms and soothe and cheer him. I resisted the impulse for some time, but finally yielded to it. In doing so I had a distinct feeling of relationship to my friend. After a little while I began to be myself again." At another time a lady who was supposed to be sensitive to spirit influences believed that she got for Mr. Tout a message from the spirit of his father who had died of bronchitis and pleurisy some twenty years before. The hymn, "Nearer, my God, to Thee," which had been a favorite with Mr. Tout's father, had just been sung. With practice Mr. Tout seems to have become more suggestible. On another occasion, he says, "I was affected to an unusual degree, experiencing violent twitchings in my limbs, and sensations of painful chilliness that made my teeth chatter again. I sat, as I always did now, passively waiting for what might transpire. All sorts of impulses seemed to be moving me, and I noticed how susceptible I was becoming to the slightest even half-realized suggestion offered by the course of my own thoughts or by the chance remarks made by the other sitters. I presently felt myself being drawn, as it seemed to me, toward the floor on the left side of my chair. I yielded to the influence and fell prostrate out of my chair on to the floor with considerable force, and, though the others thought I must have hurt myself, I certainly felt no inconvenience from the fall. I lay groaning for a little while, and then got up and sat in my chair again.
"Some one now suggested that we should sing, and this being done, I immediately became affected by the music, which moved me in a very extraordinary manner. I fancied myself realizing the whole scene clearly. In a great cathedral I seemed to be the presiding priest at the close of a great function pronouncing the benediction." He then went through several of these dreamlike states, some of which he describes, and says of them: "In all these phases or states I seemed to be two individuals—one my ordinary, critical, observant self, closely watching what took place in and around me, the other the character that seemed to be personating itself through me." Toward the close of the séance the hymn "Nearer, my God, to Thee" was sung. "Before the first verse was finished I began to experience strange sensations. . . . I seemed to be far away in space. . . . I seemed to be moving or rather to be drawn downward, and presently felt that I had reached this earth again; but all was strange and fearful and lonely, and I seemed to be disappointed that I could not attain the object of this long and lonely journey. . . . At this point some one said, ‘It's his father controlling him.’ I then seemed to realize who I was and whom I was seeking. I began to be distressed in my lungs. . . . I was in a measure still conscious of my actions, though not of my surroundings, and I have a clear memory of seeing myself in the character of my dying father lying in the bed and the room in which he died. It was a most curious sensation. I saw his shrunken hands and face and lived again through his dying moments; only now I was both myself—in some indistinct sort of way—and my father with his feeling and appearance."
Mr. Tout then shows in detail that these dreams—for they are no more—sprang from the suggestions which were given him by his friends and from autosuggestions furnished by his own mind. For example, the journey through space sprang from a ghost story which he had once read, told from a ghost's point of view, and describing the return of a restless spirit to earth. He then adds: "I know myself and my susceptibility, even under normal conditions, to suggestion in all sorts of forms, not necessarily verbal, so well that no alternative remains to me but to believe that what I did was due simply to everyday suggestion in one form and another. Building and peopling cháteaux en Espagne was a favorite occupation of mine in my earlier days, and this long-practiced faculty is doubtless a potent factor in all my characterizations, and doubtless also in those of many another full-fledged ‘medium.’ " With this sane and rational conclusion all sensible folk will agree.
- ↑ Gauthier. Histoire du Somnambulisme, vol. ii, pp. 164 et sq. Italics as there given.
- ↑ Demon Possession and Allied Themes. By Rev. John L. Nevius, D.D. Dr. Nevius is convinced that these phenomena are really produced by demons.
- ↑ Op. cit., p. 22
- ↑ Zeitschrift für of Hypnotismus, Jahrgang 1894–’95.
- ↑ Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. xi, pp. 309-316.