CHAPTER XVII: SUPERNATURAL AGENTS AS CAUSING EPILEPSY AND CONVULSIVE ACTIONS, DELIRIUM AND INSANITY, DISEASE AND DEATH.

§ 121. The phenomena exhibited during evolution cannot be placed in serial order. Always there go on divergences and re-divergences. Setting out with the primitive ideas of insensibility, of death, and of the ghost, we have traced along certain lines the developing ideas of another life and another world; and along other lines we have traced the developing ideas of supernatural agents as existing on all sides. Setting out afresh from the insensible body as the starting point, we have now to observe how a further class of ideas has been simultaneously developing by the aid of those we have considered.

In sleep, in swoon, in trance, in apoplexy, there is almost complete quiescence; and at death the quiescence becomes absolute. Usually, then, during the supposed absence of the other-self, the body does nothing. But sometimes the body, lying on the ground with eyes closed, struggles violently; and, after the ordinary state is resumed, the individual denies having struggled—says that he knows nothing about those actions of his body which the spectators saw. Obviously his other-self has been away. But how came his body to behave so strangely during the interval?

The answer given to this question is the most rational which the primitive man can give.

§ 122. If, during insensibilities of all kinds, the soul wanders, and, on returning, causes the body to resume its activity—if the soul can thus not only go out of the body but can go into it again; then may not the body be entered by some other soul? The savage thinks it may.

Hence the interpretation of epilepsy. The Congo people ascribe epilepsy to demoniac possession. Among the East Africans, “falling sickness” is peculiarly common; and Burton thinks it has given rise to the prevalent notion of possession. Of Asiatic races may be instanced the Kalmucks: by these nomads epileptics are regarded as persons into whom bad spirits have entered. That the Jews similarly explained the facts is clear; and the Arabic language has the same word for epilepsy and possession by devils. It is needless to show that this explanation persisted among the civilized up to comparatively-recent times.

The original inference is, then, that while the patient’s other-self has gone away, some disembodied spirit, usurping its place, uses his body in this violent way. Where we have a specific account of the conception in its earliest stage, we learn that the assumed supernatural agent is a ghost. From the Amazulu cross-examined by Bishop Callaway, there is brought out the statement that when a diviner is becoming possessed by the Itongo (ancestral spirits), “he has slight convulsions.” Moreover, a witness who “went to a person with a familiar spirit to inquire respecting a boy . . . who had convulsions,” got the answer—“he is affected by the ancestral spirits.”

§ 123. A further question comes before the primitive mind, and a further rational corollary is drawn, which develops into a series of curious but consistent ideas.

Occasionally a person, while still conscious, cannot control the actions of his body. He finds himself doing something without willing it, or even in spite of his will. Is it, then, that another soul has entered him; even though his Edition: current; Page: [228] own soul has not wandered away? An affirmative answer is inevitable.

Hence the explanation of hysteria, with its uncontrollable and meaningless laughs, sobs, and cries. Among the Amazulu, hysterical symptoms are counted as traits of one who is becoming an Inyanga, or diviner—one who is becoming possessed. The remark made by Parkyns respecting the Abyssinians, that “the greater part of the ‘possessed’ are women,” indicates a kindred interpretation: women being so much more liable to hysteria than men. And when we read in Mariner, that among the Tongans inspiration is not confined to the priests, but is sometimes experienced by others, especially females, we may reasonably conclude that fits of hysterics are the signs of inspiration referred to. Indeed, is not one of the symptoms of the disorder conclusive proof? What can be said of the globus hystericus—a ball that is suddenly felt within the body—unless it is this alleged possessing spirit?

Carried thus far, the explanation has to be carried further. If these more violent actions of the body, performed in defiance of the will, are ascribable to a usurping demon, so, too, must be the less violent actions of this kind. Hence the primitive theory of sneezing and yawning. The Amazulu regard these involuntary actions as marks of possession. When a man is becoming an Inyanga,

In other cases we have proof, not of permanent possession, but of temporary possession, being inferred from the sneeze. The Khonds dash water on the priest when they wish to consult him. He sneezes, and becomes inspired. Of course, there is nothing to determine whether this possession is by a friendly or by an unfriendly spirit: it may be, as among the Zulus, an ancestral ghost, or, as among other peoples, it Edition: current; Page: [229] may be a malicious demon. But be the sneeze, as with the Moslem, a reason for asking Allah to protect him against Satan as the presumed cause; or be it, as with the Christian, the occasion of a now-unmeaning “God bless you” from bystanders; or be it the ground for putting faith in an utterance as inspired; the root idea is the same: some intruding spirit has made the body do what its owner did not intend.

Two kindred interpretations may be added. Among the Yakuts there is a disorder accompanied by a violent hiccough, and “they persist in believing that a devil is in the body of the person afflicted.” A neighbouring people, the Kirghiz, furnish a still stranger instance. Mrs. Atkinson says that a woman in child-bed is supposed to be possessed by a devil; and it is even the custom to beat her for the purpose of driving him away.

In this last case, as in all the others, there are involuntary muscular contractions. These may reasonably be ascribed to possession, if those of epilepsy are so; and we see that the ascription of epilepsy to possession is an implication of the original ghost-theory.

§ 124. Certain allied phenomena, explicable in like manner and otherwise inexplicable, further confirm the doctrine of possession. I refer to the phenomena of delirium and madness.

What is come to this man who, lying prostrate, and refusing to eat, does not know those around; now mutters incoherently or talks nonsense; now speaks to some one the bystanders cannot see; now shrinks in terror from an invisible foe; now laughs without a cause? And how does it happen that when he has become calm he either knows nothing about these strange doings of his, or narrates things which no one witnessed? Manifestly one of these spirits or ghosts, swarming around, had entered his body at night while he was away, and had thus abused it. That savages do thus interpret the facts we have not much evidence: Edition: current; Page: [230] probably because travellers rarely witness among them this kind of mental disturbance. Still, Petherick says the Arabs suppose that “in high fever, when a person is delirious, he is possessed by the devil.”

But when from temporary insanity we pass to permanent insanity, we everywhere find proof that this is the interpretation given. The Samoans attribute madness to the presence of an evil spirit; as also do the Tongans. The Sumatrans, too, consider that lunatics are possessed. Among more advanced races the interpretation has been, and still remains, the same. When the writer of Rambles in Syria. tells us that, “in the East, madness is tantamount to inspiration,” we are reminded that if there is any difference between this conception and the conceptions recorded of old, it concerns only the nature of the possessing spirit. These earlier records, too, yield evidence that the original form of the belief was the form above inferred. “According to Josephus, demons are the spirits of the wicked dead: they enter into the bodies of the living.” As the possessed were said to frequent burial-places, and as demons were supposed to make tombs their favourite haunts, we may conclude that by Jews in general the possessing spirit was at first conceived as a ghost.

The continuance of this view of insanity through mediæval days, down to the days when the 72nd canon of our Church tacitly embodied it by forbidding the casting out of devils without a special licence, is easy to understand. Only after science had made familiar the idea that mental states result from nervous actions, which can be disordered by physical causes, did it become possible to conceive the madman’s amazing ideas and passions in any other way than as the expressions of some nature unlike his own.

We must not overlook a verification which the behaviour of the insane yields to the belief in surrounding ghosts or spirits. The uncivilized or semi-civilized man knows nothing about subjective illusions. What then must he think Edition: current; Page: [231] when he hears a maniac talking furiously to an invisible person, or throwing a missile at some being, unseen by others, whom he wants to drive away? His frantic gestures, his glaring eyes, his shrieking voice, make it impossible to doubt the strength of his belief. Obviously, then, there are mischievous demons around: manifest to him, but not to bystanders. Any who doubted the existence of supernatural agents can no longer doubt.

One further noteworthy idea is thus yielded. In his paroxysms, an insane person is extremely strong—strong enough to cope single-handed with several men. What is the inference? The possessing demon has superhuman energy. The belief thus suggested has developments hereafter to be observed.

§ 125. Once established, this mode of explaining unusual actions, mental and bodily, extends itself. Insensibly it spreads from abnormalities of the kinds above instanced, to those of other kinds. Diseases are soon included under the theory. As in fever bodily derangement co-exists with mental derangement, the inference is that the same agent causes both. And if some unhealthy states are produced by indwelling demons, then others are thus produced. A malicious spirit is either in the body, or is hovering around, inflicting evil on it.

The primitive form of this interpretation is shown us by the Amazulu. Even a stitch in the side they thus explain: “if the disease lasts a long time,” they say, “he is affected by the Itongo. He is affected by his people who are dead.” The Samoans supposed that the spirits of the dead “had power to return, and cause disease and death in other members of the family.” As we saw in § 92, the New Caledonians “think white men are the spirits of the dead, and bring sickness.” The Dyaks who, like the Australians, attribute every disease to spirits, like them, too, personify diseases. They will not call the small-pox by its name; but Edition: current; Page: [232] ask—“Has he yet left you?” Sometimes they call it “the chief.” In these cases ghosts are the assumed agents; and in some of them, occupation of the sufferer’s body is alleged or implied. In other cases, the supernatural agent, not specified in its origin, appears to be regarded as external. By the Arawâks, pain is called “the evil spirit’s arrow;” and the Land-Dyaks believe that sickness is occasionally “caused by spirits inflicting on people invisible wounds with invisible spears.” But everywhere the supposed cause is personal. In Asia, the Karens “attribute diseases to the influence of unseen spirits.” By the Lepchas, all ailments “are deemed the operations of devils;” as also by the Bodo and Dhimáls. In Africa, the Coast Negroes ascribe illness to witchcraft or the operations of the gods; the Koossas consider it caused by enemies and evil spirits; and the offended ancestor of a Zulu is represented as saying—“I will reveal myself by disease.” In America, the Comanches think a malady is due to the “blasting breath” of a foe; and the Mundrucús regard it as the spell of an unknown enemy.

If instead of “ghost” we read “supernatural agent,” the savage theory becomes the semi-civilized theory. The earliest recorded hero of the Babylonians, Izdubar, is smitten with a grievous malady by the offended goddess Ishtar. In the first book of the Iliad, the Greeks who die of pestilence are represented as hit by Apollo’s arrows—an idea parallel to one of the savage ideas above named. It was believed by the Jews that dumbness and blindness ceased when the devils causing them were ejected. And in after-times, the Fathers held that demons inflicted diseases. How persistent this kind of interpretation has been, we are shown by the fact that the production of illness by witches, who instigate devils, is even now alleged among the uncultured; and by the fact that some of the cultured still countenance the belief that illness is diabolically caused. A State-authorized expression of this theory of disease is often repeated Edition: current; Page: [233] by priests. In the order for the visitation of the sick, one of the prayers is, “renew in him” “whatsoever has been decayed by the fraud and malice of the devil.”

§ 126. After contemplating the genesis of the foregoing beliefs, the accompanying belief that death is due to supernatural agency will no longer surprise us.

In one form or other this belief occurs everywhere. The Uaupè Indians, Wallace tells us, “scarcely seem to think that death can occur naturally;” and Hearne says the Chippewayans ascribe the deaths of their chiefs to witchcraft—commonly by the Esquimaux. The Kalmucks believe that “death is caused by some spirit at the command of the deity;” the Kookies attribute death, as well as all earthly evils, to supernatural causes; and the Khonds hold “that death is not the necessary and appointed lot of man, but that it is incurred only as a special penalty for offences against the gods.” The Bushmen think death is chiefly due to witchcraft; and by the Bechuanas, death, even in old age, is ascribed to sorcery. The Coast Negroes think “no death is natural or accidental;” Burton says that “in Africa, as in Australia, no man, however old, dies a natural death;” and the Loango people do not believe in natural death, even from drowning or other accident. The Tahitians regarded the effects of poisons as “more the effects of the god’s displeasure, . . . than the effects of the poisons themselves. . . . Those who were killed in battle were also supposed to die from the influence of the gods.” And kindred ideas are current among the Sandwich Islanders, the Tannese, and various other peoples.

A sequence must be named. Eventually the individualities of the particular demons supposed to have caused death, merge in a general individuality—a personalized Death: the personalization probably beginning, everywhere, in the tradition of some ferocious foe whose directly-seen acts of vengeance were multitudinous, and to whom, Edition: current; Page: [234] afterwards, unseen acts of vengeance were more and more ascribed. Be this as it may, however, we may trace the evolution of these primitive notions into those which existed in classic times and mediæval times. At a Naga’s burial, his friends arm themselves, and challenge the spirit who caused his death. Of the Tasmanians, Mr. Davis relates that, “during the whole of the first night after the death of one of their tribe, they will sit round the body, using rapidly a low, continuous recitative, to prevent the evil spirit from taking it away. Such evil spirit being the ghost of an enemy.” On the other hand, among the Kora-Hottentots the conception has become partially generalized: they personalize death—say “Death sees thee.” Which several facts show us the root of the belief implied by the story of Alcestis, who is rescued from the grasp of the strong Death by the still stronger Hercules; and also the root of the belief implied by the old representations of Death as a skeleton, holding a dart or other weapon.

In the minds of many, the primitive notion still lingers. When reading with astonishment that savages, not recognizing natural death, ascribe all death to supernatural agency, we forget that even now supernatural agency is assigned in cases where the cause of death is not obvious—nay, in some cases where it is obvious. We still occasionally read the coroner’s verdict—“Died by the visitation of God;” and we still meet people who think certain deaths (say the drownings of those who go boating on Sundays) directly result from divine vengeance: a belief differing from these savage beliefs only in a modified conception of the supernatural agent.

§ 127. Considered thus as following from the primitive interpretation of dreams, and consequent theory of ghosts, souls, or spirits, these conclusions are quite consistent.

If souls can leave bodies and re-enter them, why should not bodies be entered by strange souls, while their own souls Edition: current; Page: [235] are absent? If, as in epilepsy, the body performs acts which the owner denies having performed, there is no choice but to assume such an agency. And if certain uncontrollable movements, as those of hysteria, as well as the familiar ones of sneezing, yawning, and hiccough, take place involuntarily, the conclusion must be that some usurping spirit directs the actions of the subject’s body in spite of him.

This hypothesis explains, too, the strange behaviour of the delirious and the insane. That a maniac’s body has been taken possession of by an enemy, is proved by the fact that it is impelled to self-injury. Its right owner would not make the body bite and tear itself. Further, the possessing demon is heard to hold converse with other demons, which he sees but which bystanders do not see.

And if these remarkable derangements of body and mind are thus effected, the manifest inference is that diseases and disorders of less remarkable kinds are effected in the same way. Should there not be a demon within the body, there must be, at any rate, some invisible enemy at hand, who is working these strange perturbations in it.

Often occurring after long-continued disease, death must be caused by that which caused the disease. Whenever the death has no visible antecedent, this is the only possible supposition; and even when there is a visible antecedent, it is still probable that there was some demoniacal interference. The giving way of his foothold and consequent fatal fall of a companion down a precipice, or the particular motion which carried a spear into his heart, was very likely determined by the malicious spirit of a foe.