At this time Darrel was officiating as a minister at Nottingham, where there happened to be living a young apprenticed musician, a clever and likely lad, William Somers, who some years before had met Darrel at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where both had been resident. It appears that the boy had once met a strange woman, whom he offended in some way, and suddenly he “did use such strang and idle kinde of gestures in laughing, dancing, and such like lighte behaviour, that he was suspected to be madd.” The famous exorcist was sent for on the 5th of November, 1597, and forthwith recognized the signs of possession. The lad was suffering for the sins of Nottingham. Accordingly sermons were delivered and prayers were read in true ranting fashion, and when Darrel named one after the other fourteen signs of possession the patient, who had been most carefully coached, illustrated each in turn.

It is possible that Darrel had to some extent mesmeric control over Somers, whose performance was of a very remarkable nature at least, for “he tore; he foamed; he wallowed; his face was drawn awry; his eyes would stare and his tongue hang out”; together with a thousand other such apish antics which greatly impressed the bystanders. Finally the boy lay as if dead for a quarter of an hour, and then rose up declaring he was well and whole.

However, obsession followed possession. The demon still assailed him, and it was not long before Master Somers accused thirteen women of having contrived his maladies by their sorcery. Darrel, the witch-finder, had by this time attained a position of no small importance in the town, being chosen preacher at S. Mary’s, and he was prepared to back his pupil to the uttermost. Yet even his influence for some reason did not serve, and all but two of the women concerned were released from prison. Next certain unbelieving citizens had the bad taste to interfere, and to carry off the chief actor to the house of correction, where he pretty soon confessed his impostures, in which, as he acknowledged, he had been carefully instructed by Darrel. The matter now became a public scandal, and upon the report of the Archdeacon of Derby the Archbishop of York appointed a commission to inquire into the facts. Brought before these ministers, not one of whom could possibly have had any means of forming a correct judgement, Somers retracted his words, asserted that he had been induced to slander Darrel, and thereat fell into such fits, foamings, and contortions that the ignoramuses were convinced of the reality of his demoniac possession.

At the Nottingham assizes, however, things went differently. Summoned to court and encouraged by the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Edmund Anderson,⁠[63] to tell the truth the wretched young man made a clean breast of all his tricks. The case against Alice Freeman, the accused, was dismissed, and Sir Edmund, shocked at the frauds, wrote a weighty letter to Whitgift, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Darrel and More were cited to the Court of High Commission, where Bancroft, Bishop of London, two of the Lord Chief Justices, the Master of Requests, and other high officials heard the case. It is obvious that Bancroft really controlled the examination from first to last, and that he combined the rôles of prosecutor and judge. Somers now told the Court how he had been in constant communication with Darrel, how they had met secretly when Darrel taught him “to doe all those trickes which Katherine Wright did” and later sent him to see and learn of the boy of Burton. In fact Darrel made him go through a whole series of antics again and again in his presence, and it was after all these preliminaries and practice that the lad posed as a possessed person at Nottingham and was prayed over and exhibited. The vulpine Puritan was fairly caught. No doubt the Bishop of London may have been a trifle arbitrary, but after all he was dealing with a rank impostor. Darrel and More were deposed from the ministry, and committed to close prison.

The whole of this case is reported by Samuel Harsnett, chaplain to Bancroft, in a book of three hundred and twenty-four pages, A Discovery of the Fraudulent Practises of John Darrel, Bacheler of Artes.... London, 1599, and a perfect rain of pamphlets followed. Both Darrel and More answered Harsnett, drawing meantime a number of other persons into the paper fray. We have such works as An Apologie, or defence of the possession of William Sommers, a young man of the towne of Nottingham.... By John Darrell, Minister of Christ Jesus ... a black letter brochure which is undated but may be safely assigned to 1599; The Triall of Maist. Dorrel, or A Collection of Defences against Allegations ... 1599;⁠[64] and Darrel’s abusive A Detection of that sinnful, shamful, lying, and ridiculous discours of Samuel Harshnet, 1600. There are several allusions in contemporary dramatists to the scandal, and Jonson in The Divell is an Asse, acted in 1616, V, 3, has:

It is probable that in his books Harsnett is to a large extent the mouthpiece of the ideas of Bancroft,⁠[65] whose opinions must have carried no small weight seeing that in 1604 he became Archbishop of Canterbury. But Harsnett himself was also a man who could well stand alone, a divine marked out for the highest preferments. As Master of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, Vice-chancellor of that University, Bishop of Chichester, Bishop of Norwich, and finally in 1628 Archbishop of York,⁠[66] he was certainly one of the most prominent men of the day. His views, therefore, are not only of interest, but may be regarded as an expression of recognized Anglican authority. Bancroft, who was a bitter persecutor of Catholics, seems to have turned over a quantity of material he had collected to Harsnett, who in 1603 published a verjuiced attack upon the priesthood in particular and upon the supernatural in general under the title of A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures.⁠[67] This violent and foolish polemic with its heavy periods of coarse ill-humour and scornful profanity jars upon the reader like the harsh screeching of some cankered scold. True, it has a certain force due to the very vehemence and elaborate gusto of the wrathful ecclesiastic, the force of Billingsgate and deafening vituperation bawled by leathern lungs and raucous tongue. As a sober argument, a reasoned contribution to controversy and debate, the thing is negligible and has been wholly forgotten. Nevertheless, historically Harsnett and Bancroft are important, for it was the latter who drew up, or at least inspired, carried through Convocation, and at once enforced the Canons generally known as those of 1604, of which number 72 lays down: “No minister or ministers shall ... without the license or direction (mandatum) of the Bishop ... attempt upon any pretence whatsoever either of possession or obsession, by fasting or prayer, to cast out any devil or devils, under pain of the imputation of imposture or cozenage, and deposition from the ministry.”

This article seems definitely intended to fix the position of the Church of England.⁠[68] The whole question of exorcism had, in common with every other point of Christian doctrine, caused the most acrid disagreement. The Lutherans retained exorcism in the baptismal rite and were both instant and persevering in their exorcisms of the possessed. Martin Luther himself had a most vivid realization of and the firmest belief in the material antagonism of evil. The black stain in the castle of Wartburg still marks the room where he flung his ink-horn at the Devil. The silly body, the blind, the dumb, the idiot, were, as often as not, afflicted by demons; the raving maniac was assuredly possessed. Physicians might explain these evils as natural infirmity, but such physicians were ignorant men; they did not know the craft and power of Satan. Many a poor wretch who was generally supposed to have committed suicide had in truth been seized by the Fiend and strangled by him. The Devil could beget children; had not Luther himself come in contact with one of them?⁠[69] At the close of the sixteenth century, however, an interminable and desperate struggle took place between the believers in exorcism and the Swiss and Silesian sectaries who entirely discarded exorcism,⁠[70] either declaring it to have belonged only to the earliest years of Christianity or else trying to explain away the Biblical instances on purely rationalistic grounds. In England baptismal exorcism was retained in the First Prayer Book of 1549, but by 1552, owing to the authority of Martin Bucer, we find it entirely eliminated. Under Elizabeth the ever-increasing influence of Zurich and Geneva, to which completest deference was paid, thoroughly discredited exorcisms of any kind, and this misbelieving attitude is repeatedly and amply made clear in the sundry “Apologies” and “Defences” of Jewel and his followers.

A letter of Archbishop Parker in 1574⁠[71] with reference to the proven frauds of two idle wenches, Agnes Bridges and Rachel Pinder,⁠[72] shows that he was thoroughly sceptical as to the possibility of possession, and his successor, the stout old Calvinist Whitgift, was certainly of the same mind.

In 1603 five clergymen attempted exorcism in the case of Mary Glover, the daughter of a merchant in Thames Street, who was said to be possessed owing to the sorceries of a certain Elizabeth Jackson. John Swan, “a famous Minister of the Gospel,” took the lead in this business, which made considerable noise at the time. The Puritans were not unnaturally anxious to vindicate their powers over the Devil and they seem avidly to have grasped at any such opportunity that offered. Swan did not fail to advertise his supposed triumph in A True and Breife Report of Mary Glover’s Vexation and of her deliverance by the meanes of fastinge and prayer, 1603; moreover, after her deliverance he took her home to be his servant “least Satan should assault her again.” Old Mother Jackson was indicted, committed by Sir John Crook, the Recorder of London, and actually sentenced by Sir Edmund Anderson, the Lord Chief Justice, to be pilloried four times and be kept a year in prison. Unfortunately for the would-be exorcists and their pretensions King James, whose shrewd suspicions were aroused, sent to examine the girl, a physician, Dr. Edward Jorden, who detected her imposture, in which, I doubt not, she had been well coached by the Puritans. Dr. Jorden recounted the circumstance in his pamphlet A briefe discourse of a disease called the Suffocation of the Mother, Written uppon occasion which hath beene of late taken thereby to suspect possession of an evill spirit (London, 1603). The ministers were extremely chagrined, and one Stephen Bradwell even took up the cudgels in a tart rejoinder to Jorden, which was singularly futile as his lucubrations remain unpublished.⁠[73] It is not improbable that this performance had its share of influence on Bancroft when he drew up article 72 of the 1604 Canons.

Francis Hutchinson in his Historical Essay on Witchcraft (1718)⁠[74] doubts whether any Bishop of the Church of England ever granted a licence for exorcism to any one of his clergy, and indeed the case which is given by Dr. F. G. Lee,⁠[75] who relates how Bishop Seth Ward of Exeter assigned a form under his own signature and seal in January, 1665, to the Rev. John Ruddle, vicar of Altarnon, is probably unique. And even so, this was not strictly speaking an instance of exorcism, at least there was no deliverance of a person possessed. Mr. Ruddle records in his MS. Diary that in a lonely field belonging to the parish of Little Petherick⁠[76] an apparition was seen by a lad aged about sixteen, the son of a certain Mr. Bligh. The ghost, which was that of one Dorothy Durant, who had died eight years before, appeared so frequently to the boy at this same spot which he was obliged to pass daily as he went to and from school, that he fell ill and at last confessed his fears to his family, who treated the matter with ridicule and scolded him roundly when they saw that jest and mockery were of no avail. Eventually Mr. Ruddle was sent for to argue him out of his foolishness. The vicar, however, was not slow to perceive that young Bligh was speaking the truth, and he forthwith accompanied his pupil to the field, where they both unmistakably saw the phantom just as had been described. After a little while Mr. Ruddle visited Exeter to interview his diocesan and obtain the necessary licence for the exorcism. The Bishop, however, asked: “On what authority do you allege that I am entrusted with faculty so to do? Our Church, as is well known, hath abjured certain branches of her ancient power, on grounds of perversion and abuse.” Mr. Ruddle quoted the Canons of 1604, and this appears to have satisfied the prelate, who called in his secretary and assigned a form “insomuch that the matter was incontinently done.” But the worthy vicar was not permitted to depart without a thoroughly characteristic caution: “Let it be secret, Mr. Ruddle,—weak brethren! weak brethren!” The MS. Diary gives some details of the manner in which the ghost was laid, and it is significant to read that the operator described a circle and a pentacle upon the ground further making use of a rowan “crutch” or wand. He mentions “a parchment scroll,” he spoke in Syriac and proceeded to demand as the books advise; he “went through the proper forms of dismissal and fulfilled all, as it was set down and written in my memoranda,” and then “with certain fixed rites I did dismiss that troubled ghost.” It would be interesting to know what form and ceremonies the Bishop prescribed. It does not sound like the details of a Catholic exorcism, but rather some superstitious and magical ritual. From what is related the form can hardly have been arranged for the nonce.

Although exorcism was not recognized by Protestants there are instances upon record where an appeal has been made by English country-folk for the ministrations of a Catholic priest. In April, 1815, Father Edward Peach of the Midland District, was implored to visit a young married woman named White, of King’s Norton, Worcestershire. She had for two months been afflicted with an extraordinary kind of illness which doctors could neither name nor cure. Her sister declared that a young man of bad repute, whose hand had been rejected, had sworn revenge and had employed the assistance of a reputed wizard at Dudley to work some mischief. However that might be, the unhappy girl seemed to lie at death’s door; she raved of being beset day and night by spirits who mocked and moped at her, threatening to carry her away body and soul, and suggesting self-destruction as the only means to escape them. The clergyman of the parish visited and prayed with her, but no good resulted from all his endeavours. It so happened that a nurse who was called in was a Catholic, and horrified at the hideous ravings of the patient she procured a bottle of holy water, with which she sprinkled the room and bed. A few drops fell upon the sufferer, who uttered the most piercing cries, and screamed out, “You have scalded me! You have scalded me!” The paroxysm, however, passed, and she fell for the first time during many weeks into a sound slumber. After some slight improvement for eight and forty hours she was attacked by violent convulsions, and her relatives, in great alarm, on Tuesday in Rogation Week, 2 May, 1815, sent a special messenger to beg Father Peach to come over immediately.

When the priest appeared the girl was being held down in bed by two women who were forced to put forth all their strength, and as soon as she saw him—he was a complete stranger to her nor could his sacred profession be recognized by his attire—so terrible were her struggles that her husband was bound to lend his aid also to master her writhing limbs. Presently she fell into a state of complete exhaustion, and Father Peach, dismissing the rest of the company, was able to talk to her long and seriously. He seems to have been quite satisfied that it was a genuine case of diabolic possession, and his evidence, carefully expressed and marshalled with great moderation, leave no reasonable doubt that this strange sickness owned no natural origin. In the course of conversation it appeared that she had never been baptized. A simple instruction was given and finding her in excellent dispositions Father Peach at once baptized her. During the administration of this sacrament she trembled like a leaf, and as the water fell upon her she winced pitifully, a spasm of agony distorting her countenance. She afterwards averred that it gave her as much pain as if boiling water had been poured upon her bare flesh. Immediately afterwards there followed a truly remarkable change in her health and spirits; her husband and sister were overjoyed and thought it no less than a miracle. The next day Father Peach visited her again and noticed a rapid improvement. Save for a slight weakness she seemed perfectly restored, and, says the good father, writing a twelvemonth later than the event from notes he had taken at the time, there was no return, nor the least lingering symptom of her terrible and distressing malady.

In its issue of 11 October, 1925, The Sunday Express, under the heading “Evil Spirit Haunts A Girl,” devoted a prominent column to the record of some extraordinary happenings. The account commences:

“Haunted for twelve months and more by a mischievous spirit—called a Poltergeist—driven almost to a state of distraction, threatened with a lunatic asylum, and then cured by the help of a band of spirit Indians, is the extraordinary experience of the nineteen-year-old Gwynneth Morley, who lives with her widowed mother at Keighley, and who was employed in the spinning mills of Messrs. Hay and Wright.”

These phenomena were communicated to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who informed Mr. Hewet McKenzie, with the result that the girl was brought to London for psychic treatment, Mr. McKenzie being “honorary principal of the British College of Psychic Science,” an institution which is advertised as the “Best equipped Centre for the study of Psychic Science in Britain,” and announces “Lectures on Practical Healing,” “Public Clairvoyance,” “A Small Exhibition of notable water colours ... representing Soul development, or experience of the Soul in ethereal conditions.” “The College” is, I am given to understand, a well-known centre for spiritistic séances.

Gwynneth Morley worked in Mr. McKenzie’s family for three months “as a housemaid, under close observation, and receiving psychic treatment.

“Day by day the amazing manifestations of her tormenting spirit were noted down. In between the new and full moon the disturbances were worse. Everything in the room in which Gwynneth happened to be would be thrown about and smashed. Tables were lifted and overturned, chairs smashed to pieces, bookcases upset, and heavy settees thrown over.

“In the kitchen of Holland Park the preparation of meals, when Gwynneth was about, was a disconcerting affair. Bowls of water would be spilt and pats of butter thrown on the floor.

“On another occasion when Gwynneth was in the kitchen the housekeeper, who was preparing some grape fruit for breakfast, found that one half had disappeared and could be found neither in the kitchen nor in the scullery. She got two bananas to take its place, and laid them on the table beside her; immediately the missing grape fruit whizzed past her ear and fell before her and the bananas vanished. Some ten minutes later they were found on the scullery table.

“All this time Gwynneth was being treated by psychic experts. Every week the girl sat with Mr. and Mrs. McKenzie and others. It was found that she was easily hypnotised, and that tables moved towards her in the circle.

“At other times during the cure the Poltergeist seemed to accept challenges. One night after a particularly exciting day, Mrs. Barkel magnetised her head and quietened her, and Mrs. McKenzie suggested that she should go to bed, saying ‘Nothing happens when you get into bed.’ Going up the stairs a small table and a metal vase crashed over, and a little later a great noise of banging and tearing was heard in Gwynneth’s room. When Mrs. McKenzie went into the room it looked as if a tornado had swept over it.

“After an active spell from June 21 to June 25 the spirit behaved itself until July 1, when the girl had a kind of fit. Suddenly she fell off her chair with her hands clenched. They laid her on a bed, and she fell into another fit. She gripped her own throat powerfully.

“Since that evening she has had no further attacks, nor have there been any disturbances.”

The main cause of this apparent cure is said to be the mediumship of Mrs. Barkel.

“On many occasions Mrs. Barkel gave Gwynneth excellent clairvoyance, describing deceased relatives, friends, and incidents in her past life which the girl acknowledged and corroborated.

“One near relative, says Mr. McKenzie, whose life had been misspent, and who had been a heavy drinker, was clearly seen. The girl feared and hated this personality, in life and beyond death, and had herself often seen him clairvoyantly before the disturbances began at all. Through Mrs. Barkel’s spirit guide, Mr. McKenzie got into touch with him, and he promised to carry out any instructions that might be given for the benefit of the girl.

“The request was made that he should withdraw altogether from any contact with her and not return except by request. ‘Professor J.,’ a worker on the other side, became interested. Mr. McKenzie asked that a band of Indians, who sometimes profess to be able to help, should take Gwynneth in hand and protect her from the assaults of disturbing influences.

“The following day Mrs. Barkel described an Indian who had come to help, and improvements were noted from about this date. The ‘professor’ encouraged the treatment by suggestion, and told Mr. McKenzie that in a few weeks, with the help of the Indian workers, he would place the medium in an entirely new psychic condition. Mr. McKenzie says that the promise was kept.”

I have quoted this case at some length owing to the prominence afforded it in a popular and widely read newspaper. That the facts are substantially true I see no reason at all to doubt. It is an ordinary instance of obsession, and will be easily recognized as such by those priests whose duty has required them to study these distressing phenomena. That the interpretation put upon some of the occurrences is utterly false I am very certain. The clairvoyance is merely playing with fire—I might say, with hell-fire—by those who cannot understand what they are about, what forces they are thus blindly evoking. “Professor J.” and “the band of Indians,” indeed all these “workers on the other side” are nothing else than evil, or at the least gravely suspect intelligences, masquerading as spirits of light and goodness. If, indeed, the girl is relieved from obsession one cannot but suppose some ulterior motive lurks in the background; it is but part of a scheme organized for purposes of their own by dark and secret powers ever alert to trick and trap credulous man. The girl, Gwynneth Morley, should have been exorcized by a trained and accredited exorcist. These amateurs neither know nor even faintly realize the harm they may do, the dangers they encounter. A bold mind, such as that of Guazzo, might specify their attempts—well-meaning as they are, no doubt—in terms I do not care to use.

At Illfurt, five miles south of Mulhausen in Alsace, is a monument consisting of a stone column thirty feet high surmounted with a statue of the Immaculate Conception, and upon the plinth of the pillar may be read the following remarkable inscription: In memoriam perpetuam liberationis duorum possessorum Theobaldi et Josephi Burner, obtentæ per intercessionem Beatæ Mariæ Uirginis Immaculatæ, Anno Domini 1869.

Joseph Burner⁠[77] and Anna Maria, his wife, were poor but intelligent persons, who were not merely respected but even looked up to for their probity and industry by their fellow-villagers of Illfurt. The family consisted of five children, the eldest son, Thiébaut, being born on 21 August, 1855, and the second, Joseph, on 29 April, 1857. They were quiet lads of average ability, who, when eight years old, were sent in the usual course to the local elementary school. In the autumn of 1864 both were seized with a mysterious illness which would not yield to the ordinary remedies. Dr. Levy, of Altkirch, who was called in to examine the case acknowledged himself completely baffled, and a number of other doctors who were afterwards consulted declared themselves unable to diagnose such extraordinary symptoms. From 25 September, 1865, the two boys displayed most abnormal phenomena. Whilst lying on their backs they spun suddenly round like whirling tops with the utmost rapidity. Convulsions seized them, twisting and distorting every limb with unparalleled mobility, or again their bodies would for hours together become absolutely rigid and motionless so that no joint could be bent, whilst they lay motionless as stocks or stones. Fearful fits of vomiting often concluded these attacks. Sometimes they were dumb for days and could only gibber and mow with blazing eyes and slabbering lips, sometimes they were deaf so that even a pistol fired close to their ears had not the slightest effect.⁠[78] Often they became fantastically excited, gesticulating wildly and shouting incessantly. Their voices were, however, not their normal tones nor even those of children at all, but the strong, harsh, hoarse articulation of rough and savage men. For hours together they would blaspheme in the foulest terms, cursing and swearing, and bawling out such hideous obscenities that the neighbours took to flight in sheer terror at the horrible scenes, whilst the distracted parents knew not whence to turn for help or comfort. Not only did the sufferers use the filthy vocabulary of the lowest slums, but they likewise spoke with perfect correctness and answered fluently in different languages, in French, Latin, English, and even in most varied dialects of Spanish and Italian, which could by no possible means have been known to them in their normal state. Nor could they at any time have heard conversation in these languages and subconsciously assimilated it. A famous case is on record where a servant girl of mean education fell ill and during a delirium began to mutter and babble in a language which was recognized as Syriac. This was considered to be accounted for when it was discovered that formerly she had been in service in a house where there was lodging a theological student, who upon the eve of his examinations used to walk up and down stairs and pace his room saying aloud to himself Syriac roots and vocables, which she thus often overheard and which in this way registered themselves in her brain. But there could not be any such explanation in the case of Thiébaut and Joseph Burner, since they did not merely reel out disconnected words and phrases in any one or two tongues, but conversed easily and sensibly in a large variety of languages and even in dialects. This has always been considered one of the genuine signs of diabolic possession, as is stated in the third article of De Exorcizandis Obsessis a Dæmonio: “3. In primis, ne facile credat, aliquem a dæmonio obsessum esse, sed nota habeat ea signa, quibus obsessus dignoscitur ab iis, qui uel atra bile, uel morbo aliquo laborant. Signa autem obsidentis dæmonis sunt: ignota lingua loqui pluribus uerbis, uel loquentem intelligere; distantia et occulta patefacere; uires super ætatis seu conditionis naturam ostendere; et id genus alia, quæ cum plurima concurrunt, maiora sunt indicia.” Moreover, both Thiébaut and Joseph Burner repeatedly and in exactest detail described events which were happening at a distance, and upon investigation their accounts were afterwards found to be precisely true in every particular. Their strength was also abnormal, and often in their paroxysms and convulsions it needed the utmost exertions of three powerful men severally to hold these lads who were but nine and seven years old.

It was noticed at the very beginning of these maladies that the patients were thrown into the most violent fits and every symptom of disease and disorder exacerbated by the presence of any sacramental such as holy water, or medals, rosaries, and other objects which had been blessed according to the ritual. They seemed particularly enraged by the blessed Medal of S. Benedict and pictures of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour. On one occasion Monsieur Ignace Spies, the Maire of Selestat, a man of exceptional devotion and piety, held before their eyes a Relic of S. Gerard Majella,⁠[79] the Redemptorist thaumaturge, when their shrieks and yells were truly terrific, finally dying away in inhuman whines and groans of despair. It so happened that a Corpus Christi procession passed the house, opposite which an Altar of Repose had been erected. The children, who were in bed, knew nothing of this and seemed to lie in a deep stupor. However, as the Blessed Sacrament approached their behaviour is said to have been indescribable. They poured forth torrents of filth and profanity, distorting their limbs into a thousand unnatural postures, their eyes almost starting from their heads, a crisis which was succeeded by a sudden horrible composure, whilst they crept away into the furthest corners of the room moaning, panting, and retching as if in mortal agony. Above all, pictures and Medals of Our Lady and the invocation of Her Most Holy Name filled the possessed with terror and rage. At any mention of “the Great Lady,” as they termed Her, they would curse and howl in so monstrous a way that all who had heard them shook and sweated with fear.

The abbé Charles Brey, parish priest of Illfurt, quickly made up his mind as to the diabolic nature of the phenomena. It was an undoubted case of possession, since in no other way could what was taking place be explained. Accordingly he sent to his diocesan, Monsignor Andreas Räss (1842-87) a full account of such extraordinary and fearful events. The Bishop, however, was far from satisfied that these things could not be accounted for naturally. In fact it was only after three or four years’ delay that at the instance of the Dean of Altkirch he decided to order a special ecclesiastical investigation. He finally appointed for this task three acute theologians, Monsignor Stumpf,⁠[80] Superior of his Grand Seminary at Strasburg; Monsignor Freyburger, Vicar-General of the diocese; and Monsieur Sester, rector of Mulhausen. These priests, then, presented themselves unexpectedly at the Burner’s house on Tuesday morning, 13 April, 1869, at 10 o’clock. It was found that Joseph Burner had already concealed himself, and it was only after a prolonged search he could with difficulty be dragged from under his bed where he had taken refuge. Thiébaut feigned to be unconscious of the presence of strangers. The inquiry lasted for more than two hours, and it was not until past noon that the investigators left the house. Meanwhile they had witnessed the most hideous scenes, and their minds were quite made up as to the reality of the possession. They shortly presented their report to the Bishop, who then, and not until then, allowed himself to be convinced of the facts.

Even so, the prudent prelate ordered fresh precautions to be taken. At the beginning of September, 1869, Thiébaut was conveyed in the company of his unhappy mother, to the orphanage of S. Charles at Schiltigheim, where he was to be lodged whilst the case was investigated de nouo by Monsignor Rapp, Monsignor Stumpf, and Father Eicher, S.J., Superior of the Jesuit house at Strasburg. At the same time Father Hausser, the chaplain of S. Charles, and Father Schrantzer, a well-known scholar and psychologist, were to keep the boy systematically but secretly under the closest observation.

It was decided to proceed to exorcism, and a priest of great reverence and experience, Father Souquat, was commissioned by the Bishop to perform the solemn rite. At two o’clock on Sunday, 3 October, Thiébaut was forcibly brought into the chapel of S. Charles, which hitherto he had always sedulously avoided, and when compelled to enter he uttered without intermission such hoarse yells that it was necessary to remove him for fear of scandal and alarming the other inmates. The lad, however, was now held fast by the abbés Schrantzer and Hausser, assisted by Charles André, the gardener of the establishment, a stalwart and muscular Hercules. The sufferer stood upon a carpet spread just before the communion rails, his face turned towards the tabernacle. He struggled and writhed in the grasp of those who were restraining him; his face was scarlet; his eyes closed; whilst from his swollen and champing lips there flowed down a stream of thick yellowish froth which fell in great viscous gouts to the floor. The Litanies began, and at the words “Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis” a hideous yell burst from his throat. The exorcizer unmoved continued the prayers and gospels of the Ritual. Meanwhile the possessed blasphemed and defied their utmost efforts. It was resolved to recommence upon the following day. Thiébaut, accordingly, was confined in a strait jacket and strapped down in a red arm-chair, around which stood the three guards as before. The evil spirit roared and howled in a deep bass voice, raising a terrific din; the boy’s limbs strained and contorted but the bonds held tight; his face was livid; his mouth flecked with the foam of slobbering saliva. In a firm voice the priest adjured the demon; he held the crucifix before his eyes, and finally a statue of Our Lady with the words: “Unclean spirit, disappear before the face of the Immaculate Conception! She commands! Thou must obey! Thou must depart!” The assistants upon their knees fervently recited the Memorare, when the air was rent by a yell of hideous agony, the boy’s limbs were convulsed in one sharp convulsion, and suddenly he lay still wrapped in a deep slumber. At the end of about an hour he awoke gently and gazed about him with wondering eyes. “Where am I?” he asked. “Do you not know me?” questioned the abbé Schrantzer. “No, father, I do not,” was the reply. In a few days Thiébaut was able to return home, worn and weak but bright and happy. Of all that happened during those fateful years he had not the smallest recollection. He returned to school, and was in every respect a normal healthy boy.

Joseph, who had grown steadily worse, was meantime secluded from his brother, pending the preparations for his exorcism. On 27 October he was taken very early in the morning to the cemetery chapel near Illfurt. Only the parents, Mons. Ignace Spies, Professor Lachemann, and some half a dozen more witnesses were present, as the affair was conducted in the utmost privacy. At six o’clock the abbé Charles Brey said Mass, after which he exorcized the unhappy victim. During three successive hours they renewed prayers and adjurations, until at last some present began to feel discouraged. But the glowing faith of the priest sustained them, and at length with a loud groan that sounded like a deep roar the boy, who had been struggling and screeching in paroxysms of frantic fury all the while, fell back into a deep swoon and lay motionless. After no long pause he sat up, opened his eyes as awaking from sleep, and was overcome with amazement to find himself in a church with strange people around him.

Neither Thiébaut nor Joseph ever experienced any recurrence of this strange malady. The former died when he was only sixteen years old on 3 April, 1871. The latter, who obtained a situation at Zillisheim, died there in 1882 at the age of twenty-five.

An even more recent case of possession, which has been authoritatively studied in minutest detail and at first hand, presents many of the same features.⁠[81] Hélène-Joséphine Poirier, the daughter of an artisan family—her father was a mason—was born on 5 November, 1834, at Coullons, a small village some ten miles from Gien in the district of the Loire. Whilst still young she was apprenticed to Mlle Justine Beston, a working dressmaker, and soon became skilful with her needle and a remarkable embroideress. Already she had attracted attention by her sincere and modest piety, and was thought highly of by the parish priest, M. Preslier, a man of unusual discernment and the soundest common sense. On the night of 25 March, 1850, she was suddenly awakened by a series of sharp raps, which soon became violent blows, as if struck upon the walls of the small attic where she slept. In terror she rushed into her parents’ room next door, and they returned with her to search. Nothing at all could be discovered, and she was persuaded to go back to bed. Although they could actually see no cause for alarm her parents had heard the extraordinary noises. “From this date,” says M. Preslier, “the life of Hélène in the midst of such terrible physical and moral suffering that she might well have given utterance to the complaints of holy Job.”⁠[82]

These manifestations to Hélène Poirier may not unfittingly be compared with the famous “Rochester knockings,” the phenomenon of the rappings at Hydesville in 1848 at the house of the Fox family, which by many writers is considered to be the beginning of that world-wide movement known as Spiritism or Spiritualism in its modern manifestations and recrudescence.⁠[83]

Some months after this event Hélène suddenly fell rigid to the ground as if she had been thrown down by some strong hands. She was able to get up immediately but only to fall again. It was thought she was epileptic or at any rate seized with some unusual attack, some fit or convulsion. But after a careful observation of her case Dr. Azéma, the local practitioner, shrewdly remarked: “Nobody here but the Priest can cure you.” From this time disorders of spirit and physical maladies increased with unprecedented rapidity and violence. “Her physical and mental sufferings, which began on 25 March, 1850, continued until her death on 8 January, 1914, that is to say during a period of sixty-four years. But those of diabolic origin ceased towards the end of 1897. So the diabolic attacks actually lasted for some seven-and-forty years, and for six years of this time she was possessed.”⁠[84] It was in January, 1863, it first became undeniably evident that her sufferings, her spasms, and painful trances had a supernatural origin. The abbé Bougaud, Archdeacon of Orleans, having interviewed her, advised that she should be brought to the Bishop, Monsignor Dupanloup, and made arrangements for her to stay at a Visitation convent in the suburbs, promising that a commission of theologians and doctors should examine her case. On Thursday, 28 October, 1865, Hélène accordingly commenced a retreat at the convent, where she was kindly received. M. Bougaud saw her for about two minutes, and she was handed an official order which would allow her access to the Bishop without waiting for a summons from his lordship or any other undue delay. But there was some misunderstanding, for on the Friday a doctor of high repute called at the convent, as he had been requested, interrogated and examined her for some three-quarters of an hour and then roundly informed the Mother Superior that she was mad, stark mad, and had better be sent home at once. He seems to have impressed the Bishop with his report, for Monsignor Dupanloup sent a messenger to direct the nuns to dismiss her forthwith, and accordingly she was perforce taken back to Coullons after a fruitless journey of bitter disappointments and discouragement. Many persons now began to regard her with suspicion, but in the following year, 1866, the Bishop, whilst visiting Coullons for an April confirmation, granted her an interview which caused him very considerably to modify his first opinion, and M. Bougaud, who saw her in September, declared himself convinced of the supernatural origin of the symptoms she displayed.

The most terrible obsessions now attacked her, and more than once she was driven to the verge of suicide and despair. “From 25 March, 1850, until March, 1868, Hélène was only obsessed. This obsession lasted 18 years. At the end of this time she was both obsessed and possessed for 13 months. From this double agony of obsession and possession she was completely delivered by the exorcisms, which the Bishop had sanctioned, at Orleans, on 19 April, 1869. Four months’ peace followed, until with heroic generosity she voluntarily submitted to new inflictions.

“At the end of August, 1869, she accepted from the hands of Our Lord the agony of a new obsession and possession in order to obtain the conversion of the famous general Ducrot. When he was converted, she was delivered from her torments at Lourdes on 3 September, 1875, the cure being effected by the prayers of 15,000 pilgrims who had assembled there. The obsession and possession in their new form had lasted five years. During the forty years which passed before her death, she was never again subject to possession, but she was continually obsessed, the attacks now being of short duration, now long and severe. The sufferings of every kind which she endured as well she offered with the intention of the triumph and good estate of God’s priests. Why she was originally thus persecuted by the Devil for nineteen years, and with what intention she offered those torments from which she was delivered by the exorcisms directed by the Bishop, must always remain a secret.”⁠[85] On Tuesday, 13 August, 1867, a supernormal impulse came over her to write a paper full of the most hideous blasphemies against Our Lord and His Blessed Mother, and, what is indeed significant, to draw blood from her arm and to sign therewith a deed giving herself over body and soul to Satan. This she happily resisted after a terrible struggle. Upon the following 28 August reliable witnesses saw her levitated from the ground on two distinct occasions. With this phenomenon we may compare the levitation of mediums at spiritistic séances. Sir William Crookes in The Quarterly Journal of Science, January, 1874, states that “There are at least a hundred recorded instances of Mr. Home’s rising from the ground.” Of the same medium he writes: “On three separate occasions have seen him raised completely from the floor of the room.”

In March, 1868, it became evident that the poor sufferer was actually possessed. Fierce convulsive fits seized her; she suddenly fell with a maniacal fury and a deep hoarse voice uttered the most astounding blasphemies; if the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary were spoken in her presence she gnashed her teeth and literally foamed at the mouth; she was unable to hear the words Et caro Uerbum factum est without an access of insane rage which spent itself in wild gestures and an incoherent howling. She was interrogated in Latin, and answered the questions volubly and easily in the same tongue. The case attracted considerable attention, and was reported by the Comte de Maumigny to Padre Picivillo, the editor of the Civiltá Cattolica, who gave an account thereof to the Holy Father. The saintly Pius IX⁠[86] showed himself full of sympathy, and even sent through the Comte de Maumigny a message of most salutary advice recommending great caution and the avoidance of all kinds of curiosity or advertisement.

In February, 1869, when interrogated by several priests Hélène gave most extraordinary details concerning bands of Satanists. “In order to gain admission it is necessary to bring one or more consecrated Hosts, and to deliver these to the Devil, who in a materialized form visibly presides over the assembly. The neophyte is obliged to profane the Sacred Species in a most horrible manner, to worship the Devil with humblest adoration, and to perform with him and the other persons present the most bestial acts of unbridled obscenity, the foulest copulations. Three towns, Paris, Rome, and Tours, are the headquarters of the Satanic bands.”⁠[87] She also spoke of a gang of devil-worshippers at Toulouse. It is obvious that a mere peasant woman could have no natural knowledge of these abominations, the details concerning which were unhappily only too true.

In the following April Hélène was taken to Orleans to be examined and solemnly exorcized. The interrogatories were conducted by Monsieur Desbrosses, a consultor in theology for the diocese, Monsieur Bougaud, and Monsieur Mallet, Superior of the Grand Seminary. They witnessed the most terrible crisis; the sufferer was tortured by fierce cramps and spasms; she howled like a wild beast; but they persisted patiently. Mons. Mallet questioned her on difficult and obscure points in theology and philosophy using now Latin, now Greek. She replied fluently in both tongues, answering his queries concisely, clearly, and to the point, incontestable proof that she was influenced by some supernormal power. Two or three days later the Bishop was present at a similar examination, and forthwith commissioned his own director, Monsieur Roy, a professor at the Seminary, to undertake the exorcisms. With him were associated Monsieur Mallet, the parish priest of Coullons, and Monsieur Gaduel, Vicar-General of the diocese. Two nuns and Mlle Preslier held the patient. It was found necessary to repeat the rite five times upon successive days. On the last occasion the cries of the unhappy Hélène were fearful to hear. She writhed and foamed in paroxysms of rage; she blasphemed and cursed God, calling loudly upon the fiends of hell; she broke free from all restraint, hurling chairs and furniture in every direction with the strength of five men; it was with the utmost difficulty she could be seized and restrained before some serious mischief was done; at last with an unearthly yell, twice repeated, her limbs relaxed, and after a short period of insensibility she seemed to awake, calm and composed, as if from a restful slumber. The possession had lasted thirteen months from March, 1868, to April, 1869.

Into the details of her second possession from 23 August, 1869, until 3 September, 1874, it is hardly necessary to enter at any length. Monsieur Preslier noted: “The second crisis of possession was infinitely more terrible than the first; 1st, owing to the length; the first lasted thirteen months, the second five years. 2nd, the first was relieved with a number of heavenly consolations, but very little solace was obtained during the second. 3rd, there was much bodily suffering in the first, in the second there were far keener mental sufferings and more exquisite pain.”⁠[88] She was finally and completely delivered at Lourdes on Thursday, 3 September, 1874. It is not to be supposed that she passed the remaining forty years of her life without occasional manifestations of extraordinary phenomena. After much sickness, cheerfully and smilingly borne, she made a good end in her eightieth year, on 8 January, 1914, and is buried in the little village cemetery of her native place.

We have here the case of a woman who was mediumistic and clairvoyant to an almost unexampled degree, and it is very certain that if these would-be fortune-tellers and mages who so freely advertise their powers in many spiritistic journals to-day truly realized to what terrible dangers and very real psychic perils the use and even the mere possession of such faculties expose them, they would, so far from trafficking in the presumption of abnormal gifts, regard them with caution and indeed shrink from any occult practice at all, lest haply they become the prey of controls and influences so cunning, so potent for evil, as to merge them body and soul in untold miseries and shadows darker even than the bitterness of death.

The modern Spiritistic movement, so strongly supported by recent scientific utterances, is increasingly affecting all classes and conditions of society, and is beginning in every direction to undermine and actually to usurp the religious belief and convictions of thousands of earnest and seriously inclined but not very accurately informed or well-instructed persons. The basis of the movement is the claim that the spirits of the dead are continually seeking to communicate and, indeed, communicating with us through the agency of sensitives, so that it is possible to get into touch and to converse with our dear ones who have passed from this life. It is hardly necessary to emphasize the almost infinite consolation and comfort such a doctrine holds for the bereaved, how eagerly and with what yearning mourners will embrace such teaching, and how perseveringly and with what tender agonies of an hungered love they will devote themselves to the practices they imagine will place them in closest connexion and communion with those whom they have lost awhile, but whose voices they ever long to hear, whose faces they long to see once again. It is a matter of common knowledge that during and since the Great War Spiritism has increased tenfold; many who were wont to laugh at it, who refused to listen to its claims and scorned it as futile nonsense, are now among its most enthusiastic devotees. In truth there must be few of us who cannot appreciate the irresistible influence such beliefs will have upon the mind. Spiritism is seemingly full of joy, and hope, and promise, and happiness. It will wipe all tears of sorrow from poor human eyes; it is balm to the wounded heart; divine solace and sympathy; the barriers of death are broken down; mortality is robbed of its terrors.

Were it true, could we summon to our side the spirits of those whom we have so fondly cherished and converse with them of things holy and eternal, could we learn wisdom from their fuller knowledge, could we be assured in their own sweet accents of their fadeless love, could we now and again be comforted with a sight of their well-known faces, the touch of their hands upon ours, were it God’s will that this should be so, then assuredly Spiritism is a most blessed and sacred thing, consolation to the afflicted, succour to the distressed, a shining light upon earth’s dark ways, a very ready help to us all. But if on the other hand there is reason and grave reason to suppose that the spirits, with whom it is possible under certain exceptional conditions and by certain remarkable devices to establish a contact, although often claiming to be departed friends or relatives and supporting their contention (we acknowledge) with no little plausibility, are again and again found to be masquerading intelligences, in some cases undoubtedly actors of excellence who play their part for a time with consummate skill, but who have never at any séance whatsoever anywhere been able conclusively to demonstrate their identity, if in fact these manifesting intelligences are deceivers, imposing for purposes of their own a fraudulent impersonation upon those who with breaking hearts are so eagerly longing to communicate with son or husband fallen in battle, it may be, or on some lone shore, if they are proven liars, if their messages are trivial, ambiguous, cryptic, incapable of verification, shifty, ignorant, nay worse, blasphemous and hideously obscene, then are we justified—and we are in point of fact fully and completely justified—in concluding that the spirits are not those of the departed, but evil intelligences who never have been and never will be incarnate, unclean spirits, demons, and then assuredly Spiritism is most foul, most loathly, most dangerous, and most damnable.

The mediums, who of their own will freely open the door to these spirits, who invite them to enter, stand in the most deadly peril. A Spiritist of many years’ experience who saw not too late the hazard and abandoned that creed, writes as follows: “Spirit communion soon absorbs all the time, faculties, hopes, fears, and desires of its devotees, and herein lies one of the greatest dangers of spiritualism. Infatuated by communication with the unseen inhabitants of the hidden world, the medium loses his or her interest in the things pertaining to everyday life and interest. A soft and pleasing atmosphere appears to surround them. The realities of flesh and blood are lost in ideal dreaming and there is no incentive to break away from a state of existence so agreeable, no matter how monstrous are the delusions practised by the spirits. Their consciences are so callous as if seared with a hot iron, sin has to them lost its wickedness, and they are willing dupes to unseen beings who delight to control their every faculty. Very seldom has a full-fledged spiritualist been able to comprehend the necessity and blessedness of the religion of Jesus Christ, and to withdraw from the morbid conditions into which he has fallen....

“For about three months I was in the power of spirits, having a dual existence, and greatly tormented by their contradictory and unsatisfactory operations.... They tormented me to a very severe extent, and I desired to be freed from them. I lost much of my confidence in them, and their blasphemy and uncleanness shocked me. But they were my constant companions. I could not get rid of them. They tempted me to suicide and murder, and to other sins. I was fearfully beset and bewildered and deluded. There was no human help for me. They led me into some extravagances of action, and to believe, in a measure, a few of their delusions, often combining religion and devilry in a most surprising manner.”⁠[89]